Prairie Mountain Climb
“Top of the mountain?! You’ve got to be kidding. We’re on the prairies. There are no mountains here.”
“I know that. I just wanted to show you the mountain top we climbed as kids.”
We had climbed to the second story of the old farm house. The old house was cold and silent, dust settled on all the window sills, floors, and one old dresser left in the hall. I wiped the dust from the cracked window pane. Just as the sun was rising, I pointed to a slight rise in the horizon. In the chill morning air we stood close, his arm around my waist.
“Look. See way over there. We called it a mountain because of all the rocks in the soil. They weren’t very big. We weren’t very big. We pretended that every rock was one more cliff. Sometimes we’d carry the smaller ones up to the top. We were never satisfied until we could stand at the top of our mountain. We’d look out over the prairies and see the world rolled out before us.”
“Now you live in the real mountains with me. They're not as grand, are they?”
“No. The real mountains have their own grandiosity. They are bigger. I'm bigger. Before we head out today, can we stop and climb that mountain one last time. It’s on open land and most of the rocks are gone, but I want to see the world again. From the top of that mountain.”
“I was hoping for that. You and I have done our fair share of rock climbing. Never Kilimanjaro, but solid rock. Your mountain looks a bit less challenging, but full of play and fun. Hope you packed our breakfast.”
I took his early morning face in my hands “You’re funny! Of course I did, and, of course, you remembered our water bottles. We’ll be pretty thirsty after our climb. We’ve even got hot coffee with our apples and cheese.”
I made sure to slam the screen door one last time. The old wooden sidewalk was dried and broken. I tested each one of the old boards. All of the memories - our lake, the plastic swimming pool, filled with clear, fresh water from the garden hose, had long dried up. Big gardens of peas and corn, raspberries and potatoes to feed our family stripped down and plowed under. Even the hum of grasshoppers, dust storms, towering thunderstorms, prairie floods and prairie fires were wrapped up in that day. We did our climb to the top of the mountain that morning. We ate our breakfast as we watched the sun roll out across golden stubbled wheat and flax fields, serenaded by killdeers and meadowlarks.
“All mountain landscapes hold stories: the ones we read,
the ones we dream, and the ones we create.”
~ from the Editor’s Note, The Alpinist (April 1, 2010)
~ George Michael Sinclair Kennedy
