[Thirteen years later, tape decks are obsolete, and I don't feel so young] [as I used to] [although they tell me I still look quite the same]
The weather became unseasonably warm after Christmas passed, but still the land lay quiet under two feet of snow. As I steered the car out of one small New England town and into another, a powdery mist hovered above the snow and held there in the last of the light. The road cut through swaths of pale fields, past glowing white house fronts and their adjacent darkened barns. Occasionally the headlights would fall onto a more significant structure, like the tall windows of church, but it being neither Sunday nor Christmas, the building stood vacant and the wreathed door was shut. The panes of stained glass reflected back as dark and thick as river ice.
In the passenger seat, at my right elbow, sat Nate, five years older than myself. He is, and others would agree, a person of tremendous importance.
If any two people alive could have fully appreciated the deep, superlative power of the surrounding landscape, it was the two of us. We were both raised here in Pomfret, a town in South-Central Vermont whose meager population of 970 is widespread over 35 square miles. I could have given the names of one hundred different people who would have provided excellent companionship on the road out to Grace and Evan's house, who would have gazed out the window and remarked on the exquisite, tranquil beauty of the country gliding by. But the true nature of a Vermont winter is as paradoxical as it is paradisaical. Like wind against earth or dropping water on stone, it slowly shapes the person that you grow to become. Cold, dry memories form inside you like hoar ice, and they never leave.
To be intimately familiar with the frozen world, you must understand its two sides. Imagine examining a stretch of ice on a lake from above, where you can breathe, and from beneath the water, where you can't. Winter is idyllic and joyful, but also tedious and punishing. The polish of new snow and days spent hurdling downhill on ski and sled under a bright sun were matched by week upon week of grueling dark, steel grey skies spitting mouthfuls of snow in hard little points. For months, we trudged pale under the humming light of our high school hallways; numbers and languages, equations and Shakespeare were all made more difficult to comprehend under the crush of heavy clouds and the sting of subzero temperatures. We drove back and forth on dangerous roads in ice-laden cars whose windshield took forever to scrape off.
Seventeen, eighteen winters. And then we got to leave. But I wouldn't say it leaves us, exactly.
Winter is depression pressed upon ecstasy. This dichotomy has been the bone structure for the most prominent (and exhausting) pattern of my life, since as far back as I can remember. I've never been a level person. Never learned to average things out and proceed slowly, evenly.
***
We drove Northwest on the road that splits Pomfret from Bethel, swooped beneath railroad bridges on narrow, one lane underpasses, swung around tight corners. Neither one of us had ever been to Grace and Evan's new house, and I kept my eyes fixed on the car in front of me: Nate's twin brother Shane and his wife Emma. High school sweethearts who somehow- since the time I last saw them- got married and had three babies. A little girl and twin boys whose names were those of famous Green Mountain Boys.
****
I remember being with Nate in the car when I was thirteen years old. It was late March but certainly not spring. We'd been out in Brownsville recording a Speak Chorus- some performance thing we used to do all around New England- and our director let us out after midnight. Because we were neighbors, Nate drove me back to his house where my father was waiting for me. I remember listening to a tape deck, the whirring sound it made when the tape turned over, and resting my head against the cold window, half asleep. Potholes throughout the frost-heaved road kept rattling me awake.
I don't feel like such a little kid anymore. Time has a way of evening things out.
Although our paths had rarely crossed after we both moved out of town (I remember only one instance, in New York) Nate has been a role model to me my whole life. I was just a kid and he was always older and so talented. Excruciatingly talented. His theatrics and writing abilities are indescribable.
Nate ought to be famous by now, and I'm sure very soon he will be.
And being with him now, really for the first time since I left all of childhood behind, I felt keenly aware of my surroundings, present in a way I hardly ever felt. I found it comforting. It was the same content, connected feeling you can get when you walk into the forest and pay attention to the trees. They already know everything. For once, there is little left for you to explain about yourself.
The blizzard of 2010 has finally reached our doorstep. We waited all day for it, hesitant to leave the hill, recalibrating travel plans as airports shut down and roads were closed in the cities, telling the kids that tomorrow the sledding would be epic. The fields and sky were slate-grey, the temperature dropped and the cloud blanked sky kept promising snow...and holding out....and promising....and holding out....Until finally, after the dinner dishes were put away, fat white feathers began to sift down from the night sky. And I have to say, if we're going to be snowed in somewhere, this is a pretty good place to be.
The temperature is inching down the thermometer. It's very, very cozy here and maybe just maybe a little bit claustrophobic. In such close quarters, completely sequestered from the rest of the world, everyone has become very particular about such things as their new Christmas presents. Everything will be humming along fine and then someone will put their feet into a new pair of sheepskin slippers, prompting a howl from across the room: "ARE YOU WEARING MY NEW SLIPPERS? TAKE! THOSE! OFF! NOW!" And then the offender will take a lap around the room and shout back:" NO! LAY OFF! ITS NOT LIKE I'M GOING TO BREAK THEM!" Which is met with "YOU WON'T BREAK THEM YOU'LL JUST MAKE THEM DISGUSTING!" Meanwhile, dinner continues and nobody else pays attention until someone reaches a hand to touch their new thing. But above all, it's nice and cozy. We're like mice up here, tucked away in a little house. And the daily hikes we take around the property do help to chill everyone out.
It's amazing that I'm here during this storm. I'm not stranded in an airport or a train station or the side of a road or the house of a friend whose company I find annoying. Thousands of flights are canceled to and from the North East, JFK airport and Amtrak shut down completely, and Maine and Massachusetts went ahead and declared a state of emergency. And we're here. I'm almost choking on my good luck. Not to rub it in to my friends in transit (sorry, Zach, Fozz, should have stayed on the hill!) but it doesn't feel too much like an emergency here in Vermont. Of course, I could be eating my words very shortly. We shall see. But for now...
Dude, do you see my dog in this photo? Amazing.
I just got up to feed the stove one last time before I go to bed. I'm always the last one up. We were out of wood so I went to the barn to get some more, and when I opened the door I was confronted by a chaos of huge snowflakes. It's 1 degree out, the snappy sort of cold that goes right up your nose. Someone else can wake up early to keep the stove going and I'm going to sleep in till eleven, when my Cousin Margaret is coming down from the upper house to make candy. We made marshmallows today by hand which have to sit over night, and tomorrow we're going to cover them with caramel. MAYBE. IF THE SNOW FLAKES DO NOT KILL US TONIGHT THAT IS.
And because I never get to put pictures of kids on this blog, and seriously some blogs out there are only pictures of kids, they are not very good or interesting. But I'm entitled to a few pictures of a few kids, right? And really, these kids are top-notch.
And speaking of top notch....
I'm quite fond of this series, me dropping some life knowledge on the boys, something that is obviously just intensely hilarious. Although Brooks was apparently asleep.
I love how we all look related in this photo
Alright, going to sleep with high hopes of a snow monstrosity. I do look forward to getting back to Seattle and resuming life and getting back to the climbing gym. I really do. But if we are forced to stay in Vermont for a little longer, that's okay too. I'm halfway through the latest Krakaur book and I'm in no hurry to leave.
It's almost midnight on Christmas Eve, and my big present to myself is that I get to write whatever I want, however cheesy and cliche it sounds, no matter how just plain terrible writing it is, accompanied by as many photos as I want. Christmas on the compound, Raw and Unedited!
I baked some new creatures this Christmas eve, mostly with my 8 year old nephew/cousin, Silas. We made chestnut cream filled cookies and peppermint chocolate whoopie pies. The chestnut cream was a huge hit. The whoopie pies were very pretty. They tasted like toothpaste.
My friend My friend Jen is one of the most energetic and vibrant people on the planet. She taught me chemistry and quantum physics at Adventure Quest ten years ago. Her husband, Rob, was the head of school, and together we traveled to...oh what was it....seven different countries together. Whenever I have kids of my own, I'll be begging them for parenting advice, because their four year old twins are the sweetest, happiest little girls I've ever met. I wish I could have them living in my kitchen permanently, like little elves, running around in tiny, heart-printed fleece pants, drinking hot chocolate and climbing onto my lap to read Christmas books. And they were very instrumental in the creation of butter horns...these rolled out cookies with a chopped date and walnut filling. They're really good. God this writing is terrible. I guess I don't care right now.
Winter light on the upper field. For two days, snow fell and whirled around like little diamonds, hard glitter that accumulated in four squeaking inches on the ground. The air is frosty and pure and scours your lungs when you breath, your exhaustion vanishes instantly. The land revitalizes you.
After crunching around the trails until after sunset, you head for home and find the windows of the upper house lit up in the most cheerful way. But careful- to go inside means accepting a challenge. You will be offered a cup of winter ale, eggnog, white wine, spiced rum, cider and tea- and you must drink all of it. You may end up being horrendously ill afterward. This is the risk you take with what we refer to as Extreme Festive Activities.
Zach visited! Our friend who was once a New England transplant living in Seattle...but who now lives in New York City, so far away from us.
And Fozz came for a visit- our newest Christmas tradition. This is the third year that he's driven up from Boston to partake in the spectacle that is Christmas on the Hill. He spent a few days here and my sister and I fight like fifteen year olds the whole time and kept offering him chocolate, which he's allergic to....but Fozz keeps coming back. And every time he brings a giant bottle of rum, and I drink some of it disguised in eggnog and end up yelling at him a lot. But we do treat him to a lot food, and sledding, and dogs, and a fire, and lots and lots of scrabble so....it might even out.
Yes! In writing this it has officially turned into Christmas. I'll leave you with this, my dog, a most rugged, bad-ass creature, who has swum rapids and scaled peaks. Here she is, taking a Christmas nap. Merry Christmas everyone!
I woke up and I was back up North. It was startling. Finely sifted snow is on the ground and even though there are only a few inches so far, it makes for some seriously rip-shit fast sledding. I've been so, so, so busy and the relationship between my computer and my camera really disintegrated, I'm not sure how or when or who is to blame. I can take a thousand photos, load them all and be able to view them, but they can't be uploaded to the Internet, printed, or edited. Well that's not true- a few arbitrary photos are workable, they are completely random and I do not have a choice which ones will be successful. In a way, since I can't select the 'perfect' photos, it actually produces a more realistic view of the last few days. That, plus the intensely slow Internet here, and, well....you get what you get.
My best friend from high school, Sophia, and her fiance Jenny went over to Castleton Vermont to see our other best friend, Elissa. This diner was a neon-green gem that offered blueberry, cherry, blackberry, butterscotch, chocolate cream, banana cream, razzleberry, peanut butter and apple pie. All of those. Liss and I both went for the grand slam, the Patriarch of all diner pie slices...coconut cream. (I finally found a friend who can keep up with me at a meal, now that she's 9 months pregnant....)
***
Our whole extended family still lives on this land in Vermont, and my generation still gathers here for Christmas, and I still have a dog, and it's grand.
***
So far, there have been a lot of visitors. Friends driving up from New Hampshire and Boston and from just down the road. We've read stacks of christmas books to Jen and Rob's four year old twins, and I met Kerry and Sam's tiny four month old daughter for the first time. We've cooked lots and lots of food and baked ridiculous things like peppermint whoopie pies and gone for long, snowy hikes through the acres and acres of bare forest. But you're not allowed to see any of that, because my computer won't let you. I will show you this instead, a picture of some beer. There has been a lot of Windsor Vermont's Harpoon Brewery beer consumed. And the electronic world deems this is more important that anything else.
And that's about all we have time for now, as we gear up for Christmas day. My family is totally secular. But we go seriously ape shit for Christmas. There's no other way to put it. And to answer the nice emails I've been getting- the blog will be back. The last two weeks of Seattle were nutso, stories to come, and I had to take a totally unanticipated but apparently completely essential vacation.
Wherever you are, I hope you have something as entertaining and seasonal as a Christmas at the New Yorker Anthology, and little cousins to run around and knock over your glass of beer.
The last week in Seattle, it rained. It rained and rained. All sound was drowned out by the urgent swipe-swipe-swipe of the windshield wipers, the sound of perpetual drumming on the roof and the gush of flooded drainage ditches. Basements soured under two feet of standing water. You felt perpetually soggy, if not all-out drenched. Denim doesn't dry, the washer and dryer in the basement are floating.
It's even raining in the mountains. The Pineapple Express- a lovely term for such an irritating weather system, but so freakishly warm, mist hitting your face like a warm veil. Everything starts to feel weak and watered down. Your coffee, your sleep. The rain won't stop. It seems to be representative of more, as if life was a poorly written short story and you're standing in front of a sleepy classroom: what does the weather signify? Write it down, please.
It feels like I'm standing on a book shelf surrounded by my books. And then the shelf tips upwards on one end and I go sliding over to the left, crash into the wall with the books around me, and all of a sudden I'm at the bottom of another week. Another week and I still haven't written anything. I'm in a pile of sweaters on the floor and boots, I must have gone out one of those nights if I wore my boots, there are papers and pens and new books. Every week I acquirer new books. Read them in the bathtub or on the bus, fling them aside halfway through. Decide they disgust me or they delight me, and if they delight me I'll carry them around in my bag for a while like a stuffed dog, reach in and pat them when I'm standing in line at the grocery store or the bank. Just to know they are there.
Another week of writer's block.
Each week the same. I start off so far away, so congested with ideas and aspirations and apprehensions and then someone rattles the bookshelf and we all go skittering across and then it's over. A few weeks pass and then a month passes. And I still haven't written anything. Been a social butterfly, don't doubt it. I cram in as many runs and bouldering sessions and dinners and drinks and work- real work, the work that pays now that I can't write and I'm no longer a writer- up early to clean my room and do laundry and zip around because if I'm not going to be writing, then I might as well be productive about it! Better to hop out of the house all day instead of seeing the computer screen lure at me all white and glowing, with the blue stripe down the middle that means the computer is on it's way out and one of these days it's just going to not start up at all, taking all my photos with it because I didn't get them up and published in time! I go to a dinner party at Jake's house on Sunday- I met the girl who worked for NOLS who had funny things to say about dating sailors. Laugh a lot. Drink red wine and eat Jake's latkes. And the night before that was Anna's show, I was drunk on beer and touching everyone a lot, before that I had dinner with Ammen and Steph and Jesse and Megan, we took a long cold walk around the golf course and Ammen went manic and tackled me down the hill. Jessie made us homemade panna cotta with crushed pistachios and marmalade. There have been frozen waterfalls and snow, cycling through the same CDs in the car as we drive East, coffee in the mornings and beer in the afternoon, when I'm not at work for heaven's sake. I'm Pushing another deadline back, meeting up with Brittany and Heather and Jenny for bouldering and when no one is in the mood for push themselves, we head over to Back Bar to drink appertifs and talk about every single person that we've ever seen who climbs at the gym. Tipping our heads back and laughing because we have big plans! For a girls ski weekend! And a boots and bourbon themed party! And we can take on the whole world!
But the truth is I'm not writing any of it down. And maybe I fear every week that crashes past : one more week behind on every project. Seven days fly by on the blog and nothing- how much readership have I lost, for good. One week older. One week marching towards the inevitable need to find a grown up job, a real job, one that takes over my life and puts actual money in the bank. Maybe I study the calendar at night, late at night when I can't sleep, when the medicine wears off at two, three in the morning and I sit up too quickly, knock a glass of water on myself. I look at the calendar and think- another piece of this month, another portion of this year, and nothing is changing. Nothing is changing.
Which is, of course, not even remotely true.
Maybe my heart's been cracked again and every day forward is a victory, a step away from the puncture wound of a day when things got confusing. And I'm running, running, running to put it behind me. Every breath is a skip forward- breathe in- steady- breathe out- propel. Propel onwards. Sometimes this is the case. Other times not. Maybe I'm so exhilarated by the love in this rainy place, by the flock of friends who in habit this city like colorful birds- maybe I know I'm so lucky to have them, to be one of them, here- now- while they are still here- that I'm in awe of their quirks, flaws, triumphs, humor, generosity and cooking skills that I can't possibly understand how I deserve to have them. Maybe I stand at the top of the shelf each week and shout: SLOW DOWN. MAKE THIS ALL SLOW DOWN A LITTLE! And maybe at the bottom of the shelf each week when I've been slammed against the wall and suddenly I'm a trained doula and suddenly I'm climbing 5.11 again and suddenly I know the name of the boy at the gym who smiles at me and wears sweaters, and I look up to the sky and cup my hands around my mouth and shout: HOW 'BOUT ANOTHER ONE!
(Either way if this writer's block doesn't resolve soon itself I need to find a new profession. )
Hey. It's been ten years since I got lost up in the White Mountains and should have died. But didn't. That night- and what happened only a week later- has effected everything about my life since. Here's an account of what happened. I wrote this two years ago, so please forgive the writing style. It's a bit....different than it is now.
What first occurred was the feeling of hysteria swelling inside the chest, between the lungs, a growing panic escalating as the last glimpse of sunlight vaporized into the cold. Then the feeling was gone, frozen out of us, and all I was left with was an extreme thirst. The plastic thermometer that hung from my jacket split down the middle, the mercury gave a shrug. Later on, someone will bring a newspaper to me at the hospital and I will read that with wind chill, the temperature on the ridge that evening was forty degrees below zero. I'll throw it aside and say carelessly, for the benefit of my parents, well it didn't feel that cold. My dad walks out of the room, the doctor who is bandaging my feet shakes his head.
Yeah, it was a cold bloody night but in all honesty, I don't think that it did feel like negative forty. How can you even feel something so cold- how can you feel anything- when you are, essentially, frozen? Because that is what we were, five little Popsicles sucking down the black smoke from a small fire we kept lit with pine boughs, dwarfed within an immense wilderness of hard ice and black stars. The feeling of cold air burning the throat and snapping at the skin was long gone, replaced by the lethargy of a body slowly shutting down, the organs gasping for blood, the brain alienating itself from the sensation of touch. You don't feel much when this happens, not pain exactly, just a sort of irritation with the whole thing. I remember feeling that it was such a bother, this business about being horrifically lost, such a nuisance. And then Andy put his feet into the flame and they caught on fire and I started laughing. And when the same thing happened to me I was delighted. I'm probably going to freeze my feet off, I said outloud, but right now they're on fire! How ironic is that!
Was this humor well received amongst my counterparts, three teachers (Nick Robbins, Mike Beernstein and Megan Clemans) and one skinny thirteen year old boy ( Andy- a boy I had immense fondness for and always will)? Nope. Did the strange attempts at jokes continue to fall out of my mouth the whole time? Why, yes. Did I understand how desperate the situation was? Not by any stretch of the imagination. But remember that I was fifteen, and I had a lot on my mind. I was one of those kids who would rip up a page of math homework and do it all again if my handwriting was not just perfect (this might give you a glimpse into my social life at the time,) and missing two days of schoolwork was going to set me back, damn it. On the second night, after we found our way out, I sat at the headquarters of the Franconia Search and Rescue, a swollen, blackened mess as somebody cut my clothes off of me, and was entirely sincere when I said to my math teacher, 'Suzy, I didn't get to my homework!' And I remember so well her glare, her furious response: do you think we fucking care?
Rob Stainton teaching me orientation stuff. I was always terrible at it.
So school was on my mind that night, sure, but mostly boyz-who-kayaked and my hair (wow, 8 years don't change much about a person, ey?) Yes, my hair was down to my fifteen year old ass at the time and I was vain as hell about it. By the time we were parked around the fire, it was frozen in a massive dreadlock, impossibly tangled from hours of pushing through tree limbs. There were entire pinecones stuck in it and I had a terrible suspicion I was going to have to chop it off. It was this that troubled me the most- not my hands which would perhaps be made to suffer the indignity of being truncated at the first knuckle, not my ears which were going to fall off, not the slow process of learning to walk again or the pain-in-the-ass prosthetics that would certainly replace my feet. With the exception of the ears (they'd heal on their own) all of this remained a very real possibility for a good while. But all that could be dealt with later, because there were other things to worry about: another object of despair for me was that, back in September, I had met the rodeo boys-just briefly, but long enough- and in one glance I'd fallen in love with the whole lot of them. And they would be coming back from Nepal tomorrow night!!!! And what, I'd still be stuck up here on this mountain?! (The indignity.)
And then during one terrible hour, after the sun went down and the prospects looked dismal, the trail (the wrong trail which eventually petered out into nothing) wound around a tree and up a blindingly steep hill. I turned to Mike and asked permission for Andy and I to crawl up the hill- demoralizing, maybe, but easier than walking. He took a moment and then said it would be okay. We got down on the ground, the three teachers kept walking. And it was there on my hands and knees crawling up the hill and pulling myself along with the roots of trees, that there dawned on me a ghastly realization: the most humiliating and cruel realization that could ever enter the mind of a fifteen year old girl: I just might die tonight and I HAVE NOT BEEN KISSED YET. Oh, hell.
Nick Robbins earlier in the semester
As we sat there in the snow and froze (given up for the night, lost in a valley many mountains away from where we should have been), I spent a considerable amount of time turning this over in my mind. You would think that the moment I was let loose from the hospital I'd have wheeled myself back to the lodge with one mission and one mission alone. It couldn't have been too hard to find a willing set of lips from one of those kids- but I severely underestimated my power as one of the very few girls in that school. I didn't have the balls and it took me a full year before I finally put to rest that primal fear of dying without getting any, down in the basement of the lodge.
As we hunched over the fire, the fluid inside my cells turned into sharp little snowflakes, expanding and bursting through their membranous walls like winter pipes in an old house. The damage was worst in my ears, fingers, face and feet, but all throughout my body the vast and complicated inner workings had slowed to a crawl. My pulse limped along. It was all of us: Megan, to my right, was talking out loud to a pair of birds that wasn't there: oh, look at you! are you sisters?! At one point I dozed off and had a dream, that Jen and Trevor were at my side and telling me to get up, because they had found us and we could go home. It was warmer down in the valley than it had been on the ridge, only about twenty below zero, and the literally blinding snowstorm that had got us lost in the first place had -mercifully- stopped. The sky was clear and black and wearing a dazzling armory of stars.
Mike Beernsten
And what was going on back on the ground? When we didn't materialize at five, six, seven....the teacher who had turned back at the top and was waiting at the parking lot started to get agitated. She makes some phone calls- the Game Warden in Franconia was pulled away from a quiet dinner with his wife, volunteers started to congregate and maps were unrolled: what was there intended route? Are they well-prepared? (The answer to this question is no, we weren't. No sleeping bag, no tent, no headlamps, no nothin'...except a mini box of frosted mini wheats, which I brought along, way to go me and my big thinking.) My poor parents, woken up at 2am by the good man who had the misfortune (for many reasons) to be the head of school at this time- we've notified search and rescue.....They drove an hour and a half in that witching hour down to the White Mountains. I know some of the details- how my mother kept running to the bathroom to throw up, how the Game Warden gingery asked them for a body description- any, you know, birthmarks? scars? How mother kept thinking about a pair of pajamas she had ordered from Delia's (rEmEMbeRTheM?!) as a christmas present...well, I suppose I'll just return them.... But this is the part of the story I don't think about, because it makes me very depressed.
We were lost for two days. There was a search party of about one hundred people spread out on the mountain, as well as anyone who just happened to be hiking on Franconia ridge during that time. There were one helicopter with heat-identifying tracking devices and two more on the way, a terrifically expensive addition to the effort from the Coast Guard that cost my poor school, already staggering under the weight of its own secrets, thousands upon thousands of dollars. Did we see anybody the whole time we were out? Besides two apparitions of human figures, (one a beckoning black figure that disappeared as we approached it -talk about a close call!) no, we saw nobody. We found our way out ourselves as the second day blinked out and the second dreadful night enclosed on the searchers and the despondent parents.
When we did stumble out out we were greeted by a great big show of newscasters, ambulances, fire trucks, the remaining staff from AQ's CS department who were on the verge of pulling out their eyeballs. We were taken to the Search and Rescue headquarters (chaos) and then by wailing ambulance to Littletown hospital. The surgeon was woken up at his home, took one look at my feet and tells my father that the amputation dance would surely be danced and the aftermath would be grueling. Oh, my poor father! My cousin informs me that my now rather strained relationship with my dad all stems from this moment. That I had asked him to buy me plastic mountaineering boots after my semester in France and he had said no. [What good does a fifteen year Vermonter old get out of 800$ boots, he thought, and he had a point.] That the doctor told my father directly that my severe frostbite [the others got away with light cases] was because my boots had been drastically unfit for the climate, light leather summer hiking boots. I don't remember any of that, but it sure put a tear in the ol' familial ties!)
Poor Dad goes and blames himself. And I, sensing a weak moment, immediately ask him to buy me a new CD I wanted and voila, the CD materializes! At that moment I could have asked for any material possession and it would have appeared- really what I should have asked for was a good hard slap across the cheek so I would wake up from the shock and stop acting like such a fucking lunatic. Yeah, I put my parents through 40 hours of hell but still saw it as an opportunity to get something that I want out of it. I'm not going to be all dramatic and say I'll never forgive myself for that move, but I'll never forget that I was capable of doing it.
What else, what else....the hypothermia was mean but its thunder was totally stolen by the frostbite. Megan passed out in her wheelchair next to me, someone clamped something around my nose and mouth, it produced a warmed mist that I breathed in and the magical de-icing of the insides began. Dehydration hit hard, my muscles seized all at once I got stuck, paralyzed, in the bathroom (did I leave that place with one shred of dignity? Debatable!) I was informed that I would have to stay in the hospital for gawdknowshowlong and couldn't return to the lodge, (I sobbed so loudly the nurses politely asked me if I couldn't keep it down and my mother said oh for christ SAKES lina). A parade of nurses came running in and chastising me after I pulled out my IV (it was beeping too loudly to sleep). The hopeless condition of hair (what was formerly my hair, anyway)? Shave it off, was their first idea. But I sat in that hospital bed the first night, wide awake, watching myself on the late night news, tearing apart the dreadlock with a plastic fork from the cafeteria. Take my feet, I told the nurse, but stay away from my hair. (She found this an awkward thing to respond to, seeing as they were already planning on taking my feet at that point, they had beaten me to the punch, but I didn't know that yet.) My fingers and ears could get away with an application of burn cream but my feet (if you haven't yet gotten the picture) were a nightmare. They looked like hamburger meat, only worse. Grotesquely swollen, dark red and purple with patches of black that were nothing if not crispy (charred from the fire) and fluids leaking out from everywhere and colonies of thick yellow blisters taking up residency. That's what flesh looks like when you freeze it and then put it in the roaster: third degree frostbite- skin frozen solid to the bone- topped with straight up third degree burns. I was taken to a nice room with a little whirlpool and was gruffly (the surgeon pulled no punches) let into the big secret: there was a 95% chance of amputation on all 10 of my toes.
But I didn't believe it. Sometimes, you just know better than what a doctor is telling you. And I'm nothing if not determined: I did get out of the hospital and I did go back to the lodge, where I did not kiss anybody but I did do a fairly decent job of healing. There was a whole lot of of pain, and a lot boys taking their biology lesson over my feet during the twice-daily cleaning and redressing. I woke up screaming from nightmares of- whadayaknow- being lost alone in the woods- and my roomate, Ashley, had to deal with me. Every time I went back to the hospital they'd say hmmm...and they would delay setting a date for the Big De-Digiting and then amputation was brought up less and less and instead they wanted to peel skin off of my stomach and use that to doctor up the toes, which sounded like some fun. And then, a few months after the ordeal, when I was starting to walk without a cane through the dismal halls of Woodstock Union and the rest of my school was in sunny Mexico sending reports of blue skies and smoothie stands, I was informed I was in the clear. No skin grafts needed. Somehow you healed on your own, said the doctor, bearded, bespectacled and slightly bemused. You must be one very healthy young girl.
ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce my city. the city that falls to pieces in a snowstorm. absolutely to pieces. a total wreck. the thing is, we don't have the budget for de-icing machines, sanding trucks and snow plows. it wouldn't make any sense to that in the the budget when so many public schools are shutting down. snow fell last Monday in a whirling honest to god blizzard. people stuck in transit between work and home really had a mess of a time. snow is either entrancing and romantic or a big dangerous agent of chaos, depending which side of the commute you're on. i grew up driving in vermont's killer winters but you won't find me laughing at seattleites spinning uncontrollably down queen anne hill because they can't drive. of course you can't drive if the road's sheer ice and there's no plow truck or sand man to help you out. and if you own a two wheel drive car, forget about it. people say, well, you shouldn't have gone out, and i say tell that to the employers, and it's not like you should get on a bus. the buses are the worst. and the UW sent out a memo begging people not to try and bike.
i did however set out in the monday storm to get to the climbing gym. i set out a map in my head from my house point x to stone gardens point y, and was comforted to know that wherever I ran off the road I'd be walking distance from, in order: Sebby, Ammen, Katty, Maddy (most of Wallingford), Ava, Cecily, Jamen, Erik, most of Ballard. but my car just wouldn't quit and the rythmic thunk thunk of windshield wipers on high made me think of vermont. dad picking me up from school when i was a kid, climbing out of the heavy snow and into the car and thinking i don't have to worry anymore. that sound becomes like a mechanical heartbeat in the weirdly quite den of snowed out streets.
the days that followed the storm were very soft and quiet. the city seemed meek, put in it's place by the few inches of white on the ground. roads were closed and abandoned buses that jacknifed across streets just sat there. thanksgiving floated by and i had very little interest in it. it was the first time i can remember i didn't spring into action or at least get excited. of all the celebrations i went to i only prepared something for one of them, and that was a last minute thing i threw together because my sister and brother in law said didn't you say you were going to....
i sat on the floor of my friends apartment in phinney, playing apples to apples with their friends, all strangers to me, drinking a horrendously sweet apple pie drink with whiskey covered in whipped cream. cecily and molly are my friends from back in vermont, we went to middle school and high school before I went to AQ. I was grateful to be with them, 'transplants' we call ourselves, and even more grateful to be around people I didn't know. when you're a little tired of yourself, it's so much easier to be around people you don't know. especially when they're a little drunk and there is a fire going and you have no qualms telling your most embarrassing stories. and everyone thinks you are just hilarious.
i was less interested in thanksgiving or food or traditions this year and more into going climbing and reading books about energy. lately i've been searching through the metaphysical bookstore across from whole foods, the one with all the tibetan gongs and buckets chrystals. i go by myself, certainly. i'm thinking lately that not everything is quite right, and i'm curious to know what it is. i'll buy books on breath and chakras and light. just interested not converted. and then go sit at a bar and drink beer and read them, fingers tapping out rhythms on the glossed wood counter. maybe a coffee shop, but caffeine lately makes me feel ballistic. i'll order something and my stomach will turn before I even pick up the cup. beer brings me down, in a good way. i now know what hoppy means. i once went on a date with the beer ranger for new belgium. He posed in pantaloons for a marketing thing, and his photo is everywhere. on the back of rolling stone everywhere. i always think fondly of him when i drink new belgium. it's funny what random grocery list of fond things we'll stack up in our lifetimes. For me: israel, personal flotation devices, hypnosis, and memphis TN.
then I drove to portland and walked around the hawthorn and drank an irish car bomb at an english pub, so slowly it had almost curdled solid when I was done with it. i contemplated throwing it up neatly into the cup from whence it came but figured that'd be a waste of the french fries we had bought. i saw a few friends, including one of my old co-workers from the kayak school. we sought out the pearl district and took the max train. ate italian rice balls in red sauce and deviled eggs on long, fancy plate. i ordered a basil infused drink that looked elegant and tasted like lemon pledge.
and then i came back, and life resumed itself as per usual. the snow was gone. and so soon i'll be back in vermont and it's amazing, the duality of life, how many things happen and how nothing changes, ever.
This Saturday, December the 4th, come out to the High Dive in Fremont to see Anna Coogan live in concert. It's been a while since she's played a Seattle club! This is her last show for a while because after this she's off on her 2nd European tour of the year. (By the way, she's #1 on the charts over there.)
There will also be two other bands playing. There will be drinks. And it's Fremont- center of the damn Universe! Dress up, dress down, wear a Holiday sweater or deck yourself in glitter. Either way, I'll see you there. 9pm. But drinks could begin long before that. We're all working hard this season- we all deserve it.
High Dive:
513 N 36th st
Seattle Washington 98103
US 206.632.0212
My sister and I went to get a Christmas tree last Saturday. One of the abandoned lots on 35th in Wedgewood had just opened up as a satellite stand for a farm in Eastern Washington. We bought coffee from Top Pot across the street and then strolled around sizing up the trees. We found a perfect little table topper and brought it up to the old woman in the shack to determine the price
The woman had shock white hair and a Christmas tree pin made from multi colored glass. "Twelve dollars," she said.
"Twelve? I thought it was four?" Said Anna, pointing to the painted wooden sign.
"That's the doug fir, these is a noble fir. Doug first hasn't even come in yet."
"Well..." said Anna. She looked over at me. Anna loves Christmas. We both do. We both sort of flip out for the month of December. "We can do twelve dollars, right Lina?" She asked cheerfully.
"Yeah! That's not much money at all!" What a great morning it was. Brisk but clear, like Boston, and in a few hours I'd be heading off to Portland for the weekend. We'd survived thanksgiving and now, Bring on the Christmas!
The woman took the money from Anna slowly. She eyed us from over the top of her glasses as she counted out change. "Do you girls share finances?" She asked.
"Um. What?" Asked my sister distractedly, who is always polite but not always paying good attention.
"Do you girls share finances?"
"Um, well....yes...what?"
I nudged her. She glanced at me and I gave her The Look. The I'll tell you later look. "What is it?" She whispered.
"I'll tell you later."
"Well," said Anna straightening up. "This money is from the house concert so yes, we do share this." As if that would make sense to anyone.
We threw the car in her ancient white Subaru and turned left out of the parking lot. "Anna," I explained, "she was trying to figure out if we were lesbians."
"What!?"
"Do we share finances? What the hell kind of question is that?"
I thought it was a funny little antidote of the morning, but I did make a mental note never wear my big, beloved Carhat jacket again when I go on domestic little outings with my sister.
I was 23 and living in a little blue house in Wallingford with Kendra and Lisa. We were always doing fun girl things. I had this green book that I bought from Aveda about living a 'Holistic' lifestyle. I never read it through, just thumbed through it in the bath and looked at the colorful charts about color therapy and essential oils.
Lisa and I were really into Aveda at the time. I don't know where we got the money to buy Aveda things, but apparently we did because we didn't steal and we had a lot. We liked to go into the store because every time we'd get a hand massage from a gay man.
One of the home spa treatments suggested in the book was to put olive oil in your hair and then wrap a warm wet towel around your head for ten minutes. This would allow the oil to soak into your hair and leave it shiny and lustrous. I was alone in the house one day and decided to give it a go. I stood in the shower and poured olive oil onto my hair and rubbed it in with my hands. The book suggested that a good way to warm up the towel was to soak it in water and then put it in the microwave. I followed the instructions, ran the towel under the faucet, stuck it in the microwave and pressed the button with the popcorn icon.
After ten seconds the towel exploded inside the microwave. There were great big flames.
I pulled the plug and pulled out the towel. I took it outside and threw it in the trash bin where no one could find it. Then I went inside and sat on the couch for a while. I thought about the fact that I had just set fire to a towel in a microwave. Of all my many friends, I think I am the only one to have ever done that.
The olive oil took about a week to wash out of my hair.
They used to tell us in nonfiction workshops to write 'as if your parents were dead.'
This is very difficult advice for all but the totally detached. However, at least in terms of entertainment value, it is those very things that our parents would cringe to see in print- poor decisions, repeated mistakes, mating habits- that are worth writing about at all. And to approach that material with allowing it to shrink from shame, or guilt, or dread of the 7am what the hell were you referring to in that one paragraph? phone call is a valuable skill. But for the sake of the parents, with their weak hearts and the staggering ability of their imagination to conjure unlimited scenarios wherein their children take on the world and lose, some stories are truly better left untold.
Here is one of those stories.
This is my account of nearly drowning on the San Pedro river in Northern Chile.
February 2nd, 2009, the middle of the Chilean Summer. I'm traveling with the kayak school from Pucon to the Rio Fuy in Choschuenco. On Route, we stop to run the Rio San Pedro. I am a very new kayaker, but have been on a crash course ever since landing in Chile three weeks earlier. I survived the waterfall laced Palguin creek run, and barreled down the big water of the Upper Trancura with only a skirt implosion and an easy swim. The intense fear I once had for white water is gradually shedding.
It rained heavily that morning as we packed up, but we drove out of it and into blue skies and a perfect day for paddling.
We've been told that the San Pedro is the easiest river we're going to run the entire semester. The water is a bright, exquisitely clear turquoise, nearly the same warm temperature as the air. As we glide along the miles of calm water and splashy waves, the round stones and mottled sand of the river bottom are perfectly visible. We flip over on purpose and hang upside down, eyes open, taking photos underwater:
The Rio San Pedro from below. Photo by Palmer Miller
The river is over twelve miles long and slated to be dammed in the coming months. On some stretches, the current moves very quickly but the surface of the water remains smooth. The sensation is as close to flying as I'll ever get. The river branches apart and comes together again, branches apart and comes together. Little waterfalls splash down from the surrounding cliffs and send swarms of bubbles jetting to the surface.
There are two are major rapids on the San Pedro, class 4 big water and very pushy. They come one right after the other as the river narrows into a tighter channel, bends to the left against a sharp rock wall, and the water crushes into massive, chaotic wave trains. Emery and I both tense up as we approach the first of the two. 'Where do I go? Where do I go?' we ask David. Siren song of the worried kayaker.
David just laughs and teases us. This is what he did before the intimidating but harmless drops on the Palguin.'Just point to the left, there's nothing to worry about.' We bounce into the rapid. It's big and crashing, with waves so steep they throw your bow completely vertical into the air. After powering through without even a flip, we end up in a small stretch of flat, fast moving water. I'm exhilarated and careless, my heart pounding but no longer in fear. I want more of those huge waves. This river is deep water with no rocks, nothing to get stuck under, pinned against. I go into the second rapid without asking any questions, without any beta, without following anyone's line. My last thought is to turn and reassure Emery, who is still gripped.
I paddle ahead and get immediately flipped. The water is so warm and clear, I can barely tell when I'm up and when I'm under. It feels strange to be submerged and moving so fast. I roll up wobbly and get punched back down on the opposite side, up and over, over over. I can catch maybe a fragment of breath every time I come up. I realize that I'm getting totally slayed, but I'm fairly nonchalant about it. I'm not going to swim. I know I can barrel-roll the whole thing like this because the rapid flattens out into a pool at the end and there are no rocks to worry about.
I talk to myself as I'm up and under, up and under: hold on girl, tuck forward, snap up, breathe, steady. I'm smiling a little under water, knowing how the kids will tease me about running such a long rapid on my head.
I'm finally able to roll up and steady myself long enough to take a quick look around. I'm in the middle of the rapid, on the right side. Things are flying by too fast and explosive and confusing to think. I see one of my students, Nelson, paddling past me on my left. Nelson, my AP student, who is always showing up late to class, he's the only one in the class, and he's always asking me to brush his hair. I look at him for one second and he twists his face into this horrible expression and shouts NO! NO! NO!
This is when everything shifts. I can hear him above the roar of the water. NO! NO! NO! I don't even need to look to know that I'm going somewhere very bad. I turn my head to the right and the world slows down just a bit. I see that I am heading full speed into a wall of hard volcanic rock. There's no time to change direction. I slam against it, taking the entire force with my face and the outside of my right shoulder. In an instant I'm flipped upside down.
Underneath the water I'm pinned and perfectly still. The force of the current is pushing the back of my boat against the wall at a 90 degree angle to the river bottom. There's a loud bubbling like the sound of a fish tank at night, much more peaceful and deep than the smashing of waves above. I let go of my paddle and it flies away. I grasp my skirt and pull it with a concerted effort, somersault out of the boat and my face emerges onto surface. I gasp at the air and for moment I think, I'm safe now. And then I look around.
This particular spot on the river creates a rare feature known as a death eddy. The eddy is like a pocket on the side of the river surrounded by steep, sharp walls. The entrance back to the main current is as narrow as a double doorway. The turbulent water moving inside the eddy collides with the downstream current to create a barrier so strong it's impossible to swim across. If you tried, it would suck you down into a whirlpool and push you back into the eddy. The downstream side of the eddy is backed up by a an undercut rock wall. If you're not rescued and pulled out with a rope, you will eventually be swept underneath the rock and stuck.
I am not aware of the undercut yet. I'm not aware of anything because I can't figure out where I am. And I;m curious about it but strangely calm. The water is white foam, slashing and spinning. The powerful recirculation slams me against the upstream wall like a rag doll, then under, down, up, and back into the wall. I'm on spin cycle. My PFD is built with padding to protect my organs but, arms out and flailing, I take the blows with my face, hands and bare legs. Each time I get pulled under I'm feel terribly confused- I keep thinking, I'm wearing a PFD, how am I not floating? Did it stop working? I want Tino. My brain starts this mantra where is tino where is tino where is tino, round and round like a nursery rhyme.
Tino is the coach. Like me he's from New England, and he's only 20 years old. He went to New River Academy for his last year of high school and never left. I've really liked Tino since I met him, but especially so ever since he pulled me out of the Trancura. It was my first swim of the season, on a tricky but pretty harmless rapid. We'd scouted and Tino stood on the bank setting safely. I flipped in a hole, my paddle was ripped out of my hands and I pulled my skirt. The instant my head resurfaced in the nearby eddy, Tino had his hands on me and was pulling me onto the bank. It's easy go get attached to the someone after they care for you when your sick or pull you out of a spot where you're scared. I feel the same way about Dave.
But right now on this river, neither of them are with me. I am struck with the staggering loneliness of being in a place where literally no one can help me. Tino is well behind me with a group of students, surfing every play wave they find, the group I was paddling with are all down river. But Nelson- Nelson! A current of hope cuts through through my tumbling, fragmented thoughts. Nelson saw what happened, he knows where I am. But for him or Dave to rescue me, they'd have to finish the rapid, eddy out, he'd have to explain what happened, and then they'd have to hike out of the river and come look for me. It wasn't going to happen in time.
I decide I will climb out, which is just absurd. I give it a go anyway. I grab at a piece of the rock and try to drag myself out. The piece of rock comes off in my hand. You have got to be kidding me is exactly what I think. with a note of detachment, as if I was watching this from the bank, as if this was all some huge joke. This is so bad! You have to be kidding me this is so bad.
Just then I feel something bump against me and I throw my arms around it, thinking it's someone come to rescue me. It's my boat, which has only now become unpinned and resurfaced. It is bright red amongst the swirling white and the front is scratched deeply and dented from the collision with the wall. I put my arms around it and try and rest my cheek on the bow.
With my arms hugging the plastic, I notice that there is red water leaking from my hand. It takes half a second to realize there is blood in the water and it is my blood. This is so much more violent than I thought drowning would be. By all accounts drowning is a peaceful way to go, not that anyone who is alive to tell about it should be considered a credible source. But at the very least, I always thought it would be quick. Now I'm stuck here, pulling in little bits of air, circling the drain but not being held down long enough to actually die. I don't feel any panic, just a dull curiosity as to what will happen next.
And then I am then pulled under and shot deep, ripped away from my boat, and sucked against the downstream wall of the eddy. My eyes are open and I can see a dark green tunnel as the light blinks away, my hair floating in front of my face as fine as spiderwebs. I put my hands out and feel rock on all sides of me. I've finally been pulled into the undercut.
Very quickly, a voice from the deepest recesses of my brain takes control. It begins firing out instructions, urgently but calmly.
You are going to lose consciousness. You have one hour to stay alive after you lose consciousness. You will stay alive during that hour. Nelson knows where to find your body. You will remain alive and they will resuscitate you.
I feel an extreme fondness for Nelson. The loneliness of that dark tunnel is cut by his knowing where I've gone.
I am almost out of breath. Half a lungful of air lasts only a short time when you're struggling. It's different than when you're in the bathtub, and you slip under the water and see how long you can count. Behind my closed eyes I black spots appear, like pockmarks burnt into old film strips. From the moment you become a kayaker you dread this moment. But a little part of you is also very curious. I wonder if my lungs will implode, and whether that will feel like two balloons bursting. And then what?
I decide I'd rather not wait any longer. If I suck water into my lungs I can aspirate, which might hurt less. I guess the fear of pain lasts to the lasts second. I open my mouth and draw in a throatful of water. I feel very subdued about it. In a few seconds I'll be gone and my rescue will be someone else's problem.
Two seconds later, my head breaks through the surface of the water, face tipped forward like an infant at birth. By some wild luck, this undercut had an opening at the other side, and I have been sucked completely through.
The rest of the rapid crashes around me and then it's over. I am pulling myself out on an island in the middle of the river. The kids are clustered there in the eddy, and David is standing above me. He's collected my boat, paddle, and all my gear that floated down before me. Everyone starts talking at once. Only Nelson and Dave are quiet. Dave is helping me up on shore. He's staring into my eyes. He instructs, gently, 'just look at my face. Sit down. Keep looking at me.'
I feel slow and cold. The whole time I was stuck, my heart rate didn't even raise above its normal rythm. I'm alive but yet I feel so defeated for some reason. Palmer, one of my favorites, shrieks and points to my hand. The rest of the kids say 'Palmer! Don't yell! Don't upset her!'
'Oh sorry.' She says. 'I didn't mean to. Sorry sorry. It's just- your hand.'
My hand is split on the backside and it's bleeding. Then she shrieks again, her hands over her mouth, and makes these wide 'I'm Sorry!' eyes. Now she gestures towards my leg. My leg is cut from halfway up the calf to the back of my knee. It is split right through the center of my Vermont tattoo and watery blood is going everywhere. I look at it mutely. Like it's someone else's leg. I certainly don't feel any pain.
The kids are rattling off the stories of their own worst swims. I imagine their words all floating up from their mouths as long strings of capitol letters. This is how teenagers try and soothe you. They sound like geese. I want silence. I turn my head to the opposite side of the river, support my body with my arms and gag up water. I start to cry silently. The terrible loneliness I felt in the cave clings to me. David makes me focus on his face. It makes it a little better because I'm always trying to impress him and I like that he's so focused on me right now.
I cannot sit on the island forever. There are still a few wretched miles left of the river and I have to get back into my banged up boat and finish it. I keep spitting water and crying without making noise. Then I turn my head to the side and hyperventilate. Aah ha aaah ha aah. The rest of the rapids makes me feel a little angry but mostly that weird, sad, defeated feeling prevails. I feel like I am nothing.
By the time we're all gathered back at the van, trying down boats and pulling off dry tops, some of the kids are talking about what happened. Some of them aren't interested at all. 'But youre still here!' says one of them, brandishing a camera. 'Let's document that!' They take this picture:
We arrive that night in Choscuenco on the Rio Fuy. Our little hotel has a tin roof and even though I expect to have nightmares, I don't. The next day after classes we are going to run a 25 foot waterfall on the upper section. I don't really care to go. I walk downstairs with an armful of text books to do my lesson plans while everyone is gone. Then Matias, the Argentinian physics teacher who is the hairiest man I've ever seen takes me aside in the afternoon after classes. He grabs my elbow.
'You must get back in the horse, Melina,' he says.
'No,' I tell him. 'I'm not boating today.'
'Hey-hey- you are being a pussy. I know you swam. You must get back in the horse.' Matias is not a normal person. Only a few days before the San Pedro, Tracy had lost hold of her boat on the steep hike out of the Palguin. The boat bounced down the train and ricocheted over a 50 foot waterfall into a canyon of. Without a word, Matias grabbed a paddle and made a running leap over the cliff. He chased after the boat in the water, and paddled it out (it was much too small for him) through a set of serious rapids which hardly anyone runs. We picked him up in the van a few miles down the road. Since then the kids revered Matias like some sort of God, although they still hated his classes.
I know I do not need to listen to Matias. But I find myself feeling surprisingly neutral about paddling. I haven't let go of the shock yet. I run the waterfall that afternoon and it is really easy.
Palmer and I at the bottom of the drop
Later that night, I inspect my bare legs on my narrow bed in the rickety wooden hotel. I am surprised that the bruises haven't shown up. And then the next morning, they do. A deep, speckled blue and purple over my shoulders and arms and a bluish black stain on my legs, the long gash yellow and red and glossy, like tropical fruit.
Later on that day, our 2nd day in Choshuenco, we're running the middle Fuy and I don't want to go. None of the kids will leave me alone. They all cheer for me to come with them. They think they're being really nice by encouraging me. I run out of the hotel and across the town to hide from the kids. Since nobody knows where I am, the van leaves for the river without me. I slink back to the empty hotel feeling relief.
I write my friend Will an email about what happened. He's the first person I tell about the swim and for a while, the only one. Will is far away in cold, Snowy North carolina where he goes to school, but I think about him all the time. Constantly. I tell him what happened and how bad I feel about it. How I was totally fine the day after but the shock has worn off and now I feel like some sort of criminal. Selfish and shameful and scared for the rest of the trip and the countless rivers ahead, rivers that will be much more difficult. Unconcerned with punctuation and constantly tripping on the foreign keyboard, I banged out incomplete thoughts:
okay i know how dramatic that sounds, all of it. but it was so terrifying. it was such a nightmare. i know it turned out okay. I know that but....what the hell....i feel so selfish. this sport. i have such a good time but what do a lifetime´s worth of experiences on the river matter to my mom if i hadn´t come out of the cave. they would mean nothing and i cannot wrap my mind around that. i know it turned out fine and that bad swims happen. i8 just wish i didn´t know what it was like. okay gotta go. love you.
***
Looking back now, I might label that whole incident as foreshadowing. Because after that, everything went nuts.
