High in Cold, Thin Air
It is cold. The indoor/outdoor thermometer on the wall by the kitchen digitally registers fifty-four degrees inside this drafty cabin. Outside is minus eight. "I'll wait," I mutter to no one but myself and go back to reading in a corner by the darkened fireplace. The other house guests are still asleep. I alone am up before the dawn. I cover my legs with a heavy, worn, crocheted blanket. It is yellowish-brown and smells. I lift my second cup of coffee and slowly turn crisp pages of a new book I'm hurrying to finish. In another hour I'm done with Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir. Though Murakami is new to me, I learn from the dust jacket that he is an accomplished writer with an international following - twelve novels translated into forty-two languages - and numerous literary awards. I make a note to order The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and A Wild Sheep Chase when I return home. Then I sit sipping, thinking, musing. This slim hardback was worth the price, I judge. Murakami's story of running and writing and pressing on against every physical pain and all life's disappointments is good advice written well. His minimalist style pleases me, and inspires me to run. Satisfied, I go for more coffee. Walking into the kitchen, I glance at the wall thermometer. Whatever courage-through-reading I gained early this morning from Murakami's accounts of finishing numerous marathons in pain and enduring triathlons in freezing rain, is now lost by two degrees to the arctic mass settling down on the mountain. Outside it is minus ten. It is cold and getting colder. I abandon my coffee quest and head toward the front door. I tug on my aged shoes, double knot the laces, swallow several ounces of warm tap water, open the door, and crunch off the low porch unto the frozen path. Starting up the unplowed drive, an icy snow still falls. It seems to me everything at this altitude is thin and I am growing thinner. I've donned thin leg tights against the sub-zero temperatures. I've pulled a thin mask over my head, nose, and mouth leaving only a slit for my eyes. Yet in just a few minutes outside, the sub-zero air ices my lashes and my vision narrows even more. At this latitude (39-04'20'' N), light is thin at six-thirty in the morning. And the road I'm trying to follow in this poor light - appropriately named "Serpentine" - is just a thin path carved on a mountainside above a frozen marble quarry. I've only brought half-socks with me this week and now I am laced into light shoes with little tread - and it is very, very cold. Running up here will not be easy, I think. Surely Murakami would be proud of me for so quickly putting his words into action. I am 8,600 feet high in the Rocky Mountains and breathing heavy in the thin, freezing air. And though I am running, I am running on ice. I manage several miles up and down the mountain this first morning. I go out again in the late afternoon. I am out early again the second day and that same late afternoon and again the third morning and afternoon following. For seven, no eight days, I run morning and evening in this weather. There are clear seasons at these elevations and this is deep winter. I am here in this tiny place with a small group of strangers. We are eight - four married couples each with painful stories of disappointment and dislocation. No matter that the fire will soon roar (daily) with fir split, dried, and stacked just outside the backdoor. We share carrying in wood, feeding the flames on three hearths on three levels - game room (below), eating area (main), group room (above). The constant fire helps us a bit but it is still winter inside. The air we breathe together in this cabin is frosty. In truth, here we are all running, we are all running on ice. I am here because of a hard, severe spell in my life. An arctic mass settled down on my work; the freeze lingered for many months, penetrating my soul. A bitter wind blew against me, disrupted my rhythms and deadened the landscape all around my home. Hoping to snap this spell of harsh weather, I came up here to run and think and read and talk - and listen to others who would understand. Mostly what we do together for eight days in this cabin is listen. Each one has much to tell. All have much to absorb. Of course, what we hear inside our mountain sanctuary cannot be repeated outside but this is no matter. Our stories are not so rare, our hurts not so irreparable. Whatever our particular histories, whatever our specific grievances against the world, our humanity is equal. We are not so unique. Our dry skin bleeds. We labor to breathe. We bundle up. We huddle together, doing our best to get everyone through a bad winter. For six hours a day, as a group, we tell our stories. There is silence. There is laughter. The tears flow and afterwards we eat. Following dinner, we rest, play games, and try for sleep. Some couples close their doors early, seeking to rekindle marital passions. Others share pictures by the fire and swap iTunes. Several venture out to view the herd of elk bedding down just across the footpath. One late afternoon before our meal, the Texans drive over to the hot springs near mile marker 55 along the Crystal River. They return with wild tales of naked locals and photos of big horn sheep. Always there is within our midst, this gentle mother of three who knits unceasingly. At week's end, in our final session, she surprises her new friends with new scarves. Many read; we all speak of our families. There is no phone. There is no web connection. There is no TV. I run - always. Early mornings and every evening, I run. I came here to listen; I came here to read; I came here to run. And what I have learned by listening and reading and running through this icy season and laughing with these strangers is this. There is no past which cannot be mined for hope. There is no hurt which cannot be bundled warm against the most severe freeze. There is no path so narrow it cannot be shared together with others. So, seek the high, thin places where the telling is true and the listening is pure. There is wisdom to be gained - even in harsh winters. Double knot your old shoes laces and pull tight your new scarves. Go outside. Run. Where there is a collective will-to-truth, there will also be the courage-by-association necessary for running hard through bitter winds, even on ice. And there is this too: in the end, we've only a shared life and it must sometimes be lived high in cold, thin air. | 
