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“I can feel your disappointment. I can literally feel it emanating from you like a wave.” But before she said that, she said this: “The way we came.” But before that, I said this, as we stood on Castle Rock, looking down over an autumnal Big Bear Lake: “Do you want to go down the way we came, or do you want to try this trail down here?” (I think that’s a pretty objectively-phrased question, but you can already tell what I knew the right answer was.)
She diagnosed me long ago as a risk taker, and I’m afraid, for her, that she’s right. But as someone who clearly doesn’t enjoy taking the same sort of risks as I do, I must testify that Julie My Love has always given it “that old college try” – nearly post-doctoral at times – when she’s accompanied me on my crazier adventures.
Here, up on Castle Rock, a vigorous uphill hike from the lake, I was in my element. Granite rocks of all sizes and shapes – a geologically-assembled jungle gym – coaxed us (me) out onto the precipice.
Julie, after I was able to overcome her objections, followed me out, and we had a wonderful picnic lunch on the rim of the world.
It was when we were climbing down later, as I watched her nearly plunge over the edge to the rocks below, that my life almost changed irreparably. I had a sudden flash of this rather English Patient climax sequence, sobbing silently as I carry my bloody and broken love down the mountain. It was so vivid and horrible that I became unsteady on my feet. I think I said to her, after she recovered her footing and descended, “Baby, you almost ruined my life.” To be honest, I can’t clearly recall what I said, as I was temporarily dazed by a tidal wave of imagined melancholy [Author’s note: After reading this, Julie My Love confirmed that those are the words I spoke.]
But after all that, and because she could literally feel my disappointment at her response, we took the trail untraveled, got lost, had to cross a steep and ragged boulder field twice, and eventually, after some extended period of time (I purposely avoided making eye contact with my watch for the duration,) we made it back to the trailhead.
And you know what? The misadventure was well worth it, because as great as the view from on top Castle Rock was, the best time I had that day was when Julie and I worked together to find our way back down, crossing a boulder field (twice) and laughing together much of the way. It’s the little things that make you love someone so much that to lose her would be to die.
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