Climb by Susan Spann

Author:Susan Spann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Prometheus
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

Water over Rock

September 16–17, 2018

As I expected, Ido Gabay and I hit it off immediately—and not only because Ido has a positive, easygoing attitude and a wicked sense of humor (although both of these are also true). Before settling in Hokkaido, Ido spent more than a decade living and traveling in more countries than many people can even name. He understood what it meant to break away from “safe” and undertake a personal odyssey to find out who you truly are and what you want your life to be.

Hokkaido Nature Tours was among the fruits of his odyssey.

I looked forward to seeing the results of mine.

After leaving Takuto at Lake Akan, Ido drove me to the base of Mount Shari (斜里岳), a 1,547-meter stratovolcano in northeastern Hokkaido, not far from the Shiretoko Peninsula. Due to the mountain’s remote location, we planned to spend the night at a mountain hut beside the trailhead to allow for an early start the following day.

That evening, Ido offered to carry my gear and water on Mount Shari so that I could climb without a pack. I refused, because I felt I didn’t deserve to climb if I couldn’t carry gear.

Ido replied that we hadn’t come here to prove anything. “We came to climb the mountain and have fun.”

He wouldn’t offer to carry your gear unless he thought you were too weak to do it.

I suspected my inner voice was wrong. Even so, I struggled with the choice. Eventually, I put the final decision off until morning and went to sleep.

For more than 20 years, I had suffered from chronic, recurring nightmares about a former boyfriend with whom I had a turbulent, unhealthy relationship. I fought with him in my dreams at least twice a month, and every time I woke up in a sweat, unable to understand why a relationship that ended more than 20 years before still caused me anguish.

That night, in the hut at the base of Mount Shari, I dreamed of him again.

We were standing in a fast-food restaurant, waiting for our food. Strangely, I had the feeling that we weren’t in a relationship anymore, and I didn’t know why we were in a restaurant together. When our number was called, we learned that the clerk had gotten the order wrong. I winced in anticipation of my former boyfriend’s customary furious explosion. To my surprise, he pointed out the error calmly and waited for the clerk to correct it.

As we left the restaurant with our food, I mentioned that it looked like he had dyed his hair to remove the gray. He said he didn’t want to, but had to, “because at my job, people care about my age.”

“You shouldn’t care so much about what other people think,” I said.

He stopped walking and looked at me. “Thank you. That’s really good advice. I’m going to take it.”

He got into his car and, for the first time ever, we parted friends.

I woke up with tears in my eyes, instantly aware that for all these years, I had not been dreaming about my ex-boyfriend at all.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.