The Mountain Top

April 10, 2010

I got off work at 10 a.m. on Friday, so Jeremy drove me in in the morning and then picked me up after I was done so we could head to the Tucson Mountains right away and go for a hike. I have been a little irritable lately (Jeremy might say more than a little), which of course makes Jeremy a little edgy. So when we started off on the trail, we were both a little out of sorts. Jeremy brusquely fidgeted with his camel pack that he thought was beginning to leak, frustrated that it was dripping on him. I couldn't find my hat that I left at the office, which frustrated both of us. But by the time we had climbed the first major incline, we were able to pound out those frustrations and ease into the beauty that surrounded us.

Something happens to us when we're out there. Nothing but nature, maybe a few kind folks along the way (hikers are usually so polite and happy). And it's just the two of us. For three and half hours, just the two of us and the warmth of the sun. It didn't take long before I could feel the endorphins flowing, "Man, I think I'm getting a little hiker's high," I told him. And the conversations have their own life too. At the beginning of the hike we're usually catching each other up on the little tidbits of the week that have escaped us till now. Always we talk about the marvels we encounter on the way, scenes so foreign to two Midwest kids. And those comments of course lead us to pondering how we ended up in Tucson and what our life has been like since we got here (7 years ago this September).

And then there are the random thoughts that we share and expound on because, well, we have the time and really, the mental space to do so too. Times like these we do a fair amount of processing our hospital experience. Things we need to remember, new takes on things that happened. I still find myself saying, "Really? I didn't know that," when he shares something, or "I don't remember that." We sort through our respective faiths, ponder the troublesome doctrines. We help each other navigate relationships with other people. And of course, we talk about the future.

As we approached the top of Wasson Peak, I realized the last time I remembered making it to the top was in March of 2007. "Really? It's been that long since you've been here?" he asked. It was the last time I could remember. We tried the hike this past fall, but I was in too much pain and couldn't shake the constant feeling of having to go to the bathroom. But not this time. Not since my January change in medications have I had that problem. "It must mean a lot to you when you accomplish something you haven't done since before the hospitalization," he said. And it does. It means a lot. It always surprises me too, because sometimes they are things that I had given up on being able to ever do again. So it was that I felt a sense of personal triumph at making it to the top of Wasson Peak (and in near record time I might add!).