O Sole Mio, etc.

Cammino. Penso. Respiro. Canto al sole ed alle stelle. Le roccie e l'acqua sono i miei amici. La trota dice ciao mentre passo vicino. Ed amo la pizza. Ha molte calorie e sale. Uso “Boboli" con il formaggio della stringa e le merguez e la salsa di pomodori. È squisito. Lo soddisfa. Trovo la comodità in pizza. È come l'abbraccio della mia moglie, la comodità del mio sacchetto di sonno, la prossimità dei miei capretti o un buon libro o un carciofo perfetto.

40 Days

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

John Muir

Life According to Chopin

Somewhere, in the depths of my childhood, I recall sitting in the kitchen while eating toast and drinking powdered milk. Yes, it's true, my mom bought powdered milk! And she made us drink it. It was all part of her rickets prevention strategy. So there I was drinking powdered milk while watching a black and white movie on a tiny television. The movie depicted a piano composer. The characters in the movie called the composer "Frederic." Frederic looked sullen and generally unwell, as if he never drank milk. But man, could he play the piano! His hands could pound the keys with bravado and purpose. His hands could also float over the keys as if they were smoothing sheets. The music flitted between major and minor keys like a sparrow in a tree; it was lyrical and compelling. It made me feel both happy and sad.

My mom entered the kitchen. She looked at the television while sipping her Folgers Instant Coffee. Her demeanor changed abruptly.

"Oh...oh!" she said, "I know this movie! I know this movie! This is the movie about Chopin. Watch, he's going to start coughing up blood onto the piano keys, because he's dying of tuberculosis. I love this movie!"

I swallowed some toast and sipped some milk and looked at my mom. She was transfixed.

Sure enough, the actor playing Frederic Chopin started coughing up blood, and you could see the dark, bloody drops falling onto the white piano keys like splattered paint as he played his mournful arpeggios.

At that moment I decided never to get tuberculosis. I also decided to learn some Chopin pieces on the piano. That week I asked my piano teacher, Doctor Mr. Robert Ruppeman (that's what everyone called him!) if I could learn Chopin's Polonaise in A flat, Opus 53, The Heroique. The Doctor Mr. looked at me for a full minute without saying a word. Then he removed his wire rim glasses and started cleaning them with his handkerchief. He chuckled. Then he started laughing. It escalated. In a moment tears were pouring down his face as the laughter continued with all the unbridaled whimsy of a Chopin Mazurka. I had never seen the Doctor Mr. even crack a smile. Finally he composed himself.

"The Heroique!?" he stammered with sudden gravity. "The Heroique!? That old war horse! Why, not even Vladimir Horowitz himself could master that piece until he was 20 years old. Your hands are too small. You don't practice enough. It's too much! It will destroy you!" He went back to cleaning his glasses.

"I'm not afraid! I want to learn the piece!" I pleaded.

Doctor Mr.'s eyes went wide and dark as he grabbed my shoulders. His voice went all Yoda and spooky: "You will be afraid," he said. "You...will...be!"

As my adolescence progressed, I dabbled in simpler Chopin tunes like Etudes and Nocturnes. I lost myself in the compositions and their moodiness. They inspired me to approach girls. Girls, especially the artsy ones, loved Chopin. Once, during algebra, I told a girl that playing Chopin was like floating alone in a boat on a lake. She told me I was dark and mysterious, like a cave, and she wanted to go spelunking in my soul. I said, "That's nice," excused myself, then ran all the way home.

Some years later I went cross-country skiing near Bear Valley. As I skied through the forest I listened to Chopin ballads on my Walkman. The music serenaded me as clumps of dense snow fell from the branches onto the trail. I turned the music louder and pushed myself harder. It was just me sweating and breathing along with Chopin out there in the Sierras. That was until the snowmobile driver pulled along side me and interrupted my enchanted reverie. I took off the earphones and looked at the brawny, bearded, heavily-bellied man wearing the wool hat with ear flaps. Steam rose from his nostrils.

"Are you deaf? Move to the side you idiot!" he bellowed.

At age 22, the height of my adolescence, I travelled alone to Europe. In Paris, I made a special trip to Pere Lachaise Cemetary, the burial place of Chopin (and incidentally, the burial place of Jim Morrison of the Doors). Apparently Chopin's heart was removed, with his consent, of course, and carted off to the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw where it is now kept reverently in what looks like a big mayonnaise jar (after the mayonnaise had been removed). Anyway, I sat before the monument at the grave, and I simply said, "Thanks, Fred. You're the best."

The years passed. I outgrew Chopin. Bach, Beethoven and Mozart now seemed more optimistic, more relevant and less ghastly than Chopin. Recently, our family travelled to Italy. We toured La Scala (the famed opera house) in Milan. One of the display cases showed a cast of Chopin's hand:

You can see that it is his left hand. It's not his real hand. His real left hand is in a pickle jar at a church in Bolivia. Ha ha! Just kidding. Anyway, the tour guide explained how this cast of Chopin's hand was taken immediately after his death. Everyone gazed curiously into the display case. I stood nearby and held up my own hand. It looked remarkably similar to Chopin's hand.

The tour guide said, "Note Chopin's hand. It is so dramatic, so capable of expressing Chopin's profound emotion." I held up my own hand and felt proud. I knew I could have played The Heroique! I even raised my hand so other's in the tour group would notice it.

The tour guide continued, "Note, also, how feminine and lady-like Chopin's hand was."

I recoiled and thrust my hand into my back pocket, slowly moved away and hid behind an exhibit showcasing opera glasses from the 1800s. I felt naked. And it wasn't the good kind of naked.

Like I said, though, I could have played The Heroique.

But then again, maybe not.

And Every Breath We Drew Was Hallelujah

Above Trail Camp

After Climbing Mt. Whitney

Trail Camp, set at 12,000 feet, is a tent city. It is the final resting point for hikers climbing Mt. Whitney, as well as the recovery point for those who have summited. The camp, a rocky amphitheatre, is high, relentlessly stark and devoid of all warmth and greenery. The sunlight seems filtered and ineffective, like broth. The tents are set up like houses on a Monopoly board while hordes of famished, filthy backpackers glower at their neighbors and fiddle with temperamental stoves. Wisps of toilet paper protrude from underneath rocks and flutter in the incessant wind.

Turkey Tetrazzini Pete, my trusty hiking buddy, described it well as we stumbled into Trail Camp one August evening after climbing Mt. Whitney: "This place is absolute turdsville." We had no other options, however, and we reluctantly claimed a tent site.

Turkey Tetrazzini Pete lit the stove and started dinner. Using his dirty hands, he rolled our falafel mix into little falafel balls. He dropped them into a frying pan filled with hot oil. The oil spurted and hissed like it does back home when you make farm bacon on a Sunday morning. The falafel balls immediately disintegrated and turned a pasty, grey color. Turkey Tetrazzini Pete and I said nothing. We simply stared into the frying pan as our dinner congealed. Then, in quick desperation, Turkey Tetrazzini Pete tried spooning the falafel back into shape as he stammered, "No! No! No! Oh, God, no!" as if he were describing the Hindenburg disaster. It was a total loss (just like the Hindenburg disaster).

"I have no appetite," I finally told Turkey Tetrazzini Pete. "Who's stupid idea was it to bring falafel on a backpacking trip anyway?"

He smiled sheephishly (because it was his stupid idea to bring falafel on a backpacking trip) and reached into a bear canister and pulled out the last of our food, some pita bread. The pita bread was stale and crunched like tortilla chips when you bit into it. It smelled like chicken fertilizer and tasted sharp, like bleu cheese. I tossed it aside. It appeared to be moldy. Some toilet paper blew into camp and wrapped itself around my leg. I refused to touch it and simply gazed up at Mt. Whitney and let the wind gust in and out of my ears.

Turkey Tetrazzini Pete and I looked at each other. There was a single, silent, still moment which may have been about a second. Perhaps 30 seconds. The wind stopped. The hot oil's complaining hesitated. Emotions snapped like our hiking boot coming down hard on the fallen branch of an Aspen.

The laughter came slowly at first. And in a Sierran second it was beyond our control, or anyone's control, like the start of a really long pee, or the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, or your kids getting older. Great guttural, diaphragmatic laughter full of gasps and whoops and spells of breath-holding followed as tears poured down our cheeks and our legs went weak. In the end we were flat on our backs staring at the sky, too exhausted and wonderfully deflated to accomplish any task except breathing.

Other backpackers came to investigate. One woman asked if we needed assistance. She looked like Jane Goodall. "Are you ok?" she asked. We ignored her. Pete reached into a bear canister and pulled out the very last of our food, some Jiffy Pop popcorn. He held it aloft, shaking it like a maraca while dancing around like a gorilla.

We took turns holding the Jiffy Pop over the stove as the domed, foil center slowly unwound and formed a twisty, silver sphere. It looked like a planet. It was beautiful. I took my pocket knife and cut open the foil, thereby venting the steam. It smelled buttery and like a Saturday afternoon matinee. Most of the popcorn fell onto the ground. We ate it all. Somehow the popcorn on the ground tasted best. It was delicious, the most delicious dinner ever.

We spent the evening eating the uncooked kernels and picking the remnants out of our teeth. We talked about mountains and stars and goofy people from college, like that guy who always dropped his tray in the dining commons.

"Didn't we name him The Dropper?" I asked Turkey Tetrazzini Pete.

"Yes," he answered, "We called him The Dropper."

Prego

The Streets of Venice

To my dedicated reader:

Thank you for your patience during my brief hiatus. I know that for you, gentle reader, my blog's absence is like pulling on the last bit of dental floss and getting a useless strand the length of your pinky. "Hey!" you say with mild exasperation. But then you realize it's no big deal, and you move on. Or, you try and floss.

My family and I have returned from Italia, the land of my people. In future blogs I promise to chronicle several trip highlights, including the strip of duct tape we spotted on our 747's wing as we flew out of San Francisco* as well as the cooking classes we didn't take in Tuscany.

It was a long, much-required vacation. I know it was a long vacation, because I had to cut my fingernails while traveling (twice, actually!). I also learned some Italian. My forte, though, is not learning foreign languages. I have an issue with verb conjugations and verbs in general, as well as adjectives, adverbs, nouns, pronouns, subjunctive clauses, and oh yes, verbs. I did, however, learn the word prego, which means you're welcome. Prego is also what the Italian bartenders, storekeepers and waiters say when you wander into their establishment looking helpless, confused and American. In that setting Prego means How can I help? or I'm at your service or your fingernails are trim!

Ciao,

The Sierra Musings Management Team

*see also the 03/01/2010 post "The Miracle of Duct Tape"

Marie Lake

Mt. Hilgard and Mt. Gabb

from Marie Lake

08/06/08

Photo by Turkey Tetrazzini Pete

Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come. Michelangelo

I see the granite rock on which I sat in this photo's foreground. Rough hewn, it made indelible imprints on my palms. While sitting there I ate my typical lunch fare: two tortillas, two mozzarella string cheeses, one inch of Gallo salami, a handful of M&M's and a few bites of a Power Bar. Half a liter of water, pumped and filtered that morning, followed. Much of it ran down my chin as I coughed and sputtered.

I then reclined, somehow relishing the granite's sharp points jutting into my vertebrae (not unlike when my son, Henry, massages my back with kitchen utensils), pulled my hat over my face and closed my eyes. The cheese had kicked in, and it was now impossible to resist. I was cheese sleepy. So I surrendered. And I slumbered.

I awoke foggy, not knowing where I was, but also not knowing who or what I was. Cheese will do that to you, especially the mozzarella varieties. "You snore!" a voice behind me said. I rolled over and noted a guy sitting nearby. He was skinny and dusty and had a sparse beard which highlighted his exhausted demeanor. My God, I thought, it's John the Baptist. He was screwing around with his camera lens and shooting me an irritated glance. "Get yourself, together, Jerome," he continued, "we've got to make Selden Pass. Quick. Before the rain starts."

"Huh?" I replied. Then it all hit me. Oh yes, it's Turkey Tetrazzini Pete, ruining another good afternoon nap in the High Sierras. I looked up at the sky. There were gentle cumuli coursing the skies like elderly gentlemen out for their paseo. There was plenty of brilliant blue peeking between the clouds. "Pete," I explained, "there is absolutely no threat of rain. For heaven's sake, it's like we've stepped into a Beatrix Potter painting. The clouds are fluffy, I tell you! Fluffy and harmless!"

An animated conversation followed, the details of which I've intentionally forgotten. I do remember, though, that Turkey Tetrazzini Pete reached Selden Pass before I did.

I Confess, What a Mess

Below Donahue Pass

Yosemite National Park

Unencumbered. That's how I felt standing on the spongy shore of this tarn below Donahue Pass. Nothing could harm me. Nothing could stir up anxiety. Mosquito bites ceased itching. Thirst dissipated. Sweat evaporated. Sound, the buzzing of insects and gusts of wind, vanished into the crystalline silence of my empty thoughts. I felt the light on my skin.

I stare at this picture years later, and for whatever reason, I recall my first confession at age 10. "Confession," my mother tells me, "is a way to clear your conscience. You simply tell the priest what you've done wrong, and he forgives you." That's neat, but scary, I think. I ask my mother, "What's a conscience, and why do I need to clear it? And what if I can't think of anything I've done wrong?" She laughs and tells me to go clean my room.

I ride my banana-seat bike to Church. I walk down a side aisle and stand in line with the other children. We are waiting for the priest to hear our confessions. Thank goodness I can hide in the secret box so he can't see me, so he doesn't know me. I can be incognito. It's like wearing a hat, or sunglasses, in a crowd.

I enter the door of the mahogany box, the confessional. It's like a big closet. I know it's ok to enter, because a little red light outside the box switches to green just as Charlotte da Silva, my classmate, exits the box. She looks pale and beautiful, like snow. "How'd it go?" I ask her reverently. She is clutching rosary beads wound around her wrist. She doesn't answer me. She doesn't look at me. She simply turns and walks down the aisle and exits the Church. Blinding sunlight swallows her silhouette as she opens the door.

I gulp and push open the confessional door. I step inside, and the door closes itself behind me. I find myself steeped in darkness. It smells musty and wooden, like a train tunnel. I feel giddy and unwell, like the time I scribble on the couch and my mother says, "Wait till your father gets home in 3 hours!" Suddenly light enters my cave. A wooden slat, no bigger than a piece of toast, snaps open in the confessional divider. A voice from the other side gently says, "Please kneel my child." I kneel (I have few other options). I can peer through the little opening, and I see a bearded priest, our pastor, sitting with his hand on his forehead staring perpendicularly to my gaze. I wonder if he has a headache.

"When was your last confession?" he asks.

"This is my first," I answer.

"Proceed, my child," he instructs. "Make a good confession."

So far, so good. My mom had told me to expect these types of preliminaries. I proceed:

"Well, about a month ago, I went to my friend's house. Michael Ripley. His parents were not home. We were running around his kitchen in our socks yelling and screaming. We were sliding into cabinets and the dog was all excited and barking. I saw a tray on the counter. It looked like cake, like a big chocolate chip cookie cake. I took a big piece of the cake and put it in my mouth when Michael wasn't looking. It tasted awful, though! It tasted like olives or mushrooms. I wasn't expecting that! So when Michael wasn't looking again, I spat it out back into the tray. Then I had to rinse my mouth out with water. Later on I asked Michael what was that food in that tray? 'Oh,' he said, 'that's my family's dinner tonight. It's quiche!' I had never even heard of quiche. I don't ever want to eat quiche. Never again! And I'm very sorry for spitting out the food! I will never do it again!"

There is a pause. The pause lengthens. I peer through the little slat. The priest has both hands over his eyes. He is rubbing them. His shoulders seem to be trembling. I can't tell if he is suppressing laughter or quietly sobbing.

"Hello?" I ask. "I said I'm very sorry. I will never do it again."

The priest sighs. He finally asks, "Did you tell your friend that you tasted his dinner then spat it back into the pan?" His voice is a little shaky.

"No," I answer.

"Well," the priest says, "How do you think his family must have felt eating food that you spat out?"

"I guess I never thought of that," I say. Now I feel really bad, and I picture Michael's mom wearing an apron with flowers on it and humming and smiling and taking the quiche out of the oven with her oven mitts on. She is making her family dinner, because she loves them. And I ruined it. I ruined it all. It was like I spat on her plate and Michael's plate and the plate of everyone in Michael's family. And in their dog's supper dish.

Tears burn my eyes and roll down my cheeks. "I'm so sorry," I say. "I'm so very sorry."

"Well," the priest says. "Know that God loves you, a sinner. Know that not only does He forgive you your sins, but He forgets your sins as well. Know that from this moment forward you are a new creation, a new child of God. You are the prodigal son He joyfully welcomes home. Please say five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys as you think about these things. And when you get home I want you to help make dinner. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit... And Jerome, please greet your mother and father for me."

I sit quietly. I can breathe. I can move. I feel weightless and unencumbered.

"You may leave the confessional. Now, please," the priest says.

I get up and note the sweat on my knees. I exit the confessional and see the little light change from red to green. The next child in line asks, "How'd it go?" I don't answer him, though. I walk down the aisle saying the first Our Father. I exit the Church and feel the light on my skin.

By the time I am home I have finished the Hail Marys. My mother is making dinner. I walk into the kitchen and empty the cheese packets into the macaroni.