(photo by ASK)
Michael wanted to climb up a hill of boulders across from our Misery Pond campsite. Goats can do that. Those with good balance and with long legs, like Adam, can do that. My children, now in their twenties and still fearless, can do that.
I knew it was trouble from the start. These rocks, rather odd shaped and some 3- 5 feet across, had crevices up to a foot or more between them. That can be a problem unless one is surefooted and constantly in motion. Not that I’m a terribly bad climber – rough flat surfaces and switchbacks going uphill are fine by me. (I had once even hiked down the mountain opposite Mt. Blanc with a Swiss friend 30 years ago in the dark with tennis shoes and wearing only a tee shirt. In the course of that I learned that one could overcome the obvious fear, adjust to “see†in the dark, take small steps and feel one’s way down. But that seems like a long time ago.)
I got about a third of the way up, while Michael and Adam scampered up the direct face. Then I saw what I thought was a lateral way around the right side and perhaps a path that might be made through the pine trees and scrub adjoining it.
Nature and terrain, I learned from early journeys and trekking around hills on Greek islands, can be deceiving. The side route was no easier and had an even steeper assent, not visible until I got there. Ariana Huffington’s encouragement to fearlessness was appealing, but boulders have no consciousness, I thought.
So I did what every self-respecting 59 year old, still semi-athletic, highly competitive, and type A male in the wilderness trying to keep up with his more agile friends would do – I stopped! Then I leaned against a nearby boulder, surveyed the brightly lit pond, marveled at the myriad of colors of Maine trees across the way, daydreamed about people and places, and waited for Adam and Michael to come down and eventually join me.
It wasn’t so much a defeat as an acknowledgement. Look, at least I was there. Others from our camping group, more experienced and able, had retired from active camping service or had other obligations. The camping trip is important to Michael, who refers to it as his vacation. Adam had asked for these dates six months ago to accommodate his schedule.
Showing up was part of the obligation of friendship, even though I was the least experienced in camping skills and knew that something along the trip would likely test my limits. Not that I could not easily have been elsewhere – I had business or speaking engagements in Salt Lake, London, Reston (VA), and Brussels in that order during that time and I was trying to figure out which trips to jettison.
Michael and Adam soon after climbed down and caught up with me. They looked around and said that the view at the summit was much better. They had finished the bottle of fairly good Spanish red wine brought up to the top as a reward. Sorry there was none left for me. (I had packed it on the trip from Boston.) They chided me for not making it all the way, but seemingly accepted it. All of which was OK with me.
The measure of late middle age, I concluded, is accepting that you can’t do it all, our bodies will deteriorate, and what was once perhaps surmountable now really is a big pile of semi-passable boulders. There are competencies we probably cannot go back and master, and the choices at times are whether to take the next step or stop, take a look around and at least momentarily enjoy as far as you can get.
