…And Festivus for the Rest of Us

“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively.  Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth.  Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”
-Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

This was our first Christmas without Dad, and my mom, sister, and I knew from the end that was the beginning that it could not be spent in Texas.  We tossed around a lot of options, but ultimately decided on Barcelona, a place Dad had been wanting to go for a long time.  I came in a day earlier to improve my chances of making the flight (I did!) and left a day earlier for the same reason, currently sitting in the airport waiting to see if I have a seat in time for New Years (we’ll see!).  It was, as I imagine most family vacations are, a mixed bag.  Or perhaps more like a bag of popcorn, where all the delicious buttery and salted pieces are on the top, the middle goes a little unflavorful but you shake it around and keep eating, and at the end it’s just the burned bits and teeth-cracking kernels.  Or maybe that’s just our family vacations?  Just me?  We saw Gaudi and drank chocolate.  I made a mockery of the Spanish language.  They bought books and we planned in advance, but still spent time figuring out what to do next at every turn.  Needless to say, three people moving together as if one creates a fair amount of friction.  My mother is indecisive, my sister is high-maintenance, and I am miserable, dark, and intolerant.  Family!

Even so, we managed to have an overall nice time.  There were tapas, flamenco dancing, festive lighting citywide, how could you not?  For Christmas proper, we took a train to sample somewhere besides Barcelona.  I visited several Spanish cities back in the great EuroWander of ‘05, but a lot has happened since then and quite honestly, I didn’t remember much.  Still, on my vague remembrance, I made a recommendation for Valencia, and I’m glad they took my word for it.  It wasn’t even listed in the guidebooks we brought, but it really is a jewel of a city.  The buildings are old and magnificently baroque, and there’s a hidden plaza every time you turn a corner.  And pastries!

Returning to Barcelona, there was one thing we all agreed we wanted to do:  visit a nearby mountain monastery, Montserrat.  We’d brought some of Dad’s ashes and figured that might be a nice place to scatter them.  We left early in the morning to have a full day; there’s plenty to see and several hiking trails, if you are so inclined.  Mountains!  Get it?  Inclines!  Anyway, Mom’s knees were giving her trouble, and my sister wanted to take pictures, but I was dying for a climb.  I picked the longest available in hopes that there would be fewer people tackling it and took off.  The monastery is nestled in the Pyrenees mountains, which kind of jut up from nowhere an hour or so outside of Barcelona.  It wasn’t a particularly difficult trail, but I was not exactly in my hiking gear.  I was wearing thin soled street boots, jeans, a faux leather bomber jacket, and carrying a purse.  I may not have been best prepared, but I was at least the most fashionable hiker that day…and that means a lot to me because I’m never the most fashionable anything anywhere.  Ha! Take that!….Athletes….

Actually, there were quite a few hardy children around.  Even at the top, there were probably 6 or 7 between two families.  The summit was cold and windy and encircled by a metal railing to keep nature gawkers from plummeting to their death.  And gawk I did.  Above the clouds, the tops of a different mountain range were visible far in the distance.  The mountains on my side of the abyss cut off abruptly with steep and sudden plunges into the cumulus below,  a vast sea of sky washing up against the stark bluffs of the Pyrenees.

I opened my purse for my camera, and out flew one of my gloves.  Up into the wind, and then onto the floor, rolling like a colorful, woolen tumbleweed.  I made noises and did a weird stomp dance after it and watched in slow motion as it rejected my advances, floating gracefully over the side of the mountain.  I attracted a bit of attention with all this, and several people came over to the rail beside me where we could look down to see my lone glove at rest on a small outcropping below.  Everyone looked back and forth from me to the glove, sadness on their faces.  I took a moment of contemplation and then took off my purse.  But I failed to close it first, so a couple more things toppled out and I scrambled to put them back in under the judgmental eye of my audience.  I closed it and set it down in the middle of the crowd under community watch, reasoning very few thieves bothered to make the hike.  Still, I don’t think people understood what I was doing because as I swept my leg over the railing, there was a collective gasp, followed by what can only be described as a pleading, no! no! no! by onlookers.  Esta bien!  Esta bien!  I tried to assure them.  Didn’t really work.  Parents were holding their kids, flashing me half terrified, half admonishing looks for doing what I was doing in front of their children.  In actuality, there were rock climbers visible a ways further down the slope.  Someone pointed, Look, there are people below!  Someone else joined, Yes, but they have ropes! 

Details.

Once on the other side, I removed my scarf and tied it to the railing to flap in the wind.  It just seemed like a kind of beautiful idea.  One of the fathers stepped forward and gave me a last, meaningful look.  Te cuidato, he said crypticaly.  A couple of things:  I am not a professional rock climber, but I have been rock climbing enough to know a) how to handle myself, b) my capacity, and c) the difference between a sure thing, a challenge, and a peril based on the previous items.  This was somewhere between sure thing and challenge, the difference of course being no belay and higher stakes should something not go as planned.  But what I lacked in terrain certainty, I could make up for in caution and focus.  Also, I like those gloves.  What am I going to do with one stupid glove?

So I got it back.  When I returned to the summit, I felt like I should give a small speech.  Maybe turn to the children and say, This was not a good idea.  I am a crazy person.  Don’t try it.  But then I thought, why should I have to excuse myself?  Their parents are obviously going to tell them how crazy I am as soon as they’re out of earshot, why not let my actions stand on their own?  If I’d fallen:  Lesson.  I didn’t fall:  Lesson.  Each is important in an even bigger lesson, but there aren’t as many people teaching the latter and I don’t apologize for being one of them.  So instead, I just smiled at everyone and thanked them for watching my bag.  Then I scrambled up and over another ‘inaccessible’ ridge where there was no one else and enjoyed the view.