A SUNDAY KIND OF LOVE //
One rainy Sunday last fall I got out with my close friends Ben and Gregory for an adventure in the Columbia Gorge.
(Even that single sentence, mentioning two deeply powerful forces of nature—dear friends and the Gorge—,bring so many memories and emotions to mind.)
I’ve been to the Gorge countless times over 15 years of living in Portland and still find myself impressed and in awe of the place every single time I return to its steep and rugged flanks. It’s such a grand and challenging place to recreate; the trails are rocky and often slick, climbing 4-5 thousand of feet of glorious vertical from the water of the Columbia to the high points that dot its length: Defiance, Green Point, Chinidere, Tanner, Nesmith, and more. It’s a humbling place that makes you feel small, literally and figuratively, especially when pondering your lifespan in comparison with the time it took for the gorge to be carved—the great floods like the long shimmering blade of a liquid knife, incising the land at length, relentlessly, only stopping at the ocean because there was nothing left to cut.
Angel’s Rest to Devil’s Rest is a classic; I remember doing it with new friends early in my life in Portland, one of the regular routes we’d frequent. Seeing new things—like meeting new people—is wonderful and essential, but returning to the same things and really getting to know them over repeated visits and accrued time spent—like with old friends—is it’s own kind of magic. You get to know the trail, the trees and rocks and roots, and start to be able to converse more fluently, with greater ease, because you know that friend now and you’re becoming closer to them with each visit. You don’t get bored; you learn more, you see with new eyes, hopefully, that would be the goal at least, in all of life, not just on Angel’s Rest.
Gregory and Ben and I simply walked, hiked, ran, talked, didn’t talk, snacked, drank water, laughed, sweated, shivered, took some pictures, were in awe, reflected on the past, projected into the future, and soaked in the present as best we could, letting the flow take us when our overly-conscious minds (and the mind chatter) would relent.
3-4 hours later and we’re back home, post-jaunt, goodbyes said, drop-offs made at respective dwellings, shoes off, showers on; the wild animal transitioning back to the domestic, again donning it’s more modern attire, like all of us do—a curious dance, back and forth, repeated over and over, for our the health of our mind and body.
We hug long when we depart and tell each other how much we love them; we’re all thoughtful, sensitive men, comfortable with expressing our emotions. Truth is we never know when our time on this earth and with our loved ones will be up so we might as well love hard and express that love loud and clear while we’re here and have these beating hearts inside.
It’s been months now since that Sunday and I miss them. Ben’s been busy and Gregory’s off in NYC opening a new restaurant. I love them both individually but when we hang as a trio there’s a special dynamic that happens between the three of us together—or maybe it’s simply the miracle of all aligning schedules enough to actually meet up. Haha.
I look forward to that next adventure with them, big or small, close or far, whenever that may be.
-Willie McBride
