All wrong, and I knew it. Not the place--I'm still trying to figure that out--but the way by which I've been approaching it, exploring it, living it. Ignoring it.
Until now. Winter. Fresh, sparkling, clean, cold, candid, winter. I'll remember how to live again.
****
Nearly eight months ago, I wrote of "the desire to rid myself of the stress and sorrow that I've accumulated over the course of many years."
The desire "to swap heartbreak and loneliness for solitude or, better yet, friends."
The desire for "natural splendor and awe and a sense of real purpose."
I wrote that I had come to Southern Utah's canyon country with the intent and hope to learn from the hoodoos and the trees and the peregrines, the skies and sunrises and wilderness.
And then, one solo backpacking trip. Maybe a dozen backcountry field days. Loops and loops of all of the local established trails, but no wandering off on wider expeditions, no soaking in the stars, no sinking into the rocks or pines. No chance. I didn't give the place a chance. All wrong.
****
Just days after writing, with full conviction, that I needed this place, that I hoped it would heal me, that I was going to do my best to soak in it and let it teach me how to be alive again, I met someone. He was tall and articulate and had grey-green eyes and an adorable dog and was eager to go rock climbing with me. We had one glorious day high on the Markagunt Plateau, little-known crag all to ourselves, wide-open views out across volcanic fields, a surprise thunderstorm followed by a rain-washed sunset, all enhanced by engaging conversation and that adorable, furry, wiggly dog. (Oh, how much I love that dog.) The next morning, he came over for chocolate chip pancakes, then basically moved in with me.
From that point forward, I lost where I was, who I was.
We never had a day like that again.
For months and months, summer into autumn, he became colder [crueler] and I became more conciliatory. Instead of wandering off on long post-work walks, I rushed home to cook us dinner. Instead of stepping out early to greet the day, I had to wait for him to wake. Instead of researching slot canyons or studying topo maps, I strategized how to coax him to put down his phone and get out of the house. No more essays or books, an end to sunrises or sunsets, marathon hikes or hours spent sitting with the scenery, quiet contemplation or meaningful human-to-wilderness conversations. No reading, no writing, no thinking or feeling.
(Oh, how angry he got if I was too sad or too happy.) (How critical he was of everything I did or tried to say.) (How he hated it when I cried.) (I cried every day.) (I was not allowed to cry.) (I was not allowed to kiss him.)
No hoodoos, no monsoons, no wildness. No me. Only him. All him. I let him. I wanted to love him. He made it quite clear he didn't care about me. Much less, about this place.
But it's winter now, and winter changes everything.
****
He's gone now, working in another park, where he claimed he'd be happier. Even after he left, for months, I couldn't be present here--visited him so he could ignore me over long weekends, listened to him talk endlessly about himself during nightly phone calls, internalized my loneliness and confusion and hurt and failed to ask anyone for help.
Wilderness, please help.
Meanwhile, temperatures dropped. Fog filled the valleys. Snow fell from the skies. Chickadees dee-deed and coyote tracks danced across the meadows. Scent of pines, everywhere, icy sharp in the dark, starlit mornings.
****
Other seasons are so easy. Who doesn't celebrate spring, that first whiff of bare soil, fresh growth, the obnoxious yet welcome honking of geese? Then summer: not the glaring heat of midday, but the pastel reprieve that follows it come dusk. Sleeping outside or with windows open. Storms. Autumn's everyone's favorite, aspen-gold hillsides blazing against the blue blue sky, forest ringing with elk bugles. (Aspen! Elk!)
But winter? So dark, so cold, so laborious. Headlamps, eyelash-sicles, bundling up in a dozen thick layers just to step outside. Exhausting, breaking trail to tromp to work (or, for others, scraping off and warming up the car.) Nerve-wracking, monitoring the forecast to see if it's safe to go anywhere. Painful, urging numb fingers to tingle back to life. Sad. S.A.D. I don't remember the last time I saw my toes, un-encased in socks.
I love it.
I love winter. You have to earn the beauty, overcome the hardship, appreciate the raw edge of being alive.
****
Having hiked the Queens Garden - Navajo Loop (the park's most popular trail connection) repeatedly during the summer, I hadn't bothered to return for months. Yes, yes, hoodoos. Yes, yes, lumpy pink-red-orange-grey-white pillars of rock, improbably carved and balanced, alternating with tenacious old Ponderosa pines. Stellers jays and cliff swallows, views out across the Grand Staircase, blah blah, blah blah.
(It's not that it's possible to get tired of seeing spectacular things. Rather, it's possible to forget that the world is always fresh and new.)
But here I was, alone again, sad, restless. Old habit: go for a walk. Strap on boots (and microspikes. And a balaclava under my wool hat. Wool socks, wool mittens) and go see what's happening outside my lonely brain. Queens-Navajo the obvious choice, closest and comparatively easy.
But wait, all different? Snow-white caps to the hoodoos, snow-blue shadows in the ravines. Sparkles on the trees, ice on the trail, those opaque, dry, bright cloud-puffs in the sky, where was I? What was this place? Was this what it was like, to feel wonder, to feel joy?
I danced down the trail, then up up up again. Returned the next day for a fog-filled, sun-blessed sunrise. Moon-round, sun-blessed sunset. All through the holidays--through the birthday he failed to wish happy, through the Christmas he never wished merry, through the New Years he made it clear we were finished--it snowed and snowed and snowed. Three inches, eight, fourteen. I tried to go skiing the day after Christmas and was buffeted by 40-plus-mile-an-hour wind gusts. I did go skiing just before New Years, laughing through soft, brilliant powder. New Years Day, I defied the windchill of somewhere in the negative teens and looped back around Queens-Navajo, trail all to myself. Fool. Who would risk frostbite just to go for a walk? But such a happy, exhilarated, not quite frost-nipped, alive-again fool.
You have to earn winter, let it be dark, to be light again.
****
It hasn't snowed since. Climate change, La Nina, just the off luck of a dry, mild year: boring blue skies every day. Still the pain, the confusion, how could I let someone be so cruel to me? How could I not help him? The failure, the loneliness.
Winter stars keep sparkling.
Winter winds keep howling.
Winter birds keep singing.
Winter sunrises keep gleaming, sunsets keep gloaming-ing.
Spring is still months away, then summer. I'm ready this time. I'm learning. I hike trails again every weekend, am making plans for backpacking trips. So much to see here, so much to learn. I'm learning.
****
Meanwhile, I now have a new companion. One who loves snow as much as I do, who will go hiking and backpacking. Who will love me back--as long as I give her treats--and who won't deliberately break my heart. Bah, to him. I have a puppy. We're ready to like this place.
