The Sun & Moon

Atticus sitting on Chapel Rock watching the sunset.

“Be scared. You can’t help that. But don’t be afraid. Ain’t nothing in the woods going to hurt you unless you corner it, or it smells that you are afraid. A bear or a deer, too, has got to be scared of a coward the same as a brave man has got to be.” ~ William Faulkner

The years have taught me many things but one of the most important is that change is everywhere and we do our best when we come to grips with it, accept it, and then figure out how to move forward in spite of it. 

Last night, walking through a hot and humid last hour of daylight along a dusty road, I was watching Atticus.  He’s now halfway between eleven and twelve.  In comparison, that makes him older than I am.  That thought had a tinge of melancholy to it but not enough to change the mood as we huffed and puffed uphill while the sun passed through the trees to the west and we stopped often to take drinks of water. 

We were on our way to Pine Mountain. It’s an old friend to us.  And yet as many times as we’ve been there, the road walk is never as easy as I expect it to be.  It rises hundreds of feet in elevation in one and a half miles.  Much like walking up a ramp.  At the top of the road there sits the Horton Center, a religious camp now closed for the year, and a short trail to Chapel Rock called “A Pathway to God.”  The first time I went to Pine Mountain I had no idea how stunning the views from Chapel Rock were, but I took that trail because the name intrigued me.  I mean who wouldn’t want a pathway to God? 

What I found was indeed a bit of God. Before us was heaven (to paraphrase Thoreau) both under our feet and above our heads.  The wide sweeping valley south through Pinkham Notch is epic in the way it sprawls like a rich carpet.  Route 16, which can be seen for a bit, is a mysterious thread through the wilderness promising new journeys, destinations, and adventures.  Above and beyond, the wide panorama arcs from the Carter-Moriah Range down to the Wildcats. Across the notch to where a bit of Mount Washington can be seen, but the view is predominated by a staggering and pointed nearby Mount Madison.  Not far away, in the shadow of Madison, sits the main mass of Pine Mountain.  High atop Chapel Rock the views carry over to the west and north and to the primordial Kilkenny Range.  It’s a humble climb to a prolific place, where I am always humbled in relation to what God has created. 

Whenever Atticus and I sit on that highest rock it’s as though we are sitting on top of the world.  Our own little world.  A sacred pinnacle where I am visited by deep and lovely and transformative thoughts.  It’s a place for man and dog to meditate. 

Seasons come and go, years pass, and always we find ourselves atop that rock slab – three constants: it, Atticus, and me.  Last night, however, things were a bit different.  We haven’t been hiking much these last four months.  In July Atticus had a toe amputated because of cancer.  The margins were clean but the high mitotic index warned us that trouble was lurking so we elected to start chemo.  The first of six sessions went okay.  There was some abdominal unrest, one round of vomiting, but overall he did well. 

One of the pleasures of living with Atticus is that he takes care to express his needs and comfort levels.  He doesn’t climb a mountain if he doesn’t wish to, nor does he get off the couch if he doesn’t feel like it – which is hardly ever the case but it’s the way it was just over a month ago.  So it’s been easy taking this unknown journey through cancer and chemo with him.  He lets me know how he is feeling and my job is to pay attention.  It’s the same way he’s always been there for me.  In the three weeks since his first treatment we have climbed Black Cap, White Horse Ledge, Peaked Mountain, Potash Mountain, and last night it was Pine Mountain. 

I’m told the second round of chemo, which is tomorrow, can be one of the worst.  So it was important to me that we get out and up to where we are happiest just in case it will be a while before it happens again.  That’s why we ventured along that dusty road through heat and humidity to get to our sitting place just before sunset.  With the end of daylight just ahead Atticus sat down and looked not at the surrounding peaks as he typically does, but to the yellow sun, which soon became orange, then pink, and then – and then it was gone.   It was only after dusk surrounded us that Atti walked over.  He sat by my side and drank the water he had declined before so he could spend time with the waning sun.  He ate a few treats and put his now-three-toed paw on my lap.  His pink tongue was showing, not from the heat, because the cool had settled in, but out of what seemed to me to be joy. 

With three toes on my lap and Atti’s sparkling eyes looking into mine, I stood and scooped him up as I’ve done thousands of times before in these mountains, rested his fanny in the crook of my arm, and took a slow turn to take it all in.  We looked as we always do: content, happy even, filled with awe, but more importantly we stood as we always have – together.     

My friends keep worrying about us and how we are handling the cancer and chemo.  I tell them without the slightest pause that we are fine and will be throughout it all.  I’ve said it before, but that’s the gift of something like cancer.  There’s no time for anything other than what’s genuine.  You leave take out the trash in your life, ignore anything that isn’t important, protect that which is most important, and always – always – cultivate love.  Standing there with our heads at the same level, and I imagine our hearts pretty even as well, I think we were both smiling. 

That’s something I’ve learned lately.  Cancer can take toes, larger limbs even, perhaps even a life, but it cannot rob you of what’s most important unless you allow it to.  Cancer may kill, but love is untouchable. 

I had chosen Pine Mountain for a few reasons.  It’s a great peaks to get back into shape with, we treasure the views from various outlooks, but also because on this night we’d be able to watch the setting sun from Chapel Rock and then hustle down the trail, across the boarded walkway, up through the dark, dusky tangle of rocks, roots, and trees to the trail to the top of Pine Mountain Trail to the second viewpoint.  When we emerged from the forest to an open ledge we found what our friend Ken Stampfer (who is far more scientific and gadget-wise than I am) told me we’d find, the full moon rising over the shoulder of the Moriahs. 

We moved quickly to get there in time and when we stumbled into the opening to a breathless stop, we watched an orange moon rising through the haze in the night over the dark bruise of layered mountains.  So beautiful.  So perfect.  So private and intimate.  I picked up Atticus and four eyes watched that ghostly, glowing moon. Then I placed him on the table of rock three feet high that stands in the middle of the ledge and we sat side by side.  Two sighing souls taking in the ethereal night. 

A gentle breeze swirled around us, the murky woods behind us produced nighttime sounds, and we sat in perfect harmony with it all.  We had said goodbye to the sun, now we were greeting the moon, as it elevated ripe and mysterious. 

Atticus and I have finished many hikes in the darkness and it always tugs upon my childhood fear of the dark, but it also emboldens me.  As I told my friend Dee last night, “Life is so short, why would I want a fear to rob me of something as beautiful as what we were seeing?”  Of course it’s one thing to sit on a mountaintop and have a conversation with silhouetted mountains, the moon, and all those stars, but where I often have to steal myself is returning to the woods where the it’s darker than anything I’ve ever known and my headlamp creates lurching shadows of witches, ghouls, and childhood demons as we pass by trees and limbs. 

But that’s part of the excitement, I suppose. To go where I never would have gone before, to experience these new adventures in daylight and darkness.  Of course what makes it all safe and sound and worthwhile no matter how gloomy and dreary it gets is to have Atticus by my side.  Then fears become adventures, challenges become opportunities for new experiences, and life becomes all that more textured. 

Who knew after all these years of walking these trails in darkness that it would not only help me grow into the man I wanted I dreamed of being as a young boy, it would get us ready for our greatest challenge.  For a journey through cancer and chemo could be considered just as frightening to a man as the nighttime is to a little boy afraid of the dark.  But facing these challenges together, Atticus and I are armed with faith, friendship, and love. Because of that, anything is possible. 

Tomorrow, as Atticus has a port in his front leg accepting the poison meant to kill cancer, his paw will be on my hand as it was the first time, and it will be just like walking those dark mountain trails.  It’s not the forest or the darkness that defeats you, it’s the fear.  But we’ll be together and because of that there’s nothing to fear.  It’s but one more adventurous chapter in this book called life.

The full moon rising above the Moriahs.