On the evening of our final end-of-year meetings, our school community gathers to celebrate. It’s been a sweet year, one marked by fewer, smaller conflicts, where our credo We will know your boys and love your boys rang spectacularly true.
I looked forward every day to seeing my students, trying to teach them skills, sharing laughs at table, cheering them on.
That night, our Head of School shares a list of milestones, and my name is read (along with his own) to commemorate 10 years of service to our school. It is, of course, cliche to say It does not seem possible, and yet, here I am.
Ten years.
Though my brain ages, I am able to command it yet to think about those first few months, ten years ago.
Shattered raw from my son’s accident, I moved into the space he had inhabited only years earlier. It was grace to be able to work alongside his former teachers, gaze at his old team photos, find his name etched in pencil on the bottom of a drawer (naughty boy).
Say his name to those who knew him.
If I were to do the math, in those ten years, I have taught hundreds of students, known thousands more.
They are men now, boys no more.
Forever 22, my son will never meet these brothers of his. Never rove his old haunts, stand at fence on the new turf field, give an alumni tie to the next class of boy.
On this day, the 28th of May, the wind swirls as I write. Seeds soar through the air outside. Papers blow to the floor.
It feels like change.
What is ahead, I cannot know.
This world – this shining, heavy, glorious world – is not my home.
It was never his.
If we are lucky, alert, we may catch a glimpse of what is to come.
A new song brushes by on Pandora this week, and the first line wrecks me, a perfect mirror of the pain and frustration marking the past month.
Tired and I am angry at the nature of it all Fighting just to find myself a breath
After scrapping all year to heal from last summer’s injury, I was ready to try again to perhaps be the first woman to hike the 115 tallest mountains in the Northeast in one continuous footpath. At least give it a try.
I was feeling pretty good, actually, most of the year.
I’m able to get back on the trails that I love, covertly start a second Grid (shh).
I spend time with the littles, joy at my son’s engagement, teach the sweetest bunch of middle school boys on the planet.
All along, in the back of my mind, is The Hike. A metaphor for overcoming: injury and age and the steady drip of the world.
Then.
It starts as an ache in my shoulder, travels down the muscles of my back. A nagging there-ness that begins to shout the moment I put on a pack.
Sparing no attention to rehab my wretched hip, I had neglected other places that were bent on rebellion. The pain is constant, a reminder that the time to leave is short and I can’t leave, I won’t, until it does.
Not this time, I tell myself, and try everything available to excise the growing knot hellbent on shipwrecking my plans. Chiro, deep tissue massage, reps with rubber bands, a tennis ball.
I go back to the stories that have always brought me hope.
Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11)
How. Much. More.
And yet – though I know it can’t be true – it seems that all I get are snakes and stones.
I love the forest. It is a place where I can be, silent, away. Away from other weighty pains, where it’s okay to be alone.
Can I trust, at home, my own tired soul? Not good with empty time, I fear I could be a danger to myself.
And then, just when it seems my shoulder starts to calm – bread! fish! – I cannot even. Attention drawn away from its constant demands, my hip reverts back to its old treacherous ways. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t just so darn sad.
Can these dry bones live?
I wonder and worry. Will these compound setbacks be a dark night of the soul, leading me to oceans of deeper trust – or will they send me spiraling?
I realize I have a say in the matter, and who wants to willingly spiral when it’s surrender that is necessary?
So I try. Remember all the fish, all the bread from seasons past.
Number present blessings. Pray and cry and pray some more. Banish those doubts and disappointments to the empty tomb and roll back the stone.
God’s plans are rarely linear.
I do wish He were predictable. So much of the last decade has been anything but.
But what I can count on, what is as unmistakably as granite solid as the mountains I crave, is Himself. His presence, provision, and care.
So I wait here in limbo, knowing that his howmuchmoreness will one day win.
It’s been a while since I’ve had the time or inclination to write, but today, as a wintery mix falls and my car sits idle in the driveway with its check engine light on, again, it feels like a need.
The haste with which Christmas came and went felt cruel. Though it happens every year, it seemed particularly thus this time.
The hopes and fears of all the years: they are a weight I can’t shake, a long list of assaults that sap my faith.
Frequent injuries that linger long. Brain fog. Mice in the walls. A Judas car. Loneliness. The pounds that creep back on.
The very socks I pull on this morning. His socks, the one who left too soon, who loved this season, his family, life itself.
The elastic crackles as I pull, and I realize there are some things that just go, no matter how hard you want to hold them tight.
Maybe I need to look up, not down.
There was another list I started to keep this season, inspired by something I read on the Bible app earlier this month. Apparently, there are more than 700 different names for Christ in the Bible, and author Robert Morgan writes that “each one meets the various needs in our own lives… (and) discloses the many layers of his relationship with us.”
I start to count.
Compassionate One. Fuller’s Soap. Redeemer.
Every morning, as I sit at desk, I journal names.
Promise Keeper. My Delight. Lord of Power.
I circle the number, every day.
My Shepherd, 29. The Lord My Banner, 51. Commander of the Angel Armies, 105.
As I count, two birthdays arrive, my own and the newest little.
Everlasting Father. Bridegroom. Master. King.
In less than a month, when Christmas finally arrives, I’ve hit 383.
Alpha. Omega. Lion. Lamb.
Look up!
Do you not know? Have you not heard?
That hip, those mice, your son.
Why do you complain, O daughter? Why do you say, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. (Isaiah 40:27-28)
He is your Strength, your Champion, your Great Reward.
Faithful One. Rock. Abba Daddy.
Always close, always listening, my very breath. Immanuel. God with Us. Never Leaver or Forsaker. Life itself.
I can’t stop counting, and neither will You, Meeter of My Every Need.
In fact, I’ve been waiting the last few weeks, hoping, praying that I wouldn’t have to, wouldn’t feel that I must.
But no amount of walking the neighborhood, no matter how loudly I call her name or how many times I look at the door, scour the woods, despite the signs I tacked to telephone poles or the pictures I posted on Facebook, the chasing down of false leads or speaking to strangers, I have to finally admit: she’s gone.
My sweet, constant, loud, fuzzy sidekick has disappeared.
Yes, I know – she’s just a cat, a pet and not a child. That is a truth I wish I didn’t know as well as I do.
And yet…
I got my good girl the summer of another disappearance, the summer the one I had trusted with my heart broke covenant and walked away.
Though I didn’t know it at the time, the tiny kitten we invited into our home would become a timekeeper for whenever I thought back to that awful summer.
How old is she?
How long have I been alone?
Children aged and flew; I sold our too-big house, got a job, came to terms, felt the wounds slowly scab.
Through it all, at the end of the day, there was always one face waiting for me when I opened the door.
She moused the house and chased chipmunks in the yard. Hid under the bed when the grands came to visit, destroyed more couches than I care to admit, woke me up when I wanted to sleep. She insisted I brush her by falling underfoot, endured the scissors when her long fur clumped. Her favorite perch was atop the couch, eye-level with me as I watched or read, absent-mindedly scratching her ears as she purred. She was a sucker for an empty box.
She was a good girl.
I try not to think about the scratch marks I find on the porch stairs, the lone tuft of fur.
What took you? You must have been so scared.
I try not to look at her silly toys.
The treats she no longer needs.
Yes, I know.
I know she was just a pet.
But she was my pet, the one live thing that has kept company with me all these years.
About a week ago, I saw a window between duty and the many appointments dealing with my injury.
Impulsively, I packed up the car and set out early one morning to drive to the Gaspe Peninsula, a place I’ve long wanted to explore.
I’m so glad I did. So much beauty packed onto one spit of land, it wasn’t possible to see it all in one short week.
So many trees!
And seals that howled like wolves.
The largest colony of Northern Gannets, squawking and tussling like my middle school students.
Rocks everywhere, grand and common.
Ocean, gulf, river, lake: water in all its diverse forms.
Did I mention trees? The stunning variety of them, their sweet shade, the heady, pine-y scent; spontaneous gratitude would often erupt in my soul for God’s gracious gift of trees.
Every day, I tried to walk a little further on the local trails until, at last, I felt ready to tackle an actual mountain.
Standing proudly on the tip of Gaspe in Forillon National Parc, Mont Saint-Alban, at 285 meters, was a little over a five mile loop, much of it on the International Appalachian Trail.
Seemed like as good a place as any to kick the tires.
Rain pelted my windshield as I parked at the trailhead, waiting for a break. Yes, I wanted to see the views promised in the trail description, but I also longed to see if my damaged soft tissue was healed enough to propel me up the mountain.
Muscle memory took over as I exited the car and practically danced – cautiously – toward the summit and the observation tower at the top.
Perhaps, upon discovering that my legs did, in fact, still work, a view would be nice after all. I willed the misty clouds to part at every outlook.
When I reached the top tier of the tower, they did, in part, recede, affording me some of the most elegant displays of the entire trip.
And that’s when it hit me.
Without the clouds to frame the landscape, the tip of the Gaspe, the cliffs and trees and sea, would have appeared flat, dull. It was the clouds themselves that revealed the beauty.
For the rest of the trip and thereafter, I started paying attention. Cataloguing.
Confident in my restored limbs, I tackled Mont Jacques-Cartier.
Found other paths.
Everywhere I looked.
Veil in sky or vapor over field.
The clouds were the show.
Integral, insistent.
We so often denigrate the clouds in our lives. The times when the sun is shrouded and our lives are marred by frustration, confusion, and pain.
But what if -?
What if those times are necessary, to help us truly see and appreciate and know?
Perhaps we don’t value a thing until it is lost, for a season or forever.
I want to look with new eyes.
To not despise those cloaked things.
It is said my King will one day return. It is said He will come with clouds.
Should I be found here, waiting, when this occurs, let it be with a heart full of gratitude for the times with and the times without.
Actually, for some reason, they seem to be thinking a lot about me.
Ever since I got home from the hike I had planned for this summer – an attempt that ended in a catastrophic injury (okay, perhaps hyperbolic, but it’s been a real bummer) – turtles have been showing up everywhere.
My biggest little gives me a picture of one she made out of stickers. She had a whole zoo to choose from, but this is the one she picked:
Multiple turtles have been using my yard as a cut through to the marsh behind my house. Big and small, they galump across the grass, seemingly oblivious to the mosquito cloud engulfing their head, until they eventually hit the woods.
I’ve had to rescue turtles who freeze crossing the road, caught glimpses of ones who made it over without intervention, others who flatly did not.
The largest one was the snapper I argued with the day before my hike ended. He appeared unreasonably determined to turn into traffic and unwilling to accept that my trekking pole was sent to save his life, biting and scratching at it until he at last complied.
I’ve had a lot of time on my hands. Too much time, in my opinion, trying to figure out where I am and how I got here, a prisoner of my own recovery. From under this heavy carapace, I look out into a world that has become too expansive for my broken frame.
How easy it would be to turn on God. To blame Him for this injury, these thwarted plans, this wretched “wasted” summer, this limping around an empty house looking for something meaningful to do.
But that is not His way.
As His children, we need His Father-ship. We need, I need, His comfort, compassion, wisdom, and hope.
Holding on by my fingernails, I search His word for anything that will get me through the day.
To a hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet. (Proverbs 27:7)
Yearning to walk, even a short, painful trip to the mailbox is a delight.
Lord, to whom else would we go? You have the words of eternal life. (John 6:68)
Icing, stretching, visits to the chiro: I do my best to steward my recovery. Even so, when and if I am healed on earth, my body still remains in a constant state of decay. This (glory!) will not be true in my forever home.
Blessed are they whose strength is in You…As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring…they go from strength to strength. (Psalm 84:5-6)
The Valley of Baca was a place of drought, hardship and tears that pilgrims needed to pass through on the way to Jerusalem. I, too, can traverse this valley, taking courage from Him, building my resolve, until even the driest of sands becomes a pool.
And my all time, go-to favorite:
I would have lost heart,unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13)
Though we are never assured a suffer-free life, He does promise nuggets of goodness along the way.
Ease is not our lot.
Difficult forges the fight in us. Who needs to overcome green meadows when it’s a battlefield that lies ahead? Muscles are molded in the gym, not on the couch, even when the only muscles I seem able to mold at this moment are metaphorical.
For now, if I can’t go out to the beauty, I’ll bring beauty inside.
There are grands to play with, friends to visit, meals to plan and distribute.
If I can’t move my body, I will work on my brain. Reading, writing, prayer, puzzles: there is still so much rich I am able to do.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, I drag this shell across the yard.
We must trust the hand of the Divine Conductor, who orchestrates our circumstance, the rests as well as the notes. We cannot see what He sees, so it does no good to beat at his baton.
He knows everything about the when and how and where. (Isaiah 28:29)
I didn’t choose this wilderness, but I’m okay knowing He is with me in it, cheering me on, until, one day, it ends.
The other day, in a colleague’s English class, we read one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets. Robert Frost – his very name evokes the natural – has a way of hooking my heart with profound confessions wrapped in the simplest of scripts.
Listen.
Desert Places
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it – it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is, that loneliness Will be more lonely ere it will be less – A blanker whiteness of benighted snow With no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars – on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places.
Frost was only 59 when he wrote Desert Places. There was a time in my life that I considered that age to be ancient; no more.
Lately, I find myself moving things that previously occupied some cupboard space down low – the cat food under the sink, charging cords, frequently used kitchen utensils – to places up high, more easily accessible, places that require no stooping or bending on my part.
I have begun to forget words, names. Sleep poorly. Find more strands in my hairbrush that I care to admit.
I age and age and age, in one direction only, fast, oh, fast, fighting those lonely places within myself that stick like stubble out of the soil of my soul.
Some days it’s even a struggle to work up the energy to ask for help – for Him to undull my heart, offer peace, or even acceptance. Perhaps it is enough to ask Him to simply sit with me, for I know that there is no place where His love isn’t.
I learned recently that the cells of a child live on in the mother long after the child is born. There is an exchange, and it has a name.
Fetal microchimerism “refers to the transfer of the baby’s genetic material into the mother’s body long after the birth of the child” (cradlewise.org).
Whoa.
I think of my boy, the one I lost. He’d be 31 soon.
I often wondered where life went when it was all lived up. Heaven, yes, eventually, when He returns. But where is he now, my son?
To know that a part of him lives on, in me – an ever-beaming glow that never ages, coming to my rescue even though I could not rescue him – this is a gift.
Because here’s the thing: I also learn that those cells, those tiny baby cells, have the capacity to embed themselves in their mother’s tissue and actually repair harm.
Baby cells, like stem cells, can grow next to liver cells or bone cells, differentiate themselves, heal whatever’s around them.
The brain that remembers so slowly now, that jumps and skips and pauses unbidden; the heart that tears, remembering too well – bid my son’s, bid all my children’s cells, to draw near and help.
Do cells sing?
Mine must, united, now, as they are.
There is no need to scare myself with my own desert places.
I know someday all will be made well – my son’s mangled body, my own mangled heart.
The other day, a manilla envelope appeared in my campus mailbox.
There was nothing particularly disguishing about it. Were you to try to fathom its contents, the only hint of its import was the sender, a name synonymous with hiking in this part of the world: Ed. Keeper of all things Grid.
My scroll had arrived!
It almost felt like, longlong ago, when you were waiting for word from your number one college choice, hoping the letter would come, hoping it would be today, hoping it would be fat.
Though just a piece of paper, this scroll (and related bling) represented to me the years I have been privileged to walk day and night, through sunlight and starlight and every changing season, over the four corners of the wild. (Psalm 74, loosely quoted)
It feels good to be a member of this club, whose current members number less than 200. But although I am happy about this milestone, the real essence of the Grid was the deep repair it worked in my heart over the footfalls, over the peaks, over the years and years of dancing in the sky.
Bondcliff, October 2019
Untethered and soul-starved, I needed something to laser my focus.
Last ascent of Madison, March 2025
Up high, I didn’t mind feeling small; in all that expanse, I never felt alone.
There was simply too much beauty, too much wildness, too much of the forensic hand of the Creator softly shaving the edges of my loneliness until all I wanted was to be up there, with Him.
Franconia Ridge December 2023, negative double digit windchill
I started counting peaks back on June 21, 2018, on Mt. Washington, a stroll up Lion’s Head and back down through the Alpine Garden.
I finished on Washington, as well, on March 11, 2025, though this wasn’t planned. The weather in 2025 held me anxious and stressed, wanting so badly to finish but also wary of what could happen should I decide poorly. Washington waited for last.
Depth of snow on Jewell Trail, last ascents of Monroe and Washington
Weighty things take time. Like loss, like grief, or even faith, you don’t need to tackle it all at once. In fact, you can’t.
Cannon Mountain, September 2018
I remember driving up the access road in 2020 to the trailhead for Mt. Carrigain. It was only my second time, and I remember wondering how I was ever going to do this hike in the winter, when the access road was closed, adding almost 6 miles to an already long day. I wasn’t sure I could.
Carrigain, New Years Day 2024
But as I ventured further and further into the woods, as my experience grew and my fear abated, I found that though we might want suddenly, it is gradually that is often wiser, more humane.
Trekking pole showing depth of the snow on last ascent of Owls Head, March 2025
His hand is slow, but it’s never late.
Approach to North Kinsman, April 2021
So many things happened in all those years, the physical ones easier to measure.
In the 7 years and 9 months it took me to Grid, I went through: 8 pairs trail runners, 4 pairs hiking boots, 4 sets trekking/ski poles, 2 pairs rain pants, 3 rain jackets, 2 day packs, 2 winter packs, 2 pairs snowshoes, 1 phone, 1 car, and more water bottles than I could count. (It took me awhile to figure out how not to drop them. Sorry, LNT).
Wildcat Ridge Trail, September 2023
I had a favorite sweater that went through each washing like a champ and never smelled.
This one, above, from Title Nine, on Moriah, September 2023
A buff my daughter gave me, which always made me think of her when I put it on.
Madison, October 2022
It didn’t necessarily help with the hair, but up there, I really didn’t care.
Post an Adams/Jefferson out and back, September 2020
Eisenhower, April 2021
Last trip out to Jefferson, March 2025
There were people, so many people, along the way. My kids, who watched out for me, via text, on every peak. Lori Hall, who first told me about the Grid. Philip Carcia, the wolf of the Whites, whose encouragement and support meant the world. Georg, legend, whose advice was always gold. Brooke and Lad, who let me join them midway through a Bond/Zealand traverse and gave me a ride back to my car. Summerset, who also came through in a similar way. Numerous groups of Holderness students on their Outback program, reminding me of the son who once did the same.
Online friends who heartened. You, reading now. Aggie and Donna and Melissa, always in my corner. Ed Hawkins, of course, for managing all of us Gridiots.
Zealand with Brooke and Lad, March 2024
I did all the peaks solo except for one traverse of the Bonds, with Carolyn, and a Carter/Wildcat traverse with Timothy, my old hockey coaching partner. I’ll probably replace those hikes later this year just to say I did them all alone, but I’m thankful for the fun we had on those hikes. Their company was sweet.
Mishaps occurred, as they often do. Broken bones, bruises, bonks on the head from ice-laden branches, scratches and sticks and blisters galore. Toenails went missing. Once, I burned the top of my ankle with a toe warmer on a bitter cold day on the Bonds.
Ouch
Why it burned one side but not the other I cannot say, but the scar persists.
There were lots of animals, mostly birds, but one moose on Isolation. A mouse, strangely, on Lafayette, the day before that same hike would claim the life of 19 year-old Emily Sotelo in November of 2022.
What are doing up here, little one?
When I started to Grid, there was so much I didn’t know. So much I still don’t.
Last ascent Adams, March 2025
Jackson, May 2021
My gear currently sits in a crate on the porch. I’m a little tired and need a break from constantly checking the weather, my schedule, the snack cabinet, a list.
Clouds over the Gulfside Trail, February 2025
I hope to keep hiking a long, long time.
Up high, there’s a peace I find nowhere else. A closeness to my son, my mom and dad, the ache not absent, but assuaged.
November 2022 on South Twin
No step is ever wasted as we steer toward eternity.
Wild and wonderful is this world you have made. (Psalm 104:24)
Christmas with the littles has come and gone, and the new year now lies latent and watchful with all the things that are meant to be.
We actually had two Christmases this year, as the adult children planned their own plans while the grands relied on their parents’ calendar to observe our dear Savior’s birth.
Finding a day or two when the whole family could be together was tricky, but once we did, it meant that the littlest ones would have to wait days past the 25th to see their uncles (and their uncles’ presents).
In the meantime, I joined them for the bulk of the gifting on Christmas proper and tried to find a day or two to sneak in my final hikes for December.
Waiting continues to challenge me.
December was a rough month for gridding, as weather and schedule conspired at every turn to prevent even the smallest of windows to get out there. I managed to sneak in a Wednesday Washington/Monroe in the waning weeks, though a terrifying slide down the icy slope of Monroe had me spooked.
I can’t explain how I finally came to a stop, yards away from some nasty rocks, but I did. A miracle.
Was I getting careless? I didn’t think so, but where the ever unpredictability of these mountains confronts my desire to finish, there will always be strain.
It seems that the closer I get to the end (only 15/576 left!), the more that anxiety breaks my crust of calm with its insistent nettling. What are the winds? Is the Hillary Step clear of ice? How high is the water? Will my feet survive the cold?
All of these worries came to a head the day after Christmas when I head out for the longest hike of the month, the Bonds, a 22.6 mile round trip. Even toe warmers can’t keep my feet warm, so I shove extra hand warmers down my boots to keep the frostbite away.
I’m zipping along the first three miles of the well-trodden Lincoln death march, optimistic for the day, when I cross the bridge into the Pemigewasset Wilderness and all tracks end: virgin powder as far ahead as I can see. It’s another 8.5 miles to the turnaround on West Bond, and every step will have to be broken out, alone, by me. Sigh.
Hours pass as I blow through podcasts, water crossings, and hidden holes beneath the snow. I lose another water bottle – when will I learn to secure them?! – and gamble that I’ll have enough left in my dwindling supply, or find the dropped one on the way back.
On top of Bondcliff, the drifts hit thigh height in places, each step a quagmire. I seriously consider quitting, waiting another year, saying the heck with it ALL and turning around. I’m too angry to pray, too stubborn to stop. Eight hours after leaving the parking lot, I finally summit West Bond, 1:30 in the afternoon, and snap the only picture of the day, a false smile belying the exhaustion I feel at having to follow my footsteps back to the car.
Back in the woods, more miracles: a woman approaching, tromping down the trail with her snowshoes. We stop to chat and I ask if she’s seen my bottle. No, but she offers me enough of her own water, and I can’t believe her kindness. Later, after crossing one of the streams, I look down and see the top of my errant Nalgene sticking out of the snow. Hurray! I guzzle most of what’s left.
Darkness drops, hours pass. I’m soaked and shivering when I finally reach the car, and not even a hot bath at home can chase away the lingering chill.
I’d love to celebrate, but all day long, I’ve had to force myself to not think of the next day, what looks like the only safe opening left in December, when I’ll need to do Jefferson to Grid out the month.
Nothing I can do but give myself a fighting chance. I drape wet gear over radiators, turn up the heat. Open my computer to submit a trip report. I consider writing: Broke out the Bonds. That’s all I have to say about that.
But I feel a duty to this community. I drink in these reports like my first waking hit of joe, and details are critical to someone trying to make an informed decision. It’s after 11 when I collapse into bed.
This wasn’t how I pictured things going when I started Gridding, years ago. I honestly need something to change my perspective, to look ahead with hope and not dread.
I think of the littles as they waited for their presents. Early opening was not allowed, and they returned again and again to the pile beneath the tree to look and long. When the morning finally comes, there are tears as each one jostles to be the next. Some gifts exceed expectations, others most decidedly do not (in their defense, socks).
Are the mountains like that? This crazy Grid? I look and look at the list left, imagine what each peak will be, and am crushed when it turns into torture instead of glee.
One of my favorite Psalms is 126. Perhaps it’s because its subtitle reads ” A Song of Ascent” – what better name for a girl who climbs?
I love Psalm 126 because it attempts to explain that tension between elation and despair:
Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them (Psalm 126:5-6).
A podcast I listen to about this Psalm posits that it’s actually the tears that water the seeds. No sorrow, no sheaves. And this is exactly what happens, that next day, when I wake up and head out with the soreness and suffering of the Bonds behind me.
Jefferson is brilliant. There are people everywhere, a well trod trail, sunshine. It is the best gift of the season, to have conditions as perfect and energy left to spare, to summit with a smile sincere.
Another miracle.
It’s one to keep going, despite those I have left.
Does He not see all my ways, count all my steps? (Job 31:4)
You never know what miracle might lay behind the next turn. A heap of presents, maybe socks. Either way, it’s much too early to quit.
What does 2025 hold? I’m not sure, but it’s likely I haven’t seen the last of tears.
But I’m grateful, confident, that the One who knows will, if I let Him, turn all of them to grain.
Stalled since last March in trying to finish off a New Hampshire Grid – all 48 4,000′ peaks in every calendar month – I couldn’t wait for December to come, to start checking off the last 22 of 576 summits.
The list has hung on my fridge for the last nine months, alternately inspiring and scaring me right down to my core. Having finished April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and November – months when weather is fairer and hikes are more agreeable than not – I was eager to be out the door on December 1 to tackle Isolation.
A query I posted on a hiking forum looking for company elicited only laughing emojis – recent snowfall and single digit predicted windchill on a Sunday was not as alluring as I had hoped, even for fellow “Gridiots.”
Isolation is one of those peaks people either love or hate: remote (as its name suggests) with either multiple water crossings or off-trail bushwhacks, depending on how you approach it. Long stretches of the established trail run over active water flow, making for soggy feet no matter how you slice it.
The problem with the mountains I have left is that they are ALL, in some way, as tricky as Iso. The Bond traverse is a 22-mile out-back. Due to winter forest road closures, Carrigain requires a 3-mile road walk just to get to the trail head. Even following herd paths, one can’t avoid three major water crossings on Owls Head, and the Madison/Adams combo is steep and often ridiculously icy. As for Monroe, Jefferson, and Washington – who in New England doesn’t know about the “worst weather in the world,” which pummels these three presidents with triple-digit wind gusts and frequent avalanche warnings?
As much as I want to finish, I also don’t want to die. Or worse, call SAR.
So I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that my Iso bid the first day back Gridding took me 10.5 hours to cover 11.5 miles. Six inches of new powder covered the established trail, every other tree was a blow-down (okay, I’m exaggerating – let’s just agree there were a lot), and it was COLD. So cold.
Other things happened.
Two water bottles were lost navigating downed trees in-over-and-through, and when I finished the dregs of #3, I was forced to choose between dry hours of hiking or taking a chance on a swift-running stream. The stream won, but so did giardia, which hit like a vengeance some days later. Let’s just say this parasite is not user friendly.
Help. Me.
There was bruising. My phone drops in the snow as I lose the trail and try to find my way back. I go through two sets of mittens, hats, and down hoodies. I don’t want to expose my hands for too long, so I barely eat, which makes me, fuel-less, even slower to finish the last miles in the dark.
All to check off one peak.
Where was the wonder, the joy I felt, in the months previous, walking where and when I wanted? Turning around before a summit if the conditions were not to my liking?
The problem with lists is that, well, they’re a list. Restrictive. Confining. Vexatious.
December has me spooked, and it’s not even officially “winter” yet.
I am writing this now having decided not to hike today.
I had packed for the Bonds and was watching the weather, but new snow and 70 mph winds had me cancelling the early alarm. I want to be prepared, to minimize the risk, to always carry more than I need, but even all that was not enough. And it seems the more I sit, the more fitness I lose, and the less I want to go out there again.
Two good days. That’s all I need to Grid out December.
One word. It’s been everywhere, every morning, as I sit at my desk and watch the clouds pink over the school that I love, reading and journaling and praying needs.
Trust.
I cannot control the weather or my schedule or even how I will feel on any given day. This week, I will turn 62, and that is a long time for legs to live. I’m grateful for every single one (years, not legs, though I am grateful for those, as well).
At his last meal, Jesus told His disciples that in this world they would have trouble, but to be of good cheer (John 16:33).
Be of good cheer, child.
You may finish Gridding December – and January, February, March – you may not.
walkwithme413 