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18:49 - June 24, 2002
weak air
6/22/02, Rocky Mountain National Forest, elevation 8300.

Remember Laura and Falon and Chelsea and Kelly and Calvin and Libby and Casey and Mike and Will and the nameless beautiful boy who I dreamed dancing with Stephanie around a corner in Paris. The pigtailed masseuse and his sister running a makeshift massage booth outside the Boulder Cafe, and his long-fingered, strong hands. The contortionist who folded people�s children in little clear boxes for money. The curly-headed, blind guitarist singing in the square with his dog sitting at attention. The boy in a cat costume with a sign around his neck that said �Feed Kitty�.

At the end of my time with civilization, I learned that there were only twelve of us. Two Jessicas, two Hannahs, Mike, Jordan, Kristo, Justin, Kristen, Chris, Zach, and Greg in a fifteen passenger van up to where I sit now, where the air holds too little oxygen for me to breathe like I�m used to breathing. Kristo read us Dr Seuess under a canopy during a volatile lightning storm. My heart rate is up 20 from its usual, low, 72, and I dreamed a bear chased Camille and me and some kids from the campout into a corner of Orrington Playground in Evanston. I was still conscious while it ate us. It tickled, but everyone was screaming except me. I laughed and caught my breath and woke up, my heart hate at 180 by my watch. Sustenance is very weak here. It goes hand in hand with being beautiful.

My library book is warping from the heat. It stands steady at 94 degrees, humidity level 10%. Last night it dropped to 35 degrees in about thirty seconds. The weather here is possessed.... there was a lightning storm that struck almost everywhere except the high points. Wind knocked over three trees in a row, then suddenly stopped blowing and rain took its place. Temperature went down to fifty, the sun came out, and it poured harder. Rainbows streaked across the sky as commonplace as clouds, one after another after another after another.

6/24/02, home, elevation.. I have no idea.... 100? Maybe?

We hiked from 8400 to 9600 feet, nine miles. Five up, four down the other side, and nobody told me the sun got so close it scorches right through the sunscreen, or my legs would get so tired I stopped being able to feel one of my feet, or that I would pass out with in a field of clovers from pain and lack of oxygen and be laughing about it when I came to, Justin waving a stick in front of my eyes. Within the first half mile I knew I wasn�t as strong as they expected us to be for going on this program, and I had to lag behind by almost an hour with a guide. I found a four leaf clover about halfway up, and having never asked God for anything in my life, I asked this cliched good luck symbol to please give me luck. As it was, I became more and more tired until my vision blurred out and I went on autopilot and collapsed in that field and eventually messed up my whole left leg, so some would see it as a request gone unheard, but a hummingbird landed on my shoulder and tried to drink from my sleeve. A couple kissed on a high branch of a tree while I fed a chipmunk right from my hand and looked down on miles and miles and miles of mostly untouched land. A mountain lion, perched in a tree, was 200 feet below me and had no way of hurting me, but I could still look at him. I found a rock shaped exactly like a swivel chair and fell asleep in it, and when I woke up, a naked boy was walking by, wearing only a camera and sunglasses. I heard Justin, farther down the trail, yell �Hey, we�ve got kids coming down here... why don�t you put some clothes on?� and the boy just kept on going like he hadn�t heard anything except maybe the growl of two raccoons fighting over by a bush. I think I was lucky. I think I was in pain, but I think I was lucky.

And when we climbed, it was so much more fulfilling than doing it in a gym. I climbed four rock faces, one rated 5.10, one probably about 5.2. And no matter where I chose to climb, or who had the other end of the rope, Kristo somehow got there first, without rope, and poked his head over the top, smiling and cocking his head. �Wedge your foot in that corner for a better hold, why don�t you,� he�d suggest, then disappear from view, reappearing within seconds on a different rock face. I think after awhile we all believed that he had magic in him, so when we were all on top of a very high rock, chatting and watching the sunset drop scarlet behind Longs Peak, and Kristo suddenly leaped over the edge, none of us were so very alarmed. We rushed to the edge, and there, thirty feet below, was Kristo, standing on the next rock down... a very tiny, easy to miss rock, I might add. We laughed and climbed down there with him, and about five minutes later, he said, �It was very nice to have you guys as my last group.�
�Ever?� asked Jordan, and then Kristo leaped over the edge again.
This time, twenty feet over the ledge, there was no way to climb down. So we dared him to jump and land on a tree. �Nah,� he said, and then, climbing back to where we were (somehow), said, �but from here....� and leaped, grabbing the tree, which swayed almost horizontal with his weight. We laughed so hard someone was nearly sick over the edge. Pine needles stuck out of him every which way.

And three days of activity in the pine trees of Colorado does nothing in the way of making you smell any worse. Sweating is nonexistent along with their nonexistent humidity, and the trees infiltrate you with their sweet sap scent. I was going to say they should bottle it as perfume, but then I caught the pop-culture part of me and killed the thought.

And (the technical reason for being there, I suppose)....
1st Semester Class Schedule, Boulder, Colorado, 2002:
MWF 9 am: Intro To Ancient Western Philosophy
MWF 1 pm: Appreciation of Music
MW 2 pm: World Regional Geography
MW 3 pm: Deviance In U.S. Society
TR 11 am: Physics In Everyday Life

 

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