Gratitude For Your Story

Thirty three years ago today I was making notes in another journal, writing in a high cold hand in a high cold book with high cold thoughts.

Friday, May 2, 1986 I wrote–

“Pulse, daily.
I like the lunches–sardines, canned oysters, cheese blocks, rye crisp, e.g. bagged for daily calories
1st BM at Kahiltna Throne. Plane came in (while I was on said throne), I remained non-plussed.
Germans (or Swiss, not sure) camped near us on the glacier. Is Kahiltna polyglot?
The peak has remained in view since our arrival. Tonight, has disappeared. Snow beginning.”

Nothing particularly lyrical, nothing very interesting, just black and white and earthy observations.
We were to take our pulse daily and make note of any significant changes.
The lunches I said I liked were designed to be lightweight, easily-accessible and belly-filling.
The throne upon which I was non-plussed was an open air, al fresco wooden shitter on the Kahiltna glacier.
There were all kinds of languages spoken there.
There was a lot of snow, all the time.

I was on day two of a climb up Denali, once called Mt McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America, and I was trying to find my voice and my way of being on the mountain. I just scribbled down whatever seemed important at the time.

It was all in front of us, at one point, and now it’s thirty three years in my rearview. I have written a lot about the mountain, for it has cast a long shadow.

By the end I had gotten to the idea that no one in the history of mountaineering had ever gone up Denali the way I did. Now, I am no one’s elite climber and I will never pioneer a first route. I had to come face to face with that early on.

I knew, though, beyond any doubt, that I had climbed in my own way, with my own thoughts and my own experience. I had climbed my own Denali. That’s what I called it– “My Own Denali.”

The truth is that everyone has their own Denali and their own story. We all do. It is our task of tasks to fall in love with our story and be grateful for it. It is not always easy, no question. I don’t love my whole story yet, but I want to. I love more of it day by day, because I am the author, and I get to choose.

Like Joseph Campbell said–
“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.”

What I want for you, for us all, with “the lusty month of May” now here, is that you fall in love with your life, as it is and has been. May you feel undying gratitude for your path, that one you are, and have been, making up all along with whatever light you have had.

There’s no “right path.” There’s only “Your Own Denali.”