He started this ascent nearly ten years ago. For ten long years he has attempted to reach the top of the curiously named and treacherously impenetrable Lover's Peak. His boyish innocence long since lost, the tracks of his daily growth into a weathered but true climber covered over with years of snowfall and ice. Each attempt at climbing this steeply pointed spire has taught him something. About nature. About himself. The willingness to succeed.
Chapped hands reach, clinging to the last rocky outcropping as he searches for the next safe place to support the weight of his move upward. Every step up in altitude is a test of keeping his cool and maintaining a steady breath, the search for each new foothold a test of Earth's gravity sharing its lessons. The air is crisply whispering in his ear, "Its too cold to go on. You can't make it to the peak. You are not strong enough." Yet even through the spirit dampening chill, he continues on, in spite of what the wind tells him, in spite of what his fellow climbers said. This impossible Peak has only been scaled by the most brave of climbers, especially this time of year, when Mother Nature offers no forgiveness to a false step or a slip in concentration. With only another few hundred feet to go, he remembers his last attempt to summit this snowy carapace...memories of his all too close a call by way of a small misstep (thanks to an error in judgement, and the subsequent near death escape from an avalanche of his own making) fill his head and knock loose his concentration, which the bone-chilling cold prevents him from regaining right away.
The last push towards the top is an arduous and foreboding slope. There is little to hold on to, little to make one believe it is even possible, little hope for safety or success. His life is in his own hands, and his faith strong in Nature's desire to protect its children.
He started his first climb as a boy, and with each successful placement of his foot, he fights the downward pull of the burden bearing down on his shoulders. With the carrying of each step's onus, he grows a little stronger, gains a bit more wisdom. His desire to succeed, his determined heart, will not forgive him if he lets go and takes the easy way out; his soul's growing knowledge and experience will not let him plunge down onto the ice and rock precipice he has thus far conquered. He realizes, however, that it takes more heart to turn back, to safely descend from his latest try, to live that he may try to scale this snow-bound rocky slope again. It takes more courage to accept failure in the present, yet live to keep moving towards his goal rather than die in a futile attempt at glory.
No comments:
Post a Comment