Stuff, things
and the moments in between...
Standing on the railway, this isn’t the first time I get stares for my heart-shaped glasses. It happens more than one might like to admit or rather as much as one might like to admit. Maybe it’s not as often a typical middle-aged male, dressed in black, dons pink heart rave glasses. The lights on the railway wash by, strobe, strobe, strobe.
The old man makes eye contact with me again. I smile. He seems intrigued, at least 75 years of age, his skin leathery from the sun and what looks like years of adventure, or maybe, confirmation bias on my part… Hard to know. We meet, eyes again, and we both smile. He asks me if I was in the Olympics, he points to my sweater, the only visible words “American Alpine”. I say “no” laughingly, “it’s the American Alpine Institute, a mountain guiding company out of Washington”. He looks surprised and delighted, though I can tell he didn’t hear most of what I’d said. “Climbing?” he remarks. “yes”, I say.
There’s a pause. A charm in the air, a delight of connection between two humans, the rest of the railway cart just listening… “You know I was probably the first American to summit a peak in Antarctica.” His eyes filled with a spark, we both see eyes of adventure, of hardship, of perseverance, and vulnerability.
He could tell before I spoke my first word, I could tell as soon as he found connection.
“Two peaks, actually, while we were there”. He was speaking of Antarctica. I asked him “what he called them?”, and he quickly followed up with “have you climbed in the Himalaya?”, I said “not yet”. As the train came to a stop and the doors opened for B gates, his family informed him it was time to go. He made one last look at me as he made his way off the train, we both smiled and he said, “Go”.
It’s now days later, the wind is brisk but the sun, warm against my skin. Chatter all around, a centering cacophony that I find myself in frequently. That third place, not home, not work, but safe, communal.
My essence open to the world.
A coffee shop, a park, an intermediary world where my thoughts have the time for paper. I think again about this man, about my life so far. I think about a gear sling I was gifted just months ago. Purple and beautiful, the sling weathered with age and sun, not much different from the old man, his skin, his eyes, Antarctica, the Himalaya.
I’m carried off as into a dream. “That sling was carried by the first American woman to climb Annapurna”. Her eyes, her skin, Antarctica, the Himalaya.
Two stories merge, and the moments in between.
As I hold it in marvel, where it’s been, what it’s seen, that final word comes rushing back, “Go!”.
And another day begins…
