Trees and Mountains and People and Chairs
Two weeks ago I heard two men die. They hit the ground from over a thousand feet and we heard them from the meadow. There were some panicked shouts from above, then silence.
El Capitan was seeing a lot of action that day and parties were scattered all over the wall. We had seen some slower teams on the Nose doing some sketchy stuff with their hauling, so we assumed that someone had dropped a haulbag. I suppose none of us wanted to expect the worst-case scenario. As I rode my bike up the valley to the Ahwahnee, the sound kept replaying in my mind; I dearly hoped it was only a haulbag. I thought to go check the base, but debated whether or not that would even do any good. Someone called YOSAR. If what I feared was true, there wasn’t anything I could do besides get in their way. Anxiously I continued to weave my way along the dirt path in the shadows of the pines, softly crunching their needles beneath my tires. I could feel that sea of grey stone looming above me and I prayed that today it had practiced mercy.
…
A few days after that I was belaying my friend and he fell from about thirty feet and hit the ground, ripping out piece after piece. Pop, pop, pop. His gear did not hold his weight and he knew it wouldn’t when he yelled take, and he crumpled as he hit the floor of granite beneath him. A thousand feet, I thought.
He’s okay but he’s very lucky. I sat next to him in that little Yosemite clinic, waiting for a doctor to inspect his broken ankles and feet. I could tell he was afraid in the parking lot after it happened, but he wouldn’t admit it and tried to laugh it off and he wouldn’t look at me in the eye. I got angry with him and tried to make it about me somehow, saying things like,
I’m just glad it wasn’t a thousand feet
and
No one wants to see their friend die
When I think about how I said this, I feel ashamed. I feel ashamed because I don’t think it’s fair to use a tragedy in that kind of way. I don’t think tragedy should be taken as an opportunity for gain in any way shape or form, to gain pity or self-consolation, or to make someone feel bad about a mistake they made. I guess I had just been hard to watch him fall like that and I was in a weird headspace about climbing because of that sound a few days before. I think I should’ve just said that instead.
…
A week or so later I was pedalling across the valley to go soloing. It was early evening and the light was as soft as the wind.
We had just talked on the phone a couple hours before, and she told me she was having some serious doubts, about us and all. I was pretty taken aback; it just felt so out of the blue. We made some plans to talk it over again later. There was an awkward goodbye, then I hung up the phone. I looked out the window of the cafeteria through my reflection and watched as a fat racoon ate a dead bird just past the glass. Warm rays of sun were cascading down through the treetops like waterfalls and the valley was shimmering. And I sat back in my chair a while and watched the tourists step out of buses and bustle around me, listening to them ordering food and jostling each other as they searched for open tables. My heart was sinking a little in my chest…I felt a little overwhelmed, probably more bothered by it than I cared to admit at the time.
During my time spent living on the road it seemed as though all of life was elevated, joy and sadness alike. Somehow each experience seemed to have more meaning than usual (or perhaps unusual), and I was trying to make sense of it all. It was all very confusing. It was a take each day as it comes sort of thing.
I left the commotion behind me and stepped outside into the sunshine, shuffling my broken flip flops over the hot asphalt towards my bicycle. I pedaled off aimlessly, zigzagging through the congested lines of tourist traffic, trying to find any type of clarity in my clouded mind. I figured that maybe soloing could maybe wash it out, in the same way rain washes smog out of a city.
After stashing my bike behind a boulder, I meandered barefoot up the trail, hopping over logs and dodging sharp stones. Whenever I walk through the forest barefoot I sort of feel like Peter Pan. There were a few others at the wall; a pair had just started up a multi pitch to the left of mine. I touched the rock; it was cool and dry. I didn’t solo very often. This is going to be good. This will help. Attempting to outrun an imminent change-of-mind, I quickly laced up my rock shoes and stepped onto the wall. I padded my way up some easy terrain and paused to chalk up; I was now level with the tree tops and able to see the other side of the valley.
Suddenly, I was startled by a violent rush of movement and sound to my left. I turned in time to see that a man was falling head-first, screaming. He must have fallen forty to fifty feet until his rope went taut, wrenching his body brutally, his head only a few feet from the ground. I stood silent as he hung there upside down awkwardly, both of us thankful and afraid.
I called to see if he was alright and he was, though visibly shaken up along with his partner. After waiting a minute I chose to continue upward, now wrestling some newfound hesitation. A little more cloud.
…
This one time I was sitting on my own behind Curry Village enjoying a cigarette, on the back benches of the empty outdoor auditorium. I watched as a small family came and sat down for lunch near the front, a husband and wife and two young kids. There was a single chair sitting in the middle of stage. The little boy got up on that stage and crawled up onto that chair and his father said 3, 2, 1 action! The little boy started to improvise loudly, waving his hands up and down and sideways, and began to set the scene with zeal.
Here we are! In the forest, in Yosemite! And there are trees...and mountains...and people
and after a long pause…
…and chairs!
He continued on with his act, enthusiastically yelling his positive feedback for this wonderful place into the empty rows of benches. His family clapped, I clapped, and we all enjoyed a good laugh.
And I thought this moment was really something. This little boy was teaching me something remarkable, in that there is beauty in everything. Perhaps everything, if you try, can be appreciated somehow.
…
As I pasted my rock shoes against the glassy granite I was not thinking about slipping off. Instead, I thought back to simpler times in the desert. The endless stretches of desert highways once filled me with such an incredible feeling of insignificance, the kind that makes you look outward with a vicious curiosity to all the million things you do not know…all those places you have not yet seen and people you have not yet heard.
Just as my heart beats right now,
so do many, many more.
But now, as I envisioned driving silent and alone through those jagged horizons of red dust, I couldn’t find it in myself to grasp that same sense of sweet self-irrelevance. Instead, the thought filled me with dread. All these troubling experiences had seemed to blend together in my mind and in the light of it all, and amidst the fact that my days on the road were soon ending, my memories of empty desert highways offered a stark metaphor for the turmoil within me. I felt very, and chaotically, alone.
Yet I struggled to believe that I was justified to feel that.
The other morning I heard two good men die
I think about their mourning friends,
mourning kids,
and mourning wives
So who am I that I should feel so sad
inside
insignificant
Am I a lie
This once so simple world of the road that I had been immersed in for months was starting to feel pretty complicated and confusing.
…
The vast painting of trees and stone swirled about me. And I was reminded of how this is all a tapestry, that we are all weaved together and how beautiful that is. Perhaps in the grand scheme of it all we are all as equally important as we are unimportant; we are each a humbly painted brush stroke on the very same canvas. For a moment, all that was troubling me washed away into the wind and fading light. And I continued upwards, adding more air beneath my feet.
The wind was warm as it rushed through the trees, the swallows dipped joyfully around me, the sun was softly sneaking out of the valley, whispering as it went, and I was glad.
…
I am not sure about this climbing thing.
I’m in the place that I have dreamed of for years and it has been good I suppose, but it has also been awfully discouraging and sobering and this has taken me off guard. I suppose that oftentimes there is an overarching expectation that you will have, or rather should have good mental health if you trying to live your dreams. And this idea can come from within or without. I think this goes to show that if we put pressure on ourselves to have it all together, especially when it seems like we should, this robs us of the freedom to grow in the season that we are truly in. And to be in it.
This is all a tapestry
To be human is to be woven
And to live in it
I think of those families who lost their fathers and husbands. I think of Sven and I am thankful he fell feet first. I think of the man I saw fall head first screaming and I am glad he did not go all the way. I think of her, and it feels similar somehow. And I think about how in the hell this can possibly mean anything at all.
The swallows are diving beautifully and forcefully through the wind. And I catch myself thinking about chairs.
