The Mountains We Choose to Climb

The Mountains We Choose to Climb

Posted by Nerdyy

Anne looked up above her, a foreboding vision of ice and rock loomed beyond. So here it was, the "unclimbable" final ascent, although the word unclimbable referred back to an era in the past. Sure, people had conquered that final climb, but Anne hadn't - yet.

She looked back behind her, and memories of the past flooded back into her mind. It was about two years ago that her world had almost collapsed. An innocuous 50 mile summer bike ride had ended in a heap of twisted metal and a shattered femur. The road back to fitness had been brutally long and hard, but Anne had persevered, having her shattered leg put back together with surgery followed by hours of painful rehab and physical therapy. Two years ago, when she was lying in a crumbled heap in the hospital, her face dissolved in tears, she would not have thought she would be here. But here she was.

She thought wistfully of all the fellow climbers of her group that she had left behind, lower down the slopes. Some unable to keep up with her, others unwilling. She thought of her twin sister Jo, who was aghast that she had even contemplated this. "Why, why are you even doing this?", she asked. Jolie or Jo for short, was 12 minutes younger than Anne, and yet it would be very difficult to comprehend that these two siblings were born of the same womb, so far apart were their personalities. Jo was diffident, racked with self doubt and somewhat unambitious while Anne was the exact opposite. Brave, fearless, a picture of self confidence, and very very ambitious. "I am not doing this for anyone", Anne had replied, "I am doing this for myself, to show me that I can."

A cold gust of wind snapped Anne back from the past that she sometimes had a habit of slipping into. There were a fixed number of daylight hours, and she could not afford to let the minutes slip by. Clenching her jaw, she turned her head back towards the final peak. With her ice axe she dug into the rock, and pulled herself up one step.

She was now a step closer to the summit she had always craved.

An Old Love, Revisited

An Old Love, Revisited

Posted by Nerdyy

Rahul races across the bridge. Bag slung over shoulder, jacket buttons open.
"Anjali", "Anjali" he screams.
Rahul comes to the end of the bridge.
He looks toward the tent. He sees two Anjalis - his daughter, for whom he was racing across the bridge, and the OTHER Anjali - yes that one, the source of the name for his daughter.

Well No - I wasn't quite going for that type of old love in this return to posting, rather a more constant companion of old, that I had somehow forsaken for other pleasures. As a kid growing up, my first love right from the time I learned to put alphabet letters together to form words was always reading. Fantasy tales, tales about animals, tales about schools and young kids, tales about young kids solving mysteries etc. etc. would fire up my imagination until I was lazily lying down with a picnic basket full of ham sandwiches, stretched out in a meadow full of daffodils. I would conjure up travel tales for myself, and pursuit of dragon tales for myself, and flying on witches broomsticks for myself. Growing up as an only child, with very strict parents with strict rules meant that reading was my only source of escape into a fantasy world, that I always yearned to escape to in real life, except they didn't exist in any reality! As I grew into my pre-teen years I somehow convinced my mother that I would achieve a lot more productivity with my schoolwork if I could shut my door and make it more quiet in my room. Once that convincing was accomplished, I would wait every day breathlessly until I could shut my door and then secretly delve into my books during homework time. Of course the homework would be done in record time in between the pleasurable reading times! And I had to invent my own subterfuges to get around the very keen eyes of my mother; who would keep a close watch over my book reading. You see, if she saw me with 1/3rd of the book read in the afternoon, and then in the evening notice that I was 2/3rd of the way through my book, she would get naturally suspicious that I had been reading the book during my homework time! SO I ended up reading portions of the book twice to ward off any suspicions.

Adolescence passed into the teen years, in the meantime music entered my list of loves. But reading was still very important - now I had graduated into the words of Alfred, the Williams, Jane, Charles, Emily, Arthur and of course a plethora of less literary mystery and spy stories. My fantasies still raged - one day I was at war leading an armada into battle and the next I was an Interpol agent racing through multiple train stations in Europe just to make my connections in pursuit of an old Nazi, and the next day I was seducing the most beautiful woman in my imagination who just happened to be betrothed to my cousin, the Prince.

And then one day in mid August of '92 I got on a plane and flew across the globe to this brand new place - Dallas! And my fantasies had come alive. I could see daffodils in March, I could race through airports, I could visit new and exciting cities - you get the point. And reading became a lot less important. And over the years as I became busier and busier with life, it slipped completely off of my radar. But I always wondered if there would be a day that I would gravitate towards it again, and maybe rekindle the old connection we shared. Maybe all I needed was a nudge and a push towards it. And in the end, after all these years that's all it took - many nudges and pushes, some overt but mostly covert and well hidden encouragements thrown my way.

Now that I had decided that I was going to reconnect with books, the question was what should I read. I was given a book that seemed a tad to heavy and depressing, about disease and mortality, so I set it aside (and will come back to later) and took up a lighter offering. And I was hooked instantly - maybe because it kept reminding me of experiences from the very near past. And I gleefully downloaded eBooks, and ordered books from the library. So now I have this pile of books waiting to be devoured, overt and covert meanings waiting to be deciphered, romances straight and illicit waiting to be explored, and travel stories waiting to be experienced.

So I can say that my old love has ensnared me again, and I am happily reading the words of the beloved authors and poets, and delving into the fruit of knowledge offered up by this garden of eden.