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Climbing
 It all starts at 5:30 each morning. That task, that challenge, that effort to begin a new day is called Climbing or Hiking. At a California spa where I, probably the oldest on the roster this week, learned to tackle two minor mountainous hikes before the sun yawns for the day to start.
It is literally dark, so we carry tiny flashlights, and I have my trusty stick for balance, and we do a series of stretches but no one says a prayer for safety, so I rumble one around in my soul. My challenge is to make it through either Roadrunner, which winds through the fruit trees in the valley that goes severely upward before curving downward, or Quail Trail, my favorite that has its huff and puff moments, which, when accomplished, I get a short reprieve for a rest. The younger, more fit and energetic groups, hike up to the top of hills, could say mountains, in this Southern California paradise. I cowardly decline that challenge. There is enough incline extremely bent toward the sky - evenly peppered with orange trees and other produce that is put to good use in this magnificent spa. It’s a splendid huff and puff for a foggy morning in an hour or two to test if your legs and soul can get through high climbs or more medium ups and downs through strange shrubs and trees and well-marked twists and turns on deep dirt pathways. The reward at the end is to pass through a jungle of bamboo, where hangs metal squares for each person who had spent more than 10 times at the spa.
To start, after one has done the pre-obligatory foot tapping, stretching and a quick “saying” maybe by the Dali Lama or some sage, the group shoots off with the fastest in front, and the weakest, like me, holding up the back end. What a way to start a day. There is something magical walking on soils below one’s feet up soothing inclines with its almost severe red soil which is kept sprightly clean as vehicles do have to get up and down to feed and seed and weed the ever-growing trees. But when the not necessarily fit human attempts to hike a steep slope, there is a bunch of deep breathing, and huffing and puffing, and thank God I have my stick which keeps me balanced, and I am furious at myself because I’m not in better shape going uphill. I do great on the flat with a small incline. But angling upward may be a reward for having ignored any temptation to be a smoker all my life.
Why do this hiking and climbing in the first place - even at age 83? Not only do I have to face the fact, to acknowledge that I “ain’t” what I used to be in strength, but the will still thrives, and I usually make it to the end, although everyone else is long since in their room downing a fancy breakfast of a sort. Truth is one of my age, over the 80 lines by 3, is losing the easy huff and puff that used to be strength, (at 68 and 72 I made it to Mt. Everest’s base camp, and circumnavigated tough Mt. Kailash in Tibet) and now we face that fact as the lungs hang in there trying to pull in the oxygen needed to keep a body in full speed. And the heart beats, and the legs somehow seem to be fighting weakness while we strain to go up hill, yes, please, may I lean against that rock for a few seconds? One way or the other, I keep on moving up while the lungs are pushing and pulling in what good air needed to accomplish anything. That’s climbing.
The complication is knowing about climbing, hiking, or walking in the rain, or whatever slush it has left behind, allowing our souls and glee to get solid, soaking wet, since I can’t find an umbrella. What to do? Does one skip through the puddles to get from one place to the next - singing the old song of Gene Kelly as, dancing with his umbrella, he kicked up his heels and landed right through piles of New York Street puddles? Might it give one a piece of spunk to keep on keeping on trying to get to some sort of shelter? Meanwhile, as we humans suffer and try to get taxis, or umbrellas, or inside some store or restaurant, the birds are getting bathed, the plants are tasting the water that fills them up with hope and strength and creates flowers that decorate our homes and make bouquets for our loved ones. Water does this. brings life to things, brings joy to things. bring cleanliness to so much of nature and even the streets down which vehicles go and leave their muck and marks.
However, climbing sort of takes a slow down because one never knows when a boulder or rock can roll right in your pathway, and you slip on or in its dent, its hole, its incline, its rock, and we end up having to repair body parts. And one wonders, why did I think I could do that and not slip or stumble or trip or make a fool of myself trying to be younger than my older part? Walking and hiking and climbing are such amazing challenges, whether marbled mountains or deep forestal It’s truly good for the soul. We are so vehicle minded - to the point of having electrical cars that drive themself so man doesn’t have to fiddle with the driving part and can do whatever it is they have to do that diverts their interest in driving. I think this is beyond sanity, but that’s because I treasured the first car my father gave me at age 15, a yellow Chevrolet convertible, that even caught the eye of Elvis Presley, when a few of us girls drove by his modest house back in the day. Learning to drive, getting the license were steps of growing up. We learned to pay attention and when there was a hill, one didn’t pass by anything in front of us until we could see the other side. I guess that is similar to climbing up to a mountain top to see what is on the other side. We are curious. We take risks, and some put aside a climb to the other side, and instead flies over in a balloon or some new gadget that attempts to fly in the sky.
Back in the early days of life on earth, hiking and climbing was the only means of transport. In fact, when I was on the way up to Everest base camp in 2008, there were no roads for most of the way, and people carried things up and down mountains, around corners, regardless of weather. Some carried refrigerators, or huge boxes of machines or whatever that had to get to a destination where these were needed. Too, as well, people carried people who could not hike or climb, and animals were employed to do service now and then. Yet, all that memory is slipping away, fading out of our souls, human beings no longer getting somewhere important on a donkey, or walking with a tall stick to keep balance for a full day’s hike from one town to another. Those were the climbers, so to speak, in the day of Jesus and his followers. They moved around on sandals and surely dirty feet. They traveled on dirt roads and through dangerous places where their faith was not friendly to the environment, where enemies might step out from behind a rock and slaughter them. Tiredness was surely an issue, since what had to be climbed, took a toll.
Climbing is a healthy habit. My daughters are advocates of climbing whatever hill or mountain that seems to entice them to visit. Walking in circles around parking lots or lakes or gardens or down long dirt roads that pass-through pine or Eucalyptus trees in Uruguay has become a healthy fast walk in my routine while my dog Black, who is a black dog with no pedigree, trots along ahead of me and takes the turns, when necessary, while other dogs bark us as if we were monsters passing by their yards. This has been my “training” as I prepare to spend some time on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, where I lived 60 years ago. Things have surely changed, and I’m anxious to see if I can find any of the families who took care of me and my then husband, who was manager of a coffee plantation owned by Farab Inc. Memories are high kicking in my soul as I pray God will help me find old friends in that beautiful country where my adult like began.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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