Happy New Year
January/February by Michael Wolcott
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" As if I had all the time in the world and I had all the world in my time - always holding those dreams like verses that never will rhyme. I still dream I'll make movies in Spain, photograph dancers in flight. And I'm watching the clock running down and I live in available light. " |
John Stewart, Walk on the Moon |
There's a place atop the Continental Divide we'll call Spirit Pass, a graceful break in the jagged granite crest of the Wind River mountain range. On a clear day, it's a bowl full of blue Wyoming sky. I've never been anywhere closer to heaven.
Raw alpine beauty spills off either side of the pass: old glaciers, groves of white bark pine, chains of small lakes strung like pearls along threads of melted snow. The waters are alive with brookies, cutthroats and rainbows, and even a few golden trout.
When I first encountered the Winds some 20 years ago, I fell instantly in love. It's big, fabulous, rocks-and-ice wilderness, a granite wonderland of stony subalpine meadows, naked peaks and endless possibility.
For years, I traveled there whenever I could, making forays into the wilderness on either side of the Divide, usually visiting Spirit Pass. Sometimes I was tempted by the fantasy of just staying up there, and making that place my home.
After years of these visits, around my 40th birthday, I got my first Forest Service job - in the Winds, working as a ranger. My good luck astounded me: What, I get paid, too?
It seemed like a dream come true. Well, almost. I did have to wear a uniform and clear trail. I did have to talk with backcountry visitors and check in with the district office every day. But it was pretty sweet.
Still, as one ranger season led to another, my time in the mountains began to feel less like adventure and more like work. So, like any desk jockey, I daydreamed - pretending that I wasn't wearing a uniform or carrying a crosscut saw, imagining myself utterly free, just tromping around in the mountains.
Over time, I elaborated on this fantasy, hatching a plan to save a little money and not return to the Forest Service at all. Instead, I would come back to the Winds in summer, but on my own time.
I planned this mythical summer with loving care. It would be an entire season in wilderness, soaking up beauty without the distractions of a job, or any other responsibility.
While bucking logs off the trail and checking outfitter camps, I refined this idyllic vision: I would stay in the mountains from summer solstice to autumn equinox, catching fish and gathering edible plants. Wild food wouldn't be enough, of course. But I'd make do on just what could be carried in at the beginning of this epic trip - 90 pounds seemed doable. I made lists and planned menus: this many pounds of oatmeal and cheese, that many boxes of crackers.
I never did it. And now, 10 years after the idea first occurred to me, I suspect that I never will. Not because I no longer want to, but because there are so many other things I'd also like to do.
My life is more complicated, too, more populated by people I love, and who love me. I want to spend time with them; they want to spend time with me. And it's not just a matter of "want." Their needs - and mine - must be considered, as well.
Here's the unavoidable truth: there are limits. (As the comedian Steven Wright pointed out once: "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?")
Now, my dream of a season in the mountains has begun to fade. Maybe I'll still do it - someday, if there's time. But there may not be.
So, as another year of this life (my one and only life) slips into the rearview mirror, I'll be glad for just having that dream. And, poised at the edge of another calendar year, I will make one resolution: to live - fully, without regret - in the available light.
Michael Wolcott is a Flagstaff writer who has the c.v. you would expect of a nature mystic with poetical leanings and an old Toyota truck. His e-mail address is angelpass12455@hotmail.com.