Stronger at any Stage…
When a lifelong I can’t …
Becomes Holy S**t! I did that!
I was not strong or coordinated or athletic or fit.
There was plenty of evidence.
Before the age of 8 I had given myself two gnarly black eyes. One from falling from my cousin’s top bunkbed onto my face. (My face? Really? I couldn’t even get my hands down?)
The other was from running down the hallway at my house, tripping, and landing face-first on the corner of the stone fireplace ledge. (Again, get your hands up, kid!).
It took me longer than any of my siblings to learn to ride a bike. I had skinned both my knees so badly so many times that my parents sought out a special athletic store to get me soccer goalie knee pads. This was the early 80’s – way before bike helmets were a thing – honestly, I’m lucky I made it through my childhood without far more damage.
My dad helping me ride my bike…still a shaky rider, not gonna lie. Also wish I had a grown-up romper like that one! Cute!
I also had a sister, just thirteen months older, who was strong and athletic and fearless. I had asthma, allergies, and a preference for reading Mary Higgens Clark mysteries in bed.
My sister was a varsity gymnast; I took two years of gymnastics and spent most of the class arguing with the coaches about the safety of the balance beam. (You want me to do what? You know that’s only five inches wide, right?!)
Once, when we were on a friend’s boat in the St. Croix, we were taking turns jumping from the back of the boat into the current and then swimming back to the ladder. It became pretty clear that I was going to be swept down river at any moment, so my sister took it upon herself to dig up a rope and lifejacket (Again the 80’s – where were the parents? What parents?) and tied me to the ladder so they could drag me back in when I wasn’t strong enough to swim back to the boat.
If we would have had a family yearbook, she would have been named most athletic, and I would be most likely to spend the weekends watching sitcoms and doing puzzles. (Still one of my favorite activities, so no regrets.)
You get it. I just wasn’t strong.
I carried that identity with me through high school and college, and after graduation I was set on spending the summer in bed reading and rotting before I started teaching kindergarten in the fall. But then my dad, Norbert, called with an interesting proposal.
He had planned a trip to hike the Big Horn Mountains in Montana/Wyoming with my brother, but he could no longer make it. Would I like to go?
Would I like to hike a mountain? And camp? With a group of hike-y outdoors-y people?
Yes.
For some reason, yes came out of my mouth.
‘Great!’ My dad was thrilled. ‘Make sure you have good hiking boots, and wear them around everyday from now until we leave to really break them in.’
‘I’ve got some from a few years ago, and I’ll totally make sure they still fit.’
(I did not, in fact, put them on once until we were on the mountain. And they did not, in fact, fit at all.)
In church parking lot - ready to embark! (aka, don’t have a clue what I’m doing here.)
Cut to some summer morning a few weeks from that ‘yes!’ and we were standing in a church parking lot loading a bunch of gear into vans with a bunch of strangers and I suddenly had a bunch of questions.
“How hard are the hikes? How far up are we going? How steep is this mountain again?”
My dad reassured me that everyday was just like a long slow walk with increasing elevation. Anyone could do it.
“Anyone? Even someone who once broke her arm while lying on a couch?” (true story).
“One step at at time.” He took my pack and threw it in a van. We got in.
Since my brother is four years younger than me, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that I was the oldest of the ‘kids’ who were along for this trek. Most people were still in high school and then there were the few adults, like my dad, to make sure none of us did anything totally stupid like fall off the mountain.
(Wait, was there going to be a point that we could fall off??!)
Once we got to the base camp in Montana, we were hooked up with a guide, who was a woman exactly my age, so at least I didn’t feel like a total weirdo.
For the most part, my dad was right, each day was a slow walk upward.
With each day our elevation increased, and the breathing got harder, and the packs felt heavier, and the high school boys seemed faster, and turns out you really should break in your hiking boots before a trek.
But each day I would get out of the tent, and marvel at the beauty of the peaks in the distance, the crystal clear (and freezing) mountain pools, and think: I can’t believe I’m strong enough to do this. But holy shit, I’m doin’ it!
Before the day’s hike would start, my dad would put duct tape over my ever-growing blisters and make sure we had snacks at our disposal, and we would start walking.
When you don’t break in your boots… this is Norbert’s cure: lots of duct tape.
Beauty everywhere. And ice-cold water to dunk your feet :)
Everyone passed us. The high schoolers seemed to be somehow gaining speed the higher we got. My breathing felt impossible, my feet hurt, and my pack seemed to be gaining weight with each passing day.
But my dad was patient.
“We don’t have to be the fastest. We will all get to camp when we get to camp.” He would say as we climbed. “Just one step at a time. Don’t rush. Just take the next step when you’re ready.”
We were always the last to make it to camp, but he was right. We still made it. One painful, lung-bursting step at a time.
Always the last ones in the group…but we always made it!
Bomber Mountain - part of an 1943 military plane.
There were magical days, like when we hiked Bomber Mountain and checked out the wreckage of a military plane that had crashed in 1943. There were nights at the fire laughing until it hurt, stars so close you could touch them, and blissful moments soaking my feet in the frigid snow-cap runoff.
And then it was time for the summit, Cloud Peak, just over 13,000 feet in elevation.
It was a rough day. It felt like I couldn’t get a full breath. Every few steps I had to pause. At one point I just started crying. While walking. My dad sat me down on a boulder and gave be a candy bar. Others passed with a concerned look and my dad just explained: low blood sugar.
Somehow we made it.
The summit.
Of a freakin’ mountain!
There was an old board there at the top – the marker that you made it – and my dad and I held it up proudly and took a picture.
At the summit.
That was the most amazing feeling. And also the most terrifying.
Because…something that the guide didn’t mention about the summit: there was a sheer drop off the edge of a cliff that went straight down 1,700 feet to the rocks below. (I’m not lying, my hands are sweating so much just writing about it).
People were lying on their bellies and inching forward the look straight down into the abyss. No fucking thank you. I kept my back pressed against the nearest bolder, sweat filling my shoes until we could start the decent back to camp.
The whole hike back down, I couldn’t believe it. Me, the kid with asthma who never learned to ride a bike, I just climbed a mountain!
After a week of trekking through the rocks, we got back to base camp where our vans were. Since myself and the other woman guide were the oldest gals on the hike, we got to shower first! Heaven. AAaaand, we were over 21 so my dad bought us beers to have at the fire that night while gazing up at the mountain that I had just climbed up and back down! Double-triple heaven.
This hike helped change my self-story.
It proved to me that you aren’t just strong or not strong. You can get stronger. Physically and mentally. At any time! I know that sounds so obvious, but for some reason I had to experience it to believe it.
A month or so later, in the fall of 2000, when someone asked me if I wanted to check out this new thing called yoga…I said yes. Because I was getting stronger, I just climbed a mountain, you know.
Turns out, you can change your story. At any stage. One step at a time.
Thank you to my dad, Norbert, for this and so many other adventures. Love you!
xo, Viv
Tune in next week for another spark from Viv!