Rebeccalou: This Writer’s Life

On a warm and sunny Saturday morning in early February, two friends and I load the back end of the car with snowshoes, poles, boots and backpacks and head south on C-470, veering right at the sign for Fairplay, winding our way through canyons of red rock and pine until the urban sprawl filling the rearview mirror disappears completely. The radio is off. Bright sun beats through the glass. The creeks are open and running hard. The gray and brown earth of winter lies exposed during these weeks of mild weather. We wind our way through the foothills, slowing down for Conifer, Bailey and Grant, then climb the last four miles to Kenosha Pass. At the summit the Colorado Trail crosses the highway, with arrows pointing in both directions. The trailhead to our right is filled with two rows of vehicles. We turn left onto gravel. The car scrapes across a twenty-foot patch of snow. We avoid the ruts for another hundred yards and pull into the parking lot, the fourth car to arrive.

The air is colder at 10,000 feet. We add more layers, strap on foot gear and head up through a stand of aspen on a snow-packed trail imprinted with the soles of boots and the wide, oversized mark of a snowshoe. Parallel tracks left by a cross-country skier run alongside the trail a short distance before veering off into the meadow. I unwrap the chain at the gate and swing it open just far enough to allow passage into the forest. 

At the first clearing, Kathy interrupts Patricia’s story of how she came to own the hat she’s wearing, and we all stop. Off to the right are thousands of aspen in the meadow below us, tall and silver-gray in their nakedness, intermingled with ponderosa pine. Across the distant highway, hills sit like children at the knees of the massive peaks, snow-covered and majestic, tall enough to reach into the swirl of white cloud brushed through winter’s sky. At the curve of the highway, the hills give way to the expansive South Park valley, and miles beyond, at the southern edge of our view, the Collegiate Peaks rise to the heavens, promising adventure from afar, triggering memories of summer climbs, nights in a tent at tree line, my first pelting by corn snow on the summit of Mount Harvard seventeen years ago, its landscape barren as the moon. 

I love to hike. I love that my feet are on the ground. I have no desire to float through air or explore the deep waters of an ocean but I will climb anything the body will tolerate. I respond to the palpable thinness of air at altitude, the crisp bite on the face, the effort in the muscles of thigh and calf, the fifty-something whine in my left knee. I find it impossible to remain stuck in the angst and nagging turmoil of ego when I look at the world from the side or the top of a mountain, caught in the quirky blend of humility and empowerment, our insignificance twinned with all that’s possible. Without fail, the big picture reveals itself in direct proportion to the diminishment of self. Despite the thinner air, I breathe more fully.

We continue up-trail. The body grows warm with exertion. Without leaves to interrupt their fall, the sun’s rays stroke our heads, shoulders and chests before reflecting off the snow on the forest floor. We stop for water in a small clearing. I plant poles in the shallow snowbank at the side of the trail, remove my pack, unclip the snowshoes and take off the outer layer. I stuff the clothes into the pack, eat a handful of almonds, drink more water and step back into the snowshoes. Before grabbing the poles, I unzip the fleece at my neck, feel the sweat on my skin, followed by a clammy chill when a breeze kicks up.

Another hour passes on the trail. We stop for lunch at a spot overlooking South Park. A fallen aspen provides the perfect bench. We unload our gear and spread the contents of our packs at our feet: wedges of cheese, leftover chicken cutlets, one peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a container of olives, slices of pear, a banana, a bag of raw almonds. Kathy opens the Beaulieu Vineyard Merlot and fills three cups. The sun, full-out when we sat, is soon covered by a band of clouds. Hats and gloves go back on. We take turns snapping photos of the other two, all sunglasses and smiles. We consume every morsel, washing down the home-baked chocolate chip cookie with a final sip of wine before strapping on the gear and starting back down.

The descent offers another perspective on the same view. The clouds move on, exposing afternoon sunlight against bold peaks that sparkle in their whiteness. I spot the basket that had disengaged from my pole on the way up, abandoned atop a small patch of crusted snow. We talk of families and books, a meditation service, husbands and parents, the writing process, a website for a client, what it feels like to return to square one in this economy, in our fifties. 

I bring up the Pema Chodron series I’m listening to, a collection of teachings called Noble Heart. The three of us have stopped for water. I unscrew the blue cap on the Nalgene bottle, stare at the forest around us and think about the big sky concept of equanimity. The word is a favorite of mine, although descriptive of a state I don’t come close to touching on home turf. But up here, away from the distractions and messiness of daily life, equanimity seems almost plausible; maybe it is possible to move beyond the dualistic principles of pleasure and pain, good and bad, praise and blame, into the vast mind that embraces all of it. Like the arrows at the top of the pass, equanimity points to the great way, to the open mind-open heart goodness of our true nature.

My friends and I look at strong, healthy trees, at fallen dead trees, young saplings, trees still upright but showing signs of disease, others hearty and straight in their stretch toward sunlight. Broken branches poke out of the snow. Exposed clumps of black, gnarly roots resemble prehistoric art forms. Slender stalks not three feet tall appear alongside trees with trunks thick as the muscled thigh of a seasoned climber. Nothing moves. There are no leaves to flitter in the breeze, no animals afoot. Decay sits alongside healthy, tall alongside tiny, old next to young, without judgment, without labels, equanimous in their beauty.

We pass through the gate and head to the parking lot, savoring the last leg of the hike in silence. The drone of cars on the highway drowns out the crunch of boots and snowshoes on packed snow. The mind fills with plans for the evening, weekend commitments, the full, busy nature of life. We load gear and backpacks into the trunk, shedding hats, gloves and jackets, and head back to the city. 

The next afternoon, on our way out of the restaurant, a friend touches my arm. “When are we going to see some more writing? Anything in the works?”

I nod my head. Soon. I’m thinking you’ll see something soon.