This Life Is in Your Hands_ One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone - Melissa Coleman [35]
Cold pinched the inside of Papa’s nose as the first rays of sun bloomed behind the darkened points of fir and spruce surrounding the snow-covered clearing. The air was still, waiting for the day to begin, smoke rising in a column straight up from the chimneystack without a breeze to shift it. Those early mornings reminded Papa of the lonely snow-covered mountaintops from his mountaineering days, but as he warmed from work he was reinforced in his belief that a mountain with no top was far preferable. Rather than the glory of the peak, he found his salvation in the warmth that came with the constant effort of the climb, and the accompanying adrenaline that erased all sorrow.
“To travel hopefully is better than to arrive, and the true success is to labor,” Scott often quoted, from Robert Louis Stevenson.
When Mama woke to find Papa gone, she left me sleeping and ventured to the outhouse, the snow brilliant white underfoot, each step squeaking like Styrofoam when opening and closing the root cellar door. The air sang with electricity, and sun sparked the snow into a field of diamonds. She scanned the back field for Papa and, spotting him in a tree, let out a yodel, the Swiss mountaineering call Helen had taught them for communicating in the woods.
“Yo-del-lay-he-who!” She paused a beat as the echo returned from the forest. “Eh-he-who . . .” Then came Papa’s reply: “Yo-del-lay-he-he-whooo!” The call bounced around the sparkling bowl of the farm, making Mama’s sluggish blood surge to life better than any fire. She wanted this moment to last forever, but deep down knew its impermanence was what made it so beautiful. It was on days like this that Mama would gasp as the sun broke through the clouds at just the right moment, the trees shuddering with meaning, or when the Christmas cactus on the windowsill bloomed before her eyes. In those moments it seemed that the fulfillment she sought in nature had presented itself, attainable and real. But then the sun would pass, the trees still, the flower close, and nothing remained; even the searching was forgotten after such a moment. The physical world could not provide the depth of love she craved.
When Mama and Papa went on their first date together, camping amid the bright foliage of the White Mountains, Papa was both gentlemanly and boyish, leaving Mama flattered by his attention and amazed at her luck. He in turn was taken by her natural beauty, shy manner, and adventurous spirit, and glad to find a woman who shared his love of the outdoors but didn’t expect a big diamond or bank account.
“I’ll teach you to paddle and roll a whitewater kayak,” Papa suggested for their next date, and Mama felt a rebellious thrill. This meant tipping the kayak and its occupant over, as often happens accidentally in whitewater, then snapping the hips to flip it back upright, thereby saving the kayaker from a wet exit in wild waters. Being trapped beneath a boat in a murky creek was not most women’s idea of a good time, but Mama loved the challenge. She was able to relax underwater, thanks to summers on the ocean in Westport, and after a few wet exits she was rolling, much to Papa’s admiration.
After school let out, Papa packed the car for Colorado to teach kayaking at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School, as he’d done in previous summers, and Mama was overjoyed when he invited her to join him. Before they left on June 16, 1966, they invited some friends to dinner and halfway through the meal they asked the friends to be witnesses and went and got married, just like that, by the justice of the peace in the Littleton, New Hampshire, courthouse. They then hit the road in Papa’s old rust-colored Pontiac station wagon