Faces
I remember
Kilimanjaro. Trekking up the side of the
mountain with wisps of people on my mind.
Ones I remembered vividly; ones whose names I had forgotten. Some I loved, others I hated. People to forgive and people to be forgiven
by. The challenge of trying something
new thrust memories into the forefront of my mind. While battling altitude and cold to summit
the highest mountain in
“Pollo, Pollo.” Slowly, slowly the guide says. Is he speaking of my ascent, or does he know of the burden that I carry in my mind? The worries, cares, thoughts that I carry stowed away? Why is it that we always assume that indigenous people have some sixth-sense, a way of looking deep within us and extracting that which is yearning to get out? Do they look at us the same way, or do they look at us with contempt for taking their way of life and forcing it to be like the Western World?
I continue up the beginning stages of the dormant volcano leaving the desert behind and passing through a humble village. There is no wonder in the laughter of the children; they are accustomed to white people passing with brightly colored bags and expensive Gortex clothes. The Mazungoos, or white foreigners, steal away their fathers to carry the bags up the mountain which has provided life to their villages for so many generations. The tourist industry which taints their natural resources now creates a pool of money for them to alter their way of life with the newly ingrained Western thought. With broad smiles the children line up with extended hands hoping for some morsel of chocolate or some other treat as the visitors pull out their cameras for a quick photo. The fathers line up to carry the bags up the mountain for a small wage to keep their families fed.
Walking up the path the huts become fewer and fewer and the forest moves in closer. The dampness and warmth of the rain forest becomes apparent. Mocking sounds are cast down from monkeys and exotic birds perched high in the canopy of trees as my mind begins to wander through my current life. The now… the present... back home… My close friends, at least the current ones. Beer buddies, and the girl I currently call my girl friend, which is just to say that we are having sex on a regular basis. They are all present as I pass through this bright green foliage. I think about how content I have become and the fact that I don’t seem to be stretching or reaching anymore. My days have become the same week in and week out. I only really look forward to the nights I meet my friends at the bar, but I get bored of the banter of them complaining about their jobs and money. I tire of hearing even my own voice echo their words. Realization set in: I let life happen to me instead of taking charge, moving forward and seeking a positive and fulfilling life. Even this trip has come at the encouragement of someone else. All of my relationships seem to be more a matter of convenience rather than people I actually choose to spend time with. No longer do I have conversations about philosophy and religion; they are about money and getting old. It has been a long time since I have willed something in to being for myself and without external influences. When did I just start going through the motions? Or more importantly, when did I become so emotionally lethargic? I’ve stopped caring, or stopped having a reaction to occurrences that happen in my life, I just take the road of least resistance. I let my days pass without engaging in them.
That evening, I sit and watch the fire, participating minimally in the chatter of the other climbers getting to know each other. My gaze drifts off and I reminisce about when I really felt alive and to the girl I was with then. I always think of her if I have a moment to let my mind wander. I wonder what she is doing now and whom she is with? I don’t really know why it didn’t work out between us. The passion was there, the attraction, we just seemed to run off into our adult lives and forget about one another. My heart still beats a little faster just thinking about her smile, or her eyes, or her laugh; not a subtle, charming laugh, but one which showed that her refined appearance isn’t what it seems to be. A hearty laugh followed by a short snort, then she would blush and the tiniest of dimples would appear at the corners of her mouth as she smiled. Now it seems amazing how we would just go and do something. It was never planned. We could just sit cuddled under a blanket at a campfire not moving, not speaking for hours, or go skinny dipping in the chili spring waters of a nearby lake, or sit engaged in conversation in a smoky coffee shop. Just being with one another was enough. My thoughts return to the present and watching the fire burning down to the last few coals. I wait a few moments just to breath in the night air, then head to bed, exhausted, to enjoy the uncomfortable sleep on rocks and the hard ground.
The next day I progress up the mountain’s terrain and the plant life becomes more temperate. Evergreen trees and shrubs dominate the growth and seem to awaken my senses reminding me of home and my youth. The pine-freshness hangs in the air that people spend their entire lives trying to duplicate to make pine scented floor cleaners or pine scented cardboard cutouts to keep cars smelling nice. There is something so innocent about the fragrance though. Untainted. Carefree. Again my thoughts return to my past. That short period of life existing between gaining independence from our parents to learning responsibility that comes with independence. Adolescence. When all that matters is entertaining yourself for the day. There are no worries about money or time I don’t have. I had my first friend in life. We played in mud and sand and rain and snow for no other reason than that it existed and it is in our world. We were there to enjoy everything about mud with all of our faculties and senses. The smell, the taste, the texture, the feeling of mud leaving our little hands to splatter on the wall. Or even better yet, the splatter of it hitting my best friend’s head. It seems that just as I begin to enjoy these things they began to leave me. I noticed even at an early age that life wasn’t all about me. There were other things to consider, other people. That perfect fabric of a care-free world where I am the most important thing began to fray a little at the edge.
A cold night spent in the ancient path of a glacier that ripped a valley into the mountain causes frost to form on the inside of my tent. I step outside and the cold locks in my throat like a great lie being told to a lover. The valley still sits in the shadow of the eastern wall, but a line of light creeps down the western slope toward me. Shivering, I walk toward it and as the sun touches my face a warm glow infuses my body with heat and life. As the sun moves higher above the peak I feel alive, empowered. It is like taking a hot shower after a long day of shoveling snow and your body aches with cold. I almost tingle with energy as my shivering subsides.
The trees have given way to tiny bushes and some rock fungus. The thin air and low temperature makes it hard for anything to live at this altitude. My heavy breaths and short steps mock my youth and make me feel edgy and drained. My steps are short and wobbly; is this what is to come when I am an old man? Walking alone through life? Having been with friends and family, but they are no longer there? Is this what life leads to? On a small path I traverse the switchbacks back and forth up the side of a cliff. Much like life, it seems, back and forth, back and forth, trying to make my way. I try to find balance over a large spread or spectrum. Never going in one direction for too long; never just taking myself down the straight and narrow. Always bouncing back and forth from one extreme to the other. From atheist to a religious fanatic. From pot-head drunk, to health enthusiast. Never being able to find moderation. Never taking the paths straight up. Lately the path I have been walking I have been blind to. No matter which direction I am headed in. When I reach the top of the cliff, I look back and not only can I see how far I have come, but how beautiful each side is; the left and the right. Maybe there is some benefit to extremes if each side is truly experienced.
A fog rolls in while crossing an arctic dessert. It creates the weird sensation of being on another planet. Maybe the moon. I feel alone. Lost. Somehow… light. As if a single bound could take me many feet away. I think back to the beginning of my journey and the clouds which hid the upper third of the mountain from view. I am walking among those clouds. This new perspective doesn’t comfort me, although I am not uncomfortable. It is only a new perspective gained from my journey. As I walk through the fog I feel like a wraith lost in some dream world. It is so heavy that I can barely see my fingers with my arm fully extended.
Memories flood my mind of all the bad things I have done in my life. When I had lied, cheated or stolen to get myself ahead of the game. Not so much the deeds themselves, but rather the faces of the people that I’ve hurt through my actions, whether they knew it or not. The betrayed look on the kid’s face that I normally defended, the one day I joined the rest of the group and picked on him. The stern walk of the owner of the drug store that I sole a G. I. Joe guy from. The smile of the girl I told I would call the night after our one-night stand. All of them undeserving of the pain I have caused them. If through my actions less pain could’ve been caused to them, why did I not change and take another course. Why couldn’t I have been better? Would it have really mattered? Why do I continue to tell my present girlfriend that I love her when I don’t?
The fog begins to lift in the early evening as I am walking into the last campsite for the journey up Kilimanjaro. Even though the sun is producing an array of colors before it hides behind the distant horizon, the temperature has already dropped to the point that I have several layers of clothes on. There is a legend about a king who sent his finest warriors to the top of Kilimanjaro to bring the silver and gems down from the top. If only the memories of the silver glacier or the gem colored sky had value. I can see why the gods would have wanted to protect these treasures by stealing the breath of the warriors or freezing their limbs.
I
am quite anxious that night and sleep doesn’t come easily. Whether it is from the altitude, or the
excitement of reaching the top of the mountain tomorrow morning, I don’t know. Or maybe it is all the aches and pains of my
body from climbing the mountain, the blisters on my feet, or the lack of
nutrition, having had only soup the last couple of days. Strange dreams of my entire life crowd me in
my half-sleep. It is as if I experience
my entire life in a few hours of twisting and turning. I awake shortly before
I start off, one foot in front of the other in the black night. My ascent to the peak must start at night so I can be on my way back down before the clouds roll in at mid morning. The light from my headlamp illuminates the tiny visible world for me which is always checking my next step. What seems like a short eternity later, my visible world begins to flicker. The batteries are starting to freeze up. I feel like a small child realizing for the first time that they are afraid of the dark. I don’t want to lose my visual reference. In a few more steps, the light is gone. The blackness fills in around me choking out my sight. I am alone. I am claustrophobic in the four walls of night. If I scream out for someone, no one will answer me. The others are too far away. My voice would surely be swallowed in the blackness of the night anyway. Not knowing where my next step will fall I stand still. I am alone with my conscience. Gone from the existence of anyone else. Only me to determine what will happen. Should I go forward, or should I go back. Should I stand here? I feel like I have left the world of the living and journeyed to the unknown borders by myself. No one to guide me; not even a light to see by. Having stopped, I close my eyes tightly, as if there were any light to shut out. I try to cling to something mentally tangible, or awake myself from this bizarre dream. But it is still only me, just me. “Pollo, Pollo” a small voice says from somewhere in my head. Remembering the guides words, “Slowly, slowly.” I open my eyes and I smile to myself.
I start to open my eyes and have to rub them a little because the lashes have frozen together. When opened I find that my vision has adjusted a little to the darkness. I can just make out the silhouettes of the rocks and boulders around me. I look up to see the amazing star field that covers the sky. There are no city lights to drown out the sparkling constellations that speckle the heavens. I start forward again, slowly. Still without breath, still exhausted, but forward. I continue to walk telling myself it is just putting one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other. I rest. I walk a little further. I rest. I start to tell myself I will rest once I make it to a certain point. I count my steps to give me a more definite relation to this dark world. I reward myself with water, or maybe sitting. I am getting cold, or more appropriately, I am becoming more numb. I take deep breaths, but they somehow still feel very shallow. My short breaks become longer and after fewer and fewer steps.
I come around a corner and fall to my knees leaning against a large boulder. In the faint light I see before me a large hill made of scree. It is a fairly common occurrence at the top of inactive volcanoes where time and weather have beaten the rocks into a deep avalanche of tiny pebbles. I take a long rest and I drink some water. Very slowly I get to my feet. I take one step forward up the hill. After taking several steps forward I only make about half of the distance normally covered. I slide back half of the distance I stepped in a mini avalanche of pebbles. After several more steps, and sliding back, I fall forward to my knees and take in deep breaths. It should not be this hard to climb. Anger wells inside of me; at the mountain, at myself, at my lungs, at the air, at the cold… This is not the way it ends. With me kneeling on the mountain. Defeated. I force myself back to my feet. Taking long strides and using my hands for balance and extra momentum. I propel myself up the scree by sheer will. Until I fall forward again only a little further up the mountain.
My lungs ache from working so hard, my muscles burn from lack of oxygen, but I must keep going. I think about my friends, not really the ones that I hang out with, but the ones who really mean a lot to me that I have not seen for a long time. I push myself back to my feet and force myself to go further. I see the face of the boy as I picked on him too; I must push on to quench my guilt. I force myself to go further. I think of my parents, my brother, everyone I know who will never get to experience this. I continue the cycle many more times until I collapse, ready to give in. The faces, the memories, the emotion overwhelm me. I roll over to my back and lay very still trying to catch my breath. I open my eyes after a few moments and notice at the edge of the horizon the faintest orange is starting to brighten the sky. It must have been what it was like for Pandora to look into her box and see that hope was still there. It was confirmation of myself, of my existence; of my strength. After a few deep breaths, I turn over and start up the mountain again. At my breaks I turn to see the progression of the sun over the horizon. The oranges and reds bleeding into the sky and chasing the blackness away. When I turn back I notice that the guide is sitting at the next landing.
“Tembo, how are you doing?” he asks with his broad smile. He had nicknamed me Tembo in his language which means ‘elephant.’ I fall to my knees and breathe deeply, conserving energy so I can speak.
“I am exhausted, but I will make it.”
“Pollo, Pollo. You are not the fastest, but you are strong, Tembo.”
I make my way up the last of the scree and sit to watch the sun rise above the African clouds so far below me.
Almost in an instant everything seems to make sense to me. All of the faces that I have known come to me and I feel like they are all there sitting beside me. There is no hatred or dislike. Only forgiveness and love. Emotion and beauty overwhelm me. My entire life sits there in my mind and there are no mistakes, there are no failures, only triumph, and triumph with everyone. Tears freeze to my face before the sun finally begins to warm my skin.
In the fresh morning sun I unzip my jacket and remove my hat. I drink a lot of water and look to the last little leg of my journey, which is more horizontal than vertical. The memories and faces will come with me, but begin to fade as my tears of peace and tranquility evaporate. The guide extends his hand and helps me to stand. Before I start to the top, for the briefest moment I see his face and know that the journey through my mind has come to an end.