We're in a cleaning frenzy around here. I'm even helping Mommey wash the car.
I just met a girl (lady 52 years old) named Melina who climbed Mt. Everest.
My mouth dropped. I knew she hiked, biked, traveled extensively, and looking at her I would figure she weighed all of 110 pounds. How she could tackle the largest mountain on the planet is beyond me. “I didn’t get summit fever,” she said. “I had decided how far I would go, and I stopped.”
She climbed the South slope, but I’m not sure how high she climbed. She said she walked across a glacier called “The Miracle Highway.”
People get blown off that highway, but for her it was spectacular—oh, she fell through the ice a couple of times, but training and the rope crew were there to put her back on track. At higher elevations there is no life, she said, and then as one descends, life would begin to appear, lichens as first. It was as though she was observing creation.
She told me about altitude sickness. (You who have been following my blog know I experienced that in New Mexico—coming down from Colorado.) There are three different forms—brain, heart and eyes. She said I would have adapted to altitude better if I was walking, a car takes a person up and down too fast.
Another fact: “Climb high, sleep low.” The climbers would add 1000 feet to their daily climb, and then descend those 1000 feet to sleep. She said when she came off the mountain she had so many red blood cells she could run marathons easily.
She is back to normal now, so this year she kayaked at the North Pole.
Lordy! I’m just trying to get my garage clean.
And I am endeavoring to keep a positive attitude. Metaphysically I know that is important, realistically it can be a struggle. I once asked Patch Adams how he maintained his positive attitude when he saw such suffering in the world. He said “That’s when I need it the most.”
I believe as my garage becomes cleaner, I am becoming lighter. Right now it is the refrigerator cleaning syndrome. You know how it is, first you empty the refrigerator and spread it all over the kitchen. Once committed, however, you're stuck. The completion, though, how sweet it is! The Real Estate Brokers are giving a luncheon this coming Wednesday for other Brokers to view the house, so Neil and I and our friendly helper John, are in a fever. They replaced 6 posts on the deck railing.
I see as we prepare to sell the house, it is as though I am writing it out of our experience as I wrote it in originally. Some on you old-time readers remember my journal The Frog’s Song, and the on-going log home building phenomenon.)
I’m up early. Today is June 21, the longest day of the year, Father’s Day, a Sunday, and our Wedding Anniversary. It was Sunday when we were married, the Solstice, and Father’s Day. How often does that happen?
My quote for the day from It’s Hard To Stay On A Horse While You’re Unconscious:
You will notice as you read through this story that the chapter headings are as though we are winding through a canyon and have no inkling of what lies beyond that next turning of the walls. “Watch out for Bears, Be Prepared, Dodge Wildfires.” Isn’t that the way it is? We begin, we muddle through, and then we find ourselves sitting in places we never dreamed.
