Comeback

“How do you come back from that?”

            How do you come back from that? 

            I’ve been asking myself that question for three weeks now, and I still don’t have an answer.

            Not really.

            How do you go from looking upon mountains to staring at spreadsheets all day?

            How do you climb a glacier . . . and then just go back to sitting at a desk?

            How?

“How was Alaska?”

            How do you even answer that question? 

            I don’t have the words.

If you saw the pictures, you know the answer. 

            How do you sum it up in a sentence?

            If you figure it out, let me know.

            Last year when people asked me how Hawaii was, ever the smartass, I responded with:  “Oh it was just horrible I’m SO glad to be back HERE.” 

            I travel all the time.  That should give you some indication that I enjoy my time away. 

“Wherever you were looked pretty.”

            Everywhere you look up there is pretty.

            We climbed a mountain, white water rafted, kayaked, hiked, climbed a glacier, and in eleven days, only had two showers. 

            No, it was not a relaxing vacation.

            One of the higher-ups at my company concluded, “I would not go on a trip like that.”

            It’s not for everyone. 

            After you climb a glacier, you feel two things.  One:  I just climbed a fucking glacier, I can do anything!  Two:  I just climbed a glacier, everything else is bullshit. 

            How do you come down from that?

(Like this, actually.)

I’m still not sure if I came back with too much of Alaska with me . . . or if I just never left.  I might be here for now, but I assure you . . . I am dreaming of mountains.

            And so here I am, riding my motorcycle through Illinois farmland in the middle of the night with three guys I know, and three guys I don’t know. 

            I really needed this.

            After nine days cooped up in an RV, this is what I needed:  open air, independence, and risk. 

            Maybe I’m an adrenaline junkie now; maybe the only I can do from here is keep stepping it up.  It’s hard to top a glacier, though.  What’s next, skydiving?  Everest base camp? 

            And goddamnit, people need to stop looking like my fucking ex.  The road captain for this particular group of guys that I just met is a dead ringer for a young David Baker.  He has the same deep-set eyes that turn downwards at the corners; the same hooked nose; the same jutting chin. 

            Yeah this is what I need; being led all over rural Illinois by a bunch of guys I don’t really even know, taking some drunk chick home, like you do.  Because we’re bikers, and bikers are nice people.

            Okay we got the drunk chick home, but now she’s trying to start a fight with her drunk husband in the street in front of her house.  This is not what I needed.

            We manage to extract ourselves from the situation and are back on the road headed west to StL! 

            . . . after we head back to the bar we were just at to pick up another dude I don’t know.

            OMG we’re on the highway and I can see the Arch! 

            . . . and we just missed our exit.

            Onward through East St. Louis instead!

            It’s fine, there’s a big group of us.  Probably no one will shoot us. 

            The road captain keeps slowing down and looking like he’s gonna turn, but he can’t find the right street.  He finally turns . . . the wrong way on a one-way street.

            Great so now we’re not just passing through East St. Louis; we are lost in East St. Louis. 

            Finally, there’s the on ramp, and we blast across the bridge towards home.

            I wanted adventure; I certainly found it. 

*                      *                      *

            This is not really what I needed.

            To be standing over a mountain of raw meat, the bottoms of my pants soaked with soapy/bleachy/bloody water, legs aching from last night’s squats. . . .

            What I really need is money; because I’m broke.  We completely outdid ourselves on this trip.  Frank got a first-hand account of how Ally and I spend money on our trips, and he was simply horrified.  Good thing Sophie wasn’t with us (FALSE); she’s usually the biggest spender. 

            I normally buy my mom a Christmas ornament on each trip I take.  I bought her five this time.  In my defense, we went to four separate destinations . . . and one of them is more of a sun-catcher than an ornament. 

            Usually I come home with a goofy t-shirt for my dad.  Well, since we were gone over Father’s Day, I got him two t-shirts, some reindeer sausage, and Sasquatch poop (chocolate-covered peanuts). 

            We typically wind up buying t-shirts and beer from every brewery we visit.  Ally bought so much beer that she had to check both of her suitcases, and they just barely made the weight limit.  I got three t-shirts . . . and one tank top and one hoodie.  I also bought two coffee mugs, because two places we stopped didn’t have t-shirts I liked. 

            Tess (our fourth) bought so much stuff that she had to buy an extra carry-on bag.  She wound up buying two. 

            I practically had to twist Frank’s arm to get him to buy himself a t-shirt, because it wasn’t on sale. 

            “Frank Roberts has two first names,” Tommy comments, randomly. 

            “Three.  His middle name is Owen.”

            “F-O-S,” he spells out the initials, incorrectly.

            “F-O-R,” I correct him.

            “Oh yeah, F-O-R.”  He walks away.

            I keep working.

            He comes back.

            “What’s your middle name?”

            “Marie,” I say.

            “E-M-E,” he says as if I didn’t already know my initials, and walks away again.

            Steady Leroy is in today, only he’s not Steady Leroy anymore, he’s Tornado Leroy, because he works fast and leaves a bigger mess than Tommy.  Between the two of them, I spend most of my day cleaning up.  I’m not really even sure what my purpose is here anymore.

The first customer comes in before the store’s even open and takes every single filet from the case. 

            “The way of the first customer is the way of the day, isn’t that what they say?” Grace asks.

            I hope not.  Otherwise there might be murders happening today. 

            I wonder where Gus is.  It’s getting to be late morning and he’s still not here.  Kyle and John are both here, but no Gus.

            Grace is wondering the same thing. 

            She checks her phone, and reads aloud:  “‘Just a reminder, I’m working for my dad today.’  Oh, well he’ll make a bunch more money then; his dad’s in construction.”

            Okay, I guess I’m Gus today. 

John leaves the smoker open and not rotating for 45 minutes. 

            He’s so pretty.

            Luckily Kyle catches it soon enough that we’re not set back too badly for the day.

            The wings simply fly off the racks these days; they can barely keep up with the demand, even using both the small indoor smoker and the big one out back. 

            Nicole arrives late as usual, all blustered and flustered.  She’s upset because her husky puppy jumped on her and spilled her coffee on her shirt this morning. 

            “Oh my god Nicole your life is so hard,” I say sarcastically.

            Later on she does it again, and this time my response intensifies:  “Nicole your life is just so hard, I don’t know how you do it.  How do you not just kill yourself.”  Suicide jokes aren’t funny and she knows I’m kidding; I’m just tired of listening to her complaining about problems that aren’t really problems. 

            Some people lead such small lives, they can’t help but make their mole hills into mountains.

            Me, I just head straight for those mountains. 

            Even though I spend my days behind a computer monitor and a cutting board, there are more mountains out there for me . . . that much is certain.  

(Denali.  Only 30% of visitors ever see it in its full glory.)