Counting my way to the top

I wasn't even at tree line when I thought to myself, "you know, if you just turned around and went home, no one would be the wiser."

For the eleventh annual Emma climb, Christin and I had decided to do Mt. Elbert. The big kahuna. The tallest one in Colorado and the second tallest in the lower 48 (by, like, 65 feet, so whatevs, Mt. Whitney). 

Early start in the dark

Colorado types tend to talk about Elbert being easy (which in local parlance just means it's not a technical climb with too much exposure), but I call bullshit. 

The lack of oxygen makes it so hard for me. It's brutal to try to breathe when there's no air in the air.

But another factor with this one was that the elevation gain was about 4500' - a full 50% more than I've ever done in the past - but over only 4.9 miles, so the average incline grade is around 18%. 

That is really steep. 

And it was. It was relentlessly steep in a way that I hadn't anticipated. 

I mean, I can do math. If I had done the math I would have known that number, but still. Reading a number and actually living it on the trail are two different things. 

And at just above tree line, I hadn't even reached the steepest part yet. 

Plus I was alone. 

Poor Christin injured her leg really badly back in February (skiing accident) and was still recuperating, so she wasn't able to climb with me. I was so bummed to not be able to do it without her - we have done every one together and it's really meaningful for both of us.

Zeke had indicated he was interested, but as it got close he begged off because of homework in his AP Bio class. I think he was also nervous. Greg's family was in town, plus his knees don't really allow for fourteeners anymore.

So it was just me. No one to talk to the whole time, as Christin and I tend to do. No one whose energy I could feed off of when I needed it. 

No one who would know the difference if I decided to bail.

I didn't bail. The idea of bailing sat in my brain for a couple of seconds before I dismissed it. I was never going to bail. 

What I did was count. 

"I'll take 100 steps and then stop and take a breather for a minute."

"When I hit 12,500 feet, I'll stop and take a breather."

"When I've gone another two tenths of a mile, I'll stop and take a breather."

Any metric that seemed managable was all I would focus on, because looking up and seeing how much more there was to go was crushing. 

Bit by bit, step by step, breath by breath.

I'd see what looked like a summit and think, "I just have to get there." 

But I'd get there realize it's a false summit and think, "motherfucker."

I'd look up again and see another crest that looks like a summit and think, "there is it."

But this bastard of a mountain has two false summits, so I'd get there and think, "what in the actual fuck." 

Finally, finally, I reached the actual summit. That's what happens when you don't turn back. 

The view was spectacular. Just unreal. So worth the effort. 

Of all the fourteeners I've done, this view was the most awe-inspiring. 

I ate my sandwich and drank my can of Arizona Iced Tea. I sat and thought about Emma, who would be 28. 

I took out my list - 111 names!!! - and said the Kaddish for all of them. 

I may have shed a tear or two.

After a while, I steeled myself for the descent, which can often be just as punishing as the ascent, but in a different way. 

The relentless effort of the ascent was the down payment. The descent is the interest, paid in exhaustion and lactic acid build-up and aching joints. It's not so much walking as controlled falling on shaking quads, and a desperate dance to avoid a trip or a slide. 

On the long descent, you think, damn, how did I walk up this? 

But again, each step and each breath and each drop in elevation adds up, and then you're back at the parking lot and laughing as you wonder how you're going to manage the step up into the car so you can drive home. 

You have persevered. Your middle-aged body has held up. You can do the hard things. 

You have honored your loved ones and those of so many people who have entrusted you to do this ritual for them, year after year. 

It's an extraordinary feeling.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy

 Yesterday was the last day of school in the school district I work in. My kids' schools get out for summer next week, but as far as I can tell, they stopped doing anything of substance about 2 weeks ago. 

My role in the district involves student matters - special education, discipline, truancy, civil rights matters, the day to day of school administration. 

Which means that the day after the last day of school - today - my workload and my stress levels drop precipitously. Teachers go off-contract and everyone is on vacation. My phone stops ringing. The flow of emails reduces to a trickle. I can work on the stuff that has been sitting on the back burner, but at a leisurely pace. 

It's so nice. It's so chill.

Greg and I are leaving for vacation a week from today. We're going on a cruise from Montreal to Boston.

I truly never saw myself taking cruises on the regular, but this one is going to be awesome. I've never been to either Montreal or Quebec City, and we're going to have time in both cities to sightsee and stroll around and soak up the beauty. We will enjoy the charm of Prince Edward Island and towns in Nova Scotia. Kayaking in Halifax. Hiking in Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine. Seeing Ali and Josh in Boston. 

The ship itself will be a means of transportation, but with beautiful views and yummy meals and dressing for dinner and being gently rocked to sleep by the movement of the ocean. 

And no cell service. No calls from children asking me for money, no coworkers saying, "I know you're on vacation but I have a question..."

It's romantic and fun and relaxing. 

I need it. It's been a tough year. 

Zeke completely cratered his first semester of high school. It took every bit of effort I had to cajole and nag and cry to get him over the line. 

This semester has been a massive improvement. He is objectively incredibly smart - all he needed to do to get As and Bs was to go to class and pay attention. And he did. It's been an incredible relief.

But he's still a 15-year-old boy. He's mean. He's ornery. He argues about everything. Every day it's a struggle to get him up and out to school on time. He's a slob. 

I love him. He also drives me insane. 

Josie, on the other hand, is easy and delightful. It's like she knows I can only handle one gremlin at a time.

Work is fine, but things are always hectic during the school year. 

So summer is welcome. I'm looking forward to time with Greg, time with the kids paddleboarding at the reservoir, the Boulder shows for Dead & Company's final tour, a visit from college friends, seeing my family at the Outer Banks. I bought a mountain bike to replace the one that got stolen last summer, so I can do some hiking and biking. 

I sent a picture of it to Greg. He said, "let's go to Fruita!" and sent me this:

I do appreciate his confidence in me, even though there's no way in hell I have the skills to do something like that.

More likely, it would be another in a long line of outings with Greg that ends up with me being bruised. There have been a number of falls off the bike - both mountain and road - that resulted in gorgeous bruises on my ass. Taking a tumble while roller-skating and having massive bruises up my hands and arms from putting them down to catch my fall. Getting bumped around on rocks that we climbed while hiking. And of course, the ruptured ACL.

But at this point, it's funny. I'll take it. Life is an adventure.

So yeah. Summer. All good.

The mountains are calling and I must go

 A friend of mine recently turned me on to Ken Burns's documentary series about the national parks (it's great). The first episode talks a lot about John Muir (whose quote is the title of this post), and how he viewed the wildness of nature not so much as evidence of god, but rather as an actual church through which the divine is manifested. I'm not a religious person, but I really relate to that idea - that my spiritual connection with the world feels the strongest when I'm out in nature.

Maybe that's why after Emma died, my instinct was to spread her ashes from the top of a tall mountain. Rather than attend Rosh haShana services, I chose that day to celebrate her by climbing a mountain - in my blog post about it, I said it would "certainly be a more meaningful, spiritual experience than sitting in a synagogue with strangers." 

It's what compels me to keep going back every year.  

Technically, the yahrtzeit ritual involves the lighting of a candle on the anniversary of a person's death. But lighting candles is child's play. Anyone can do it. The greater commitment is to honor someone through a difficult but life-affirming act - doing something hard, something that is sometimes uncomfortable, that requires you to dig deep within yourself. And doing it out in nature gives it that spiritual element - that connection with the divine, whatever that may be.

That's what yesterday felt like. 

It was a spectacularly beautiful day. Clear air (a welcome respite from the wildfire haze), with the kind of blue sky that you only see in Colorado in the fall. We arrived at the trailhead in the dark and started walking, and after about thirty minutes the sun started to come up. The light peeking up over the mountains was magical.

Parts of the walk were not easy. It's not a long climb in terms of distance - only 2.5 miles - but in that short space is 2100 vertical feet of elevation.. There were sections that were insanely steep without many switchbacks to level out the effort. We moved through those sections slowly but deliberately, less concerned with our pace than with simply enjoying the hike and our conversation. 

But then there were sections that were flatter, or that involved some bouldering or walking along an extremely narrow ridgeline. It kept things interesting. 

Yikes.

The views at the top were amazing. 

Leadville off in the distance

We reached the summit at about 9:30, having made pretty good time even with a number of stops to eat or pee or rest. After drinking my Arnold Palmer (I always carry a bottle to drink at the top), I sat on the edge of the ridge to perform my ritual of reading the names and saying the Kaddish. I had 78 names on my list, including Leonard Cohen, who was added at Greg's request. 

I had forgotten to print out the Kaddish but I had cell signal at the summit, so I pulled it up on my phone. 

Christin surreptitiously snapped a picture. 

We sat and talked about Emma for a while. Christin asked me what she was like, and I talked about how she was funny and sweet and kind. How she faced her recovery after her accident with such strength and determination. How much we all loved her. As always, it made me cry. 

But then I dried my eyes and marveled at the view and the gorgeous weather and at how great we both felt. We talked about how we are happiest and most connected to life when we are outside and moving our bodies, and how lucky we are to live where we live.

The walk down was mellow and fun. We chatted with fellow climbers, petted some dogs, said hi to some little kids. 

Driving back to town for our post-hike meal of nachos and beer, the fall colors that we couldn't admire during our nighttime drive to the trailhead were in full view. We kept slowing down or stopping to take pictures. 

Mother Nature shows off.

The world is such a beautiful place. I wish Emma could have lived to continue to experience it. 

But I'm doing what little I can to honor her by experiencing it for her. 

There's no crying on the Wall

 It was the night before that the anxiety started to hit me. 

And it was totally unexpected. I was the one who had heard about the via ferrata up the East Wall at Arapahoe Basin and jumped at the chance. I had read up on it, made sure I had all the gear, and was more and more excited as the day approached.

We made a weekend of it up in Dillon. On Saturday, we strolled down by the marina. We went for a beautiful hike near Breckenridge. We went to the amphitheater to see Galactic, a great band from New Orleans.

But later, as we were getting ready to turn in for the night, I felt a knot in my stomach that felt less like excitement and more like fear.

It didn't let up the next morning. We got dressed, got breakfast, and headed to A-Basin, and my palms felt sweaty and my stomach and chest were tight. 

As we walked from the car to the check-in area, I grabbed Greg's hand like I was holding on for dear life.

By the time we were introduced to our guide, I was getting choked up.

"I'm very, very nervous," I told him. 

He was very reassuring. "It's totally safe," he said. "You're clipped in to the line the entire time and we're with you every step of the way."

Intellectually, I knew what he was saying was true, but my body and my brain were not having it. I went outside to sit by myself and calm down. 

Greg came out a minute later and sat down next to me. He looked at me quizzically, with a slight smile on his face.

"What's going on with you?"

"I don't know!" I sniffed. I wasn't crying hard, but tears were leaking out of my eyes.

"Are you afraid?"

"Honestly, no," I said. "I don't know why I'm reacting this way. I know that I will have no trouble physically. I am not remotely afraid of heights. I know it will be fun and that I will love it."

"So what's the problem?"

"I don't know. Fear of the unknown, I guess? I've never done anything like this so I don't know what to expect - I don't have a sense of what it will be like. I'll be fine. It will pass. Give me a minute."

He nodded, patted me on the knee, and went back inside. I took a couple of deep breaths, calmed down, and stopped crying. I went back in where everyone was getting ready, putting on their harnesses and helmets.

By the time we got on the chair lift to head up to the start of the climb, I was happy and excited. No trace of fear. I was ready.

As anticipated, the climb was a blast. It was more exposed than I anticipated, but it felt amazing to climb higher and higher up the rock. The other folks in our group were fun and the views were amazing.

The big bummer was that there were were reports of lightening in the region, so we had to turn back at the half-way point. They graciously gave us the option for a credit or a do-over (they didn't have to do either one under their policy, so we were stunned when they did). Without hesitation, we opted for the do-over.

Before our second try a couple of weeks ago, Greg said, "no tears allowed this time."

I laughed and said, "got it."

And once again, we rocked it, making it all the way to the summit. 

Greg likes taking pictures of my butt

In the home stretch on the way to the summit

Laughing at the summit.

I'm convinced that part of the reason we had such a perfect day, weather-wise, is because this time I remembered to wear my A-Basin East Wall Grateful Dead shirt (last time it was my Dead & Co. concert shirt - it's the little things). 

And because the older I get, the more I realize that Colorado is the perfect place for me to live. Adventures abound, which is just how I like it.

Jesus take the wheel

After they closed the Eisenhower tunnel on I-70 back to Denver, here are some things that, had I known them, would have spurred me to lean in the direction of getting a hotel room in Frisco for the night, rather than power through in a major snowstorm - at night - because I just wanted to get home:

• The alternate Breckenridge-to-Denver-via-Fairplay route is a high-elevation route along the Continental Divide that takes you over two mountain passes via a narrow two-lane road, with many switchbacks and steep grades.

• One of the mountain passes is Hoosier Pass, which rises to 11,542 feet and is one of the highest mountain passes in Colorado. Wikipedia informs me that it is "the highest point on the TransAmerica Trail, a transcontinental bicycle route that stretches from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon." Awesome.

• The other mountain pass is Kenosha Pass, which tops out at 10,000 feet (still very high). Fun fact: it goes near the town of South Park and has been featured in the show a few times!

• The entire route feels like a looooong, extended version of driving over Loveland Pass (albeit at slightly lower elevation), which I would never ever attempt in a snowstorm, at night, because I would be terrified of dying, and rightly so.

But alas, I didn't know any of these things. After living here for almost 9 years, it's kind of pathetic how little I know about Colorado, outside the confines of Denver and it's surrounding areas, plus the part of the mountains where I go to ski in the winter. I really need to broaden my horizons.

So that's how I ended up making my way back to Denver with my brother Sam and his wife Camille and their little dog, Walter, white-knuckling it for hours in the dark over snowy, icy, slippery roads, whose edges were barely visible to me so I couldn't see where I was coming from or where I was going. There were numerous points when I was scared of sliding off the side of the mountain because of the road conditions and steep grade. There were numerous points when the snow and wind were swirling so powerfully that I could not see anything beyond the car, so I simply had to stop in the road and wait for the visibility to improve because it felt like going backwards or forwards would surely end in our deaths.

Mercifully, Sam took over for the last two hours of the drive. He preserved my sanity.

By the time I got home, we had driven that day for over 9 hours in a snowstorm, over a total of five high mountain passes (before the really bad part of the drive, I had already driven over Vail Pass three times - long story, don't ask).  

After dropping Sam and his crew at their hotel, I was so fried and emotionally exhausted and worn out that I climbed into my bed, cried for 30 minutes, went to sleep, and basically didn't get out of bed until I picked them up at their hotel the next night so we could go out for dinner (which was lovely and delicious).  

When I closed my eyes, I had visions of sheets of snow blasted by the wind, illuminated only by the car's headlights. My body and my brain felt weighted down with a tiredness that overwhelmed me. 

I did not take this picture. I found it online. But this is what it looked like.

I was telling Kristin and Lisa about it the next day and Kristin asked how I got through it. The truth is, I don't really know. I just did. 

One thing that I am good at is pushing through pain, be it physical or emotional. I block out as much as I can so I can just focus on getting from one minute to the next. It's how I got through running a marathon with a herniated disc, Zeke's birth, climbing fourteeners, long plane rides with a crying baby when we were both sick. You just keep moving forward because there isn't another option. You can fall apart when you're done, but not before.

Sam and I distracted each other by playing music and harmonizing to songs we love - the Indigo Girls provide a nice challenge, with their vocal lines that swoop and swirl, trading off the melody and harmony. We did Bob Marley with Sam taking the bass line and me harmonizing on top of it. We told stories and tried to make each other laugh. 

Whoever wasn't driving would hold two phones, one with an altimeter and one with a map of our route, so we could call out the parts of the drive we couldn't quite see -- "the road is going to curve gently to the left coming up" "there is a series of switchbacks up ahead" "you've got a straight shot for a little while." 

I don't know what purpose the altimeter served, except to make me realize how crazy it was for us to be out in that weather with the bulk of the drive over 9500 feet. When we finally started to descend near Denver, there was something gratifying about seeing the altitude numbers drop.  Below 6000 feet, I joked, "we're practically at sea level!"

It's taken me a few days to recover from the experience, and I don't know that I'm fully over it. My chest still tightens when I think about it. 

I'm heading back up the mountains to take a ski lesson on Saturday, and the thought of the drive makes me nervous, which is not me at all. Plus the forecast is clear and the roads should be absolutely fine.

In any event, if something bad happens, I will deal with it. But here's hoping it doesn't come to that.

Roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair

My walks to work started three years ago, a month after Emma's death, as a respite from sorrow. To have a regular activity that anchored me in the physical world and took me out of my head a little bit. The daily #walktowork pictures evolved shortly thereafter - it forced me to seek out the beautiful, the interesting, the weird, the funny. It helped me heal, or at least helped the scar tissue develop.

I would do that walk in the rain, and when it was -5 degrees and blowing snow, and when there was dirty slush from a snowstorm 3 days ago. I loved it. I needed it. 

Sometimes I would go down 12th Avenue and walk through Cheesman Park and admire the gardens in peoples' yards.

More often I would walk down Colfax, past the Fillmore and Ogden theaters, past the sex shops and tattoo parlors and marijuana dispensaries. 

Past the 7-Eleven where that crazy-ass lady was friends with the police dispatcher. Past the beautiful gold dome of the state capitol building. 

 Past urban art and urban poetry and blood on the streets.

Yes, that really is a big puddle of blood on the sidewalk, as long as a manhole cover.

And then I got a new job that is 25 miles south of my house. No more walks to work. No more gritty city. No more #dailydenver pictures. 

To be clear, I love my new job. Absolutely love it. But my office is out in the 'burbs and I have to drive. At least it's a counter-commute. 

Still, it's 40 minutes. I rationalize it that it used to take me 40 minutes to walk to work before, so it's the same amount of time commuting. It's not the same commute, though.

I am getting used to it.

I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks, which I'm really enjoying. I listened to some when I walked, but I found I had a harder time concentrating on the story than when I'm in the car.

I've been practicing my Italian in preparation for the trip the kids and I are going on in two weeks. If you need someone to say, in Italian, "this is creamy cod, a typical northern Italian dish," I'm your girl.

I drive through some beautiful scenery - wide open plains underneath wide open skies.

I am, by nature, an optimist. I don't know how to view the world from a place of negativity. So I am learning to like the drive. The routine of it. The views. 

It's not quite the romanticism of the open road, but it has its own charm. I don't mind it at all.

Stabbing monsters and dancing around poles on a perfect Colorado day

"Mama, are you still the 20 year old surfer chick named Tammy?"

Josie grinned up at me, a cheerful little Easter egg in her purple helmet, turquoise jacket, royal blue pants, and bright pink mittens.

We were at the top of the Strawberry Park Express Lift at Beaver Creek, getting ready to take one more run down the mountain before calling it a day.

And it had been an amazing day.

I had the kids for the weekend and the weather in the mountains was forecast to be beautiful, so I decided to take them skiing. They were excited to go, but they wanted me to teach them how to use poles.

I had been reluctant to teach them for a couple of reasons. First, I'm not a ski instructor. Second, I'm their mother. It is a truth universally acknowledged that children learning a new skill should learn from someone other than a parent. They're going to listen better - and have more fun - learning from some 25-year-old stoner named Tristan than from mom or dad.

But they really really really *please mama please* wanted to learn how to use poles, and ski lessons are expensive, and I figured I could give them the basics if they were willing to listen to me and not be all, "OKAY I HEARD YOU I'M DOING IT LEAVE ME ALONE!!" as they careened down the mountain doing the opposite of what I had instructed.

I decided that an alternate persona was in order.

"All right," I told them. "I will get you poles and teach you how to use them."

"YAAAAYYY!!"

"BUT..."

"What?"

"But we are going to treat this like a proper lesson. I am your ski instructor and I'm going to teach you what to do, and you are going to listen to me, do you understand? No arguing with me."

"Yes, Mama."

"And in order for it to be a proper ski lesson, I'm not going to be Mama."

"Who are you going to be?" They were intrigued.

"I'm a 20-year-old surfer chick named Tammy. I'm spending the winter in Colorado as a ski instructor so I can make money to go surfing in Tahiti this summer."

"If you're a surfer, wouldn't it make more sense to be a snowboarding instructor?" Zeke asked.  They were already buying into the concept.

"Perhaps," I responded. "But I happen to ski as well as snowboard, so this winter I decided to teach skiing."

He shrugged agreeably.

We went to a ski rental place and got some poles for them. Places like that order cheap poles in bulk and include them in a ski rental package, so if you're going in just needing some poles, they will often give them to you for free or for a nominal charge.

The guy said, "sure, 'rent' the poles for the weekend. No problem."

"How much is it?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing, don't worry about it."

"Wow, that's great. Thank you! Do you need my name or contact info?"

"No."

"When do you need them back?"

"Whenever."

See what I mean?

It turned out the hardest part about skiing with poles was not losing them.

We parked and caught the shuttle bus to the lift. After we got off the bus and were buckling our boots and putting on mittens and such, Zeke said, "OH NO!!"

"What happened?"

"I left my poles on the bus."

"Oh for God's sake, Zeke."

"There's a rental place right there. Let's go get some more."

So we got some more. The guy charged me $5.

Later, Josie dropped one of her poles getting on the lift.  The liftie gave it to a guy on the chair behind us so he could give to us at the top. After having lunch, when we went outside to retrieve our gear, Zeke got confused about which poles were his and almost took the wrong ones.

Chair lift selfie. Miraculously, we all have our poles.

But the lesson itself went swimmingly. Skiingly?

"What's my name?"

"Tammy!"

"OK, kiddos. Here's what you do..."

And I showed them how to hold their arms out and to use the poles to guide their turns.

"Just kiss the tip of the pole to the snow..."

They followed my line down the hill, giggling and kissing.

"Mwah! Mwah!"

They thought it was hysterical. But they learned to do it properly,

Borrowing a trick from my friend Christin, I explained how to use poles on moguls.

"Pretend the top of the bump is the eye of an evil monster. You need to get around the monster, and in order to kill it, you need to stab it in the eye. So as you're going down, reach forward, stab your pole into the monster's eye, and then ski around it."

Zeke practiced a few times and proceeded to bomb down a black mogul run, woohoo-ing all the way.

"I think I nailed that one," he told me afterwards.

We used a different idea on steep groomers. Josie and I were at the top of a run with a pretty intense pitch, and she was nervous.

"Mamaaaaa..." 

Her voice wavered.

"I'm not Mama. I'm Tammy, remember?"

That made her laugh.

"You're going to do fine. Touch the pole to the snow and turn around it. Just dance around the pole. I'll be next to you the whole time, doing the same thing."

She took a deep breath, pointed her skis down the hill, and did exactly what I told her.

By the end of the day, she and Zeke were zipping through the trees, doing little jumps, and shaking their butts with glee as we explored the different parts of the mountain. Zeke even tried some tricks in the terrain park.

Blue skies, perfect temperatures, and beautiful vistas. And for some reason, Josie insisted on holding her poles up over her head like that every time I took her picture.

Finally, they were ready to go home.

"Mama, are you still the 20-year-old surfer chick named Tammy?"

"Yep, for a few more minutes," I answered.

"Well, Tammy, you're a good teacher."

"Thanks, chicklet. Let's head on down and you can show me your stuff."

We drove home, tired and happy, ready to call me "Mama" again.