Of Angel Wings and Stranger Things

Those memories came as quickly and definitively as my rhythmic stride along the narrow, serpiginous trail. I was solo and walking past Hamilton Lake and the Valhalla Cirque toward Precipice Lake. I would reach Kaweah Gap by late morning. I pushed hard and noted the sensation of the ascent, the rapidity of my breathing, the assuredness of my Vibram soles and the ridiculous reminiscences which distracted me like the gnatty flies hovering around my face.

It was July 25th, 1991, 23 days before my wedding. And for whatever reason, the altitude and scenery carried me along and forced me to review my every romantic imbroglio. Every, single one. I was being purged, I thought. How appropriate, right before my wedding. That was my understanding.

I walked past the Angel Wings, the largest rock wall in Sequoia National Park. The Climber's Guide to the High Sierras, Steve Roper's classic, sits on my nightstand. It is strangely reassuring to flip through it every night. There are 10 black and white photos in the book's center section depicting Sierran peaks. One photo shows the South face of the Angel Wings:

Even today I lose myself in this photo like a trout in a waterfall. And now I hiked beneath the actual, expansive granite face. And along came memories of Angela Wiggins, that fourth grade hottie whose hair-flipping, gum-chewing, look-at-me-I've-got boobies antics drove my GPA into a tailspin. I couldn't concentrate. My cursive deteriorated and looked like Sanskrit. I ate only toast. Dodge ball and 4-Square lost their appeal. I tried to attract Angela by keeping a pencil behind my ear and saying things like "Doy Ralph." I thought I was being cool. At recess I sat alone dreaming about marrying Angela as I watched her from afar. She seemed to float across the blacktop as if she were filled with lilacs and helium. And if she floated into my general vicinity I would hyperventilate.

After three days of this madness, I sent her a note. "Dear Angela," it said, "I love you. Do you love me?" Before lunch she returned the note. It was folded 4 times. I ran behind the baseball backstop and unfolded it. Under my handwriting she had written her reply:

"I love you in the wing of God."

I stared across the playground at all the kids running amuck. The letter fell from my hands. Wing of God? Wing of God? What the hell did that mean? This was worse than anything. I would have preferred, "You are a bug, and I will step on you if you get too close, you creep!" My interpretation, of course, was that she loved me as one of God's creatures, but nothing more. This was terrible. I sulked. I noted the lump in my throat. I went through the five stages of death and dying during lunch time, and by the time I reached acceptance I was enjoying my bologna with ketchup sandwich. I was ready to move on...

Past the Angel Wings I trod. I was 50% of the way to Kaweah Gap. 50%. After Angela I fell for Joanna Scarlatti. We were in the same class since kindergarten, yet now I really noticed her. She was demure, tall, bright and not unlike those painted Madonnas in the Michelangelo coffee table book at home. Her neck was long and ample; it connected her head to her body quite nicely. She didn't make me feel ill like Angela did, but she did make me feel warm, electric and really mature. We could discuss the California Gold Rush, parallelograms and explorers like Hernando Cortez and Americo Vespucio.

I wondered if she liked me when she sent me a note: "Do you love me? Sincerely, Joanna." Wow, I thought, do I love her? How do I reply? Did I only love her in the wing of God? I stayed up late that night and listened to Herb Alpert records while flipping through the Michelangelo book. I liked her, but love was a powerful word. Maybe I should be coy, removed, suave. My reply described my emotions perfectly. I simply wrote:

"Joanna: I like you 50/50."

I gave her the note the next morning. She read it immediately and burst into tears. She yelled at me: "50/50? 50/50? What the heck does that mean?" She ran away into a gaggle of her supportive friends. They comforted her then glared at me. My head felt hot and steamy. I thought I was being perfectly clear. What part of my note did she not understand? Then for years her family called me "Mr. 50/50." That was not charitable, I thought...

I hiked higher and approached the shores of Precipice Lake. I knew this lake well from Ansel Adam's photo pictorial, Yosemite and the Range of Light. The lake was hewn in rock and bordered by a precipitous cliff on one side and a meadow on the other:

As I walked through the meadow, I noted the subtle mood changes in the cliff as light and shadows danced over the crevasses of its granite face. Ahh, the mood changes. I recollected them in rapid succession as I pushed toward Kaweah Gap. There was Mable Jackson, the girl I first kissed. I went to T.G. &Y. (the local 5 and dime) to buy her a Christmas present. I purchased a two dollar purple ceramic bird. Mable dropped it after she unwrapped it, and it shattered. When I picked up the pieces I cut my finger. She said, "I knew that would happen! You shouldn't have picked up the pieces." I tried to glue the bird together with Elmer's School Glue. When it dried it appeared to be some sort of stegosaurus.

Then came Joan Betty Court. At the Christmas dance in 7th grade she asked me to dance. I said yes. However, when someone held mistletoe over our heads, Joan Betty tried to shove her tongue down my throat. She then proposed to me (she seemed perfectly serious!) and told me she had always loved me. "Hold me in your big, strong arms," she pleaded. I responded by running from the auditorium and hiding in the instrument cabinet in the band room. As I crouched in the darkness I flexed my arms and felt my biceps. They felt really small.

Clarice Filson entered my life a year later. She was younger, a 7th grader. I avoided her my entire 8th grade year, because whenever I saw her a feeling not unlike botulism overwhelmed me. Her auburn air outlined her pallorous, porcelain face, and her nose sloped up like a ski jump. I never spoke to her, yet I knew she owned several pairs of white painter pants and a pink hoodie. She lived on a farm outside Santa Cruz and wrote a poem for the school literary publication entitled Death for my Llama. As the poem recounted, her llama had died when its head got stuck in a fence. I read that poem a million times. I memorized it and recited it as I walked to school each day. It was epic and powerful.

I used to sing that song Sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much as I daydreamed about Clarice. At those moments, I knew that if we did happen to touch, it would be honest. And I would console her about the dead llama. And that's what sustained me, and us...

I reached Kaweah Gap and drank deeply from my water bottle. I caught my breath. I stared down the Kern Canyon and across the Nine Lakes Basin to the Kaweah Ridge: Red Kaweah, Black Kaweah, Mt. Kaweah, Kaweah Queen. Place Names of the High Sierras notes that Kaweah is a Piute Indian word which means I squat here. And as I squatted there, at Kaweah Gap, a strange and brilliant happiness washed over me. I was the sum of my silly parts, yet my wife-to-be accepted me and loved me nonetheless. There would be no more second guessing.

I breathed a sigh of relief, ate a handful of M&M's and let the view fill me and saturate my every sense.

Alpenglow and Adoration

Alpenglow

Unnamed peak in the Great Western Divide

from South Guard Lake

Alpenglow unfolds slowly between 8 and 9 pm during the Summertime in the Sierras, typically occurring as you carry bear canisters away from camp or as you spit your toothpaste behind that shrub. It's not an event like the "green flash" at the moment of sunset in the South Pacific, and it's not something you can observe for an hour like the Aurora Borealis.

Just as you sit quietly and wait for the alpenglow to peak, it already seems to be dissipating, giving in gently and willingly to dusk and its encroaching shadows, yet it never, ever disappoints. Its color pours over the shard-covered mountains, such that they are aglow. It is a color which I can only describe as "purple scarlet," or "scarlet purple" (but not Scarlett Johansson!). It is the color of warmth becoming coolness and that time between yesterday and tomorrow. And the color cannot be found anywhere else in nature, (though I've seen a salmon in its final moments displaying a similar hue on its dorsal side).

The alpenglow devastates my every sense, and I can only stand deliciously empty and unaware of all the confounds me. Yet I am full during those moments, like after Eucharist, and in want or need of nothing, except for a comfortable rock on which to sit.

May the Horse be with You

Henry

eyes aglow

on the shores of Lake Tahoe

Sierra Nevadas

Jawas

from the Planet Tatooine

(Star Wars)

The above photo of Henry was taken around 9 p.m. in late June on the shores of Lake Tahoe. Henry is balancing on the floating rubber raft, rocking to and fro, still warm from the day's leftover heat but wary of the coolness which accompanies the emerging twilight. So he simply stands in marvelous limbo, not wanting to come inside and not wanting to leap into the water.

Henry's glowing eyes remind me of the Jawas from Star Wars Episode Roman Numeral 4, the episode where Aunt Beru serves Luke Skywalker the blue milk:

The first time I saw this movie I thought Obi Wan Kenobi kept referring to his "life savers." I wondered why the marvelous glowing laser sabers were named after a candy.

This misunderstanding was merely part of a disturbing trend. When I read Little House on the Prairie I thought Ma and Pa's names were actually pronounced "May" and "Pay." I wondered who May and Pay were, and why were they building a house out on the prairie with 3 girls? And Hermione from Harry Potter? Why would anyone name a child "Her-me-own"? And in high school I read the book depicting South Africa's woes entitled Cry, the Beloved Country. I remember raising my hand in class and asking, "I know this book is about South Africa, but where is this country Cry, and what does it have to do with the story? Why is it beloved?"

My brother, J.J., shared this predisposition, as he thought the Flintstones were the "The Montessori Family" as the introductory song went, rather than the "Modern Stone Aged Family."

Maybe I was just dense, or not paying attention. Like Luke Skywalker growing up on the farm on Tatooine, I had a lot on my mind.

You go, Segway!

I'm really excited. Lydia continues to plan our trip to Italy, and she has signed us up for a Segway tour of the Sistine Chapel!

Pressing and Burning

"Everyone loves backpacking!"

(Giving into altitude sickness, Avalanche Meadows, Kings Canyon National Park)

In my high school yearbook, in the sports section, there is a photograph of several cross-country runners finishing a race. It is the boy's varsity division. The runners are all grimacing and showing their bottom teeth, and their arms are all flying herky-jerky like rickety windmills. Their running shirts are covered with sweat and spit and mud. The caption under the photo simply states, "Everyone loves to run."

I recall the words of my high school cross-country coach. Before each race he would tell us, "I want you to press and burn." I remember the first time he said those words. I was standing at the starting line of my first race as a freshman. "Huh?" I remember thinking, "What the hell does press and burn mean?" The starting gun went off, and I stood motionlessly pondering his words. "Run, you idiot, run!" my coach yelled, and I snapped out of my reverie. I ran and soon found myself covered with sweat and spit and mud. I pressed, and I burned. I burned a lot. It was fun, sort of. I understood the words of my wise coach.

I embraced those words before each race. And now I embrace them when I backpack. For it seems that only by pressing and burning can you make the pass, or summit, or step into the freezing lake. And the view is the reward.

My Dad's Favorite Ice Cream

This book is my favorite. David Muench, the photographer, has captured the essence of the Sierras in his photos. As a youngster I spent many hours smoothing down the book's glossy pages while eating a good bowl of Rocky Road and listening to Beethoven symphonies. The mountains in the photos exhibited personalities, a realness which pervaded my musings well after I shut the book and placed my ice cream bowl in the sink. It was like losing myself in thought after a really good movie, thoughts which encompassed the many moods of Mt. Sill, Mt. Brewer, Angels Wings, Temple Crag, Mt. Langley, Mt. Agassiz and many others. Later, when I encountered the mountains for real, face-to-face, it was like being served a huge bowl of Rocky Road. I could swim in it.

Page 106-107 highlight Dusy Basin at dawn on one page and dusk on the other. Dusy Basin is a 11,400 foot granite bowl with views of the Palisades Crest and down into Le Conte Canyon. My father once camped there, and in the evening, with water boiling on the propane stove, he snuck off with bowel trowel and toilet paper. His Nikon camera with hefty lens hung round his neck. Seeking perfect privacy, he wound through the maze of boulders perched on granite slabs and the springy marshmallow grass which bordered the countless ponds filled with still but crystalline water. He walked a good quarter mile. He photographed Isosceles Peak, then set the Nikon on a rocky perch. He dug a hole six inches deep and 100 feet from the nearest water...

Afterwards he returned to camp whistling a happy tune. The afternoon winds had dissipated. Back in camp the water boiled and dusk emerged with silent and profound fanfare. His campmates, which included my sisters Celery and Maple Sugar, greeted him. "Have some Turkey Tetrazzini," they said. He sat on a rock and readied his spoon. His appetite had returned after acclimating for five days in the mountains.

Then Celery noticed it. "Hey Dad," she asked, "Where is your camera?" It was not hanging around his neck. And so began the frantic, sunset search for the missing Nikon. They retraced my father's steps and fanned out. The boulders were shades of yellow and brown and granite and of innumerable shapes and sizes. They would run their hands over the rough, lichenified surfaces as they walked past each one. Disorientation set in; it was like treading water in the ocean. They simply needed to find the black, out of place object. There was no reference point, however, except for the setting sun, the rim of the summit peaks, and their own distant, echoey voices as they called out to each other.

In the end, as the scarlet hue of the alpen glow splashed on the mountain flanks, my dad found the camera in a location he least expected. It was as if someone had moved it, or moved the rock it had rested upon. He called out to his comrades, and they all gathered at the spot, walked back to camp and ate dessert.

14,000 Feet

Hello everyone! We just returned from Holy Thursday mass. This is the liturgical feast where we commemorate the Last Supper of Jesus. It is also the mass where church goers wash each other's feet as a symbolic gesture of servitude. This is, by far, my favorite mass of the year. Everyone has either their right or their left foot on display for the entire congregation's viewing pleasure, and there is podiatric pathology galore! There are hairy feet and smooth feet, pink feet and marble white feet, fungal toenail feet and missing toenail feet, high-arched feet and flat feet, stinky feet and perfumed feet, warty feet and callused feet, hobbit feet and hammer-toed feet, crooked feet and straight feet. And everyone has lint stuck between their toes.

The foot-washing ritual exemplifies a beautiful tenet of the faith, namely, you may need Odor Eaters, but you are loved by others and by God nonetheless. This love is unearned. And in that I take great comfort.

So, speaking of the Last Supper, Lydia and I were up till one a.m. last night trying to make reservations to see da Vinci's iconic The Last Supper in Milan this Summer. Between our landline and our two cell phones we called the 15 digit number hundreds of times. We utilized the redial functions. Finally we got through, and a woman's recorded voice gave instructions in Italian. Her voice was breathy and lilting like the 1-800-Dentist Lady's voice. It gave me goose bumps, Italian goose bumps. I just sat there with the phone pressed against my ear, smiling and doodling with a pen. I had no idea what the woman was saying, but I recognized some words, like Cenacolo (the name of the museum), and Italia (Italy) and "wooh-wooh-wooh" for the "w.w.w." of the museum website. We failed to get the tickets, but we'll try again tonight. I've been practicing Italian all day.

I'm really looking forward to viewing the painting (see below). Remarkably, if you trace a line over the heads and shoulders of Jesus and His disciples, it matches perfectly with the Sierra's 14,000 foot Palisade crest:

As you can see, the the "triangle" between the right shoulder of Jesus and the disciple to His right corresponds to the notch in the middle of the crest (between the summits of North Palisade and Thunderbolt Peak). Farther to Jesus' right you can see the space between Bartholomew and Thomas. This corresponds to the famous "V" notch seen in the left-hand portion of the crest. And the tablecloth (the biggest tablecloth in Jewish history) corresponds to the the great Palisade Glacier (the largest glacier in the Continental U.S.).

And the toes and feet of the Apostles you can see under the table? Well, they're just fun to look at.