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Things that have happened since I last wrote: Thursday the thirtieth I went to the opening night of An American Century of Photography at the Seattle Art Museum with Pam and two of her colleagues. There was a lecture by Keith Davis, the author of the exhibition catalogue. He spoke with enthusiasm and abundant detail; he spoke too long. Before he finished they turned his spotlight out, forcing him to wrap it up in the dim light reflected from the projection screen. When he was finished, we had 40 minutes to view an entire century. I only made it through the modern era, but there was enough time to push my nose against some famous early images by Stieglitz, Strand, Man Ray, Weston. Those famous ones ubiquitous in print are here, glossy and deep, exquisitely framed, and always a size different than what I imagined. Friday the first Angela made curry, which we ate in hurry, before darting over to the Guild for the late showing of American Beauty. We enjoyed the film immensely amidst a crowd of like-minded moviegoers. I thought the acting was spectacular, particularly Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening. The boy's eyes were inescapable. Sunday the second was an attempt on Camp Muir with Bob and Joan. 'Twas a success. 'Twas the most beautiful day in ages--a bonus day, some weatherman reported... Altitude = 10,000 feet. Thinner air than this body has ever achieved by its own volition. The heart clicks its oxygen-hungry blood through the lungs and through again. I ate something that disagreed with me and my stomach cramped and hurt and threatened to expel the dissident nourishment. The snow field was enormous, headway did not come easily. Take a few steps and then stand prostrate before that next rise, the distant premonitory, and always that goal imagined but out of sight. Temperature > freezing. The pilgrims wore shorts and tee-shirts. Sun block and glacier glasses were required. On that silent verge of heaven, observe the mountain eroding: I could hear the chatter of snow stirring to water; sometimes the human figures tacked to the path paused to turn toward the apparent source of some low and distant rumbling, hoping to see whole slices of mountain crumbling away. Visibility: 100% transparent. Adams, Hood, and St. Helens and all the myriad hills a sea between them. The sky was a deep slate blue and closer than usual; it was everything that was not mountain. We trudged over Mars and the moon and a sea of meringue, but always under the same stark blue. It was not a summit, but a suitable substitute. The distance (4.1 miles), the elevation gain (4000 feet), and the altitude combined to make destination Camp Muir a formidable journey. It was harder for me than many summits, and more rewarding too. The sheer size of the mountain, its utter unconquerability, was consistently humbling. I kept thinking that Rainier is a living mountain, wildly animated, that exists in a dimension where time ticks slower than our own. It is the arrogance of denial we use to fuel our ascension; it is the bubble of false security wherein, on that crackling, slipping snow field, we are able to marvel at crevasses slicing straight to eternity in shades of blue. I stood on the edge of a tiny split -- a mere six inches of not snow that we had to step over -- I stood at that cliff and bent over it toward a bottom-less and saw the glistening, exposed flesh translucent and gradient back to sky. Our backs to stone at 10,000 feet, we sat facing southward watching the shadows turn about face toward the westerning sun. Below us the sea of meringue: the snowfield. The snow had melted in some bizarre and uniform shapes like white caps on a volatile water. (In another dimension they would lap and collide, but in ours they are ostensibly frozen.) We walked over and around them, watched others do the same, observed the texture pronounce itself in shadows and gold as the sun continued round. Tuesday the fifth I met Pam at the dress shop and we tried on the bridesmaid dresses for a last time. Fit? I'm not so sure. Mine was strange and not like last time, but more like hers was last time. The seamstress made some final appeasing stitches and I left there for the mall (and the oozing poison of the cultural wasteland) to find a piece of lingerie to wear beneath it that would not reveal itself but would keep me high and dry. Hours, I tell you; hours of pulling on and stripping off and nothing, nothing could meet that criteria. Finally, a little something damn close and not too expensive and still tolerable to the eye. And all that time I saw myself in that dress and saw that it could be Pam's dress and not mine....No, not mine. I am thinking that the dresses were switched. I am so thorough with my suspicious delusions that I've even got Pam concerned about the possibility of a switcheroo too. We will meet tonight to try them on again. |
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