It was sunny today, our first pure blue-skied, warm Spring day, with rain predicted by late tomorrow night, so I cajoled my husband to come on a hike. We returned to a rather strenuous one we’d taken once before, the “little” hike to its big brother full mountain hike, a mere 2.2 miles to the summit, but it’s 2.2 mostly uphill miles, which I’m sure has some mathematical equivalent, like one human year to 7 dog years, so perhaps it’s really 15.4 flat miles, or perhaps it just feels like that.
We were sweating and panting and happily traversing each switchback, pleased with ourselves for making it happen – sun, hike, mountain vistas, a couple-y kind of day for which we were feeling a bit smug about ourselves. We laughed and chatted, reminisced, made light of the fact that despite our full exertion and sense that we were kickin’ butt up the trail, we were overtaken by almost every other set of hikers. The only people we passed were two silver-haired women with day packs the size of the new electric cars. And on we went.
At the summit, we sat quietly and sweated some more, our breath slowed to mostly normal, and we gratefully munched trail mix. For the gazillionth time since we set out, I regretted leaving my camera on the kitchen counter. I was surrounded by a gazillion perfect photographic moments, and could do nothing but enjoy them and let them go, not a one would be captured. The perfect Zen “experience and let go” opportunity, but I was falling short of transcendence; I doubt Zen Masters accrue a gazillion regrets.
A group of three hikers came up shortly after us – a grandmother, a mother and a son. The grandmother was not much older than me, and she was by no means the oldest person we’d seen that day (that title belongs to the silver-haired women who summited not too long after we did). It was the context of three generations that was so striking. The boy and mine share names, so small talk was mandatory and pleasant. These three held an easy-going, light-hearted conversation, and the grandmother and adult daughter were smiling and laughing. We set down the trail just ahead of them, then quickly they overtook us. We continued to hear the two women’s laughter for much of the descent. On and on they went, chatting and laughing. When the 7-year-old fell and bruised his leg, his tears were contained by the caring tone of the two women. We stopped, offered our help, [my husband offered his guy version of help (“No blood, no foul!”), I held back and told the boy conspiratorially that my son didn’t find that very helpful either], we checked to see if they needed any of our first aid supplies (I keep them in the car, so of course we had those, but not the camera), and we continued on.
Soon their soundtrack was behind us again, the lively, happy sound of friendship, the particular tone of women’s friendship punctuated by exclamations and questions and the sing-song of sentences that end in a melodic upswing instead of masculine declarative sentences, which end in the dead drop of a sentence and a thought that are complete and done and invite no embellishment.
I was envious of the mother-daughter friendship that accompanied the trio up and down the trail, the light and airy connection that has eluded my Mother and me. We have a different soundtrack. Worry, concern, love – yes, of course, love – care, questions, but not much humor these days and we don’t really embellish one another’s sentences any more. She hasn’t laughed much in a long time, as circumstances have been challenging for her and my Dad. We didn’t hike as a family; we don’t have a long list of activities we all enjoy together. I once bought my Mother my top five all-time favorite books, thinking we’d have them to talk about, that certainly they’d give her a glimpse into my world, create a little wooden bridge over the streams and rocky terrain, give us just the briefest time to walk side by side and experience the same things. It didn’t work out this way.
It’s not for me to have this kind of mother; perhaps it’s not for me to be this kind of daughter.
And then at some point I heard the boy say something about celebrating the older woman’s birthday. “When is it?” the mother asked. “June 23rd,” replied the older woman. I was temporarily confused, then I realized what had happened. These two were not mother and daughter. I had spent much of the descent in the happy sound of friendship, plain and simple. The idea that they were mother and daughter came solely from me. How I must wish for this, even at times I think I’m just out on the first sunny Spring day, on a great hike, savoring the moments in the present because I’m oh-so-clearly not saving photographic mementos of this day. Turns out I took something else on the hike with me, and I’m kind of glad I didn’t have my camera, so I could hear so clearly what I was longing to hear. Instead, I think I’ll call my Mother, and find out how her day was. We will have done almost nothing the other would want to do on a first sunny Spring day. Yet I know she’ll want to hear from me, and if I dare to tell her about our hike, and our lunch, and the perfect, perfect, perfect antique-shopping find on our way home, she’ll be happy for me, in her tune, a song I have come to appreciate without trying to change, without trying to sing along. My tune has a different rhythm, possibly different chords. I tend to think our songs are incompatible, but this isn’t so. Her music and mine are intertwined, and now the discordant notes ring out, but underneath, I know that she and I, all mothers and daughters, perhaps, are just variations on a theme. If I play it right, I can steer the conversation away from the present-day stressors to something we’ll both share a laugh over.
As I was putting my son to bed, we selected a magazine by young writers and artists. He chose to read a story about a waterfall hike that a girl takes with her parents. My son read a line, and I stopped him mid-sentence. “Did you just say, ‘The water laughed and tumbled along’?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied. “Read it again,” I requested. He complied. “The water laughed.” I said it a few times, as it was so perfectly right yet I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say it like that. It made for a complete circle of my day: to find laughter on a mountain side, laughter in a waterfall, laughter with friends, laughter with my son, laughter with my Mom.
Here’s what 11-year-old Jamie Geng, of San Diego, CA, wrote in her story about coming upon a waterfall after a long hike on a swelteringly hot day:
“At last, we reached the waterfall. I ran down the carved stone steps and sat down at the river’s edge. The water laughed and tumbled along, tripping over the rocks and at last falling over the edge of the tiny waterfall. Birds sang, and I wanted to sing along with them.”
If there’s a better way to end the first sunny, laughter-filled Spring day than stumbling upon a perfect quote, I don’t know it.
Jamie Geng (May/June 2012). The Shimmering Waterfall River. Stone Soup, (Vol. 40, No. 5), pp. 15-16.