Under Attack

Without provocation (or maybe with?) I am under complete attack.  It is fucking fierce.  It just seemed to come on. I had just completed writing about the last system for this manual I am working on and was beginning to start make screen shots isolating these various systems to complement the descriptions.  And then out of the clear blue sky I could hear the whooshing in the distance and then there they were.

It is said that the best way to fight them is to not engage, but I did.  Once the engagement starts I always end up getting burned.  Just as I feel as though I am winning, I lose horribly.  I lay there naked and torn to pieces.  A lot of times I get up and engage again and the might dragons are all too willing to come back.  This can happen up to nine to ten times until I am completely spent, empty with only a hollow shell.

The attack today is huge.  I feel as though I am ready to engage completely without a thread of armor.  My best bet now is to engage but not fully.

I think I avoided complete engagement and thus complete annihilation.  I did get reinforcements.  Kelli came into help.  We are talking right now.  Strategizing.  She is but doesn't know it.  I think they come for her too but she is always able to avoid the attack by doing what she is doing now and that talking with me or talking with other people or being with other people.  Me on the other hand I can't seem to get an army together.  I am kind of stranded.

The killer thing is they can show up right now as I am talking with her.  I have engaged even while talking with her.  I actually find myself inviting them in.  I miss them and when they are gone for a while I want them to come back.

This is a problem.

The beauty of it all

For Anton, it was always all so beautiful.  They were beyond him.  They were there for him to worship.  He felt it was ordained on high that he worship them.  The great dragons.  The fire, the wings. the tails, the power.  The reason for his existence was the great fire breathing dragons of Zeundeachin.  When Anton looked at the dragons he saw nothing but beauty and grace.  This would change.

Listen!

The waves.  the water.  the rocks, The cold.  The taste of salt.  His eyelids parted. The sea spray blurred his vision. He looked up.   “I am still alive.  Really?” He thought.  “Fuck!”  Alone.  No remnants of his ship.  The crew gone.  The unkindest cut.  The pain rushed in,  His scream came without thought or provocation.  Just pain. That is all.  The pain gave way to the scream.  Consciousness was absent.  And the scream came.  And no one cared to hear!

Dieter, why?

The Dragons

They are coming in again.

“Ernie, I need another drink.  He said as he looked at the cat Laying on his satchel of tricks.  It appeared there weren’t any tricks in the satchel at this time that would ward off Dieter.  Pronounce Dee Tah.  Not Dee ter.  People pronouncing this Dee ter will be kicked to death by an Antifa squad!  Ernie gave him the bottle again.  He took a swig and listened as the woosh of Dieter’s wings thrashed through the air.  The hut shook. The air inside pulsed followed by a flash of yellow orange heat.

He couldn’t help it.  He loved Dieter and Dieter knew it. Dieter loved him.  However, both of them would have no qualms about killing each other if necessary but Dieter needed Anton so there was no fucking way Dieter would vaporize his hut.  Another woosh and a blast of air sending the fishermen on the shore into the sea.

Anton on the other hand loved Dieter and Dieter was like family even more so than his father who called him a dumb shit and a worthless bastard.  Dieter was like Anton’s son.

Aber ich liebe Dieter.  He cried with out stretched arms as Dieter fell wingless into the abyss

[It looks like our hero’s name is Anton.  Wendy’s name will be Mischa.  So it would appear that our names will be Russian.   By the way Wendy, you are the super super hero in this story]

Crazy

The next couple of posts are just fodder, some ramblings and some metaphorical fanatasy for some type of book that I might write.  Don’t laugh one day it will come out and I’ll make it into a monster, that is, if we all pull together as a team.  It starts out with me helpless in a cage.

Remember slot cars?  Remember how if they got going too fast they would fly off the track when they went around a curve.  Well, I am out on the wasteland known as the carpet upside down with my wheels spinning.  I need something to put me back on the track. Tonight was kind of a doozy.  I am not going to go into the details of it but it is bad and I spent $12 and something on this thing.  And this thing is not good.

I sit here in this cage
except I don’t sit.
I climb around the bars frantically
And then I settle on that thing
That thing I must not do.
But I do it.
But I need more than just that thing
I look toward the extreme
And then I head that direction
Putting one foot in front of the other
The motion is deliberate and smooth
I can’t turn my head away
My eyes don’t stare without blinking
They dry out and I don’t even notice
But now I am calm

Yeah, this is supposed to be a poem.  It is not very imaginative.  But ya know I am an engineer.  I am not sure if the dragons have flown away yet.  I don’t hear them.  I still like the dragon analogy.  Here we go!

The dragons came in tonight and they were furious.  They saw he was week and struck like lightning.  Awe Fuck! I can still hear them.  I need something for my constitution Ernie.  Ernie handed him the bottle and he slugged it down and then without missing a beat he went outside again.  He couldn’t help it.  He had to go outside and do battle.  The jitters went away or at least subsided. He watched them fly by.  “They’ll be back. I just hope not tonight!  Oh Mische, I am sorry! and then the words came out of his mouth without warning and without thought.

Weiter Gehen, Er sagt. Es tut mir so leid, Meine Liebste Mische!  Weiter Gehen!  His voice crashed though the air like thunder!

“Weiter Gehen.”

He looked back and she was gone.  He would never see her again.

Mische, If I was in fact your knight in shining armor, my armor wasn’t actually that shinny.  And you can see now that if you had stayed I would have not been able to fend off the dragons.  They were coming back for me and have arrived.  Perhaps you knew this. I hope you did and took care of yourself.  You knew the dragons would never leave though.  But you also knew I would fight.  So here I am. and you just watched yet another battle.

Both of us came from the land of the ice and the snow.  (Hey just like Led Zeppelin.)  You especially.  Remember how I told you I was a viking.  Well here ya go!  Except one thing about the vikings, they may have done their fair share of raping pillaging and plundering what ever the fuck that means but they also did their fare share of surviving.  Which is why I met you in September of 2004.  Turns out time happens instantaneously.  I am yours Mische.  I always was and I always will be.

He laid there on the rock as the waves washed over his naked and cut up body.  He looked toward the now empty sky where once the storm of dragons flew and said,

“Ich war es immer und ich werde es immer sein.  Du bist meine Prinzessin Mische! Du bist meine Prinzessin!“

He closed his eyes and lost consciousness but he was far from dead.

I will keep fighting them.  I am not going to give up.  I will lose battles for sure.  Just like I did tonight.  But I will continue to fight.  I will use what ever I can.  I will use crutches. I will cheat if necessary.  And I am sure I will die fighting.  And after I die I will see you again and the story will continue.  Don’t give up on me my princess.

Ernie watched from above.  All he could think was “You deluded fuck!”  Never-the-less he would help no matter what.

He woke the next day to see a blue sky.  The dragons came in to play as they often did.  Usually, being too tired he would lay there and just take it.  The dragons that came in in the morning were young.  He did not have the will to fight the young ones.  Fore once there was a time when he was one of them.

“Okay, so Ernie, I’m gonna need your help here.  Is there anyway you can give me a heads up on when they are coming in.”

The mighty breath of fire!  The power.  The seduction.  Those great wings.  The air they pushed away as they moved through.  The whoosh that left him breathless.  He loved them as soon as he saw them.  Although he had no wings, no scales, no eyes that could see forever, and a breath that produced just warm damp air he felt he was one of them.  He wanted so desperately to be one of them.  And they knew it.

The ice. The water. And, the fire.  The fire was warm.  This is really all he knew. At four years old he still couldn’t talk.  The elders of the village began to do just that – talk.  His father began to worry.  But he saw the fire.  He saw the smoke as it left the fire and realized that the smoke was just fire without the glow.  He continued to observe without a spoken word and the elders began to judge.  And his father began to act.

“You dumb shit!  You worthless bastard!”  he yelled at him.  In extreme frustration his father yelled at his mother saying, “Look at him just sitting there.  He’s a fucking idiot.”  And all he could do was sit on the stone terrified at his father.

Ah but Mortimus was watching.  “I think we have one.” he said to Claris.  (Pronounce Claudees) “Look at him.  His father is a fool!  This little one is far from an idiot.  He will ride us!  Can’t you see that, my dear Claris.  He will show us where to go.  He will show us where the heart is.  This young one will be mighty.  This young one will not only guide us but will worship us.  He will give us the key to destroy their world!”

But Claris could see this.  She could see even farther than Mortimus how valuable this little two legged creature without wings and without fire in his breath could and would be!

The winged serpents could see everything.  They could produce anything.  They could produce something that looked like “love”.  Oh, it wasn’t love but it sure did look like it.

Just a broken guy

"Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it until now. Just, y'know."  were probably the most stunning words between Richard Russell and ATC that day.

Okay, I may have had something to drink.

Reckoning:

The sadness of the past is gone
Wiped clean by the dream of a new relationship
The flames of loss, regret, remorse, and despair
smothered with the fantasy of a new love

Sand and dirt hastily kicked over smoldering branches and twigs.
Smoke; just fire without the orange glow
continues to rise around the edges and on the fringes
The newly displaced earth starts to warm

The voice in my head said, "You will deal with this."

Go back and look.

Look at the entries for December of 2015 and early 2016.  Look at the entries for Mar see uh.  Look at the entries for Jenna, Victoria and Valerie.  Okay there might not be entries for all of them.  Anyway just look back where your mind has been.

Look at Barbara and now Kelli.

You will deal with this.  I will see to it that you do.  You can try to hide behind the pornography, prostitutes and same sex fantasies.  You can hide behind your silly mountains, behind your hikes up Elden, behind your drives to Boulder.  You can try to hide behind your German language learning but I will still be there.

I will be there.  I am patient.  I have all the time in the universe.  I have nowhere else to be.  I can wait.  You will deal with this.

Unless of course, you die.

Okay but how?

No,  Really?  How?  How the fuck will I deal with this?

Give me a fucking clue.

Throw me a fucking bone will you.

Okay, I will deal with it.

Show me because right now I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.  Seriously, Deal with “this.”

What the fuck is the "this" of which I must deal.

What the fuck is “this”?  What is the “this” of which I must deal.

Okay,  So I will deal with this.

Who the fuck are you anyway.  Who is the “you” that will be there.  Who is the “you” that is patient, the”you” that has all the time in the universe, the you that has nowhere else to be, the you that can “wait”  Who the fuck are you!

Who are you and what is the "this"?

Okay, so there is a “you” that is telling me that “I will deal with “this”  and then there is this “this” thing of which I must deal?

Once again, “YOU” are going to have to throw me a bone here.  I mean something.  Maybe I understood it before.  Maybe I understood it just before Wendy.  But I fucking lost it.  I have no idea who the fuck “you” are and what the fuck “this” is.

I am sitting here hearing voices in my head.  Okay, hearing a voice in my head and talking about a thing with which I must deal.

I am gonna go out on a limb here and hypothisize as to what the consequence might be if don’t deal with this.  After all, why should I deal with this.  Why on earth do you say, “You” as in me will deal with this.

It has to do with the pornography, prostitutes and same sex fantasies?  It has to do with Valerie in my head all the fucking time?  Mostly it has to do with Valerie in my fucking head all the fucking time?  Is this what you are talking about?  Is this WHY I will be dealing with the thing called “this”?

Does dealing with “this” mean striking a deal? or does it mean resolving the “this.”

I got a headache.  I’m going to bed.  But yeah, sure, I will deal with “this.”?  (a smiley face emoji would go good right here)

Und Wenn ich komme von weit, weit her

Was bin ich ohne dich - Nicht gesund.
Du bist alles fur mich - auch, nicht gesund.
Ohne dich, bin ich nichts - Noch Einmal, nicht gesund
Und Schlussendlich:
"Ich kann nicht leben, wenn das leben ohne dich ist. . . "
Ganz ubertrieben, nicht gesund!

Down the rabbit hole on the web

For some reason I thought of Put Down the Duckie on a Sesame Street episode that I watched with my kids.  As I watched it, I was surprised by all the stars that contributed to sketch.  One in particular was Jane Curtain.  This lead to looking up what she looks like now.  She is an elderly woman with as is with all my childhood and young adulthood icons.  This made me think, "Holy Shit. All of us really do get old."  Which reminded me of a song by Ron Wood off his album, "Gimme some neck"  So I looked up the song on youtube to listen to it.  I started listening to it and then looked up how old he is and images of what he looks like now.  Which made me wonder what his role in the Rolling Stones was.  I found out the tense should be is because he is still with band.  At that point the outside environment broke through (I became aware of what I was doing) and started to close the tabs on the browser.  As I was closing them I got back to Jane Curtin and immediatly thought of the skit with Dan Akroyd on SNL's Weeknd Update where he says, "Jane you ignorant slut".  You guessed it. Had to look that up on YouTube and watched it in amazement and amusement.  It is hysterical!  The lines both of them say are so impressive so I went on a search for the script and saw this:"Can somebody please explain to me why “Jane, you ignorant slut” is supposed to be funny?" It was on a "Reddit" post.  I wanted to add a comment and so tried but I had to sign up.  This then finally caused me to close the browser.

According to the history on my browser from the time I started down the Rabbit hole to the time I crawled out was from 11:35 to 12:01.  I just looked this information to put in this writing and found that it wasn't as long as I would have guessed.  But it was still quite some time.  I have gone way further down the rabbit hole than that to the tune of maybe 3 hours - not at work though.

Start: Put down the duckie
End: Reddit - Wanting to reply to "Can somebody please explain to me why “Jane, you ignorant slut” is supposed to be funny?"

We only get so many moments

We only get so may moments to spend with one another make them good ones.

For those of you fighting with your true love; take stock.  The moments you get to spend together are fleeting.

Wendy and I actually never really fought. The conflicts that we did have were very short lived - hours at most.  As sickening as it may sound we both almost played this game of "who could acquiesce the most."  This is not quite true of course.  Because that would really make me throw up. The point is is that we looked inside ourselves and figured out what was each of our parts in the conflict. And both of us ALWAYS had a part.  We would immediately try to find our part and make amends to one another.  And miraculously the conflict would cease to be.  Out of every conflict what ultimately happened was we came closer together and found our love for one another deepen.

I kind of feel that there must be some law of the Universe which states that the love between two people has a maximum depth.  Once that depth has been passed one of the people have to be removed. I am sorry. This is me being the victim.  Alas there is no such law.  It is just the brutal reality of life.

This insentience need to be right left me when I was with her.  In every conflict I think unconsciously I would ask myself is this conflict worth the cost of being right.  The answer was always "no."  She did the same thing I think. Because sometimes I would be right and sometimes she would be. It was really quite beautiful.  I would happily be wrong all the time if I could be with her again.

The only drama I have going on these days is the drama in my head:

It feels to me that this is what is going on with her and one day she will say this to me:

Do you want to know why I am not talking to you and don't return your texts.  Do you want to know why I really don't want you coming to see the kids and Why I absolutely don't want you staying at the house.  In fact, do you want to know why I never want to see you again.

I am getting better at letting go almost to where I was in 2007 and I think I could deliver the following response.  Although I am pretty sure it would not be "recovery approved"

No, I actually don't want to know.  I don't want to know any of that!  Really.  I could tell by your behavior something "was up."  And I was right!  I know the signals really well.  Because you haven't changed. . . . at all.  I knew there was something going on in your head, that you had concocted some belief based on a smattering of cherry picked evidence that fits the narrative of me being the "evil bastard"  No.  I don't want to know because it would be coming from a 14 year old and would be meaningless because what ever is going on in that little 14 year old brain of years is just a fantasy necessary to maintain the narrative.

I will think about what is going on with you from time to time and wonder, "Oh my G-d,  Is she thinking "this!?" or thinking "that!?"  I will actually be worried about it. This will happen at night and then I will usually find my way back to sleep.  In fact I've been doing EMDR work on it.  I have been able to let go of it.  Let the consequences happen as they should.

My behavior has not been stellar since Wendy passed.  My behavior with Wendy WAS stellar.  In fact, my behavior with you has also been absolutely stellar.  That thing back in May of last year was ALL you - one hundred percent.  And what's going on with you right now is ALL you.

Here's the thing, I go to meetings and work on myself - constant introspection!  What am I responsible for?  How did I contribute to this?  I even do that with this situation and I can come up with stuff.  Yes, I have amends to make on this but I am not going to this time because as you say you never want to see me again and believe me that is not a problem.  You on the other hand don't have any self awareness - none that I can see.  Have the words, "I'm sorry." ever passed through your fucking lips. . . .Yeah, I didn't think so.  I certainly never heard them.  You're just like your dad.

Here's the other thing,  You were afraid of being perceived as a super bitch.  I think you're pretty well beyond that.  When you said you didn't want "to get back together again."  Where the fuck did that come from?  As I thought about it after the conversation all I could think was, "You gotta be fucking kidding me."  Hopefully the following will put your mind at ease, provide you some peace:

I watched the love of my life, the most beautiful woman I ever laid eyes on, the sweetest person I have ever met die over a period of three years with the last six months of her lovely life being nothing but torture.  And the unkindest cut of all is that you are still breathing and walking this earth with impunity.  

If I ever find that you are enduring or have endured that same fate I will do an end zone dance complete with fist pumps.

So, no, I don't want to know why.  Just please do me a favor and go fuck yourself and by all means stay the fuck out of my life!

Dreams from last night

These are just bits and pieces of dreams:

Susan White;

I knew her from high school.  She was one of the untouchables for someone like me.  Of course, Wendy was one of the untouchables.  Anyway in the dream she came to visit the place where I live.  We talked and had "meaningful" conversations but I can't remember what we talked about of course.  I remember telling her about there being flights direct to Denver from the place where I live.  I remember her not being that excited about it.  She is a flight attendant on that airline that will be providing the service.  There was someone else present in the dream it may have been my housemate.  This person asked me if I asked why she came to visit me.  I had not.  I remember talking to this second person looking out the front window of my house.  The view was up a road that winded up into mountains.  It was foggy or maybe just a grey day.  I never did find out why she came to visit.  This melded into the next dream.

Wendy:

I was holding her.  In part of the the dream we were naked together. No sex.  It was sort of sexual but not really.  I do remember kissing her on her neck and cheek and holding her tight but there was no "arousal."  This time she seemed perfectly healthy. Although I recognized her as Wendy in the dream when the image of her (in the dream) comes to mind that image doesn't look like her at all.  We knew the cancer was there and we were kind of in this mode where we were waiting for something to happen. . . 

Finally I remember walking around Wendy's house.  It had an upstairs.  There was a den.  The master bedroom was the entire size of the house I actually live in which is really Wendy's house.

There was more but that is about all I can remember.

Some thoughts on perception.

My ex-wife sees me through the lens of the person she knew over fourteen years ago.  To a large extent, I believe I have changed.  At least in how I behave.  I have to admit I still let my thoughts do the "self will run riot" thing.  But my actions and outward behavior have changed.  All the people I know in the place where I live don't know and have never met the person that my ex knew.  When I talk about the way I was they are in disbelief.  They can't imagine.

Through the lens with which my ex-wife sees me all my actions, behaviors, things I say, facial expressions, questions I ask, every little nuance, even the way I walk are filtered to answer one question.  "How is he manipulating me?"  She always comes up with an answer.  It is a stunning testament to the way I was.

My solution:  Stay the fuck away from her and only communicate with her when absolutely necessary and then only by text.

A post to Facebook

There are lots of things shared on facebook - pictures of fun times, cute succinct sayings of wisdom. cynical sayings, the vitriol of political debate, and sometimes downright hurtful sarcasm. However, shares about the experience of the depth of loss are rare. You shared about loss which is a real piece of you. The result is a connection which transcends the differences that divide people. I really appreciate posts like this probably because I can relate in a somewhat profound way.

 I’ve been coming apart for the last three years. I know I will continue to do so. I think this may be the price of love. I get to a point where I think, “Ah, I’m good now!” and the wave comes rushing back in. I agree with you. It’s not about the opal. It’s about the incomprensible absence - the void - the vacuum left in her wake. I’ll pull a plate out of the cupboard and another will come crashing to the floor and all I can think is, “There goes another part of her.” The plates were hers.

 Thanks for your post.

On Vacation

Went on vacation with my lesbian housemate.  It was one of the best if not the best vacation I have ever been on.  Bare in mind my phone died just prior to the vacation and as we were driving out there my front tooth fell out due to recent dental work.  I managed to keep it together though.

I so don't want to work today.

But I have to.  Come on . . . Pull it together.

On the Mountain: Day 3

At this point, there is no turning back.  Not in my mind anyway. Some say this is not healthy thinking.  It may or may not be but I made a commitment. I was pretty much at the end of the rope.  Which is pretty bad because as I have come to find out, I don’t use ropes. Something had to change.  The words to the song, Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd put it best.

 

We’re just two lost souls

Swimming in a Fishbowl

Year after year

Running over the same old ground

Of how we found

The same old fears. . .

I had said yes.  We say lots of words in our lives, have lots of conversations, say many things, many phrases.  It may be that 99.999999% of the words we say have no impact on our lives or anyone else’s for that matter but this one word spoken at that time over the phone was like a 90 degree turn taken at 90 miles an hour.  There was sure to be a wreck.

I am not sure of the exact words that I thought after I had said yes but I do know the feeling was one best expressed by the phrase, “Holy Shit” along with a sudden loss of breath.  I didn’t see it this way then but my boots were on the ground and I had shut the car door. The mountain in front of me however was obscured by a heavy fog. Although I knew I had a pretty good hike ahead of me, it never occurred to me that there was a mountain behind all that fog.

I remember my ex-wife saying, “I can’t believe you think this is a good idea.”  as I was looking up ads on “roommates.com” Our marriage was falling apart and for good reason.  I certainly own at least half of it. But I have to be careful. Although I would like to take on the full blame, it is clear to me now that this is not true.  I am not sure how much of this I will go into in this book. It would probably be best if I just poured it all out for you to see.

I certainly was a bad actor in the marriage.  I know my part in it. I know it well. In fact, it is difficult for me to see what part she had in it.  This actually, to this day, fuels a bit of a resentment: “She is perfect.” is the basic premise behind this resentment.  In my mind the perception is, is that she is perfect. I actually believe she believes this. This of course is unhealthy thinking.  But I will continue. After all, this is my perception and I am fully aware that my perceptions don’t alway jibe with reality.

So, here goes an abbreviated version of the resentment: She is not afflicted with cravings of any kind. She does not drink to excess.  She eats only lettuce although sometimes she will allow herself to have a peanut. Her desires for sex are controlled as if she has some type of button that turns them on at a time of her choosing.  Otherwise she has no interest and thinks of sex as something that people who live in trailer parks do. She lives in a life of constant productivity. It occurs to me that if she could, she would devise a way of being productive during sleep.  I am not talking about having dreams that would help her out psychologically. I am talking about real stuff. If she could have lucid dreams where her body could be moving and doing stuff like building a house she would do this. She regards sitting and reading, writing, doing art, listening to music as unholy wastes of time.  Self introspection is frivolous and for the weak. There is no need for self introspection when you are perfect.

Please understand that this is my perception which is pretty much a caricature of who she is.  It is an exaggeration. I do know that there is an element of truth no matter how small or subtle behind every claim.

Forget about her though, this resentment should tell you volumes about me though.  It should tell you why we are no longer married. Seriously, do I have to spell it out?  Okay, I will but not quite yet. I am hoping it is apparent that the resentment with my ex-wife is indicative of many things I have going on with me.  Which is the most important part of this book, me. Herein lies the problem. Me.

There are many paradoxes in life.  This is one of them. Our marriage fell apart the moment our eyes first met because I was and was not or rather am and am not the most important person in the world - in case you were wondering.  I was and can still be self centered in the extreme while completely disregarding myself. When you put these two things together the result is a shit show that makes the New York City septic system look like a well maintained porta-potty.

The problem wasn’t her, my job, my dad, my mom, my sister, the republicans or the democrats, the christians, the jews, the muslims, Osama bin Laden, George Bush, Bill Clinton, the Russians, the Canadians, global warming, the patriarchy, the industrial military establishment, chem trails, or even the illuminati.  The problem is me. On that day, after the the “s” in yes left my lips, went into the microphone, traveled through the spaghetti network of wires and cables, over the airwaves out the speaker of the recruiter’s phone and finally into his ear I stood there staring into the fog getting ready to take the first step on a mountain climb that appears to be taking up the remainder of my life.  The mountain I had to climb and am still climbing is me.

On some of the difficult peaks in Colorado and maybe with every mountain there is a passage called “the crux”  You may have heard, “The crux of the problem is . . . “ When I started climbing/hiking the mountains in Colorado, the fourteeners specifically, I ran across the word, “Crux.”  Up until then I did not know the etymology of the term. I thought it meant the heart of the problem, which it does, but that was it, “heart of problem.” It actually is a thing a real thing and when we use the term or phrase, “crux of the problem” it seems to me we may be using a metaphor.

Turns out a crux is also real thing.  It is a place. It is a place where sometimes people breathe their last breaths where the minutes that people have yet to live are measured in only single or double digits.  It is a place where the lives of people experiencing joy and excitement, awe and wonder abruptly end. The crux is an important place to know.

In order to achieve the summit on some of the fourteeners in Colorado one must traverse, hike, scramble, and/or climb up through the crux.  The crux is usually the only way up to the summit The crux is difficult and dangerous. It is like a funnel. There are multiple routes to and from the crux.  A mountain’s difficulty rating is based on the difficulty of the crux. The route may be just a hike or a walk. Maybe you could even take a mountain bike up the route but if the crux is rated at say a class 4 scramble, the difficulty of the route is categorized a class 4.  Class 4 is generally regarded as sort of the no-man’s land or nether region between where ropes are or are not required to safely achieve the summit. The consequence of unsuccessfully navigating a class 4 scramble or climb is death. Not impairment, not a long hospital stay, not paraplegia just death.  This is what makes class 4, class 4. As a point of reference, as I write this book, If my life were like a climb up one of these fourteeners with a class 4 crux, I am on that crux right now. I know that I am in the crux and this is one of the reasons for this book.

I am perched in a vertical crack around 13,800 ft above sea level.  I have a little over half the oxygen I would have if I were at the beach.  I have one foot mashed up against one wall and the other foot mashed up against the opposing side creating a compressive friction grip between my body and the crack in the wall.  I have one hand on a solid rock above me and I am reaching for another rock above that. That rock, I have lightly tested. I have pushed on it from below checking for any movement.  That rock can not waver in the slightest. I have tested and retested. As I begin that reach I am preparing to relax my legs in order to slightly release the compressive grip my feet exert on the opposing walls of the crack.  The “plan” is to release my feet slightly, pull my body up with my arm that is currently engaged with the solid rock. I will do this quickly so that momentum will send my other hand above the rock I am trying to grab my target rock.  My hand needs move above and over that rock in order to gain a solid and complete purchase that will bear my weight until my legs and feet can regain the friction grip on the opposing walls of the crack.

The reward of  a successful completion on this move is my life.  I get to keep it. There is nothing but air between me and the ground fifteen hundred feet below.  Not that it would matter but fifteen hundred feet below me are rocks the size of SUV’s, refrigerators, and small houses that from my vantage point look like pebbles.  At least that’s what I think they would look like if I were to look. There is no value in looking down. The only thing that matters is the task at hand which I will perform without thinking.  

That’s right, I don’t actually think about this and to be honest there usually isn’t a plan.  I mean it’s not like I actually think it out like I am preparing a set of instructions as outlined above.  More accurately it goes something like the following: My feet are holding me up in the crack and my left hand is wrapped around a solid rock above me and I see the target rock above that one.  I test the target rock by pushing on it from below which is the only thing that may be considered as a plan because it involves very deliberate and detailed forethought. My presence is required here my absolute undivided attention.  My life will depend on that rock. Then in less than a second, in less than any time it would take to actually think about what I am about to do. I relax my foot hold, hoist myself up, swing my right arm up, grab the fucking rock and re-engage my foot hold in the crack.  This is my life right now.

“Really?  Are you serious?  It’s that fucking dire?  Don’t you think you are being a bit melodramatic here?” You may be asking yourself.

Well, yes and no.  To some extent I am over dramatizing the situation but if you were to get inside of my head at some choice moments usually late at night as I am trying to get to sleep or early in the morning as I am waking up you might bear witness to how dire the situation is.  I mentioned earlier, “I know that I am in the crux and this is one of the reasons for this book.” How do I know I am in the crux? An indication that I am perched in a crack fifteen hundred feet in the air was expressed by me in a therapy session. I said, “I don’t think anybody would notice if I were gone.”  This seemed to raise more of an alarm than a sentence like, “Nobody cares about me.” which I have also uttered. That second sentence is important too. I guess. But for some reason; and I don’t know why, but the first one raised the hair on the back of therapist’s neck. We will be doing work on this one. So you’ve caught me perched here in this crack with my feet mashed up against its opposing walls hanging by my left hand from a rock above.  I am desperately looking for the next rock.

At this point, there is no turning back.  Welcome to the shit show!

On the Mountain: Day 2

Like I said, I had no idea I was on the mountain but there I was.  It happened as soon as I opened the door and put my feet on the ground.  I often wonder when this happened. It may have been that day at former employer when I said “yes” to the recruiter to accept the job in Flagstaff.  I can imagine in slow motion the “Y” in yes beginning it’s annunciation starting as a breath of air in my lungs then traveling through my larynx, up through my mouth, over my tongue and through my lips. Simultaneously my legs slide sideways out of the car door with my boots exiting first.  And as the “s” in “yes” completes it’s hiss traveling through my tongue and palate, my boots connect solidly with the ground and my body is no longer connected in any meaningful way to the Forerunner. I am on the mountain.

On the Mountain

Approaching the mountain my stomach is in knots.  My head spins.  The talk inside my head is crazy.  There are two people there - in my head - as I approach the mountain and/or trail head.  This is the conversation:

"I can't believe you're doing this.  Really!?  Seriously!?  C'mon just turn around, go back into town, get a room for the night and go back home in the morning.  Or wait better yet, you could just turn around and go back home now.  You could be having coffee and eating dunkin' donuts in the morning.

Okay, yeah, you're rig. . .   Wait a second, No! I am here!  I drove all this way.  People know I am coming up here to do this.  What will I tell them.

What will you tell them!?  You gotta fucking be kidding me.  Tell them you ran into bad weather.  Tell them it was too difficult.  Tell them you almost fell to your fucking death.  Tell them anything.

But I don't want to miss out.

Miss out!  Miss out!  What the fuck!  Miss out on what!?  Miss out on all the pain and exhaustion!?  Miss out on getting yourself (wait what am I saying?) us - getting "us" killed!.   What is your problem!?

I've got to do this.  It's going to be awesome.  It always is.  After the first few steps it'll be okay.  Really the suckiest part is the hike up to the climb.

No!  No!  No!  It's not going to be okay and it won't be awesome.  You're fucking crazy! This whole thing is fucking crazy!  Five people died there last year  or what about that kid who slipped and fell on Little Bear.  What happens if you climb up something you can't climb down.  What if you fall and are immobilized and starve to death or you get hypothermia.  You can't be doing this.  You're not going to do it.

Yeah, I know.  But I'm here now.  Let's just get out and we'll walk a ways and turn around.

As I open the door the voice is a bit more panicky:

"NO! NO! NO!"

I try to counter, "Just calm down.  Just take it easy."

I step out and put both feet on the ground and think, "This is really happening."

I walk around to the back and lift hatch back on the Forerunner.  A more panicky voice returns:

"You're not going to turn around are you.  You're putting on your pack you fuck!  You lied to me.  Just take off the pack.  Put it back in the car.  We can drive away you and I and pretend this think never happened.  Come on!"  It pleads in desperation.

After I have my pack on and the poles in my hand,  I take my first few steps across the road to climb over the barbed wire fence.  The voice is in full on panic mode but decrescendos into background.

"Awe C'mon now.  Turn around.  For the love of God turn the fuck around would ya please.  This is insanity.  You don't need to prove any. . . "

The much more quiet voice deep inside just says, "You've got to do this Andy.  You really don't have a choice.  You really never had.  Just put one foot in front of the other  We'll be okay."

The volume of the cadence of the hike emerges and takes over.  I no longer hear that voice.

The summit

Wendy lay in the bed sleeping.  At this point she was a living thing.  I was going to say, "She was just a living thing."  But I can't seem to bring my self to use that sense of the word "just" as in "simply", "merely", "only", etc. . with regard to Wendy.  There is very little about Wendy that can be described as "just this" or "just that."  She wasn't "just!"  She wasn't "just" anything.

But on that Sunday morning she lay there sleeping with the nasal cannulas in her nose and the machine whirring and hissing in the background.  It was like the oxygen generator was gasping for her.  She laid there motionless.  Her chest imperceptibly moving.  The mass of Wendy that occupied that bed that morning was but a fraction of what she was a month earlier.  She could no longer support herself in any other position other than horizontal.

All the beauty, all the grace, all the wonderful little intricacies that were Wendy lay there in that bed.  All the lovely words that were spoken in love in anger in laughter  in question and in truth lay there in that bed.  Those eyes that looked at me in dis-belief when I asked her to marry me - that looked at me in confusion about what was happening to her during her last few days of consciousness lay there in that bed on that grey day in December.

It became apparent at some point between the time Larry left and noon that that day would be the day she would summit.  I didn't see it as a summit though.  I didn't even know I was on a mountain.

A grey day on the hill - the gift of not knowing.

It is a grey day.  It seems it's like a bad day on the hill.

I walk away
It seems it's like a bad day
On the hill
I stand and stare away
Hoping for a brighter day
And I stand staring there
And I stand staring there today

-Toni Childs, House of Hope - 1991

And it will be a bad day.  It will be my worst.  To this day I can not say I have had a worse day before or since.  Maybe I have but I guess I don't want to get caught up in comparison.

Larry comes over in the morning.  He brings donuts and coffee.  Dunkin' Donuts®, the chocolate creme filled kind.  Coffee with cream.  Three years later to this day, that cream in it's packages still sits in the refrigerator.  When he comes through the front door as he passes through the living room he says hi to an unresponsive Wendy.  The oxygen machine continues to whir and hum in it's never ending cadence as the day marches to it's inevitable conclusion.

We go to the kitchen and talk.  I don't even remember what we talk about.  It seems to me it was like any other Sunday and I really didn't think anything was up.  Wendy had not been conscious for some time as in a day or two.  She may have been conscious in these last couple of days but it has not been apparent.

I don't even remember when she was last conscious.  Should I?  It feels like  I should. It may have been that previous Wednesday.  She may have been barely conscious on late Friday afternoon, December 4th.  I think at that point I was wanting her to not regain consciousness.  This is something I don't think I would have ever imagined thinking about someone.  Especially someone I loved so dearly.  I did love her didn't I?  These questions like when was she last conscious?  What were my last words to her?  What were her last words to me?  Did I love her enough?  These questions and many others like these have haunted me ever since.  All of them I can't answer.  All of them have answers but they are lost to me.

We were traveling fast.  Time was whizzing by taking all the little precious important details right along with it.  It is kind of like the draining of a bath tub.  In the beginning and for most of it you can't tell anything is happening.  The level is dropping but almost imperceptibly and then at some point you can see the bottom of the tub.  The murkiness of the soap starts to give way to to the color at the bottom and then the texture becomes apparent.  As the water level approaches the drain you can see the bubbles moving faster and faster toward the vortex until they make that last quick swirl and the ploop down the drain they go and it's all gone.  In those last couple of moments there is no time to catalog the details, record images, make notes of this is the last time this happens or this is the last time that happens because you need to be able to predict the future in order to understand you are experiencing something for the last time.  In the words of the mighty "Floyd"

"The time is gone, the song is over.
Thought I'd something more to say"

Every once in a while I would catch something.  But it wasn't like I could catch it while it was happening.  Like I said, I would need to be clairvoyant so it is only after she died that I was able to know that the last night we shared a bed would be on November 19th 2015.  On November 20th of 2015 she went into the hospice bed in the living room and would remain there until the end except to go to the bathroom as long as she was able to. She was very lucid on that night.  In fact it was kind of just another night with her except she was lying in the bed instead of on the couch.  Our friend Tara had come over like she did on Saturday nights and we would talk and visit and laugh.  That night was no different other than we decided that it would be best to have her sleep in the hospice bed.  I would sleep on the couch along side the bed.  Incidentally Tara would spend all the nights there in the guest bedroom until December 6th as well.  But November 19th of 2015 was the last night I would put my arm around her stomach and lock my legs in behind hers as we would spoon and drift off to sleep.

I can't tell you that if I would have known that that was the last night if that would have been a good thing or not.  If I would have known that that was the last night I would spend spooning with her it probably would have completely wrecked the experience.  If I would have known it, how could I not think about that being the last night.  I would have never gotten to sleep and therefore would not have had the warm comfortable experience of falling asleep with our bodies entangled.  In fact, as I write this it is becoming clear that not knowing stuff like, "this is the last night" or "these are our last words" is actually a gift.