I’m primarily a nature writer
My response to an inspiring quote, and links to original articles in Discover, Humans and Nature, and Hippocampus below that
Katie Ives, author of Imaginary Peaks: the Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams, posted the following quote, and I shared my response to it below.
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“You see, a climb is a poem—in the full etymological sense of the word, from the Greek (poiesis), making. It is a making of possibility itself, a creation of what a body can do, of where it can go, of how it can be…. What can poetry do in such a world? What can a climb? What does a good climb even look like in an unequal world? All I can venture to say is that it looks like a strange love, a kind of human and humane faith in our interwoven planetary existence…. It aims to make possible in the world something— however eclectic or seemingly small, but something—that bends the arc of history toward justice.”
—Amrita Dhar, Alpinist 75
My response:
Having climbed to 19,500ft (Cotopaxi), and 16,000ft (Sarahuasi) and a few 15,000ft summits (including Tungurahua), all in the Andes, I can affirm climbing is a feat that brings the spirit higher, not just the body, and that’s what contributes to society’s collective ascension. The adventurer comes back to the polis with a grin and optimism and a model for resiliency that somehow translates SO WELL to life’s workaday challenges and triumphs.
Overachievers elevate us all; we may be strivers, and strivers are overachievers-in-the making, so we get some credit, too, for moving the needle of progress forward. Poetry enables the ordinary armchair traveler to feel a kinship with kings and conquerors, pioneers and pirates…
A climber is an ambassador to heaven; but in poetry the saint meets the devil; the alpinist and the spelunker walk into a bar…
Poetry is more accessible to the ordinary person than the climb. Our culture needs the sinners and the losers, the lowbrow, debauched, vagrant values for the masterpiece to be complete.
What does a good poem offer to a divided society? The universal language. The foundation—the fountain—of love.
A climb, like a poem, evokes rhythmic breath; time kept by the maker’s heartbeat. The climber and the poet deserve the leisure to practice, and act out our collective dreams.
“Embracing the Darkness” (Discover Sept/Oct 2023 Issue):
“Funeral for a Stick Bug” (Humans & Nature 03/08/2021)
“How to Make a Walk Work for Your Writing” (Hippocampus 11/6/2018)
*I now have relocated to the Sullivan Catskills, NY. I clamor for taller mountains, but the Catskills are rad. The trees are big enough that my daughters and I have trouble linking hands around a trunk, and the mountains are steep enough to ski on. I often think, I’d better stay in shape so I can trek again, but then I go back to napping and snacking and working on the computer. I once was very athletic. Now me and my mid-section have relaxed into middle age, where I’m more apt to collect things than to conquer things, and adrenaline rushes come in the form of traversing a fallen log or doing donuts in my Subaru in a vacant lot—without my kids in the car, of course. This past winter, the weather never was conducive to my Annual Donuts, sad to say. I had a good streak going (maybe four winters in a row).
I just landed in Chicago, and can’t say I was wholly relaxed, what with airline industry quality control coming under fire recently for panels popping off and doors flying open, etc.
I’m here to celebrate Passover with my nuclear family who does it up in full-flavor, full-length, faithful tradition. Lord knows I couldn’t host such a detail-oriented production. I love throwing my friends a feast—and when I say “throwing,” I mean the food lands where it lands, in a generous heap, lucky if on a proper platter, and I always forget the salad tongs. I like my feasts jolly and boisterous. A Passover Seder can get boisterous. And singing around the table is a delicious joy of this lifetime. I’m not so sure every family I’m acquainted with sings together.