By Laudizen King
Little children, headache; big children, heartache.
~Italian Proverb
When couples hike in all kinds of weather and terrain they develop a special intimacy built on those experiences. They learn about each other in an environment far removed from normal domestic life. There is not a lot of veneer on a person when he or she is wet and cold and struggling to continue on a long trail. They learn each other's quirks related to preparation, and each other's facility to recuperate from pain, as well as the strength they pull up from deep inside when the trail is hardest and the going most difficult.
Little children, headache; big children, heartache.
~Italian Proverb
When couples hike in all kinds of weather and terrain they develop a special intimacy built on those experiences. They learn about each other in an environment far removed from normal domestic life. There is not a lot of veneer on a person when he or she is wet and cold and struggling to continue on a long trail. They learn each other's quirks related to preparation, and each other's facility to recuperate from pain, as well as the strength they pull up from deep inside when the trail is hardest and the going most difficult.
Shirley and I hiked together for six wonderful years in many diverse locations in the West. We were older when we met; she was a grandmother and I was in my fifties. We forged a relationship built on weekend hiking trips that gave us plenty of satisfaction and also showed us a lot of fine country that we never would have seen otherwise. It also grew in us that special intimacy borne of hard hours on the trail.
On every trip Shirley would collect a couple of stones. These were not stones of any geologic value, but rather rocks with interesting shapes and swirls or those with varied colors or patterns. When we would reach the summit, or were halfway, or even when taking a needed rest, she would peruse the ground looking for stones of interest. She would pick one up and run it through her fingers, turning it over and around on her palm to inspect it in detail. If the stone met the standards of some ineffable criteria, she deposited it in her daypack for transport back home.
Two fates awaited these stones on our return. A stone could be deposited in the great urn by the fireplace that held other stones from other trips, or, if it was special enough, it was set aside for Chad, the younger of her two grandsons by her son Danny. When Chad was six or seven he started to enjoy looking at rocks with Grandma, whether it was at a family outing at the beach or in the mountains.
So it was that Shirley shared these stones with Chad. They held them and inspected them and Shirley would relate the story of their origin in detail. She would describe where the stone was from and what the weather was like, what the trip had entailed. Chad enjoyed this and it gave his grandma a chance to interact with him and to look inside the boy as he grew. It also allowed Chad a look inside his grandmother, whether or not he knew or appreciated it at the time.
The stone collection also kept the connection between Shirley and Chad intact as Chad grew up. Shirley never felt she had enough time with her grandsons, so when the opportunity presented itself, Shirley would use the stones to connect to Chad.
And so they appeared, stone after stone. Small rough stones came from the high passes of Yosemite, and rounded stones came from its watercourses and waterfalls. From Death Valley came samples from the low salt flats of Badwater to the high trails in the Panamint Mountains, and from the craters of Ubehebe. We gathered them from every area of the Pinnacles National Monument; from beaches at Morro Bay to the coast at Malibu, from the Los Padres to the San Gabriel Mountains came small pieces of wonder to hold and describe. She gathered them where we hiked in Southern California: in the Cuyamaca and Laguna mountains, the wonderful Anza-Borrego Desert, and in Palm Springs.
One hot summer day we were on a hiking trail above Donner Canyon on Mount Diablo east of San Francisco. It was dry and dusty and we were pushing a real sweat as we trudged our way higher up the slope with Shirley out in front. She stopped at a turn on the trail and looked down at something in front of her. She bent over and picked up a small dark stone with three bands across it. She first ran her fingers over it and then studied it as it lay in the palm of her hand. Then, with a look of sadness that she tried to conceal from me, she slowly tossed it off to the side of the trail.
Things change, and time moves on. Chad was now almost a teenager, and the wonder over his grandmother's stones and the stories of where they came from was now of little interest to him. He had crossed a threshold leading to adulthood and the door of that threshold was closed forever; gone with it was the portal that had connected Chad and Shirley in such an illuminating way these last six years.
The look on Shirley's face was one of pain and resignation. I walked up the trail to her side and there in the sun-drenched day we embraced. For everyone, feelings of anguish come to us like this throughout our lives. We need to see these passages for what they are, appreciate them for what they were, and then let them go. There is beauty in what is brief, and for those formative years that were so important to Shirley, those stones gave her special access to the young man growing up before her.
We stood there for a second on the trail sharing the moment. We turned and, lifting our faces from the stones at our feet, gazed over the canyon spreading out below us as the peaks and ridges rose up into the blue sky above. Then we continued up the trail to whatever awaited us there.
At home, the urn of stones sits by the fireplace.
On every trip Shirley would collect a couple of stones. These were not stones of any geologic value, but rather rocks with interesting shapes and swirls or those with varied colors or patterns. When we would reach the summit, or were halfway, or even when taking a needed rest, she would peruse the ground looking for stones of interest. She would pick one up and run it through her fingers, turning it over and around on her palm to inspect it in detail. If the stone met the standards of some ineffable criteria, she deposited it in her daypack for transport back home.
Two fates awaited these stones on our return. A stone could be deposited in the great urn by the fireplace that held other stones from other trips, or, if it was special enough, it was set aside for Chad, the younger of her two grandsons by her son Danny. When Chad was six or seven he started to enjoy looking at rocks with Grandma, whether it was at a family outing at the beach or in the mountains.
So it was that Shirley shared these stones with Chad. They held them and inspected them and Shirley would relate the story of their origin in detail. She would describe where the stone was from and what the weather was like, what the trip had entailed. Chad enjoyed this and it gave his grandma a chance to interact with him and to look inside the boy as he grew. It also allowed Chad a look inside his grandmother, whether or not he knew or appreciated it at the time.
The stone collection also kept the connection between Shirley and Chad intact as Chad grew up. Shirley never felt she had enough time with her grandsons, so when the opportunity presented itself, Shirley would use the stones to connect to Chad.
And so they appeared, stone after stone. Small rough stones came from the high passes of Yosemite, and rounded stones came from its watercourses and waterfalls. From Death Valley came samples from the low salt flats of Badwater to the high trails in the Panamint Mountains, and from the craters of Ubehebe. We gathered them from every area of the Pinnacles National Monument; from beaches at Morro Bay to the coast at Malibu, from the Los Padres to the San Gabriel Mountains came small pieces of wonder to hold and describe. She gathered them where we hiked in Southern California: in the Cuyamaca and Laguna mountains, the wonderful Anza-Borrego Desert, and in Palm Springs.
One hot summer day we were on a hiking trail above Donner Canyon on Mount Diablo east of San Francisco. It was dry and dusty and we were pushing a real sweat as we trudged our way higher up the slope with Shirley out in front. She stopped at a turn on the trail and looked down at something in front of her. She bent over and picked up a small dark stone with three bands across it. She first ran her fingers over it and then studied it as it lay in the palm of her hand. Then, with a look of sadness that she tried to conceal from me, she slowly tossed it off to the side of the trail.
Things change, and time moves on. Chad was now almost a teenager, and the wonder over his grandmother's stones and the stories of where they came from was now of little interest to him. He had crossed a threshold leading to adulthood and the door of that threshold was closed forever; gone with it was the portal that had connected Chad and Shirley in such an illuminating way these last six years.
The look on Shirley's face was one of pain and resignation. I walked up the trail to her side and there in the sun-drenched day we embraced. For everyone, feelings of anguish come to us like this throughout our lives. We need to see these passages for what they are, appreciate them for what they were, and then let them go. There is beauty in what is brief, and for those formative years that were so important to Shirley, those stones gave her special access to the young man growing up before her.
We stood there for a second on the trail sharing the moment. We turned and, lifting our faces from the stones at our feet, gazed over the canyon spreading out below us as the peaks and ridges rose up into the blue sky above. Then we continued up the trail to whatever awaited us there.
At home, the urn of stones sits by the fireplace.
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