Alpine moments, magical thinking

Step after climbing step, we moved up a narrow rocky path towards Herman’s Saddle, high above us. The short growing season at this elevation, which is snow covered for most of the year, explained the show of subalpine flowers in September: heather, fleabane, monkey-flower, asters. There we were last week, following a trail suggested by the park ranger towards a promised view of snowy Mt. Baker. Lynne and I had started the morning driving east from Bellingham through the coastal fog.  It dissipated the closer we got to Mt. Baker, until we were gifted with an intense blue sky, one of the natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest. Three of us were now heading up, counting Winnie, our shy rescue turned perfect trail dog whose solar collecting black coat was causing her to pant and hunt for shade as we rose above the tree line. We had already crossed many sparkling streams of water tumbling down to the lake in the retreating valley below, often hearing the stream before we could see it. I doused Winnie with this icy water to cool her off. She stood quietly and let me do it.

Lynne and I have spent many memorable days hiking mountains together, in the Canadian Rockies, the Appalachian Mountains, the Olympics, the Cascades, around Mt. McKinley in Alaska, the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and Montana. We even hiked up to 15,000 feet on Carihuairazo in Ecuador. Our longest and most spectacular day hike was a 2378 feet elevation gain up to Sentinel Pass above Moraine Lake in Canada, a challenging and spectacular hike that we have held to be our greatest achievement.

But we were ten, twenty, thirty years younger. Today we still treasure the pristine landscapes, the clear air, the chance to see wildlife, the quiet, the solitude, the physical challenge, but we take it at a slower pace. We take three hours to descend 300 feet from the Visitor Center and then climb up this 2 ½ mile trail, gaining 1100 feet in elevation from the valley bottom to the saddle. We stopped frequently, peering up the mountain to see if we were there yet, chatting with hikers passing us on their way down, filling our filtered water bottle with cool stream water, peeling off layers of clothes and assessing the state of our feet, knees, thigh muscles. We listen to the eagle’s high pitched cry as it flies around the valley. We see some tiny figures coming back down on the trail above us. The top of the mountain looks close until we get closer, when it keeps receding, just beyond this one switchback, across one more boulder field, one more unexpected uphill stretch, getting steeper as we approach the top.

Lynne is the one who had set the goal; I was happy to take up the challenge. Winnie gets to be off leash as we go further into wilderness, and never asks “How much further?” Lynne carries the daypack with our lunch and our extra clothing. I am dangling the binoculars off one shoulder and carrying water and her leash in the other. We alternate taking pictures. We chat with two men who are heading down. “25 minutes,” he said, “since we left the top.” It takes us another hour to get there. On the way we express appreciation for hiking with each other, comfortable to go at our own gentle pace, neither of us competitive or impatient.

At the top, the view of elusive Mt. Baker rewards us as promised, raising its white crown above drifting clouds, dwarfing Table Mountain to our left and one of the Chain Lakes below. Winnie also had a reward: a field of snow to romp in, roll in, be a puppy again in, and finally, to lie in to cool off. Finding a boulder as a seat and leaning against each other, Lynne and I trade off taking pictures for munching our pb&j sandwiches and taking in the majesty of a mountain up close. A few other people, mostly in twos, crest the trail and stop for the view and lunch also. Too soon, it seems, we are also contemplating the distance back to our car.

It's called “magical thinking”: “climbing back down will be easier than going up”, “gravity is on our side”, and “it won’t seem as long”. Those theories are quickly discarded when the reality of bracing ourselves step by slippery step down the rocky path sets in. The rocks seem sharper, the path seems more uneven, and the picturesque Visitor’s Center seems further away than we remembered as we head back. Two younger women approach us from behind, intriguing me with a story about clearing out an older brother’s belongings after he died. We exchange cheerful hellos as they pass, still chatting and quickly disappearing down the mountain. We check the time. Only thirty minutes have passed since we were at the top. I notice that the front of my toes are becoming tender as they get smashed by the full weight of my body with each downward step. My thigh muscles feel weaker each time I brace myself against the pull of gravity, stepping down from a tall rock to the path below. We remind each other to be careful, to focus on our feet, a warning that is usually prompted when one of us has been distracted by the spectacular views around us, and ends up catching ourselves from falling. We hear the chirp of a hoary marmot, or is it a pika? We meet a man from Utah wearing Vibram Five-Finger shoes and leading a boisterous Labradoodle on his way up, and then again, as he passes us on the way down. Several people with fishing poles pass us going up.

We are alone again when we finally reach the cliffs above the lake. Ahead of us is about 20 feet where the path is chipped out of a steep rock face. The footing is narrow and there’s nothing much to hold on to and nothing much to keep us from sliding down into the lake, 50 feet below. Lynne is in front with Winnie, now back on her leash, and turns to give me a hand. “I don’t remember this part at all,” I said. My legs feel weaker than one would want them to be crossing this rock face. She has hesitated also, angling for the best place for her feet, not finding a good place to hold on to. I hold her hand as she begins across, then she turns to hold mine. I lean my body lightly into the rock with one hand supporting it, and the other holding on to her. We help each other as we creep across this hazard, and then there we are, back on a wider path and almost home. I have this feeling of joy, at our accomplishment, at the wilderness, at our connection with each other, at the fun of hiking with an equally matched aging crone, at our 33 years together. Happy Anniversary, Lynne.

When they came for me

Is it coincidence or a cosmic intention that this year Eid may fall on the anniversary of the horrific attacks on America by Al-Qaeda? The end of fasting during the month of Ramadan (Eid ul-Fitr) may be celebrated on September 11th, based on the first spotting of the moon for the tenth month of the Islamic calendar. Muslims believe Ramadan to be an auspicious month for the revelations of God to humankind (Wikipedia). The convergence of Eid with the anniversary of 9/11 is being used as an excuse to terrorize Muslims in America. Just this morning, Lynne read me an article from the New York Times (New York Times  ) about a church in Florida that will make a bonfire of Korans on the anniversary of 9/11.


The women who are afraid to wear their traditional headscarves this week, the people who are frightened by media frenzy about Muslims celebrating on the anniversary of 9/11, the families who are worried about violence against the Muslim community but are telling themselves that this will blow over are our neighbors, the Muslim family across the street. Monem and Iman invited us to break their fast (Iftar) with them and their three delightful children last year during Ramadan, and this year invited us to Iftar again to raise money for victims of the Pakistani floods. Iman shared stories of the fear in the Muslim community to celebrate Eid this year.

I, who have taken the stories of the Nazis and the Holocaust to heart and have always feared the coming of that type of hatred and violence towards gay people, now witness the effect of that energy on Muslims in America. Ursula Hegi, in "Stone from the River" portrayed life in a small German city during the rise of the Nazi movement. Many younger Jewish people fled as conditions worsened, yet she portrays many older Jewish people putting up with the increasingly oppressive limitations and degradations of their lives, rather than trying to escape, telling themselves that the time of oppression would pass. I was startled last night to hear Iman, our Muslim neighbor, mimic that same point of view. "It will blow over," she said, after describing the many fears expressed by her Facebook friends.

Lynne and I, as lesbians, have increasingly integrated ourselves with our neighbors and coworkers, a process that involves some risk and requires us to overcome our own worries of humiliation or rejection. We would like to be "neighbors", not "gay neighbors". We have been affirmed by the welcome that we have received from all our new neighbors in Bellingham. Yet in my mind is the apprehension that these times of openness may be temporary. I have imagined future scenes where we are rounded up and taken away, and our non-gay neighbors, paralyzed with fear themselves, tearfully reflect that we were kind and friendly people.

Here is my reality check. We are not the only minority in Bellingham, in Washington, in America with a tentative foothold on living peaceful, mainstream lives. Iman introduced herself as president of the Bellingham Association of Muslims, and then went on to joke "There are three of us here in Bellingham." She and her family, her American Muslim friends and the larger American Muslim community, are more afraid of attacks from fellow Americans today then they were on September 12, 2001.

Here comes alive the famous poem "When the Nazis Came For Me", first spoken in 1946 by Pastor Martin Niemöller,

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist..

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.


When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.


When they came for the Jews,
I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.


When they came for me,
there was no-one left
to speak out.

This week is our chance to speak out, to support our Muslim neighbors.

You can order a DVD of “A Wing and A Prayer, An American Muslim Learns to Fly”, the movie that tells Monem and Iman’s story at http://www.peacefulcommunications.org/ .