(Cotopaxi)

In Ecuador, doing the things I love most.

Hiking & Climbing.

Never knowing what my capabilities are, but I push it, maybe too much. Rage against the Disease.

Yesterday, getting up at 12am from the refuge on Cotopaxi, getting gear together: harness, iceaxe, crampons, etc., embarking on the journey again. Tough, but beautiful climb, which I had prepared for by doing a couple of hikes up to Rucu Pinchincha during the week. At 15,300 feet, I hoped the hikes were enough to help me acclimate to Cotopaxi.

Of course, always worried about he stress on my body. I end up taking an extra dose of my HIV meds at midnight, because I get so caught up in the climbing, that I can forget a dose.

And of course it was tough. I try to not make AIDS (or my age an excuse), but it does come into play.

Near the summit, I end up taking 10-15 steps, needing to stop, to fill my damaged lungs with air. If not, I'd end up coughing and gagging. Thank God, my 3 member rope team were patient enough. The climb took about 6 hours to the summit. Then we were there....

And I Never felt more alive.

It had been like dying, that sliding down the mountain pass. It has been like the death of someone, irrational, that sliding down the mountain pass and into the region of dread. It was like slipping into fever, or falling down that hole in sleep from which you wake yourself whimpering. We had crossed the mountains that day, and now we were in a strange place.

Annie Dillard -- 'Total Eclipse'

Sunday Morning trip to Powell's books, picking up a couple of travel books for my friend in Ecuador. Browsing through several sections for something to take for myself. Rumi? Gracia Marquz? Annie Dillard came into my mind, so I picked up a compilations of her work. The first paragraph struck me, and I settled on it.

Much like traveling. Going to an unknown time and place. The death of something, the birth of somethings new. Like my move to Portland Oregon over 14 years ago. Four days, driving across country with a few meager possessions in back of my truck. Some boxes of odds and ends, clothes, a few books. A dresser was about the only piece of furniture. During the drive I continued with my fevers which would start up in the afternoons, and increase to 101 or 102 by the time I'd find a cheap hotel for the night. It was irrational. It was the death of someone. It was in some ways going into the region of dread, knowing that I might be dead by the end of the year.

Looking back, I want to say I was totally at peace, that I welcomed and embraced everything that would come. That I had no sleepless nights. But it was tough. All I knew is that I did not want to live the few months I had left in South Carolina. And I did not want to die in the place where I was born, where I felt no longer safe. I was willing to risk going into the unknown, even the dread of it for the chance, the hope of something better.

How many times in history has that happened? Where people have traveled across continents, across oceans, in the hope of the unknown, knowing the risk, knowing the dread, but driven from the intolerable, to jump off the edge of a cliff, falling, falling, sliding, down, down. Hoping to at the least to come to rest, in a new strange place, the potential, the possibility. Of? The just maybe, maybe....

Sliding, I come to a halt, take a breath, and slowly, slowly, open my eyes....

Slowly pulling things together for my trip to Ecuador next week. My friend there has given me a list of things to bring, which I don't mind doing.

Yesterday, he informed me that his partner, who is HIV+ cannot get one of his HIV meds, because of a disruption in the supply chain. I've been going through some contacts here to try to locate the particular med. The best I can do so far is find someone who has some outdated bottles, or another dual combo pill that has the med in it along with another unneeded one.

In the process I've come head on into realizing the fragility of living with HIV in a third world country. Almost all the meds I'm on, the "latest and greatest", which have saved my life, aren't even available in most third world countries. I realize that if my friend in Ecuador should fail his current regimen, he probably as few options left. The meds I'm on will aren't available there -- and they probably won't be in the foreseeable future -- they are simply too expensive. (The ones I'm on probably run $75,000/year).

And my friend is one among many. Many millions, who are in the same boat.

It's like being in a row boat in a vast stormy sea, steadily rowing, hoping we make it, somewhere.

Cross Country Skiing on Mt. Hood

Getting cold, falling down, snot running down my upper lip, falling down again, sweaty from overdressing, getting cold again, falling down again, more snot, achey muscles.

All and all, I say it was a pretty great day.

Got back from a 2 week trip to the South. Spending time with family, and friends, and got out to the Great Smokies for a 3 day hike. Less than 20 miles, but it was nice being in the mountains, surrounded by the Fall Colors. A lot of people out, day hikers, and a few overnighters like me, but my favorite times are one the trail alone. (The whoop and hollar of all the day trippers up to Mt. Le Conte was a bit much). I'm entertaining the idea of sometime in the next few years of doing the 70 mile through the Smokies. Not sure if it would be to relive old memories, or to open myself up to the moment.


Also, did Enjoy my trip up Round Mountain, near Roan Mountain near the end of my stay. One of my favorite hikes in the Appalachians. The trail went on and on behind me, but I had to head down.



And ... back in Portland. Something about the Fall, and the inertia of the darkened days that makes even the smallest task seem insurmountable. AAAhhh, the power to just power through on days like this. Sometimes, I wish I had that bit of chemical in my brain that some people have, that puts them into a constant state of euphoria and drive. Just take an pill, prozac, etc. Turn on, open out. Would be kinda easy, wouldn't it.
But would I be any more alive? Would I be experiencing life any deeper?

Instead, I'm planning for my trip to Ecuador next month. But .... Is that my pill?

TO BE A SLAVE OF INTENSITY

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive.
Think ... and think ... while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten -
this is fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you
will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir say this: When the Guest is being searched for, it is
the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

Kabir

Feeling the end of a quick and filled summer ...

I think the 9 day trip around Mt. Rainier would be the memory I most take away from it, even more than a trip half way around the World to Cape Town.

It isn't the physical journeys I take, but the mental ones that are the most memorable. The delving deep inside of who, and where, and why I am in this World. Breaking away to new places and cultures can often break me away from the staleness of the everyday, and awaken a new awareness, but I still must have time to live within and soak into that experience. Often the whirlwind of travel doesn't afford that. Something about the rhythmic plodding on trail, or glacier, or mountain, awakens a deep awareness of being that is can be lost in the blur of images of new experiences.

..... And being away from the electronic umbilical cord of modern life. To often, I find myself defining myself in terms of "the other". How my life plays upon someone else's stage. It is difficult to break far enough away, that I am able to stand alone, and say, "This is me".

Even when hiking, I will find myself in communion with another, discussing, arguing, loving, embracing. Only after several days of walking, plodding, climbing, descending, that do I begin to awaken into the moment of being. Apart, but connected to the eternal.

Robby and I took maybe our final hike on Mt. Hood for this year. It's one of my favorite trails, about 12-14 miles, up through forest, and then meadows, and finally the rocks hugging the side of the mountain.

Wonderland Trail

Mt. Rainier

Had an incredible 9 days on the Wonderland Trail. Would describe it, but I think the above video speaks for itself.


Also, before the Wonderland Trail, had a nice weekend in Bend, and climbing South Sister with my Doctor, Mark, her brother and wife, Marty, and of course, Robby:

Heading to Bend today for the weekend. Will be climbing South Sister again this year with my doc. Robby, my partner is coming, so that's an extra treat.
It's a long 5000 vertical foot slog to the summit. But the view north is worth is. You can see Middle Sister, North Sister, 3-fingered Jack, Jefferson, Hood, etc. I think you might be able to get a glimpse of Mt. Rainier way off there.

And there comes my next (questionable) adventure. One Monday, I meet up with Robin to take 9 days to backpack around the Mt Rainer. It's over 93 miles, and probably over 25,000 vertical feet. It's will be grueling, with no break days, and I wonder about my stamina, and the logistics.

My Health is good, except for some lingering "feverishness" after Africa. I took a couple of courses of antibiotics to get over a bad case of diarrhea, but think that is solved. I think one reason I do this to disprove to myself (and to the world) that I am not fragile. That I can push myself to the limit.
But I also know the reality of having AIDS, and it's complications. At least 2 pounds of my weight on the trek will be meds. My biggest concern is the fuzeon, which involves mixing, and twice daily injections, all in sanitary conditions that are less than optimal.
I haven't talked about my latest numbers in awhile. I'm still undetectable, after a minor blip last fall. I know the studies say that as long as I am adherent to my meds, that should remain so. I rarely miss a dose, maybe a small screwup every 3-4 months. But I do wonder what factors having diarrhea for a week plays. My CD4 count has slowly risen to about 475. Good, but my CD4 percentage is only 13% (pretty bad), which according to some docs, is borderline full-blown AIDS, and puts me at a much higher risk for opportunistic infections. I want to believe I can't live my life according to lab tests, but I can't ignore them either.

So here I cam heading off. Sometimes - 20 miles or so from the nearest road, and logistical problems of being halfway around a mountain if something should happen, and I should need to bail out.
My main goal is not to affect my health over the long term.
Planning, Endurance, and Faith.

After coming back from Cape Town, many impressions of the city and the country. A place of inequities, despair, but of unimaginable beauty and hope. It made me realize how a country can walk the chasm between possibility and ruin. It made me further appreciate the great role that Nelson Mandela has played in the country, and how he is one of the great leaders of the past 25 years.
The Sunday after returning, a choir at my church sung "Lamentations of Jeremiah". Many people around me were crying. I was crying too, perhaps from the raw earthiness of awareness from where I had just come:

I was listening to the words of the poet Jim Harrison today. (Would like to get his book of poetry, 'in search of small gods' for my upcoming trip to Africa.

He talked about getting older, of boiling down your life, to it's very essence, much as a cook would boil down the broth, to it's bare flavorful essential self. All the fluff in life becomes less important.

I've often spoke of climbing a glacier, alone, in the middle of the night. Just me, the stars, and the silence, except for the sound of a slight breeze, and the rhythmic crunch of the crampons on the hardened snow. In one sense, feeling so small and insignificant, but never feeling more alive and complete, as my total self is concentrated into a single moment of being, without all the external noise of me having to scream out into the world, "This is me! This is me!", seeking some empty identity in the void.

I've come to bemoan Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, etc.. It often seems that way. People crying out for a connection in some digital world. "This is me! This is me!" When the secret is being more alone, more alone than you've ever been, lost, meaningless on a darkened glacier. Then, and only then, finding connection to the eternal.

Hiking with Robby and Robin on July 4, up to camp Muir on Mt. Rainier. Not quite alone, but close enough to the heavens....

Beach wandering and hiking in Kauai -- but mostly not doing anything. I remember other trips, and planning every moment, and at the end of it all, feeling that I had never lived the experience.
The mountains to climb, the trails, where they lead, were all the more meaningful in the not knowing.

THE STREAM OF LIFE

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
--- Robindranath Tagore

One of the things I do miss about South Carolina, were the magical evenings that would happen for a few nights each year, probably late spring, early summer.
I'd walk out on into the yard on a hot and muggy night, and down by the creek, among all the trees would be thousands of fireflies lighting up in the night darkness. Each searching as if reading some ancient scripture; maybe drawn by the yearning to find another, or even by a deeper meaning and purpose in their being, designed in the ages, spoken in the now.

One of the songs we sung on Sunday...

Where do we come from?
What are we?
Where are we going?
Where do we come from?
Mystery. Mystery.
Life is a riddle and a mystery.
Where do we come from?
Where are we going?

Leaving for Montreal in a few days....Brrrrrrr.