Hike: Mt. Yale

I climbed my eleventh fourteener, and first Collegiate Peak, Mt. Yale, this past weekend with Jared who came for a visit over a long weekend.

Meditation: Haiku

Rain on ageless stone
Pools on beds of aspen leaves—
Yellow, silent tears.

*

You, down autumn hills,
Bearing stems of cardamom—
I await you here.

Meditation: Approaching Autumn

There is something about the first chill of autumn air that can turn my mind to the past like nothing else. It has been nippy here the last several days with fog and low-hanging clouds coming in from the west, and there was thick fog on the pass this morning and it was misty, not quite raining, yet requiring the windshield wipers. It has been jacket weather outside, and, inside, the furnace has been on in the mornings when I wake. Granted, I live at 8,200 feet above sea level in Colorado, and it is early September. I remember it snowing rather heavily on Labor Day above Silverton, Colorado when I was there with my family a few years back; it dumped on a friend and I huddled at the top of Handies Peak the same weekend a year later; and my first year living in Colorado, I, a wide-eyed Ohio boy clad all in cotton with no jacket, stood shivering on a switchback of the Ice Lakes trail marveling at the sight of wet, heavy snow in September. So the current weather is not exactly an anomaly.

Several times yesterday I found myself standing over a basket of clean laundry, having just returned, with a start, to the present. I looked out the window to see the clouds gathering and parting, mists passing in front of the piney hills across Crystola Canyon, the ponderosa pines in the backyard sparkling in the sun one moment and blending into blue the next. I pulled a sweater over my head and broke out a New York Times crossword that’s been giving me trouble, partially, I suppose, to keep my mind from wandering. There is a melancholy beauty in memories that come this time of year; they are close and tangible, and they remind of youth and wonder and less cynical times.

I must admit I’m not ready for the snow. There. I’ve said it. In Colorado, you can be exiled for thinking that, let alone saying it. (I have a feeling that “The Natives”, as they like to be called, already have their collective eye on me, and I don’t want to press my luck.) In fact, I’m surprised at myself. My first years in Colorado I prayed for it, reveled in it, measured it. Today, as I drive down the pass, I can almost feel it in the air. The dry, stinging bitterness of it clinging silently to golden aspen leaves and creeping into my bones.

Hike: Mt. Elbert

I hiked to the highest point in Colorado sunday: Mt. Elbert. I went with the singles group. We camped together the night before and had a great time. I wandered off for a few minutes with my camera saturday evening and took a few snapshots of the summit of Mt. Elbert in the distance under some foreboding clouds and Half Moon Creek (where we camped), but I forgot my camera sunday morning. So you'll have to take me at my word that the views were beautiful up top. The hike was, I believe, only class 1, but was strenuous. Out of 11 who attempted, 8 summited, and one of those experienced some altitude sickness as well. The height of the experience, however, seems to be directly proportional to the difficulty of the ascent. (Final photo courtesy John Adams.)

Books: What I'm Reading

I just finished A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. While talking with a friend of mine about books, he suggested I read this. "It could change your life," he said. Getting to know him better, I have a feeling it changed his. It is a rather long book, but hardly a difficult or laborious read. I had a hard time putting it down. John Irving is a great story teller. That is something that I really admire in a good writer, and I wish I had more of a talent for it. I connected to the book, its characters and themes, and remained so to the end.

I think the book is ultimately about faith and purpose. It is also a commentary on war and social mores, the pollution of the American Dream, the abuse of power by government. You know, nothing at all remotely relevant today (ha!). But all this takes a back seat to an engaging story about unlikely miracles, faith and doubt, perseverance, and friendship, with one of the strangest, most memorable characters in fiction at the fore. Most people have heard the general plot: two young boys growing up together in small-town New England; Owen, the small, physically underdeveloped (and mentally overdeveloped) one with a strange voice; John, the other boy and narrarator; a little league game where Owen (who has never made contact with the ball before) finally hits a fly ball that strikes and kills his best friend's mother; Owen's declaration that he is God's instrument, which later seems by all accounts to be confirmed in a horrifying and miraculous, yet poignant, way. (Yes, it's the watered-down plot of the film Simon Birch, which I didn't care for, but Irving distanced himself from the movie and made the screenplay writers change all the characters' names. The book is really quite different.)

A Prayer for Owen Meany has been called a "brave book" by Stephen King, and rightly so. It asks hard questions and attacks our complacency and apathy. It says doubt is okay, but faith is better. It is also a very moving story with a message that should resonate with all of us. My friend later told me that the book was so powerful for him because it reminded him that our lives have purpose; that nothing happens that is meaningless, even things we could never imagine having any reason to them; that we truly are God's instruments.

Vacation: Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina

Before last week, I had never been "to the beach". That phrase implies the "experience", which I had never enjoyed until now. My buddy Clay and his family rented a beach house at Ocean Isle Beach and, several months ago, he invited me to join them for a few days. It was a short vacation but sweet. We had a blast.

Of course, I made a few observations about the ocean; some while there, some after I'd returned.

It is unnerving, the ocean. It is teeming with wildlife and I think for one to enjoy it from
anywhere but the shore, one must tuck this fact tidily into a recess of one's mind. Incidentally, Clay was penalized $1 for each use of the word "shark" while we were swimming.

It is also romantic. I don't mean "romantic" in its relational sense, but rather in the purer context of contemplation, sentimentality, nostalgia, or inspiration. Poets have written of it as
long as man has witnessed it, and one does not need to have ever seen the ocean to appreciate the romance of it. It is impossible to resist drawing all manner of metaphors (although trite from overuse) from its curious pulses, its ineffable eternality, its expanses and depths. It is
cleansing, purging, and--oh, all right--baptismal. (It is, undoubtedly, a catalyst for spiritual
meditation.) It inspires contemplation. Even as children we were required to put to memory that famous sonnet of Shakespeare (presumably in an attempt to ease our young minds into the
inevitable thanatopsis):

Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore,
So our minutes hasten to their end...

Does contemplation get deeper than this? You'll have to forgive my moribund
thoughts. It must be the letdown of returning to the daily grind. I promise: I
really did have fun!

One more important thought about the ocean. Being at the ocean gives one a good tan. Never underestimate the virtue of a good tan.

Meditation: Poem

Indelible

You called me a Sunset once
Miles from town
On the banks of the reservoir
Full of last year’s water and
Simmering with twilight
You looked at me expectantly
Or so it seemed
Waiting for words that never came
Drawing word pictures in your gorgeous mind
To keep you company
As the night settled in
Hard and cold