In the Himalayan Mood

There's a bit of a Himalayan feel to the day. Not enough to justify my coveted final infusion's worth of black Nepali tea, but I certainly don't mind rocking the lapsang souchong. A little Nawang Khehog and Manose on the stereo, and I've got me a mood going. It's fantastic.

Soft flakes waft down from the clouds coiled across the high peaks. When out on walkabout-last minute snowshoe conditioning, of course-I was caught in a thirty minute blizzard. I read a meteorologist describing it as an angry inch of snow falling. In summer, we'd have called it a downpour of a gully-washer, depending upon one's geographical bent.

It's not supposed to snow much. Just enough to give a little fresh powder. Something extra for our snowshoe to Francie's Cabin for Sabina's birthday. Such a lucky girl.

It cost me a fortune...

I get my framepack as ready as I can for early the next morning. There is the matter of perishable foodstuffs and libations. Sabina said something about wanting to make herself a cake. I might be a little handy in the kitchen, but I never mastered the discipline of baking.

Outside is chilly and overcast with passing squalls of snow. Perfect for lapsang souchong tea and Himalayan folk music. Perfect for snowshoeing, and I should know. The next two days, those of our trek, are supposed to be sunny and mild. Bluebird days as some snowbums call it. I'm excited for our walkabout, and it's not even my birthday, just an adventure. One of many. Then again, the day I can't get even the slightest bit excited about a potential adventure is the day I check to see if bullets are edible.

Carhartt

It was four years ago this past Tuesday that you went into the sickhouse and never came back out. You told me it wasn't your last rodeo and I spent longer than I'd like to admit being angry at you for unintentionally lying to me. Whenever I look up at the ridge of Leavenworth Mountain, toward the ruins of Waldorf on the other side of that ridge, where we scattered your immolated bones, I smile bittersweetly, thinking perhaps you're really not that far away after all.

When I saw her kneeling to snap a photograph, I saw you. Right down to the Carhartt ranch jacket. The same hair-before you got sick and the chemo shaved you bald-and the same smile. Even a similar lack of chin. I tried very hard not to stare.

With purposeful stride I put some distance between us. Once I rounded a corner, I caught myself trembling slightly. As with most any time I see a ghost of memory, I found myself rattled. There were so many things I wanted to ask and tell, but she wouldn't have understood. But part of me thinks I should be grateful for that doppelganger in the Carhartt ranch jacket that looked so disturbingly like you. If I allow myself a moment of superstition, I could theorize it was your way of letting me know you're really not that far away after all.

Nightwalkers

The moon looked down like the unblinking eye of a detached and distant ancestor. Only the brightest of stars were visible. The river, almost completely covered by its icy carapace shimmered like liquid mercury. There was a low illumination given off by the reflecting snow that could best be described as mystical.

We walked up to the old gravel quarry on the west end of town, no headlamps needed. It wasn't terribly cold out. Although, I was a little disappointed we didn't partake of any spiced rum. Still, the company and walkabout itself was worth it. Then again, when isn't a walkabout worth it?

The moon looked on impassively, and, there was mystical comfort in that...

Slumming Amongst the Glitterati

Back when I lived down below, when, during one of my urban walkabouts, I happened into a wealthier district, I’d say I was slumming. There are those who would say-quite baselessly, I might add-that I am paradoxical and otherwise contrary, which is a bunch of who shot john. See, I don’t have a contrary bone in my body. My daughter agrees, although, she went on to say I had two-hundred six such bones. Contemptuous fucking child.

She gets that from her mother…

It really wasn't my fault how I ended up slumming amongst some of the local glitterati. In fact, having just got home from obligations, I was beginning to contemplate a Sri Lankan beer. It was going to be pizza night at the House of Owls and Bats.

Then my phone buzzed. The message in a digital bottle was from a friend whom was at the holiday shin-dig for the Hamill House. Initially, she'd contacted Sabina, under the auspice of a girls night out playing pretty-pretty princesses, but Sabina had her own obligations she was still engaged in. So I was asked to be a date. Apparently there were snacks and a free! bar.

That's how I ended up at the historic mansion of a mine owner in the getup I normally reserve for marryings, buryings, and the summer melodrama. I'd dug out my Hungarian wool-cashmere blend overcoat, with a skull and crossbones pin on one lapel and my Scottish clan crest on the other and the multi-colored Doctor Who scarf the bruja made for me several birthdays ago. I'd told my date I'd be looking like a bohemian version of the help.

This event was put on by one of the historical groups. One of which is kissing-with tongue-cousins with the organization of which I receive my patronage from to bankroll my adventures and pay my mortgage. There's a certain sense of incest here-cue the banjos-because the memberships are to both groups and many of these cats are my volunteers. There's also my affiliation with my town's historical group and being on our museum board, not to mention living within a small aggregate of communities within a narrow rift-like valley in the mountains.

Despite my misanthropy, I know people...

It was queer to turn heads. I've never liked that kind of attention. Both the magistrate and matron gave me compliments. My date said she'd never seen me so dressed up, and I told her unless we were seeing someone to the altar or into the ground, she'd not see me that way again.

"You clean up really well," one of my acquaintances/volunteers said, taking in my raiment.

"What? This old thing? This rag I picked up off my closet floor?" I said. "I only wear this when I don't give a fuck what I look like."

I chuckled at her eye-roll, trying to think of when I give a fuck what I look like...

There were Christmas carols and the lighting of a tree in the grand old Victorian style. Mulled wine and a host of toasts. Moments of simple humanity, those moments, which I'm a sucker for, but maybe I just suck.

Sabina got a brief second to catch me in playing-dress-up-clothes when she first got home. I was all but cutting myself out of them in favor of some cotton Nepali-style cargo pants with Buddhist symbology on them, a Live t-shirt, and what I call my grandpa sweater. Quite soon I felt more at ease within my own skin instead of wanting to flay it off, playing dress-up does that to me, despite how well I can do it. I relaxed. There was pizza to make. The whole time, since when I'd received the initial invite, I had a Ministry song playing within the walls of my skull;



Albeit more rocking....

Relative Balmy

The full implications of how cold it had been hit me around six-thirty in the morning when I was letting the hounds out, thus answering the gnawing metaphysical question of our time. There was no wind and my weather station stated it was positive sixteen out. I found this pleasant.

Of course, the day before, horrific gales lashed our Sahel at sustained speeds of between fifteen and twenty miles per hour. I'd rather not discuss the gusts. It was type of wind, which was that of icy talons and surgically sharpened blades; ripping and cutting through any kind of armor as though it was wet paper. The ambient air temperature hovered at a paltry eight or nine above, with a wind chill of minus ten to fifteen. There are very few times I might say it was miserable up here, but the day before was one of them.

The wind had turned the snow around the house into hardpack and I feared for conditions on the trails for a walkabout. Thankfully, it was not that bad as I started my snowshoe up Grizzly Gulch. There was a breeze, but the surrounding trees pretty much kept me shielded. I found myself comfortable in my gear, if not a little hot now and again, with the excursion.

Gray's and Torrey's were cloaked in phantasmal smoke-gray clouds and orographic snow. In the distance, I heard the roar of an avalanche, and deduced it was from the slope of Kelso Mountain along nearby Stevens Gulch. I hoped it wasn't human-caused, and, if it was, there was no one caught in it.

At home in the fading daylight, I took my tea on the porch, musing places for Sabina and I to snowshoe the next time the sun rose, whilst the hounds milled about. My weather station told me it was positive twenty-three and the high had been twenty-six. I sat back, taking in my tiny snow-covered world. It was so warm out I considered cracking open a beer out there on the porch and grilling for supper.

Powdery Frolic

My personal Kilimanjaro, Brown, and Silver Plume Mountain respectively, as well town itself as seen from a ruin on the Argentine trail...

There are some righteous icicles hanging from the back of the house. It's been nearly a week since the mercury has risen above freezing, and for quite a few of those days, it's been sub-zero. This is something to be taken in stride, given the Roof of the World is but ten miles away, and it's winter. I have a down parka for just such events. 

I woke up to a light dusting of snow to add to ten inches we'd received from the previous storm. There were no obligations and I had a new set of snow pants to break in. It was with the most wicked grin of joy that, after a breakfast of Cambodian curried eggs, I grabbed my snowshoes.

The avalanche danger was just high enough to make a Backcountry walkabout unwise. Even and especially solo. The Argentine is close, as in walking distance, and on a north face. Not to mentioned rather heavily treed.

Of course, the trail is a whore, so there were already tracks. Although, I know enough hidden places along there that I could go frolic in the fresh powder. That was how I ended up at a particular ruin Sabina and I have stopped at before. The snow was shin-deep on me. Fantastic.

Ice crystals clung to my beard. I couldn't help but chuckle at that. All things considered, I was toasty, bordering on hot, from the trekking. There was that profound snowbound silence and the landscape transformed under the coat of winter.

I came down a back way and hopped down-valley to see Miguel Loco to tell him about conditions and have a mocha. He pressed me to go on longer excursions whilst I'm still in good shape and I told him this snowshoe was the first of conditioning runs for the upcoming hut trip. 

It's supposed to warm up in the coming days and there's no snow foretold for perhaps the next ten. At least that means the avi danger will decrease and I could perhaps do Grizzly or Watrous come Tuesday. This first snowshoe of the season filled me with joy, and I found myself reciting part of a Christmas carol as a mantra in context;

"Let it snow,

let it snow,

let it snow...."

And Om mani padme hum to that, muthafuckas...

Those Old Honeymooners

Margot MacFadden had hair the color of polished copper and eyes that shown like brilliantly-cut emeralds. There was a light play of freckles across her face that resembled the mask of a badger. Even as she grew into adulthood there was something child-like and carefree in her manner. An ex of hers once postulated she belonged to one of the races whom dwelt beneath Fey Hill; some manner of pixie or sprite. Something she took as a compliment.

She was very proud of her Celtic ancestry. There were tales she could recite from memory, as if she had been there. Stories of battle against tyranny for the good Earth of her kin and adventures to brave new lands. Some of them may have been true, and, to her mind; all of them were.

Years later, her copper-colored locks teased her jawline and were striped with cords of pure silver. Sometimes she considered a dye-job to conceal the suggestion she might be aging. Her eyes still twinkled with youthful exuberance and the freckles still danced playfully across her older face.

She had been called a sexy grandma, which she took as a pleasing, albeit backhanded, compliment, having been born without a uterus. Never having the maternal pull, she did not regret not having children, and, there were plenty of the adopteds-never, ever, fosters-coming in and out, which she felt more like the occasional guide to than a parent. When asked, she could say with all honesty that satisfied her.

***

Counting almost to the day, it was thirty years since she first met Solomon Chance. That night, her world changed. It had been at a gallery opening and her lead-singer boyfriend was doing a set. Solomon had just come from living three years in Spain for no other reason than to live in Spain. In his wool jacket pocket was a book of Rumi’s poems-“I read it once a year, whether I need to or not,” he told her-he was drinking something dark and esoteric and was smoking a fat cigar, which smelled of hundred-dollar bills and a thousand places that didn’t exist. Margo would never admit it, but it was love at first sight. Doubly so after he shook her hand.

“You realize I’m going to marry you someday,” he said.

“My boyfriend’s with the band,” she shot back, trying not to let her electric arousal seep into her words.

“An obstacle,” Solomon said with a shrug. “Obstacles can be overcome.”

In their first encounters, Margot felt shame in her ancestral pride. She could speak of glory and battle, but those were tales of those who had come before. Solomon spoke of places he had been; the three years in Spain. Before that, travels through the Mediterranean, Middle East, and all through Africa. Those ten years backpacking all through south and east Asia, Australia, and South America because he did.

She remembered asking him why…

“Because I wanted to,” he said without the slightest blush of arrogance. “Maybe I was looking for something, but I didn’t know what it was.”

He was fascinated by her ancestral tales. Having grown up on a Wyoming ranch, he didn’t know much of his family’s history beyond his great-grandparents. The fact Margot had family whom she could trace back centuries was of savage interest to him.

“You’re already established,” he said. “Me? I’ve got to make a name for myself.”

“With your last name? You won’t have to try too hard,” Margot teased with a wink of emerald.

A year and a half after they met, the lead-singer was gone. Five years later, they were a couple. Fabulous, some would say. Five years after that, as Solomon warned, they were married. It was on the Patagonian coast against the long-beached skeleton of a minke whale. Both agreed it was tragic in its romance. A wedding and funeral all in one.

***

She had been away on personal business. When she walked into the salon there was the usual mournful wailing of Hank Williams and the faces of people she knew. With a slight pixie-ish smile, she singled out a patron sitting at the bar.

These days, his hair was that of brushed steel, but his eyes were that of ball lightning. Those were the eyes that got her in the end. A gaze that could tell you a thousand secrets or slice you apart. Sometimes, he spoke more with a glance than with words. She found that fascinating to this day, some thirty years from that night in the gallery.

He was at the bar, hunched over a snifter of brandy and his book of Rumi’s poems-“I read it once a year, whether I need to or not”. She sat down next to him, her nails working their way into his hair. He seemed to scarcely notice, but she knew better.

“Hello, handsome,” she cooed. “What’re you reading?”

“It’s called a book,” he replied without a sidelong glance. “In some places in the world, these are the work of the Devil.”

“Devilish man,” she teased. “Can I get you another drink?”

“I didn’t miss you,” he said.

“I’d question you if you did,” she shot back.

His eyes shifted over her. She felt the electric current of his gaze. It told her everything. She smiled as the bartender walked up to them.

“Doing okay, Sol?”

“Another brandy, please,” he replied, and then motioned to Margot. “And something special for my date here. She says she’ll pay.”

“Martini?” The bartender inquired with a knowing wink.

“Oh, of course,” she replied, placing a kiss on Solomon’s cheek like it was their first date.

Betwix

Early winter continues apace. Meteorological prophecy speaks of a dusting between night and the next day. Mid-week, there's suppose to be a fairly decent storm. As I purge these words, it is the century anniversary of a particularly vicious blizzard. Apocrypha says that six-hundred vertical feet bellow was the location of the largest amount of snow to fall for one day anywhere in this part of the world, and that includes Alaska. 

I have come to the conclusion that, during winter, I want it either to snow a little every few days, or not at all. It's a matter of aesthetics. When there longer periods between the storms, the snow on the ground becomes crusty. Streaks of grime from the dust of passing vehicles and soot from fires tarnish the diamond countenance. It's really no mystery where the hounds have been and what they did at that location, and, the subsequent clean-up does not bring the snow back to pristine. Don't think I haven't tried.

Sometimes, I find it comical that I wish for just a little snow. Time was, I wished against it. That was a very long time ago.

It's one of those cool days between the storms. The sky above is that shade of turquoise, although, to the west, there is a rather definite line of white clouds. On occasion, the wind blows Tibetan off the Roof of the World. Perhaps a harbinger of things to come.

Sabina and I mean to drive to the summit of Guanella Pass for the last time this season before the county closes the gates, making the top only accessible on foot, by ski or snowshoe. We had discussed snowshoeing the Rosalie Trail a few days back, but that was before Sabina was downed by a twenty-four bout with what may have been malaria. As it stands, the drive is done for something to do and a way to celebrate her return to the lands of the living.

Here's to life...

We'll still take our gear, just in case. I keep my eyes to west, for the next storm. It'd be great to go snowshoeing today, but I know not to be upset if I don't. See, I've heard Watrous Gulch has some righteous snow, and Tuesday ain't but a few days off.   

Base Coat

In terms of severity, it wasn't the worst storm, but it was serious enough to close the Road over a twenty mile stretch for a few hours. Ever notice there are never any comedic or ironic storms? Queer.

It was amateur day; those who felt invincible their four-by-fours and all-wheel drives, flatlanders who had only seen snow on television and le cinema screens, and those getting their snow legs on who were unfortunate enough to be in the way. It was something, which made my obligations border upon agonizing in terms of the perceived passage of time. That night, there was to be a shin-dig, but night seemed days away.

"What a lovely day out," the preservationist of my acquaintance said in reference to the portrait of diamond-dust and polished ivory accumulating upon the ground and playful squalls of snow dancing in the thin mountain air.

"Snowshoeing weather," I said. We both smiled. Almost every one I'm acquainted with knows of the scheme for Sabina's birthday and how anxious I am to get out there.

In the days following that storm, I've had travelers query me about places to go snowshoeing and conditions. I keep my envy in check, thinking of where I can go in the next few days, and advise them to become well-acquainted with the CAIC. Either that or I just send them over to Miguel Loco for advice.

The day before the flakes started to fly, whilst doing errands, Sabina observed snow-encrusted the shark-tooth countenance of Mount Sniktau. She waxed melancholy; three days prior, we lost the direct sunlight, marking the Long Dark and the start of our winter. There was lamentation for warmer times. I shot her a sidelong glance.

"Mi amore, with what we mean to do for your birthday, you best hope it dumps on us," I said.

She sighed in agreement and the conversation turned to this upcoming trek. Once more, we talked about our route and what to take. Still almost a month off and we've made the walkabout several times in our minds and discussions. It'll be interesting to see how the real thing plays out.

Ya'll might not know this about me, but I'm always up for an adventure...

And it looks like we've started to get a decent base coat. The landscape begins to change shape in variation to snow and temperature and wind. Every season is different, which is part of the magic of this place. I cast a glance toward my snowshoes, a simple one-word mantra rattling within the walls of my skull;

Soon...

Job

We first met in a diner. I was using a set of Chinese medicine balls as stage-prop in what could be considered a lewd joke. You came back with one better. We spent the first half of the evening trading dirty jokes. I might have blushed once or twice whilst giggling guiltily, had all the capillaries in my face not been damaged by the ugly incident in Calcutta when I went toe-to-toe with that militant faction of Up with People, but that's another story.

I was twenty-one. A young, impressionable, philosophy and theology student who was probably far too impressed with my own intelligence. I kept talking about writing a book. Being published someday was my rockstar fantasy back then.

You were eleven years my senior. Already, you had worked a molybdenum mine outside of Leadville and been involved in the constabulary. You had a vocabulary that made my other philosopher friend seem like a monosyllabic hick. When I told you I was starting to dig on far eastern philosophy, you implored me to check out Sun Tzu.

Some of the others may not have liked you as much as I did. Thinking back, you might be right about that. No subject was taboo to you. At all. You stood your ground in a dialogue and refused to mollycoddle. It could be that made some others, weaker in their constitutions and convictions, uncomfortable. Perhaps it was that shocking, violent honesty that fascinated me. Maybe it was because you were willing to hang out with me until night became another day whilst we drank coffee and discussed the whichnesses and wherefores.

You taught me the concept of the alligator mouth and the hummingbird ass. Something both of us still have a problem with-although, I like to say I have come to a place of acceptance and the rest of the world needs to catch up. During those dark days of my divorce, you offered unflinching advice, much like you did the time I quired you about a restraining order against an x-girlfriend. Some of what you said hurt my feelings, but I desperately needed to hear it anyway. I was perhaps the second person in the whole of creation you told you were going to marry your second x-wife the night you met her.

Over the years and lifetimes we've known each other, I've called you one of my gurus. A guru, after all, aids one in finding enlightenment. Whilst I'll not be pretentious and say enlightenment is something I'm even close to achieving, you have helped me pull away some of the cobwebs of ignorance.

When you told me you were born again, I flippantly wanted to ask what was wrong with the first time. You may have laughed. You might have entreated me to go fuck myself. Either response would've been appropriate. I did tell you I am pretty happy with my beliefs and we'd just have to agree to disagree.

"Robbie Grey, I didn't call you to convert you," you said. "I called because you're my friend and I wanted to talk to you."

Just like that, everything was zen...

And the shit you've been through in the last few years; divorce, bad health, loss of home, hearth, and income, you describe as your living perdition. Meanwhile, I am so very happy in my existence here in paradise. The dichotomy is enough to get me to believe that blasphemous rumor that god has a sick sense of humor. That, the Problem of Evil, is why I cannot even pretend to believe in an anthropomorphic deity that even remotely cares. Yet, to your credit, you've kept your faith.

And I name thee Job...

So, naturally, when you phone me up sounding all but broken beneath the blade, I catch myself worrying. Not that you'll go and do something utterly stupid and rash; I do believe you that you'll not go quietly. I worry that the man I've spent the last nearly twenty years admiring for calling it as it's seen and going where the angels fear tread for a laugh and intellectual curiosity, is considering bearing his jugular.

I understand; it's been a long time in this downward spiral. Kafka, Milton, and Dante would cross their legs and blush. But I've heard your stories, Sir. Those ones from further back. Back from before that night in a diner with a set of Chinese medicine balls and a volley of crass humor. You've gone toe-to-toe with worse infernals than this and they were the ones who limped away with scars.

There was that night during the bardo after my x-wife left and when my divorce became official. I was scribbling manic poetry to a soundtrack of Nine Inch Nails. Words fail in describing the psychic devastation and Shakespearian betrayal of it all. It, to this day, was one time in my life that I was closest to being heartbroken, which is queer, given my heart has no bones. You sat down with me and told me how sick to death you were with my wallowing.

"The fact you have fallen is interesting," you said in a steady, yet harsh voice. "The time you remain down is important."
 
Job, my guru...mon ami, you have fallen, and ain't that about interesting?

How long will you remain down?