The Art of Holding On and Letting Go (33 page)

We left early the next morning for the last climb of our trip. I preferred shorter routes, but I wanted to take Kaitlyn and Nick up a multi-pitch climb. I needed to remember and understand that feeling that kept my parents climbing higher and higher. And I wanted to cement Kaitlyn's confidence.

“It's only rated a 5.4,” I told them. “You can practically walk right up the thing. It's as easy as climbing a ladder.”

“5.4 my ass,” Nick said.

Kaitlyn stood next to him, gazing up at the mountain. “There's no way.”

“It's not as bad as it looks.” I raised my arm to gesture. “See, look at all the ledges. We'll take lots of breaks.”

“I don't know.” Kaitlyn shook her head.

Nick squeezed her shoulder. “You can do it.”

“You can, you're a natural,” I said. “We'll help you. I'm going to lead-climb up the first section and anchor myself. You guys will take turns climbing up after me. I'll belay you from the top.”

“I don't know,” Kaitlyn said again.

“We're climbing up to that ledge first,” I said. “It's plenty big enough for all of us.”

The sun warmed my back, the rocks still felt cool to the touch. The climb was essentially a scramble, but the rope provided extra security in case someone slipped. We followed a gulley straight up the middle. Small shrubs and roots jutted out of the rock and packed dirt, providing extra handholds and footholds. I watched Kaitlyn's every move.

“Breathe,” I called down to her.

If I hadn't already known about her hand with its missing fingers, I would have never guessed from the way she steadily, even gracefully, maneuvered up, up, up, with hardly a pause.

We settled on the ledge about forty feet up, each of us anchored to a bolt in the rock.

“This is nerve-racking,” Kaitlyn said.

“Just wait till you see the view from the top,” I said. “It will be worth it, I promise. You can see clear to LA and the ocean.”

“How many pitches are we doing?” Nick asked.

For a moment I considered dodging the question. “Four.”

“Four! There's no way.” Kaitlyn shook her head and crouched closer to the wall.

I spoke to her in a firm yet gentle voice, the same voice my dad had used again and again with me, inspiring confidence. “I watched you climb up the first pitch. You are a beautiful climber. I would never bring you out here if I had any doubts in your ability. You can do this.”

Kaitlyn visibly straightened, and we prepared to climb the second pitch.

No one fell until the third pitch.

I led the route as usual with Kaitlyn following next. Nick watched from the ledge below.

“You look great,” he called up.

I smiled. I knew she could do it, but I continued to watch her closely. This part was a little trickier than the others. I held my breath as Kaitlyn grabbed for a bulge of rock that was just beyond her reach.

“I'm gonna fall!” she yelled up to me.

“I got you! Just hang and rest for a minute.”

Kaitlyn sat back in her harness and hung on the rope, her hands dangling by her sides, twirling her wrists, fingers flexing, getting the blood flowing again. After a minute, she climbed back on and found a different foothold. I tightened the rope, giving her an extra boost, and she grabbed the bulge she was going for.

“That was scary,” she said, but her face glowed with triumph.

Nick began the pitch, climbing smoothly. We were surrounded by sandstone, high up on the cliff. These mountains were gentle swells compared to the fierceness of Mount Chimborazo. The sun radiated off the rocks and left shadows, some hills brilliant with light, others doused in gray. Bits of scrub brush poked out of the rock, a few tiny purple flowers hid in the cracks. Manzanitas with their twisting branches and roots bulged out of sandy patches. In the distance, Yucca plants bloomed with tall spires of white flowers. Thoreau's words floated across my eyes. “Learn to delight in the simple pleasures which the world of nature affords.”

“Faaallliiing!”

I lurched forward, sliding toward the edge of the ledge, my feet scrambling for leverage, dust and pebbles tumbling into space. Kaitlyn yelped and grabbed my harness. My mind flashed to the steep, icy slopes of Mount Chimborazo. The seam of snow splitting as the avalanche ripped Max apart from my parents, threatening to pull them after him.

The anchor jerked my harness backward, knocking the air out of my belly with a grunt. My heart thundered.

“It's okay,” I gasped. “We're all clipped to the bolts. Nick?”

Kaitlyn crept next to me and peered over the edge, her hands covering her mouth. Nick swung on the rope and banged into the rock.

“Shit!”

I yelled down, “You okay?”

“Motherfucker!” Blood dripped down his leg.

“Do you need me to climb down to you?” I called.

Nick growled and kicked at the rock as he dangled on the rope. Kaitlyn didn't know how to belay; I'd have to tie myself off and climb down. He didn't look very injured, but the situation could change drastically if his habit of passing out at the sight of blood took hold.
Just don't look down at your leg, Nick.

Nick climbed back on the rock.
That's right, just keep going, don't look down.
I pulled the rope extra tight just like I did for Kaitlyn, giving Nick a boost.

“Hey! I don't need any short-roping,” he snapped.

“Okay,” I said, relaxing the rope and dropping him a couple inches. “Here if you need it.”

“Fuckin' pisser,” he muttered, scrambling back on the wall. He pulled and pushed and hauled himself up to the ledge awkwardly, using raw strength, no finesse. But he was there.

Kaitlyn dug out the first-aid kit and tended to the gash on Nick's knee. Nick's eyes were closed as he rested the back of his head against the rock.

“Nice war wound,” I said, pushing the fear out of my voice.

“That's nothing,” he said, keeping his eyes closed. “Check this out.” He extended his hand, palm out.

“Ooh, nice flapper.” I winced. “We'll tape it up. Good thing we're almost done.”

“I'm done now,” he said.

Nick was right. We'd gone far enough. His fall was a reminder of how quickly things can change on a mountain, even a small one like this, how one misstep can put everyone in danger.

Kaitlyn finished cleaning and taping Nick's knee. She stood and studied my face for a minute as if reading my hesitation. I didn't say anything.

She turned back to Nick. “I'm going with Cara. You can do it. We're almost there. You have to go with me.”

Nick opened his eyes, connecting with Kaitlyn's gaze. “Fine, fine, make me suffer,” he said.

“Drama goth.” Kaitlyn grinned and pulled out the tape for Nick's wounded hand.

The last pitch was an easy, sloping scramble again, leading up to the top of the mountain. Energy poured back into my tired muscles with each final reach and step.

“There's plenty of room to walk around, but stay anchored in,” I told them. “I don't want anyone sliding off on my watch.” My tone was light, but I felt the weight of responsibility for their safety.

We stood on the crest of the mountain, the wind whipping our hair and rustling our jackets. Blue, blue sky with puffs of clouds pulled apart like cotton candy.

“Wow,” Kaitlyn said. “You can see the ocean. It's so, so, huge out there. Everything.”

That was what always struck me too. The vastness of it all, our world, so much land, stretching for thousands of miles in all directions. Golden rolling hills dotted with chaparral. Sandstone cliffs, swooping valleys. A winding serpent river. The pencil line of a distant road. A cluster of squares, a miniature town. Rippling green ridges like a sleeping dragon. The glimmer of the Pacific Ocean.

“Those words we always use—awesome, wonderful—this makes you understand what they really mean,” Kaitlyn said.

“It's different climbing out here than in the gym,” Nick said. “It's like … primitive, primal.”

Kaitlyn nodded. “It's like you, Cara. Quiet on the outside, but inside there's a wildness. Indiana She-Jones. You can just feel it out here.”

I smiled. This is why my parents and Uncle Max climbed. Not to conquer the mountain, but to become the mountain. To feel its power, absorb its strength. To recognize the vastness of the world around us and how insignificant we really are. To soak up the beauty of it all. The enchantment. They had taught me this. And I could feel it, in my body, in the air I breathed. It was the only way to truly feel alive.

Kaitlyn and Nick pulled out their phones and squeezed together for a selfie. They snapped pictures of the panoramic view, but it just wasn't possible to capture the depth of this scenery.

I wandered a few steps away and sat down near the edge of the ridge. The sun had warmed the rock, but the chilly wind needled my skin. I hunched down into my jacket and rubbed my hands together. The wind howled around my ears, as if it wanted to take me, to fling me right off the edge of the mountain.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

I remembered the breeze dancing across my face at the top of the competition wall in Ecuador, gazing out toward Mount Chimborazo, sending a wish to my parents on the waves of the wind.

Buena suerte, Mom and Dad. I hope you find what you're looking for. I hope the mountains heal you.

Maybe they were being selfish, not letting anything stand in their way, not even me. But in Michigan, with my grandparents, with Kaitlyn, I had discovered another life, another way to live. And maybe that's why my parents sent me. And maybe my mom understood that my grandparents had already lost too much. They had lost all of their babies, they had even lost my mother in a way. I was the only one left.

Kaitlyn and Nick crouched behind me.

“How can you sit so close to the edge?” Kaitlyn asked. “It freaks me out.”

“When I was a kid, I used to imagine myself jumping off the cliffs,” I said. “I'd take a running start, leap, and soar into the air like a bird.”

“Don't even think about it,” Kaitlyn said.

I had confided that to Mom once, and she said she often had that same urge, even as an adult.

And Uncle Max, was it possible that was how he felt? With his adrenaline pumping, did he feel like he was flying, soaring along with the avalanche? It was too painful to think of it any other way.

Annie Dillard had written,
I could very calmly go wild
.

“My parents have a cottage up north on Lake Michigan,” Nick said. “This is how I feel when I'm there, standing at the edge of the water. It's huge like the ocean, you can't even see the other side.”

“You're coming back to Michigan with us, aren't you?” Kaitlyn said. I nodded. “For now.”

“What else is she gonna do, live out here with the coyotes?” Nick said.

Kaitlyn swatted him, but smiled at me and said, “Indiana She-Jones.” Then, “What coyotes?”

I smiled back. “Don't worry.”

How I wanted to hold on with my animal instinct like Annie Dillard's weasel, to not let go. Hold on to the cabin, to the mountains, to my wilderness, to my wildness.
We can live any way we want
. We can hold on and let go at the same time.

My fingers swirled the sand in the rocky ridges and pried loose chunks of stone. I felt their irregular edges, smooth, angular, rounded, sharp, then handed one each to Kaitlyn and Nick. We stood and took one last look, drinking in the dangerous beauty.

I pulled my arm back, clutching the stone like a baseball. My body twisted and heaved the chunk of rock, sending it sailing over the edge into the vastness.

Nick wound up like a pitcher and followed, releasing his rock with a grunt.

“I'm keeping mine,” Kaitlyn said, tucking her stone into her pocket.

I nodded. “Ready for some rappelling?”

“What?” Kaitlyn said.

“How did you think we were getting back down?” I grinned.

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live.

—Henry David Thoreau,
Walden

I followed Grandma around the yard, admiring the daffodils and crocuses and hyacinth that had sprung to life. She pointed to a cluster of green stalks surrounding the maple tree. “Those are tulips, they'll bloom next.”

I joined Grandpa as he poked along the edge of the backyard, pulling up the strangling vines of ivy, searching for spring wildflowers.

“There's the trillium. And here's the wild columbine and geranium shooting up. No morels here.” He nudged the spongy soil with his foot and sneezed. Then sneezed again and again.

“Bless you!” I backed away.

Grandma shared her tentative gardening plans: strawberries, cherry tomatoes, basil. It was as if she'd been hibernating for the past year, and now she was venturing out, step by step.

We planted petunias in the flower boxes and pots on the porch. I left Grandma to dress the goose in her flowered spring dress and bonnet, while I went in to get ready for Tom.

I peeked at Grandma's angel figurines inside their glass case. Kaitlyn was right, this was a curio case of memories. Five babies. Three had died before they were born, the fourth one grew up to become my mom, and I was baby number five. I smiled at the thought of a rock-climbing angel.

There was still a mystery left to solve, and while Grandma and Grandpa were busy outside, I searched for scraps of paper that Grandpa had written on. A grocery list, a phone message. I never paid much attention to his handwriting. His reading glasses rested on the Sunday crossword puzzle in the
Detroit Free Press
. Just as I suspected—perfectly neat, block printing, in black pen. An engineer's handwriting, like Tom had said. Grandpa had access to my notebooks and textbooks, and he knew about my past climbing life. But why?