Back in 8th grade social studies I wrote a poem (for a class assignment) mimicking the heightened language of Civil War era letters with which I was newly acquainted. It begins: "We trudge on through the wind and snow/waiting for the sun and warmth the summer winds blow." I recalled these lines wryly yesterday as a friend and I scrabbled our way up a mountain in increasingly pelting rain, clouds of fog periodically enveloping us. We pushed through dense alder thickets, crawled between spruce undercarriages, and crossed snowmelt-fattened creeks, all in pursuit of a particular, classic glacial U-shaped valley. Friends, we were not disappointed. Subsequent to our tenacity of body and spirit, we laid eyes upon said valley; we descended perilous scree hillsides and jagged rock moraine; we stood upon the very source of Pipe Creek waters, gazed up into the mountain's maw, and cordially greeted the lookout marmot who popped up to judge the worthiness of our mettle.
This was a significant upping of the ante compared to last weekend's also-arduous hike of seemingly endless side-hilling on a 70-degree slope punctuated by snow patches akin to greased slides. That day at Palmer Creek was followed up by beers and brats and the witty story-songs of John Craigie.
Not all novelty and thrill is found in rarefied climes. We've been having game night at the big kitchen table after work, costumes encouraged. And I received a shipment of children's books from a former coworker, ripe for reading in cartoonish voices. I might also have to share my favorite postcard limericks that arrive sporadically from a traveling friend.
I suppose it's fitting that my current romantic relationship is almost entirely epistolary (though that term is a bit high-falutin' for what is 95% texts). Thoughts manifested as written words are like a magic teleportation device, or at least a clever parlor trick: they conjure a voice, an ethereal representation of a whole person, making the author present in real time though in absentia. And you can re-play the conversation, any time, just by re-reading.
