To the Top

There's always pressure when other bloggers come to visit. They want me to write on demand about the visit, about them. And the people reading want it too. Want to hear my impression of the people and the visit I guess. I rebel against this. For several reasons. For one… I don't really put demand on my muse. I let the bucket fill and I dump it. If this is going to be a job someone is going to have to start sending checks. For two… it's extremely awkward to everyone involved… I write the truth, but it's MY truth. You may not like my version. I have the sense and decency to not spill your beans on my blog without certain measures of kindness and decency. For three… plain and simple I don't like being told what to do. Puts up an immediate block. And four… some things are mine. Just mine. When I post it, it becomes something else. Something shared.

Still. It also bothers me from the other side that I CANT always spill, even at my own demand. That it may also be that I'm backing myself into a corner with my self-imposed idealism and rules.  Blarg. Fuck if I know why I'm even explaining myself to you. It's my goddamn blog. I guess my point is. If it comes out of the bucket I'll post it and if not it isn't personal.

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Most people you hang out with, you're watching their masks. You get to see their various costumes and some are better  at playing the roles they've picked than others. I'm not here to say that's wrong. This is a tough mutherfucking world and we all do what we have to , we balance our own books and decide what we need to do to survive. Some of us even get to live.

But there are others.

They're self-possessed. They've walked the coals of their own psyche. They don't need you to tell them who they are and they don't need you to agree with their own assessment of who they are. They are. And you can take it or leave it.

Loree is one of these.

I'll take it.  Because those are few and far between. And they make excellent friends.


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We started at Latourell Falls. It may be my favorite waterfall here in the Gorge. Simply breathtaking. Loree brought the dogs and I got to walk Nadine. She encouraged me to hustle and it was good.  Stretched me all out until I felt taller, felt resilient. I suppose the only shortcoming Latourell Falls has is that it doesn't have much of a trail to hike. It wets your appetite and then you have to go somewhere else to sate it.

So we got back in our cars. Rachel was riding with Loree and the dogs and I was tailing them in The Man's Jeep.  I've found I enjoy the curving  scenic highway. Turning this way then that, with this extreme beauty all around. It's meditative. I'm pulling a blank on the name of the next one we stopped to look at.. I want to say Sheppards Dell but am too lazy to figure it out. I'm also wondering if it wasn't Wahkeena Falls. I'll let Loree come and tell us. Then we followed the trail from there that plops you out at Multnomah Falls.

Multnomah Falls' major drawback is that it's a tourist trap. Easily accessible from the road, snacks and a gift shop. There's a hike to the top, takes you  up 600 feet in 1.2 miles. It's all switch backs of course. A somewhat narrow path whipping back and forth, you're made dizzy by the views of the Columbia Gorge and the lack of oxygen. Well. Don't count on that… that particular high might be a bonus just for smokers.

Two thirds of the way up I was panting. The people coming down are all full of themselves, looking at us going up as though we were out of shape wimps though they had just been us half an hour prior. Nothing on my body hurt. My body feels young and nimble and strong and inextinguishable. I just can't breathe.

"FUCK YOU MARLBORO!" I shouted to the trees, but they had no sympathy for the foibles of man and addiction.

We all just kept walking, up and up and up. No one had said that we were going to the top or half way or anything. I'll confess; it never occurred to me that we wouldn't go to the top. It still boggles my mind that when we were aaaalmost there someone said "are we going to the top?"

"I think we're almost there." I said with no real idea that we were almost there other than the fact that we'd come far enough that we damn well should be.

"You said that awhile back" Loree pointed out. I shrugged, still feeling it had been true enough and would be true enough when we did get to the top. "It's getting dark." She had me there. It was getting dark, we were already surrounded in shadows and on an overcast day like that the difference between dusk and dark is subtle and then suddenly startling. When you're on the side of a mountain, that is.

"Alright." I shrugged and we all turned to go back down where we came from. Our feet doing the enforced stomping of a downhill hike. "I mean…" I paused "I've never been so close to the top and turned around before but that's cool."  I know. I'm a sarcastic asshole.

Loree made a snorty noise. More throaty than nasal. She shook her head. I laughed, clomping along in my too-big-for-me snow boots.  Then Rachel said "She's going up! She turned around!" So we all did, jogging a little to catch back up with her. We really were almost there.

"I have a flashlight." Loree said as if that had decided it for her. And so it did for all of us. We went to the top. I hate to be the one to tell people, in  that I don't want them not to go to the top, but the view point is rather pointless. It's the same view you've had the entire hike up and it doesn't really put you directly above the falls (for good reasons like blocking the view from below and safety I imagine) so it's kinda lame but you still have to go to the top. You just do. We all did the appropriate gazing and then headed back down.

Loree said "I'll probably never come up here again." I assume because it's so anti-climatic at the top.

Rachel said "Next time I'm bringing short people. They make me feel fast." I assume because she had to double time our long strides all the way up.

I said "We didn't HAVE to go to the top."  'cause I'm an ass. No assumption there.