Three Sigma Systems

We swim in a river of time, carving our stories into the landscape in much the same manner as the rivers and glaciers that created the Yosemite Valley’s ever-changing landscape during their long and sinuous journey to the sea. But unlike those rivers and glaciers, now and then we pause to build cairns to mark our passage, not as a means of return, which we cannot do, but as a reminder to ourselves and to others, that someone has passed this way before, stopped to take note, and moved on.

Last week I paused to mark the passing of yet another birthday.

I have visited the Yosemite Valley and surrounding high country many times throughout my life. I have hiked, climbed, skied, partied with friends, and wandered alone. It is a place of time and timelessness — always the same yet constantly changing. It is a place for casting the coins and interpreting the hexagrams — for reading from the “Book of Changes“. What shall I make of this?

Tenaya Canyon from Glacier Point (click to enlarge)

First toss

tent fit for a Sultan

Monica, Zoe, and I camp in the campgrounds near Curry Village. On the first morning, they sleep in our tent while I sip coffee at our picnic table. A thunderous echoing sound fills the valley marking a rockfall from the towering wall of the nearby Glacier Point monolith. Monica comes running out from the tent. “What is that?” she cries.

“Rock fall.”

“What should we do?”

I shrug my shoulders and gesture toward the great granite wall. There’s nothing to do and no place to hide. The coins are cast. All is still once again. Or so it seems.

Second toss

In the evening we visit Curry Village for a bite to eat. In the outdoor amphitheater, the park service is showing Ken Burn’s latest documentary. It is a tribute to America’s national parks. I take a moment to watch. Historical images are interspersed with expansive helicopter shots of awe inspiring landscapes. Music, at times serene then triumphal, underscores narrative and quotes about the spiritual magnificence of the great outdoors. I turn from the amphitheater to see hordes of visitors crammed onto the pizza deck. They are laughing and yelling, swilling beer, and watching football on a big screen TV.

Third toss

Smiling Ballerina

Monica, Zoe and I are walking in darkness through the packed Curry Village parking lot, when we happen upon two young people who are visiting from Israel. They’ve just driven into the valley and have no idea where to spend the night. The valley is full-up, so we invite them to stay at our campsite.

Their English is broken but readable. When we ask if they are married, she says “We are brothers”, by which she means they are brother and sister, winging it around California. He is a computer programmer. She a ballerina. He wants to hike in the valley. She can’t wait to get to San Francisco to check out the night life. Her smile is light itself. She says of me, that I am “cool”.

There is a hidden dimension to this encounter. I am Jewish, more in a cultural than a religious sense, but there are a few rituals that I enjoy. One is Passover and the other is Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for past sins, marked by 24 hours of fasting. By happenstance, on this day, my birthday and Yom Kippur are coincidental and I am faced with an ominous decision — to fast or to feast. I have decided to feast and now am faced with these Sabras from the Holy Land.

It is only later, when I discuss this problem with the family camping next to us, that my burden is relieved. In lieu of fasting, says one, I have performed a Mitzvah (a good deed) in giving shelter to the young Israelis. This and my acknowledgment of past misdemeanors, will be enough. It is enough.

In the cool of the morning, the “brothers” share our coffee and tea and then she and he leave for San Francisco. I am cool!

Fourth toss

A couple of friends, man and wife, arrive to help me celebrate my birthday. He is a veteran sailor with whom I have crossed oceans and braved storms. Unlike Monica, who is a veteran partner in a lifetime of adventures and misadventures, she passionately avoids all such undertakings.  She views our tent with disdain. They have decided to stay in a hotel outside the park.

Shadow Crone

Her name is Valerie, which derives from “strong” and “valorous”, but I have always called her Val, which makes me think of the Valley we are in. She has always had a rancorous edge in her manner, but it seems more acute on this visit. Her face is scrunched up in an angry grimace and each time I venture a reminiscence about some Yosemite experience I have had, her facial muscles grow more taut. She quotes from the Ken Burns documentary about the national parks. She takes issue with my every remark. Then she takes offense at my joke about old men napping. And in what can only be called a grand finale, she leaps from her seat to rail at me when I confess a dislike for chicken.  I am, she declares, a rude lout who constantly interrupts her and makes her “feel stupid”.

There is some truth in what she says. I do tend to talk at length and I have been known to interrupt. If making others feel stupid comes from my general sense of not being stupid myself, then I stand guilty as accused. Nevertheless, this was my birthday, a sacred event in a sacred place, and on the occasion of each outburst I asked only that she “cut an old man some slack”.

But she would have none of that. There was some account that needed settling, and a deeper meaning to this rift. She is become my shadow crone — a seer of the dark side. It is not so much her words as her countenance that drives me into despair amid grandeur.

Zoe in backpack

“You must leave now”, are the only words I can find. In a blink, she sweeps up the chicken, takes her husband in tow, and drives away in their Toyota Prius. The valley’s shadows engulf me as the temperature drops to below freezing.

Last toss

The next morning I am resolved to break camp and return to our house in Santa Cruz but Monica and Zoe will have none of that. My partners will not see us defeated by the shadow crone. In an act of sheer will, they swim upstream, dragging my limp body along with them, up and out of the darkness. We stay on for a few more days to let the Yosemite¹ have its way with us.

Half Dome at sunset