It's been 36 days since my last climb, a generous dose of time for winter to have unlocked on Monadnock, for sleepy spring to have swung its legs off the bed, and I set my compass to the Dublin Trail on the northwest side of the mountain and set off.
At the Alewife Traffic Tangle in Cambridge, however, I return home because I’ve forgotten the elastic wraps for my surgically repaired knee and Achilles’ tendon; alas, my street is blocked off. I park a quarter-mile away and walk past five Eversource Energy workers watching one worker dig inside a square hole in the middle of the street, and if I were a free-market loving, cult-of-productivity curmudgeon I’d say, see, that’s what you get with union workers, but instead I choose to believe that it’s break time for everyone around the world except for this probationary digger, or maybe nothing can proceed until some thingamabob is unearthed and, besides, how many round men can fit in a square hole? And didn’t the company waste a bundle rebranding itself from NStar to beneficent Eversource?
At the house I call my mom. Mims fell a couple days ago and now struggles to get out of chairs and circumvent her apartment, no less steer her walker to the mailboxes or dining room at her “independent living” facility. I’ve arranged for aides to bring her lunch and dinner until she regains strength, but she insists they didn’t come yesterday and doesn’t want lunch anyway, so I call Janice, the nice lady in Home Support, who reports that the aides did, in fact, show up. Complicating matters, the fall may have resulted from weakness brought on by a bladder infection to be confirmed by urinalysis. Infections can render the elderly fuzzier and more forgetful than usual, which probably explains the differing stories, although Mims has never shied from telling “white lies” to effect desired outcomes.
I should do something, right? So I call her primary care doctor, the wonderful Jennifer Tam – several times I’ve assured my mother that Dr. Tam can afford a nanny to care for her children while she works – and leave a message. Then I take a deep breath and get back on the road.
At the Alewife Traffic Tangle in Cambridge, however, I return home because I’ve forgotten the elastic wraps for my surgically repaired knee and Achilles’ tendon; alas, my street is blocked off. I park a quarter-mile away and walk past five Eversource Energy workers watching one worker dig inside a square hole in the middle of the street, and if I were a free-market loving, cult-of-productivity curmudgeon I’d say, see, that’s what you get with union workers, but instead I choose to believe that it’s break time for everyone around the world except for this probationary digger, or maybe nothing can proceed until some thingamabob is unearthed and, besides, how many round men can fit in a square hole? And didn’t the company waste a bundle rebranding itself from NStar to beneficent Eversource?
At the house I call my mom. Mims fell a couple days ago and now struggles to get out of chairs and circumvent her apartment, no less steer her walker to the mailboxes or dining room at her “independent living” facility. I’ve arranged for aides to bring her lunch and dinner until she regains strength, but she insists they didn’t come yesterday and doesn’t want lunch anyway, so I call Janice, the nice lady in Home Support, who reports that the aides did, in fact, show up. Complicating matters, the fall may have resulted from weakness brought on by a bladder infection to be confirmed by urinalysis. Infections can render the elderly fuzzier and more forgetful than usual, which probably explains the differing stories, although Mims has never shied from telling “white lies” to effect desired outcomes.
I should do something, right? So I call her primary care doctor, the wonderful Jennifer Tam – several times I’ve assured my mother that Dr. Tam can afford a nanny to care for her children while she works – and leave a message. Then I take a deep breath and get back on the road.
Halfway to New Hampshire, I notice a message from Dr. Tam on my cell; I guess I didn’t hear the ringing while Stevie Nicks crooned from the oldies station. The urinalysis is still out but she’s decided to “bite the bullet” and write a prescription for an antibiotic. So it occurs to me that I should turn the car around, drive two hours south, pick up the Cipro at the pharmacy, and deliver it to Mims today. Be the Good Son. Or I can hike Mount Monadnock and get the medicine tomorrow. Automatic Rationalization kicks in – what’s another day, she might not even have an infection, I’ve got to take care of myself sometimes, this is minor league baseball compared to her hip surgery, anemia, seizure from hydrocephalus, flu bout, collapsed lung and subcutaneous emphysema – but that only makes it worse.
I crank the radio, nuke the guilt. I keep going north.
In Marlboro, New Hampshire, I’m lost. At a food truck, from a man cradling a hot dog camouflaged in sauerkraut, I get directions that take me to the Dublin Lake Club. In 1940, members of this exclusive private golf club – mostly summering New Yorkers and Bostonians; Cabots and Lodges and that lot – squashed a plan to run a paved road from the village of Dublin to the peak of Monadnock, an abomination that would have brought extra riffraff to their side of the mountain. Good for them, even if their motivations were more elitist than ecological. In the club’s parking lot, an old woman pulls a wheeled golf bag from the trunk of her car – oh my G-d, that could be my mom just ten years ago. She golfed at two country clubs into her eighties and then old age came fast and hard, bitch-slapped her. From here I take the unpaved Old Troy Road a couple miles through thick, shady woods and join six cars parked at the trailhead. Birds are madly tweeting, the self-serve pay station is out of envelopes, and I’m underway by 12:40 p.m.
It’s 75 degrees on the Dublin Trail. The canopy of spruce and maple trees nearly shuts out the sky crowded with puffy clouds. Bugs buzz, the first of the year, and ants patrol a boulder. At first the trail is flat and rolling, all rocks and roots, and, weirdly, it isn’t marked by paint blazes but by rectangles of metal the size of electrical plates loosely nailed to tree trunks. I don’t like this, no sir, don’t like anything man-made or unMonadnockian in my way. I stop at a klatch of five gossiping birches in the middle of the trail and call Mims, telling her that I’ll arrive with antibiotics tomorrow morning, first thing, and our conversation is a staccato mess as she inveighs against the lunch delivery and we go back and forth and all around about what’s happening when, why and by whom.
“Hey, guess what?” I say. “I’m standing in a grove of birch trees on Mount Monadnock. It’s beautiful.”
A long pause.
“That’s good,” she says, “you enjoy yourself.” Her voice has perked up, emerged from the disputatious fog and everyday humiliations of advanced age, and she’s my mother again caring for my happiness, reminding me to live. “You enjoy yourself today.”
I crank the radio, nuke the guilt. I keep going north.
In Marlboro, New Hampshire, I’m lost. At a food truck, from a man cradling a hot dog camouflaged in sauerkraut, I get directions that take me to the Dublin Lake Club. In 1940, members of this exclusive private golf club – mostly summering New Yorkers and Bostonians; Cabots and Lodges and that lot – squashed a plan to run a paved road from the village of Dublin to the peak of Monadnock, an abomination that would have brought extra riffraff to their side of the mountain. Good for them, even if their motivations were more elitist than ecological. In the club’s parking lot, an old woman pulls a wheeled golf bag from the trunk of her car – oh my G-d, that could be my mom just ten years ago. She golfed at two country clubs into her eighties and then old age came fast and hard, bitch-slapped her. From here I take the unpaved Old Troy Road a couple miles through thick, shady woods and join six cars parked at the trailhead. Birds are madly tweeting, the self-serve pay station is out of envelopes, and I’m underway by 12:40 p.m.
It’s 75 degrees on the Dublin Trail. The canopy of spruce and maple trees nearly shuts out the sky crowded with puffy clouds. Bugs buzz, the first of the year, and ants patrol a boulder. At first the trail is flat and rolling, all rocks and roots, and, weirdly, it isn’t marked by paint blazes but by rectangles of metal the size of electrical plates loosely nailed to tree trunks. I don’t like this, no sir, don’t like anything man-made or unMonadnockian in my way. I stop at a klatch of five gossiping birches in the middle of the trail and call Mims, telling her that I’ll arrive with antibiotics tomorrow morning, first thing, and our conversation is a staccato mess as she inveighs against the lunch delivery and we go back and forth and all around about what’s happening when, why and by whom.
“Hey, guess what?” I say. “I’m standing in a grove of birch trees on Mount Monadnock. It’s beautiful.”
A long pause.
“That’s good,” she says, “you enjoy yourself.” Her voice has perked up, emerged from the disputatious fog and everyday humiliations of advanced age, and she’s my mother again caring for my happiness, reminding me to live. “You enjoy yourself today.”
Soon the way grows steeper and sweat soaks my t-shirt as I indulge, against maternal orders, in thoughts of Mims’ next chapter: a parade of aides with names she can’t pronounce or remember, long days in beds and chairs, chronic pain, confusion, constant TV and a new facility with smaller rooms and privacy served as thin luxury. Or will she die next month?
A couple of teens, probably tenth graders, come down the trail. The girl has jet-black hair cut in a jazzy bob and chirps a birdy “Hi.” Her companion is well over six feet tall and hikes in size-12, bare feet that slop gracefully from granite stone to stone. “He’s a hobbit,” I comment, and the girl loves this. “Yes,” she says, “you’re Bilbo!” The boy will have none of it. “I’m Frodo,” he says. “You shall call me Frodo.” And they disappear downhill. He’s Frodo before the Ring, I think to myself. Frodo Untroubled. Frodo of the Shire.
The trail, I notice now, is lined with patches of moss, baby ferns and striving saplings, and as I go higher the mountain seems to get mossier, fernier and more striving. The forest canopy is sun-shimmered, glowing a brilliant green. At the tree line the view westward is a fantastic, undulating meadow of green rolling to Vermont and beyond, and just a little higher I come across the year's first Monadnock flowers blazing purple on low bushes. Quick stepping, I encounter rock cairns and a crumpled Budweiser can next to a pile of orange peels, as well as pinkish-white flowers in rock divots. The summit's made by 2:40, a two-hour ascension. Of course, I tap my hiking pole on one of the geodetic plaques – tradition! Eight or nine other human beings have joined me on this exclusive spot – five bucks and working legs are the only entrance fees – including a young couple who ask this stranger to take their photo and then rush to their day packs. “C’mon, let’s crush those sandwiches,” he says to her. Excellent idea – I find a crevice facing north and commence crushing mine.
A couple of teens, probably tenth graders, come down the trail. The girl has jet-black hair cut in a jazzy bob and chirps a birdy “Hi.” Her companion is well over six feet tall and hikes in size-12, bare feet that slop gracefully from granite stone to stone. “He’s a hobbit,” I comment, and the girl loves this. “Yes,” she says, “you’re Bilbo!” The boy will have none of it. “I’m Frodo,” he says. “You shall call me Frodo.” And they disappear downhill. He’s Frodo before the Ring, I think to myself. Frodo Untroubled. Frodo of the Shire.
The trail, I notice now, is lined with patches of moss, baby ferns and striving saplings, and as I go higher the mountain seems to get mossier, fernier and more striving. The forest canopy is sun-shimmered, glowing a brilliant green. At the tree line the view westward is a fantastic, undulating meadow of green rolling to Vermont and beyond, and just a little higher I come across the year's first Monadnock flowers blazing purple on low bushes. Quick stepping, I encounter rock cairns and a crumpled Budweiser can next to a pile of orange peels, as well as pinkish-white flowers in rock divots. The summit's made by 2:40, a two-hour ascension. Of course, I tap my hiking pole on one of the geodetic plaques – tradition! Eight or nine other human beings have joined me on this exclusive spot – five bucks and working legs are the only entrance fees – including a young couple who ask this stranger to take their photo and then rush to their day packs. “C’mon, let’s crush those sandwiches,” he says to her. Excellent idea – I find a crevice facing north and commence crushing mine.
Nearby fly two large, brown moths with tan fringes; they roll and flitter around each other, as if tethered. There’s a chilly wind, so I slip on a flannel shirt. The clouds today are massive and move very slowly, if at all, like overburdened barges. Or transports filled with Imperial storm troopers, the Star Wars dweeb in me pipes up. The clouds’ equally enormous shadows on the woods below drag like heavy anchors. Behind me, about ten yards away, I hear scrabbling; it’s a man in his seventies accompanied by a boy in his teens, his grandson, let’s say. The old man, his hairy belly protruding between shorts and polo shirt, sits uneasily on the mountaintop. He places his palms flat on the rock, as if to attach himself by suction.
“I don’t like heights,” he says. “Right now I’m scared I’m gonna fall down the side of the mountain.” The grandson, in a UMASS sweatshirt, retorts: “But you go skiing.” The old man grumbles, “I know, I don’t understand it,” and he lies flat and stares up with closed eyes. Some vestigial fear has been exposed in him, on this pinprick of granite. He’s not so scared to stop complaining, though: “I thought you said there were no bugs up here.” The kid replies, “I guess I was wrong” in a toneless voice…same old gramps being gramps…
As I shovel Trader Joe’s Rainbow’s End Trail Mix down my craw like any good Irish Jew should do, a small, gray bird hops by. Hey, little fella, you’re a long way up. Not lost, are you? She’s got sloped shoulders and an extended, thin tail – a red-eyed vireo, maybe. I toss her a chocolate chunk. Nothing doing, and she bounds away like a bird pogo stick.
“You’re sure this is the way down, huh?” It’s the old man again. He’s on his feet but maintains a protective crouch against tsunami wind, mountain bird attack, G-d’s flicking finger, what not. “’Cause I ain’t going any higher,” he adds, and the kid smirks as they get moving, side by side, peas in the cross-generational pod. Then I notice a tiny spider on my pack. Hello – do you live up here or did you hitch a ride?
“I don’t like heights,” he says. “Right now I’m scared I’m gonna fall down the side of the mountain.” The grandson, in a UMASS sweatshirt, retorts: “But you go skiing.” The old man grumbles, “I know, I don’t understand it,” and he lies flat and stares up with closed eyes. Some vestigial fear has been exposed in him, on this pinprick of granite. He’s not so scared to stop complaining, though: “I thought you said there were no bugs up here.” The kid replies, “I guess I was wrong” in a toneless voice…same old gramps being gramps…
As I shovel Trader Joe’s Rainbow’s End Trail Mix down my craw like any good Irish Jew should do, a small, gray bird hops by. Hey, little fella, you’re a long way up. Not lost, are you? She’s got sloped shoulders and an extended, thin tail – a red-eyed vireo, maybe. I toss her a chocolate chunk. Nothing doing, and she bounds away like a bird pogo stick.
“You’re sure this is the way down, huh?” It’s the old man again. He’s on his feet but maintains a protective crouch against tsunami wind, mountain bird attack, G-d’s flicking finger, what not. “’Cause I ain’t going any higher,” he adds, and the kid smirks as they get moving, side by side, peas in the cross-generational pod. Then I notice a tiny spider on my pack. Hello – do you live up here or did you hitch a ride?
On the way down, a black-bearded man appears on the trail. He, too, is hiking in bare feet, but his boots are tied to his back. “Excuse me,” I say, “when did you take off your boots?” He explains in a soft, Russian accent that he goes barefoot all the way up, then wears boots on the descent. I must look perplexed, because he jams his hands together in explanation. “So I don’t…” he says, and seems at a loss. “Stub your toe?” I offer, and he nods slightly. “It feels good,” he tells me about the crazy practice of climbing a mountain without shoes or socks. “You should try it.” I wave goodbye, and we part. But should I, really? Must bare feet touch rock, flesh grip granite, to know it? Must I scrape and bleed and wince to speak to the mountain? Maybe so – after all, that bird on the peak wasn’t wearing Merrell Moab Ventilator boots. Those moths tumbled naked. So all this gear I’ve amassed to brave my climbs – useless now? Junk to be stripped away, let go…
A half-hour later, I come upon an ascending couple in their twenties; he’s beefy in white t-shirt with slicked-back hair, she’s sturdy and buxom in purple sleeveless top and tight shorts. I stand atop a knob of granite, thirty feet above the pair, and hear her exclaim, “Your girlfriend, she must be some kind of fitness freak.” He: ‘Yeah, she goes to the gym like six times a week.” She, derisively: “She’s tiny.” He: “Yeah, a buck twenty.” They stop and look up at me. Between us slopes an expanse of boulders, trees and shrubs.
“Which way should we go?” she hollers. Not nicely. Hand on hips, demanding. I retort, “It’s all good. Just pick one.” No, it’s not all good for Ms. Congeniality. She maintains her pose, stares, and I try again: “Go to your right for about ten yards, then cut back to the middle.” This she does, exactly so, and he follows at her smoking heels; no one says thank you, oh wise mountain man. Recklessly, I slide down a steep boulder to avoid them.
An hour later, at the base of Monadnock where 19th century sheep reigned on rocky pasture, I notice old stone walls that weren’t there before. Ghost stones? More likely, there’s no limit to what a preoccupied mind can miss – and, whoosh, a chipmunk scoots across the trail with an acorn in his mouth. A nut as big as his head, lucky guy! He’s got white racing stripes on his fur, and, double-whoosh, he’s gone. At the trailhead parking area, I change into sandals and drive away down the Old Troy Road to the Dublin Lake Club where the wealthy cavort to the Old Marlboro Road to Charcoal Road to the highway.
Yes, I’ve enjoyed myself. Tomorrow morning I’ll bring a bottle of pills to my mom.
A half-hour later, I come upon an ascending couple in their twenties; he’s beefy in white t-shirt with slicked-back hair, she’s sturdy and buxom in purple sleeveless top and tight shorts. I stand atop a knob of granite, thirty feet above the pair, and hear her exclaim, “Your girlfriend, she must be some kind of fitness freak.” He: ‘Yeah, she goes to the gym like six times a week.” She, derisively: “She’s tiny.” He: “Yeah, a buck twenty.” They stop and look up at me. Between us slopes an expanse of boulders, trees and shrubs.
“Which way should we go?” she hollers. Not nicely. Hand on hips, demanding. I retort, “It’s all good. Just pick one.” No, it’s not all good for Ms. Congeniality. She maintains her pose, stares, and I try again: “Go to your right for about ten yards, then cut back to the middle.” This she does, exactly so, and he follows at her smoking heels; no one says thank you, oh wise mountain man. Recklessly, I slide down a steep boulder to avoid them.
An hour later, at the base of Monadnock where 19th century sheep reigned on rocky pasture, I notice old stone walls that weren’t there before. Ghost stones? More likely, there’s no limit to what a preoccupied mind can miss – and, whoosh, a chipmunk scoots across the trail with an acorn in his mouth. A nut as big as his head, lucky guy! He’s got white racing stripes on his fur, and, double-whoosh, he’s gone. At the trailhead parking area, I change into sandals and drive away down the Old Troy Road to the Dublin Lake Club where the wealthy cavort to the Old Marlboro Road to Charcoal Road to the highway.
Yes, I’ve enjoyed myself. Tomorrow morning I’ll bring a bottle of pills to my mom.
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