Somewhere Near There

In life there are many promises we make to ourselves, and some people seem to have an entire collection of specific personal oaths about not eventually turning into their parents.  My father had two traits in particular which were both an inspiration for such promises and a source of great amusement. The first was his ability to cram an astonishing quantity of items into his shirt pocket. In his day a plastic pocket protector bearing the company logo was part of the daily uniform for tradesmen, which also provided convenient storage for his menagerie of pocket-bound paraphernalia. In addition to the requisite collection of pens – working and otherwise – at any given time there would also be a tire pressure gauge, a small metal ruler, eyeglasses, breath mints, tooth picks, several dimes to make phone calls, and a host of other minute articles. In a compelling display of spatial physics, he could also seemingly bend and move at will without scattering the pocket’s contents.

The second practice was what I came to call his “weekend uniform”. He often wore plain, gray gym sweats to work in the yard, but after he retired this regalia shifted to a light blue warm-up suit he seemed to occupy for days at a time. The sight of him striding purposefully about the yard in this attire – the sartorial spectacle made complete by the addition of tall mud boots and a tool belt – always made me smile and shake my head. His explanation was that he needed something comfortable in which to work, and didn’t want to have to change clothes if he needed to run to the store or head out on some other errand, but the thought of him going out in public in this particular garb only provoked further forehead slaps.

While I do not believe it is either axiomatic or certain that we will become our parents, it occurs to me that there are sets of choices we make as we grow older that can influence this possibility. There are undoubtedly ways in which we consciously choose to mirror or imitate them. I landed on “R.W. Hickey” as the way I penned my signature largely after watching my father abbreviate Patrick Vernard Hickey down to “P.V. Hickey” when he signed checks at his business. That arrangement appealed to me as much more worldly and sophisticated than a simple first-name-last-name scribble. Further, there are the aphoristic lessons we took to heart while growing up and now practice as adults. On national holidays when I pull our American flag from the hall closet, I still hear and follow my father’s gentle but firm admonishment to “never let the flag touch the ground”, and I cannot put a saw to wood without thinking of his oft-repeated advice to “measure twice, cut once”.

Often we find commonality in that we have independently trod the same experiential ground. While learning and practicing ropecraft in the mountaineering days of my thirties and early forties, I had an inexplicable affinity for a knot called the Trucker’s Hitch, which uses loops and turns in the rope to form a crude block and tackle that can be used to tension and lock down a line. On a hiking trip up the western coast of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, I was using the knot to raise and secure our food supply from potential animal intruders, when it struck me that the Trucker’s Hitch was the very same knot my father used to call the “dump knot.” I don’t know if it came from his stint in the Navy during the Korean War, but my father seemed to know a thousand knots, and always had just the right one for a given application. This was the knot he used to tighten the ropes holding down loads in the bed of his pickup that were headed to the county landfill (“the dump”). From that realization on, there was generational magic in seeing my hands recreate the shapes I had watched his hands form countless times.

The most powerful and humbling ways in which our behaviors echo our progenitors seem to be those that are unintentional and catch us wholly unaware – as if some subliminal transition had occurred that rendered us incapable of any original thought or action. I am told that the process of having children exacerbates this condition, leaving you mindlessly repeating word for word all the pithy platitudes you protested as a child and swore would never leave your own lips. As an uncle but not a father myself, I have only a limited understanding of this verbal regression, but have been visited by other varieties of these unconscious reflections. Recently I took a few days off of work, and was heading out to do some sanding and varnishing on our sailboat when I happened to catch a glance at what I was wearing. In a somewhat awkward epiphany, I realized that I was wearing the same ratty jeans I had been wearing nonstop for several days. And the same gray work shirt. And the same dirt-smattered baseball hat. And the same long-sleeved flannel shirt.  In my left shirt pocket were my checkbook, a shopping list, my phone, my sunglasses, and two pens. There was nothing left to do but smile, and chalk one up to non-genetic heredity.

Today my father would have been eighty-one. While these revelations do not fill the long, silent spaces in the nearly fifteen years since his passing, they do help to create a small sense of comfort and
connection. To continue to discover new hints of my father revealed in my own persona nurtures a growing measure of grace and forgiveness for whatever eccentricities or foibles he may have possessed. Ultimately, he was just human, and I could do far worse than to become even more like him.

(Originally published via Facebook on April 4, 2011)

I killed my skis last night. Euthanized is perhaps a more technically accurate word, but since I chopped them up and threw them in the trash, it certainly felt more like a killing. They were nice skis: Rossi 4Cs 205s. A sweet ride in their day, but therein lies the rub: in their day. I knew they were old, and I was beginning to accept that my downhiller days might be behind me, so I had been researching places to donate or recycle them. After talking with a half a dozen local ski outfitters, it was apparent that these skis were so old that none of these shops would even work on them. Wha?But I just bought them at that big warehouse ski sale thing. In 1995. Even if I gave them to Goodwill, and somebody paid five bucks for them, the ski repair shops would still send them away. So I got out my trusty Sawzall® and hacked them into pieces that would fit in the trashcan.

Fueled by this bit of destructive dementia, I pulled all my rock and alpine climbing equipment off my gear wall. Like used skis, there’s not a huge donation market for this type of gear, so I sorted it into “save”, “sell”, and “trash” piles. I put the few small items left in the “save” pile away (perhaps most metaphorically significant: my compass), and filled a can with the trash items (helmets, harnesses, slings, runners, rappel gloves, Texas Prusiks, hero loops and other climbing minutiae that is either specifically personal or difficult to assess damage/wear and remaining useful life). I splayed the “sell” stuff out on the floor, took pictures of it, and posted it for sale to the climbing network at my employer. Even at 9:30 PM on a Sunday night, it took all of five minutes for the lot of it to be spoken for.  All my rock gear, ice axes, ropes, my big overnight pack – all of it gone in minutes for pennies on the dollar.

The watershed event that set this abrupt, ostensibly anti-sporting  goods episode in motion actually happened more than a year ago. My favorite  mountaineering jacket (a North Face Mountain Light, in loud, obnoxious yellow) had given up the ghost after more than a decade of thrashing about in the Northwest outdoors. No amount of washing or treating could restore the waterproofing. It was dead. I went to the local North Face store intent on replacing it, but found that it was no longer available in yellow. As I really wanted yellow (forget “blending in” or “visual noise” – brother, if I’m in trouble in the wilderness I want to be SEEN), I started looking at the next model up. I was having trouble deciding, then the salesperson dropped the bombshell question: What type of activities would I be doing?

Shit. Don’t ask me that. At one time, I would have had a multitude of answers: I mountain bike, I ski, I hike, I climb, and I teach mountaineering first aid. I wear this level of gear for go, not for show. I’m part of that “authentic” climber clique that makes fun of people who buy technical climbing jackets to stay dry in the rain between the Range Rover and the preschool. I’m hardcore, bitches. That’s what I wanted to say. But in truth, I was someone who used to do all those things, but hadn’t been on a route, a trail, or even in the gym in nearly seven years. I was about to spend between three and five hundred dollars on essentially a rain shell that I would use to stay dry between my house, my car, and my place of employment. I had become the type of person I used to smugly ridicule, and I left the store without buying anything.

A little over ten years ago, near the peak of my outdoor activity level, I damaged my back while working on a home remodel project. Backs and knees are slow to recover from injury, but after a long process of physical therapy, steroid injections and rest, my back seemed strong enough to return to my favorite wilderness pursuits. I started Pilates, then road cycling, then hiking, and then moved back into alpine climbing. In the spring of 2004, I re-aggravated the injury during self-arrest practice on a climbing trip. For those not familiar, self-arrest is the process of using your body, an ice axe, and crampons to stop yourself from tumbling down a snow or ice-covered slope in the event you (or fellow climbers to whom you may be roped) fall. Because you can’t predict which way you will fall, you practice arresting from all configurations – face up, face down, head upslope, head downslope, alone, and in roped groups. The face up and head downslope position requires an aggressive pivot/flip maneuver to right yourself, and puts a lot of stress on the lower back. On about my third repetition in this position, I felt something tweak, and called it good for the day. I knew I had injured myself on this trip, but didn’t realize the extent. Long story short, I had ruptured the disc between my L5 and S1 vertebrae. That was the effective end of my climbing career – actually pretty much the end of my physical recreation – but I held on to all my gear on the assumption that my back would come around again.

Fast-forward seven years to another remodeling project. Though additional injections, regular doses of anti-inflammatories and monthly visits to a manual physiotherapist have kept the chronic pain down to a dull roar, my back has never really recovered to the point where I could resume my former level or types of outdoor exercise. Remodeling has a way of bringing out discussions between my wife and I about change, and about how we use the things that occupy space in our home. Spring always makes me restless for the outdoors, and facing another season of watching my gear gather dust compounded the restlessness. I’m still not exactly sure what brought things to a head this past weekend, or what pushed me over the edge into action. Mostly it was just a small voice inside that said, “it’s time”.

I will miss my gear. It saw me safely up and down trails, crags and mountains all over the Northwest for many years. While part of me is happy that all this equipment is now in the hands of people who will use it rather than just let it hang on a wall, it’s incredibly sad to have to acknowledge that this chapter of my life appears to be over. Part of me feels angry and cheated. I did not willingly or consciously trade my stoppers, cams and snow anchors for a CPAP machine, diabetes medication and hearing aids. Part of me knows that rock climbing in particular is predominately a sport of the young, and that this day would have come anyway, though another part of me would have preferred to walk away on different terms.

So what is the lesson? There seem to be several: Your body is both strong and fragile in many ways, and it will let you know when it’s time to switch to other activities. Pay attention to what it’s saying. Don’t judge it too harshly if it can no longer do all the things you want it to do. Mourn the loss and move on. Maintain perspective. While this chronic pain is difficult, it’s nothing compared to what some other people battle every day. Try to focus on and be grateful for what you can do, as opposed to what you can’t. At some point, it also seems wiser and healthier to live your life as it is, not necessarily the way it used to be or in unrequited longing for it to be different. To quote the sagacious Wayne Campbell: “Live in the now!” I freely admit that I fail regularly at all of these. Acceptance, as I’m learning, is apparently a full-time gig.

For the first three-quarters of my life I was an athlete. Now I am trying to adjust to being something else, and having it not feel like something less, and this gear purge seems like a necessary step. In the interim, I did buy a new Mountain Light jacket. In all black. Denial? Grief? Sure – all the above. So when you see someone wearing North Face gear who may not look like your idea of a dedicated outdoor enthusiast, don’t sweat it. They may be a broken, middle-aged former climber, or they may just like the brand or the look. Worry about your choices, not theirs. Save your energy for something different – put it into working on that smooth carve turn, or sticking that dyno, or enjoying the luxurious vitality that comes from simply being outside.

(Orignally published via Facebook on September 9, 2010)

“For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver” – Martin Luther

I have always lived among trees. From the oak, walnut and almond orchards of my hometown, to years of camping in forests of sequoias and redwoods, to the firs and cedars of my current home in the Pacific Northwest, trees have always been part of my personal provincial landscape. I feel oddly uncomfortable in barren terrain, and climbing above treeline on mountaineering adventures is always a mystical process of leaving the known and familiar. Given this historical grounding, it seemed reasonable that I felt a bit of trepidation when we decided to remove two ailing fruit trees from our yard this summer.

In discussing the proposition with friends and neighbors, I found that while they generally agreed with my reasons for wanting to do such a thing, they were nearly all hesitant to actually endorse the action, as if they might later be found complicit in some misdeed. What drives this uneasiness when it comes to removing trees? While there is arguable nobility and moral clarity in the sacrifice of a diseased tree to save companions or the larger forest, any lesser objective seems to speak to more superficial motives. In one sense, the felling of a tree can be considered a simple act of industry: the conversion of raw materials into either fuel or the constituent elements of another structure. Rearranging the arboreal topography to improve a view or to create a more pleasing visual prospect nudges our aim more in the direction of selfishness. Removal to arrest spreading or surfacing roots that threaten driveways or encroach on buried pipelines applies at least the façade of justified utility over self-interest, as does taking out a storm-weakened tree located too close to the house for comfort. Yet somehow even the most justified and defensible actions relative to trees can still leave us with tinges of guilt and even grief.

I think the wariness comes from two main sources. I believe that to some degree we each harbor the notion that we cannot act against nature with impunity, and thus we inherently fear karmic consequences. Eastern thought applies as much import to the intent as to the action, and I think this compels some of us to move more slowly and deliberately when it comes to permanently altering the landscape. Removing a tree is not a choice that can be undone.

I also believe that we see trees as essential symbols; ancient emblems of endurance and permanence. Throughout history we have accorded them the power to house spirits and grant wishes, and have made them the center of myths and even religions. We wrap ourselves in their metaphor, and speak of “branching out” and of “putting down roots.” As a result, we have become appropriately uncertain about imposing our will on them. They are living things of natural beauty, that over time have staked a literal and binding claim to the space they occupy. Whether planted with a gardener’s conscious intent, or a grown from a serendipitous wind-blown seed, they chronicle the years with undulating rings and soundlessly churn away in their timeless photosynthetic rhythm. They are watchers and guardians; silent observers of the parade of time. They offer us myriad gifts, from scalable geometries that allow fleeting escapes from gravity, to aesthetic beauty, functional shade, and even nourishment in the form of fruit and oxygen. Even in deconstructed death they have the ability to warm our homes and cook our food. They embrace the seasons and bend to the light without complaint, and yet their reward is often to succumb to infestation or a landscaper’s whim. On some level, we potentially equate their destruction with irreverent waste and desecration, as in the tearing down of a venerable old building of historical significance.

The two trees — a fruitless plum and a multi-varietal pear — are gone now, brought down with a violent and jarring swiftness. The maple, dogwood and holly in the back yard can certainly breathe easier and gather more sun in the absence of the pear, and the evening light coming in the front windows is now softly abundant and unfiltered by the plum. But in the spaces where these two natural edifices spent nearly half a century, there remains a silence born of sadness and a newly-wrought incompleteness; an almost palpable sense of what was. By any measure or reckoning, their removal is ultimately a loss.

(originally published via Facebook on August 30, 2010)

This weekend I was acutely aware of the passage of time. Friday marked the twentieth anniversary of Stevie Ray Vaughn’s death, and as I stared at my idle and dusty guitars it occurred to me that I have now accumulated an impressive and ever-expanding collection of memories that are more than twenty years old. The thought endured Saturday morning as I moved and stacked firewood for the coming winter, and I could tell the weather now has the slightest chill to it, and the local trees are starting to show hints of fall color. I have very distinct childhood memories of going to the Sierra Nevada foothills every fall and clearing brush for firewood, watching my father and uncle wield chainsaws like paintbrushes, nimbly limbing and sectioning the fallen timber into fireplace-sized logs, and scribing a large “X” on the end of each log to help in splitting after the wood had seasoned. My father passed away more than twelve years ago, and I can’t as much as look at a firelog or a woodpile without thinking of him.

Saturday night we stopped by the J&M Café and Cardroom for dinner on our way to the Sounders soccer game. The J&M was the first bar I ever visited in Seattle, another event now separated from the present by more than twenty years. For many years the J&M was a regular stop on our Pioneer Square social circuit, but I don’t think I’ve been there in nearly ten years. Very different now. Walking back through Pioneer Square after the game, we were dismayed at the number of stores and clubs that were closed or had turned over, and were further saddened that in some cases we couldn’t recall exactly what had been there before.

Sunday night we had a woman that Jess knew professionally and her husband over for drinks and appetizers on the boat. The sun is setting earlier and earlier now, and we had to don sweaters and fleeces before long. From among the glasses of wine and stories of travel and sailing it emerged that not only did she know the place where I spent most of my teenage years, she had actually attended our cross-county rival school and graduated the same year, and that at some point in time nearly thirty years ago, she and I stood on opposite of sides of the same high school football field in a small town in Northern California, a world away from our lives now.

I certainly believe that you can go home again, that the past is a worn and comfortable mantle made all the more endearing by its threadbare complexion, but there is danger in looking back too often or lingering too long. I suppose the trick is to give the past its rightful due, but also to accept the here and now, conscious that the current moment holds the next twenty years of memories.