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Sherpas (continued from preceding page)
anxious enough to silence my internal sherpas on that trip. The following day, the warning from leader Katie of an exposed stretch of trail leading to another spectacular arch dissuaded several women from hiking that part. I went ahead and was rewarded by
a wonderful chat about gratefulness with Katie and Jeremiah, another member of our group, as we scaled a long uphill slab of slickrock.
More challenges emerged on our final hike, past im- posing towers that had me pausing every few feet to snap photos, so I could take a bit of the beauty home. There was a skinny ladder to climb down and then back up, on the return hike, and another exposed section of trail, where the canyon awaited, a long distance below.
Much of the rest of the time, I hiked alone, even though I was part of a group of fun, friendly folks.
I walked alone, allowing myself to connect to the imposing rock formations, sculpted over thousands of years by wind and water, and bleached here and there by the sun. I felt small in those wide-open spaces, yet powerful, grateful for two strong legs and a pair of lightweight aluminum poles to keep me feeling steady in sections of the trail I might not.
Every so often, I imagined that Richard was behind me. As I’d done since he died, I pressed into one
of many questions, wondering whether a different version of my husband floated in space, watching what I was doing, and feeling happy and proud. For a moment, my mood darkened, as I strayed into shadowy territory, where I feared everything about Richard was gone, that when he took a last breath and his heart stopped, he was, and still remained, gone.
Thankfully, the need to focus my thoughts on the trail pulled me up from the abyss I’d mostly managed to skirt. As had happened repeatedly each day in Utah,
I was no longer the grieving widow but the hiker, in love with this earth. Carefully, I stepped up the jag- ged rocks, using the pole in my right hand to give me leverage, and on the downhill stretches, digging the pole tips into the ground.
The sherpas were quiet, not because the trail posed a threat to my life. They were silent because I was mindful of step after step, as I looked for the best place to set my feet. Of all the reasons for being here, this was the foremost one. To hike just to hike. To learn from hiking how to live.
Before we received the dark frightening news that Richard had stage four cancer, which was incur-
able, I too often focused on the next thing. I planned getaway after getaway, and spent hours fantasizing, imagining myself in that paradise—snorkeling in the clear warm water off Kauai or floating in our two- person kayak, at the mouth of the wild and scenic Metolius River, on Central Oregon’s Clear Lake, or hiking the trail above the ocean at Point Lobos on the Central California Coast.
Following the diagnosis, I wasted time every day worrying about how long the treatments keeping Richard alive would work. Just as I’d done earlier when I naively believed illness and death wouldn’t touch my life until Richard and I were older, I frit- tered away precious days with my mind locked into time that hadn’t yet arrived.
The morning after our final hike dawned clear and cold. I made a cup of coffee and carried it outside. In the years I’d been with Richard, we frequently stayed in places like this lodge, where our room or cabin came with a view of water.
Here in Western Utah, my deck sat feet above the Colorado River. In three directions, red rock towered above the stream, glowing a pale rose in the early morning light.
I took a seat on the lounge chair and felt my heart lift, then raised my cup in a toast. This, too, was why I had come, to have such moments, where I could greet the day in a world alive with color.
Even more than at the treacherous point in a hike, this was the moment when the sherpas in my mind fell completely silent. The quieting of thought or noise, or what the Buddhists call monkey mind, wasn’t out of fear or the need for extra care, in order to survive. Instead, the sherpas had grown silent in awe, that the earth was still a glorious and healing force, assuring me that the love and pre- cious moments I shared with my husband would never be gone.
Somlo’s most recent book, Hairway to Heaven Stories (Cherry Castle Publishing), was a finalist in the American Fiction Awards and Best Book Awards. Previous books, The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil) and Even When Trapped Behind Clouds: A Memoir of Quiet Grace (WiDo Publishing), were finalists in several contests. Her work has appeared in Guernica, Delmarva Review, Under the Sun, the Los Angeles Review, and over forty antholo- gies. She received Honorable Mention for Fiction in the Women’s National Book Association Contest; was a finalist in the J.F. Pow- ers Short Fiction Contest; had an essay selected as Notable for Best American Essays; and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net multiple times.
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