Picture The Rope

On top of that rock, I look down as bodies rappel down, calculating. Hamed says it’s my turn, sees I am unsmiling, “Nervous?”

First time--- I answer with an inch measured by thumb and forefinger. Hamed asks for the rope around my neck, the knots tied by my own hand, “You don’t trust your own work?”

I laugh as I hand him the rope, “I don’t know.”

I lost trust in---

Hamed asks, “You don’t trust the work you do at work?”

I laugh again, I hold lives everyday and the lives that depend on them for the rest of their lives and I can’t fuck up no matter how fucked up things are, “Of course I do.”

Hamed says, “There’s no difference between that and this---” holding out my rope.

I shrug--- It’s been a while since I tied knots. I return to tying knots--- done in one, twice for memory--- The life-and-death-knot, Hamed says, is useless. After all, pull the wrong knot and the rope unravels and you fall.

I laugh, “Now why the hell would someone make that knot? And why the hell should I learn that?”

“Beautiful,” Hamed says as I tie knots and shows the double fisherman knot that he did and I did, “What’s the difference between your knot and mine?”

I smile, “None.”

Hamed asks, “You trust me?”

I nod, I’ve got to, don’t I risk, “I trust you.” But everything in the clock, now lies.

Hamed says, “Now sit on the harness…You are strong…Now let go…”

This---This is one month of the clock--- I rappel down, steady, moving speed. On the ground once more, I look up the rock face, studying how to romance it, to reach that tree on the top and tap into it the heart’s quickly whispered story, and rappel down once more.

I am told that I don’t move like a first-timer. The rock tells me---This is real. I am told that I move fast. The wall tells me---- Fail and fall. I am told by Hamed, “You are intelligent...One can see it in your footing…You learn quickly…You are strong.” I am not afraid to fall.

I return to climbing rocks, scaling walls, dirt in between my manicured nails, sweat, the sun smell on my hair and skin, now the smell of rain. And then to hike and keep on walking…To climb a mountain…To return to the physics of nature…Nine months to be re-born.

There is solace in the simple matter of putting one hand and foot after another, this foregone pleasure in feeling crags on my hands, to return to what is before and beyond the trappings of mechanized life--- like artificial walls and simulated rocks--- limited by fear for a valued life in fear of heights and water, the clock that proved to be false, and no longer burying the sounds of Sunday in a room that has become a tomb of words and the step-child of death.

Today I breathe again and feel alive: The sound of this Sunday--- roosters crowing at 2:00 pm, this shade of tress, and as I look--- the sun, the sun--- I reach for my sunshine--- Fearless once more--- And from the rock our bodies from ropes sliding down like feathers and leaves.