I’m at Pole Mountain, halfway up Middle Aspen trail, and I stop suddenly to wonder how I could smell her funk when she’s hundreds of feet in front of me. Stale crotch, sweat, tents, mold, peanut butter, pine, beer. Showers and deodorant aren’t the biggest concern on the trail and for some reason with these mountain folk both drift away from daily rituals that ground the human down, rituals that make the human pleasant around other humans. The mountains start to breed a contempt for humans, and while the mountains might witness your death they will never mourn you. I pick up a light purple aster and shove it into my hat before picking up my steps again, following the smell to the end of the trail.
Later, years later, perusing Facebook and finding out she bought a house in Montana, she’s way more ahead of me than I expected. Staring at her from the top of the ridge years ago, now I stare at the photos of Montana wilderness and wonder as she works in a lab by herself or if others can smell her too. She’s changed career paths more than once and I scan her page one more time and notice the New Jersey heritage and know she’s got some money. That’s half of these people above 7000 feet.
When you are rich, you can change your mind. When you are reckless, you can also change your mind.
I’ve been working for about five years now on opening my business, each time retreating back into one on one therapy work, feeling like an absolute failure each time I say something too soon. Always too, too, too, too. I sit down with a man from a church I’ve tried to join and mention to him that they are awfully male centered for an alternative to the Christian church. He leaves in a huff from the coffee and I recollect his essays on grasshoppers. We are later kicked out and told it’s because my dog can’t wear a vest. I picture my first few months with her, forever trying to get a harness to stay on her and praying the fabric doesn’t hurt her skin with every twist and turn.
Most everyone around me has been where they are for years and years and years and I know what I’m doing must bother them because the relocations are always highlighted. “You are always moving.” Damn straight I am and I can’t wait to leave where I’m at again. I want the city, I want the country, I want whatever I can squeeze from this world in a grip that’s soft, a grip that wouldn’t kill a bird.
Only this year have I noticed the general lack of confidence of so many around me. My confidence is desperation, a will to live.
I posted a story about high altitude suicide this morning, back in the bathroom while brushing my teeth in a routine that I hate to disturb. I post because I’ve been mentioning it far too much since my mother’s suicide. If it wasn’t a surprise, why couldn’t I stop it? Can I pretend she liked me? Can I pretend that I didn’t prioritize the stinky mountains and its stinky inhabitants when I should have prioritized her? Mom always smelled good.
For as long as I’m still breathing air, I will write. In terms of being alive, I wonder if I will go back to substances one last time dying not face down but on my side on that thin orange bedspread of Motel 6 that I wish I didn’t have memorized down the ridge pattern that changes in blocks like a pathetic attempt at an indigent quilt. The only drug that even functions to get me high anymore is fentanyl and that’s a whole production to get on and off. I would have to counter it with meth and while some moments it’s very tantalizing, that world has lost my interest. Death has lost my interest.
In my zest for life, I’m drifting away from religion again, finding the kingdom gawd in my own backyard. I’ve enticed the birds into my hand, and pull weeds to put into the bunny buffet. I kiss my dog in a ritual at least twice a day and she waits in the morning until I say “go outside” and a little yeti call emits from her soft black lips and I catch the slight smell of dog as she runs to the door.
Leave a Reply