I've been talking about doing this for months. I told my old coworkers I wanted to do it. I told my friends and family here in California I wanted to do it. I researched it. I trained for it. I went to the gym every day for two months to whip my ass in shape to do it.
I wanted to climb a mountain for my 30th birthday.
And then I got sick. I rolled around in bed -- miserable -- for days. The landmark day crept closer. By Monday I was feeling better. So on Tuesday -- my birthday -- I hopped on the back of my friend's motorcycle and we headed up into the mountains.
We didn't have any intention of climbing anything. I was only recently recovering, still a little weak, so we decided just to ride and see where we ended up. We stopped every hour or so to grab a beer at some small-town bar or other along the way. We picked establishments with history -- This is one where we bought beer at 6 a.m. the day after an especially memorable three-day New Years' party ten years ago; This is the one his ex-wife started a fight in the parking lot while he was still dancing on the dance floor and my ex-husband left me there to find my way home ; This is the one where the effeminate male bartender wouldn't stop commenting on my friend's "sexy" build and served me liquor even when I couldn't produce an ID just because I was with him (I love gay men).
We made it up to the high country around noon, found a little meadow with a rolling brook amid a thick spattering of Douglas Firs, and stopped. I took off my shoes, hiked up my pants, crossed the stream and tripped up a hill on the other side, barefoot. It's the sort of thing I used to do, when I was a little girl. My brother and I would run around the foothills with no shoes on, imagine we were kings and queens and build fairy forts in the woods. It had been years since I thought of that. I found a tall rock with flat top and pulled myself onto it. Then I lay back and watched the clouds slip by.
Later, we climbed higher up the mountain road on the motorcycle until we found a 2,000-foot granite dome popping out of the side of the mountain. "This is it," my friend said, as he pulled the bike off the road and immediately dumped it in the soft dirt on the shoulder. The bike landed on top of me (somehow he had the foresight to leap off the bike before it hit). I was stunned, but laughing. The dirt was so soft that my leg sank into it -- if it hadn't been soft, I probably would have crushed my leg.
We parked the bike and looked up at the dome. The base of it was a mix of granite boulders and some low, spiky growth -- some plant I couldn't identify. We picked out a trail and started up the dome, scrambling over the rock and pulling ourselves up hand over foot through the brush that grew in the cracks.
By the time we reached the top we were both out of breath and a little dizzy as we surveyed the scenery. The Sierras stretched out, undulating in its grandeur, in every direction.
We were on top of the world.
I did it. I climbed the mountain. Sure, I fell on my ass more than once doing it (once on the way back down I fell backwards, we weren't using ropes like the dumasses we are, and I thought for sure, "This is it. I'm dead," but I landed on my ass in a pile of brambles, thank god).
I did what I set out to do. I'm still alive. And I'll hold that memory forever.
And I'm ready to climb the next mountain. I sure as hell am not waiting another 30 years to do it, either.
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