The time has passed – long or short, it has passed. And I write about it still.
Living down in
Newhalem, each day fell upon us with new surprises; high winds, milky clouds
and endless rain, penetrating sun. The seemingly continuous transformations in
the Cascades turned two and a half months into eternity. Overflowing life
coupled with a climate I’ve never experienced froze time over and over again.
As I now reflect
on my time there I think about it in relation to my life before and my life
after. How quick I am to validate my past experiences. How quick I am to plan
and organize my future. It is as if my life in each moment is supposed to serve
purpose to the surrounding moments. The North Cascades taught me time does not
work in preparation – time does not work to justify your actions. These thought
patterns I have only allows for time to slip between my fingers and forget the
sweetness and awe of each single breath. Each moment.
The lesson here
is not that time in the human mind tends to move fast but should move slow. Actually, the mountains have taught me time is only
unpredictable. No one knows when time will stop or time will move fast. No one
knows when a day will be endlessly cloudy and the mountains will be monstrously
still, or when a mere five minutes will throw years of growth and survival down
the slopes of the Cascades.
I experienced
this lesson directly from the Cascades – more specifically from the west-facing
slope of the North Cascades. From June 9th to August 13th
I was cycling across the country from Wells, ME to Seattle, WA. This meant
myself and two other friends rode five consecutive mountain passes in the North
Cascades. Washington Pass was our last one and we reached its highest point two
days before feeling victorious and celebrating in Seattle. Of course, the mountain
gods weren’t going to allow us to get there that
easily (because we all know traversing across the northern tier of our
country is easy…). We knew there had been a big slide on the western slope.
Each person that intended to cross the pass failed and was quick to tell us our
fate as we crawled at 5-8 mph up the U-shaped valley. The first few cars yelled
at as, “just so you know, there is a big landslide near Easy Pass and it’s
likely not to open till after 2 pm.” Within a few hours this changed to, “hey!
There’ve been 6 massive slides up there. You’re not getting through. The DOT
expects it to not open up until Monday.”
We debated this
news. Well, not quite. We were all spread out and so our shouted conversation
was had over gasping breaths. We determined that if we had to turn around at
the top we would just hitchhike from Mazama around the pass. So we kept going.
The top of the pass was sunny and beautiful and we had a hard time predicting
our future. Dean the DOT guy also helped give us hope. We’d have to do some
climbing, mud traversing, and waiting but he speculated we’d get through.
Onward! We hit all six mud/land/rockslides within the next hour. Two of the
slides had been cleared in one lane we climbed over the others. On some we hopped
to the other side of the guardrail because the mud was too wet to walk on. Some
we walked on top of, where huge boulders took out the entire guardrail. Cars
were trapped. Muddy water slid out from under the slide itself. We quickly
concluded that, yes, it would be at least
until Monday that cars would get through. The real motivation for the DOT
was to get those stuck at the campsite and trailheads out of the land trap. As
soon as we began crossing the last and most massive landslide, clouds rolled in
even quicker than my pace of eating. It almost immediately started hailing.
Because we were flying down the other side at this point it was more than
uncomfortable and cold. It was painful. Dean and his DOT friends came to our
rescue, piling our bikes into their pick-up and delivering us to the doors of
NCI’s office. Maybe the gods felt guilty at this point because we were
immediately blessed with warm showers, a hot meal, and a place to sleep.
Gratitude.
I fell asleep
thinking about just how absurd the day had been – how awesome and splendid this
place was. And how I would be living here with Dylan within a few weeks time.
It almost gave me the chills as I started dreaming about running away from
slides and being lost in some of the most remote mountains I’ve ever experienced.
The North
Cascades are amazing this way. I can choose to keep this perspective in life –
that time is not one way or another. Not linear and not able to be calculated.
Does it not move in flux? Each day each person can experience time differently.
Each day each mountain slope sees different effects of time.
I can work to be
more aware – learning how my life might be playing out by how time feels. How
can I keep this lesson? How can the
way of the Cascades remain in my
life? Maybe if I look with news eyes each day. Maybe if I think with an open
mind. Maybe then I will give time it’s own freedom of movement in my life and
allow me to look into eternity more frequently – a blessing for sure.
And so I will
muse.
Keeping the
Cascades
Oh, the water here.
I become
surprised by the sudden explosion.
Morphing a new
shape,
constantly
unpredictable.
With your
fingers sometimes crawling and sometimes lashing
on the mountain
slope,
but always
persistent.
Like those loose
threads of a quilt.
You highlight
the rich greens of life.
Oh, the clouds
here.
I become
entranced by your leaching patterns of sinking and lifting.
How you swallow
and expose
those views and
that sky.
Laying a thick
air then breaking
often burned by
the sun.
It is relaxing-
how you shelter us
all with your palms gently covering.
Oh, the sun
here.
I become aware
of my memories of color.
How they remind
us of familiar warmth.
Soothing the
bones
the joints.
Giving active
hope, promise, and life!
A gift itself.
You fall upon us
like a warm body.
Oh, these trees
here.
I become
awestruck by splendor itself.
How they burst
that boundary between woods and small manicured towns.
Grow slow in a
day but fast in the life of mountains.
Yet making us
all stop a moment
like a touch on
soft skin.
Such full
massiveness.
How you live
only to reach, reach, reach.
Oh, and the
mountains themselves.
I become humbled
by their
steepness,
their walls.
Flipping the
pages and taking us
through a
slideshow of time – millions of years.
How quickly
altered.
Slides, damns,
waterfalls, erosion, wind, feet.
Such
consciousness they bring – of my settlement,
my body.
Mountains, I
dwell in you.
