How long will it take
'till our smiles
are permanent?
Will laugh lines ever
outweigh wrinkled brows?

I want to lounge,
like a lizard
on a rock in the Sun;
Be alive.
Have fun.
Be free.
Be me....

I want the warm light
to fill me up,
and have a soft breeze
blow in my ear
like a lover.

But my moods come
like the tides;
high and low.

And tears
turned to salt-spray
lie mingled
in my eyes...

How long will it take
until our smiles
are permanent?


DAY 1:

We roll into the cold beauty of Joshua Tree National park wrapped in parkas and beanies. Destination winter climbing indeed. Clouds and wind lend a bite to the experience of Diamond Dogs in the Hall of Horrors. It is Seth's first JT lead, and a fine one. After a lap to clean it up, I pause. He and Tom bag another granite bump as the gray light fades to an even darker shade of evening...
Off to camp.
It is cold. The wind snaps and buffers my tiny tent, pitched in haste as the shadows gathered. It is a welcome respite from the gale. Joshua Tree in late December is often cold or windy or both. But this time the wind holds a bite more bitter than I remember. It feels malicious and purposeful, as if it wants to blow out my hope. All I needed was a break from my bullsh#t.

This beautifully barren land, studded with lumps and bumps of Monzonite, has been my refuge and escape in the past. It is a place where I can rack up and play the hard-man, or leave it all behind and wander into the desert with my thoughts. I often wrestled with my mind here as much as the stone, wandering alone into the Wonderland to see what I could find out about Me.
Seven years ago I got word that I had cancer. This is where I fled then to process and plan. That fight was through, I thought... Not. Cancer returned this year and ever since I longed to return here. Don't know why. It just seems the thing to do.

I have left a lot behind in these washes. I've laughed and cried tears into the sand. Somehow the stones listened better than most people. They whisper their advice to me in the wind. 'Buck up, camper. You can stand the gale. We have sat here near forever. The Sun comes back, the yuccas bloom, then 'round it goes again.'

Why, then, is the wind overcoming me now? In the past here I just laughed it off. “Fine, Mr. Bluster, Let's play hide and seek. Chase me if you must, I will hide in the folds of the earth, up against the golden stone, in pockets of warmth that thwart you. Go ahead and blow til you blow yourself out. I am fine.”

Today, though, the wind seems not a companion but a creep. A blowing , blustery bully. “F*#k off, go away,” it screams. 'You are fooling yourself. Give in. Give up. Go away.'

No. I will stay. At least for a little while. But, damn, this is an arctic blast.

DAY 2:

The wind is still blowing, but the Sun is overhead, so there are possibilities. We are camped at the group site, Sheep Pass; an assortment of abilities... and injuries. There are some healthy folks, but not all. One friend shows up from CO on crutches. A two story fall while roofing broke his foot, but he still came. Another guy superman-ed over is bars when he hit a tree on the trails. Ouch! And Me? I have Stage IV Melanoma. What a crew.

What to climb?

In the past I would have a plan, an agenda, goals upon goals for the day ahead. Now filling with Cancer, I feel half-dead. 'What to climb, where to climb, can I climb? Screw it.' I give in to the impulses of the group. They are far more likely to lead than me today. “What's the Plan?”

Houser Buttress. Off we trek around the corner, up the blocks and into a pocket of windless sunny stone. Five layers are quickly shed to one and the possibility enters my mind that I might even have some fun. “Who's up? I'll belay.” I offer up my rope and rack. At least my rack will be on the sharp end. Like many native cultures, I believe my gear must be used. It's what it wants, it's purpose. So go forth, my happy Camalots, and stoppers. Let yourselves be wedged smiling into the gaps. I will gather you back up as I follow.

Tom is an indecisive Master, often doubting himself, then performing like a pro. I am never worried that he will fail. I relax and allow myself to be led, instead of leading. BITD the sharp end was the only end for me. To follow was second best, if that. I always wanted to attack. Where did that drive go? Even more pressing, where did the Sunblock go?

“That's me.”

No time to slather on the SPF now. The rope is tugging with an insistence that suggests the summit is windier than the base, and Tom is ready.

“Climbing.” (I hope.)

One hand, one foot above the other is all I need to do. Crimp with the right, Jam the left. Match, shuffle up and repeat. My tape gloves are reused, I made them on my trip to Indian Creek. And the remnants of red sand in the glue contrast nicely with the large granite grains I jam against. The feet are thin from place to place and I scream as I kick out into a stem to use an edge. Something ripped inside, in my groin. 'F*#k you, tumor. I will rip you apart.'

My scream startles the group, thinking a fall is surely next, and the rope tightens as Tom reacts above. But it is only pain, not incompetence. I reach the top. Windier here. “Hi, Tom.”

Unsure of the walk off or rappel choices to be had, we wander down dangerous slots to the base. Getting down is often more adventurous than climbing up here. Water still fills the sculpted potholes in the stone. The wind creates a storm in miniature, a tempest in a teapot, as they say. And so went the day. Not bad.

That evening the group makes an attempt at a windy campfire. My body fat was devoured by disease months go. And the cold buries itself into my bones. Good thing Ruth is on the way, our Alaskan Camper on her truck, ready to whisk me inside when she arrives to Mr. Heater comfort.
But she's late. In my tiny tent I try to sleep, but wake at the sound of each wandering engine searching for a place in the night.

'Not her...not her... not... Screw this.' I move camp to the cab of Tom's truck where I can see who's coming. After midnight she arrives, and I fall into her arms and into the camper.


DAY 3:

I am dried out, turned to jerky, a husk. Despite my best efforts to slather against the Sun, the extra photo-sensitivity from the pills has left me burnt, bloated and peeling. At least the wind is down and the Sun is out again. But whence the warmth? It seems an empty light, devoid of the heat promised by memory. 'Is it only me who feels this?'

With Ruth arrives a new nonsensical source of nervousness. My mind wants to show her the magic of this place, to whisk her into the world I remember of grainy grips and biting jams. I want to show her summits and skills and teach her new things.

My carcass will not comply. It drags it's feet and gasps for air far too soon with the effort. It aches and cries and shocks. It generaly pisses me off. My mind remembers leaping stone to stone. Yet my Form can't keep up with my former self.

The fact confronts me head on. Instead of turning to a new direction I allow it to hit me and shove me down. And in doing so I solve nothing. Something's got to give...
We do our best, Ruth and I, playing on a 5.9 on the Freeway wall. But I am spent and she is nervous of that fact. “How bout just scrambling?”

My feet feel pierced with nails, a side-effect from treatment. Can't just sit anymore, though. “Fine.” We drop all the aluminum ballast and simply walk...
I lose myself in my mind:

I am a phantom, a visible vapor...
and lately, desire escapes me.
It lurks, to be sure.
Yet remains in the peripheral.
In climbing, the top, the completed act, is the one common desire.
Joy in the perfection of the pre-prescribed sequence.
Lately, such a quest escapes me.
Is this a loss, or rather a simple reckoning?
A regression or a moving on, beyond...
In climbing, the goal is distinct,
known at least in the envisioning as a line,
a series of points...
Why, then, has my mind become a field of view?
Lately, I find it hard to concentrate,
focus... on points... on lines.
The canvas it too broad, expansive.
So I pause.
Lately, my arms seem light
only when I give up guiding them.
My mind is lost in the pattern,
and knows only that it does not know...

“Gees, get a grip, Paul!”
Time to worm my way into the boulder piles in search of sanity.
Deep in a hole I find the large shed skin of a desert serpent, and I am filled with a strange jealousy. Why can't I shed my skin? After all, it is trying to eat me. My only way to slough is to burn, and that burn is why my skin is rebeling in the first place... Ironic.

Where do I turn when all directions face oblivion? How do I smile at a black hole? It will simply rip the lips and teeth from my grin, never to be seen again. Where do I reach into to find my audacious bravado, my "F*#k you", abyss mocking mindset...

What will allow my to laugh even as I burn?

It’s in me, whatever it is, that ability to snub the world and feel better for it. But also in me is the disturbing ability to collapse, retreat, cocoon, and let the precious one way stream of time nearly drown me. What's up with that?!

“Paul?!” I hear Ruth's voice calling out to find me, and slither up out of the shadows. There she is, her face a map of love and concern and exhaustion at it all.
'But she is here. Remember that.' I only hope I learn the skills of leaving the angst and letting love exit my mouth instead of this whining and pining for an alternate reality. 'Live the one your in, dumbass!'

DAY 4:

As if in response to my escilating angst, the wind speed increases in the night and stays pinned there. To up the anty even more it brings rain. “At least we're not that poor guy,” points out Ruth. She gestures out the window of the camper to a soggy soul stirring breakfast in the storm. The rain is blown near horiziontal against the down jacket clad cook. Out our other window the lights burn to the sound of a generator at the group site of Evolv. Ruth guesses we are somewhere in the middle of the comfort spectrum.

If I wanted to sit in an RV, though, I would have stayed home. We live in one. It is the outside just outside the inside we are in that confounds me this morning. The final straw is a growing, swelling sore in my mouth. A bad tooth has finally broken in pieces. Infection may be setting in. Looks like its time to visit family in town.

My Dad and Marilyn, his wife, found a place in Yucca Valley last year only a few miles from the Park. This was a fine way to get me to visit at last, but only after exhausting myself climbing... Or when it rained. Dad's a minister, so maybe he called it in. Reguardles, Ruth and I were washed out of the Park and into a senior community below.

It's good to see the folks, but hard for them to see my mood. I am a grouch despite my best intentions. It's not all bad, though, and soon stories are flowing to enrich Ruth's understanding of me, many to my embarasment. The offer of a warm bed is more inviting than I thought it would be. I guess I forgot to pack my resolve this trip. The idea of either freezing in solidarity around the fire in camp, or retreating anti-socially to the warmth of the camper seem equally lame. Instead we choose Fox News and Jeopardy with Dad and Marilyn. Ah, the life of adventure!

Day 5

I have been up all night. Not a wink of sleep. My gums continue to swell. My tooth is toast. Worst of all thre is new pain and swelling in my groin. A persistent ache and throb. But we have only a day or two more to try and climb. I am lost too deep in my brain-molasses.

Let's review the facts:

-I am with the love of my Life.
-I am in (or damn near) J-Tree, a favoite place.
-I am with my Father and Step-Mom who love me.
-I am freaking out...WTF!

Plan not working. Implosion continuing. Nonscence breeding nonscence. What's the deal? What will it take to heal?

I feel at war with my brainstem, my carcass, that part of me made of dirt. My “Me” mind is indifferent, and could likely cope. But my “Body” mind knows it ends with my heartbeat, and that is not acceptible to it. “Body” wants “Me” mind to figure it out, to get a plan, get a clue, get going!

“Me” mind has no answers for “Body” mind's suffering, though. “Me” mind can survive and thrive only by loking beyond “Body” mind. But “Body” won't have that. So it shoves it's way into the rest of “Me” like a suicide bomber or a jilted lover. “If not me, no one then. Oblivien. That's the only out.”

Such Bullshit! F*#k off and die, corpse. Stop clawing at my contentment. Quit screaming at “Me” that I am only You. Leave “Me” be, don't kill it all out of spite at “Body's” reality. Don't drag “Me” down with my corpse...

Time to get out while we can. Ruth and I head for Indian Cove, a lower and less (legend has it) windy part of the park. The wind has slackened, but it is still there, lurking on the summits for underclad leaders. Sunny again. Yet shouldn't that mean warm?

We run across Tom and Seth battling it out on a 5.10 sandbag. I try and set a TR, but Ruth's knee is flaring up and she is taking her turn at pouting. I give up. Game over, dude. We've got too much on our plate.

DAY 6:

New years eve. It's emergency dental surgery for me. Horray! This is exactly how I wanted to spend the last sunny day of vacation. Dad drives me off to Palm Desert to get the now multiple shards of my moler out.
Back at Dad's the hole throbs, and I wonder what the point of this joke is. The thought of shivering with the drunken masses in the Park holds no appeal, and we are all asleep soon after the New Year reaches Times Square.

DAY 7:

Time to head North again. Ruth has a teaching gig for a couple days in Napa, then Santa Rosa again. The tumors seem to be returning, quite suddenly, and with them memories of pain best forgotten. I think that is the root of all this angst.

I must have felt this coming change for the worse. My nightmares and sweats were sirens. Only months ago I lay near death, my right leg twice the size of the left, my groin and testicles inflamed. My bowels had collapsed and pancreas had swelled. I could not walk more than 10 steps without a ghasp.

Then I got better. I swallowed the magic pills that gave me not the cure I wanted, but a reprieve. Now they seem to be loosing their effetivness. And I remember the horror that was, and likey comes again. I do not want it. It feels worse for having been there before. I stare down a tunnel of future pain.

What will be my tool to see me through?

I need to remember Supercrack in Indian Creek, and my determination. I top-roped my way to the chains even though riddled with this disease. It was the hardest effort of my life, at one of my weakest states, and I am proud of it.Jim Donini belayed me. He later wrote: And he has climbed all over for forty years. What a compliment.

I need to remember the day Ruth and I tried to climb Wamello Dome but diddn't. I was hiking back up the steep climber's trail at the end of the day. The pain in my right leg sucked, I was on a cane. “I'm f*#king crippled” I thought. Then “No I'm Not!”

When I mountaineered, I used the rest step up high. Step, rest, take a break then move again. It was hard to breath then too. I used my ice ax to help me through.

What is the difference between that and today? I hold my cane instead of an ax? I'm still on a steep slope with a short stick in my hand determined to make it to the top. Who gives a sh#t if the top is a hill or a high peak? I am at my max, rolling with it. One rest step at a time until I am done.

One rest step at a time until I am done...


One rest step at a time until I am done...


The way that can be told is not the way...


Guess I just have to experience it...