My Year with Eleanor (34 page)

It was a damn fine view, for sure. To put it in
perspective, the Empire State Building is 1,453 feet high. It would take
thirteen Empire State buildings stacked on top of each other to equal the height
of Kilimanjaro. The peak of Kilimanjaro was simultaneously the most impressive
and least assuming location I'd ever spent time in. There was only a crude
wooden sign covered in jaunty yellow writing citing the altitude and announcing
itself as the tallest freestanding mountain in the world. It was as if the sign
knew it couldn't compete with the view, so it didn't even try. Here I was
looking at these beautiful glaciers that probably wouldn't be here in twenty
years. I could actually see the curve of the earth. It suddenly registered that
between this moment and skydiving, I'd seen the curve of the earth twice this
year.

There was a sharp snapping sound, and I looked over
to see Dismas lifting a blue-and-silver can to his mouth.

“Are you seriously drinking a Red Bull right now?”
I laughed, staring in disbelief at the supercaffeinated energy drink. That it
was the only liquid that didn't freeze at negative ten degrees should concern us
all.

My camera batteries had died as soon as I got to
the summit. Thank goodness Becca had warned me to bring extras. Dismas took
pictures of me standing in front of the wooden marker holding the handmade
cardboard signs I'd colored. I couldn't wait to surprise my parents and Matt
with the photos when I got home. Marie, Henri, and I smiled at one another and
posed for a group picture, but we did not hug. I felt detached from them now.
I'd done this without them.

Maybe it was my imagination, but over the past few
days I'd gotten the impression that Henri purposefully wasn't taking pictures
when I was taking them, as if he didn't want to concede that I'd chosen a good
shot. I'd raise my camera and he'd immediately lower his. When I glanced over
now, his camera was hanging at his side.

Incredulous, I asked him, “Aren't you going to take
a picture of the glaciers?”

“No,” he said stubbornly.

I shrugged and turned away from him and gasped. On
the other side of the mountain—opposite of the sunset side—the layer of clouds
below was so seamless and stretched so far that it took me a few moments to
realize it wasn't snow. The day was clear and the dark shadow of Mount
Kilimanjaro cast perfectly onto the radiant white. So many things had to come
together for this moment to happen—I had to be here exactly at sunrise, it had
to be a clear, non-snowing day, and the clouds had to be thick enough to form a
white canvas for the shadow.

“It's amazing!” I cried, lifting my camera. “You
have to get a picture of this!”

Henri glanced at it dismissively and walked
away.

Now that we were no longer moving, the cold was
penetrating. Every moment my hand was out of the mittens taking pictures of the
sunrise was torturous, but I wanted to capture everything. The colors were
constantly developing, luminous gold erupting into searing coppers, then giving
way to aching purples and brilliant blues. Each time I decided I'd found my
favorite color of the sunrise, it melted into another more spectacular shade
than the last. It was, quite simply, the most magnificently beautiful thing I'd
ever beheld.

We'd been cautioned about “mountain madness,” where
people became delirious due to the reduced oxygen. So far none of us were
exhibiting any bizarre behavior, but Dismas wasn't taking any chances.

After twenty minutes, Dismas said, “We go now. Not
good to stay in my main office too long.”

The descent took three hours. Slogging down the
mountain in reverse was a rare opportunity to revisit one's accomplishments, to
see how far you'd come. Dismas had been right. If I'd known what was before me,
I might have turned back. In the boulder section, we stepped from rock to rock,
praying they didn't give way and start an avalanche. When we came to the
volcanic ash zone, it stretched before us steeply and endlessly.

I looked at Dismas wearily, “Can't I just curl up
in the middle of an inner tube and roll myself down the mountain?”

Without the presence of footholds, it was too steep
to tread upon. Instead we “skied” down the mountain. This was accomplished using
the painful combination of leaning backward and bending one's knees as we slid
our feet through the ash. I can say with confidence that my knees will never be
the same. We trudged into Kibo Hut dusted in sulfur. Dismas allowed us only an
hour to sleep. Removing just my boots, I gingerly slid into my sleeping bag and
lay awake with my eyes closed.

T
hen
we were back on the trail. Marie and Henri sallied forth, which was just as
well.

Dismas and the assistant guide accompanied me
instead. They hung back, chatting in Swahili. They were like parents trying to
enjoy their adult conversation, but keeping an eye on their toddler tottering
out in front of them. It occurred to me that maybe they all disliked me and
didn't want to walk with me, but I couldn't muster the energy to care. I had no
idea how I was going to walk seven and a half more miles. It seemed
impossible.

“In some ways the hike down is the hardest part
because you have nothing to work toward anymore,” Becca had said.

As a general rule, uphill is hard on the muscles,
downhill is hard on the bones and skin. I walked stiff gaited, the Tin Man
searching Oz for his lost oil can so he could grease his knee joints. Blisters
rose on my toes where they were bumping against the front of my boots. I
unzipped a side pocket on my backpack and pulled out something white and
plastic. I'd avoided using my iPod so far because I'd wanted to experience
Kilimanjaro with all five senses. I wanted to be fully present. But sometimes
music was the only thing that could get you through the pain. For six hours I
walked and stumbled down the slanted trail, working my way through my playlist.
When my iPod died a few hours later, I was jealous. At least it got to stop. I
recited poems to keep my woozy mind occupied.
I grow old
. . . I grow old . . . I shall wear the bottoms of my
trousers rolled!
When I reached the moorlands, which I'd come to
think of as Seussland, I tried to remember the words to
Oh,
the Places You'll Go!
I'd read the poem so many times when I made
that video to get into Yale that I'd once known it by heart.

“You'll join the high fliers who soar to high
heights,” I murmured to myself.

I tripped on a rock and stumbled a few steps.
“Poly-poly, Miss Noelley!” Dismas called out behind me. Suddenly I noticed that
I felt a little high. Was this altitude-induced brain damage? Did brain-damaged
people say things like “induced”? I decided that if I could remember the rest of
the poem, it would prove I wasn't brain damaged.

On and on you will
hike.

And I know you'll hike
far

and face up to your
problems

whatever they
are.

“KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!” I babbled out
loud.

You're off to Great
Places!

Today is your
day!

Your mountain is
waiting.

So . . . get on
your way!

“What you say, Miss Noelley?” Dismas called.

Fifteen minutes later I was staggering among the
black triangular cabins of Horombo. I bought a celebratory Coke, but knowing we
were going to bed in a few hours, I saved it until morning. As we were getting
ready for bed, I blew my nose for the five hundredth time. “Come on, Noelle, the
porters have enough to carry,” Marie joked of my sodden face towel, and I
contemplated killing her in her sleep. That night, however, I enjoyed the best
night of sleep I'd had on the mountain. It took an hour and a half to doze off,
but that was a long way from lying awake for six hours, wondering how hard I'd
have to hit my head to lose consciousness but not do any real damage. When I
woke up the next morning, I truly believed, for the first time in years, that
I'd be able to break my ten-year dependency on sleeping pills. It was hard not
to lean on the crutch when it was always in hand. But here I'd have been putting
my life at risk in a very direct way if I'd taken them. For me it had taken
being in a situation where it wasn't an option to learn I didn't need them.

Preserved by the meat-locker air of our cabin, the
Coke was exquisitely cold when I cracked it open at breakfast. I gulped it down
greedily. It sparkled over my tongue and left a satisfying, crackling burn in my
throat. It was, without exaggeration, the best thing I'd ever tasted.

Though more than twice the length at twelve and a
half miles, today's hike would be far less brutal than yesterday's trek from
Kibo to Horombo. But because of yesterday's downhill “skiing,” my knees were
screaming in protest. I moved in a slow zombie lurch. Marie and Henri charged
down before me. What the hell were their overachieving asses trying to prove? I
grumbled to Dismas, “They realize we're all sharing the same van back to Arusha
and they are just going to have to wait for me in the parking lot, right?”

He grinned. “Poly-poly, Noelle.”

We stopped for lunch at the Mandara Huts, where I
bought another Coke. It was just as crisp and transporting as the one from that
morning. Marie and Henri had already left, so I ate alone. To pass time I took
out my digital camera and scanned through my summit photos. As I was clicking
through the cardboard sign photos, a nervous tingle began to mount. Oh no. My
heart was pounding. When I got to the last photo, my heart sank completely. I
hadn't taken a photo with the
I
♥
MATT
sign. There were countless photos of me holding my mom's and
dad's signs and even that stupid
I'M HIGH
sign.
I'd thought I'd gotten all of them. How could I have
forgotten the Matt sign
? A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I'd
missed it.

I continued to berate myself as we hiked through
the rain forest, stepping over logs and admiring the streams with their
mini-waterfalls. I considered contacting a friend of mine who was a photo editor
at a magazine I'd once worked at. He could take a picture of me holding the Matt
sign, then superimpose the necessary element into one of the other summit
photos. Or maybe I could Photoshop one of the other signs to read
I
♥
MATT
? Then, a horrifying
thought. Was my forgetting the Matt sign a sign that we were not supposed to be
together? Or had I just been distracted by the view and my accomplishment, not
to mention exhausted, after all I'd been through? I wrestled with these
questions for hours but ultimately decided to just let it go. Sometimes a sign
is just a sign.

Finally I emerged, sweaty and pink faced, from the
rain forest. In the parking lot, Marie, Henri, and I pooled our money and tipped
the porters and guides for taking care of us all week. The tips took nearly all
of my $300. Still, I slipped Dismas an extra $20, which didn't feel like enough,
even though the average wage in Tanzania was less than $1 a day.

We stood in line to sign our names in a book
logging everyone who reached the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. When it was my turn,
I bellied up to the counter and leaned over the book. There were so many names!
The rows were neatly cordoned off so no signature could be bigger than another.
It was completely without ceremony, like a very long roll call. When this book
filled up, it would be replaced with a fresh one for people to sign. My book
would be taken away—who knows where they go?—and join the books that had come
before it. The thought of this comforted me, for some reason. The female clerk
pointed at the next blank space on the page. It was just a small line. But it
was all that I needed. With a smile, I picked up the pen to sign my name. I am
here.

Epilogue

About the only value the story of my life may have is to show that one can, even without any particular gifts, overcome obstacles that seem insurmountable if one is willing to face the fact that they must be overcome; that, in spite of timidity and fear, in spite of a lack of special talents, one can find a way to life widely and fully.

—ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

O
n the morning of my thirtieth birthday, I woke up to find that—completely independent of each other—Jessica and Chris had sent me the same birthday card. It featured a cartoon of a bikini-clad woman on water skis. In the speech bubble over her head, it said,
I'm so glad your birthday will bring together all of your friends at a time when my tan is fully realized.
Chris had added his own personal message in the space beneath: “This is exactly what I look like in a two-piece, actually. Have a good day and remember: You only turn 23 once. xoxo, Chris”

“So how does it feel?” Bill asked when he called to wish me a happy birthday.

“I think I saw my first sign of crow's-feet in the mirror this morning,” I said ruefully.

“I have crow's-feet on my balls now. But don't worry, that doesn't happen until thirty-three. And only if you have balls.”

In the three weeks I'd been back from Africa, I'd mostly been conquering everyday fears. Kilimanjaro really felt like the culmination of the project and I'd been winding down ever since. I was sad that it was ending, of course, but it was time.

So many things had changed over the course of the year. I was still making milkshakes, but Becca was moving to Boston to start medical school. Josh and Monique moved to Berkeley and were planning their wedding. Cub and Chris moved in together and were talking about getting married. Jessica had a boyfriend with whom she was blissfully happy and went on all sorts of backpacking adventures. My little sister took a break from swimming so she could relax and enjoy life a little more, but said she might go back to it eventually. Lorena, my old coworker who'd called to tell me about the layoff, was so inspired by my project that she quit her job and moved to Australia for a year. Many things had changed. Except Bill. He was exactly the same.

“It's been a hell of a year for you, Noelle!” Dr. Bob had said in our session the other day. “Eleanor would be so proud of all you've accomplished!”

“Well, thanks,” I said, feeling a little sheepish. “Eleanor changed the world. I just changed myself,” I added.

He leaned back in his chair. “I don't think you needed to
change
yourself. I think you needed to
discover
yourself.”

What I discovered was that, in taking on tangible challenges, I'd grown into someone who could handle the intangibles. That life was not about attaining; it was about letting go. When I looked back, nothing was ever as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was usually better than I could have imagined. I learned that we should take each moment both more and less seriously because everything passes. The joyful moments are just as fleeting as the terrible ones.

For my thirtieth birthday, I decided to mark the occasion in a more traditional way . . . just a party—no swinging from things, no signing of contracts “in the event of accidental death or dismemberment.” At first I'd said I didn't want a big fuss. I didn't have the energy to plan anything else this year. But Matt had insisted that entering a new decade demanded a big celebration. He'd rented out a bar and drafted a bunch of my friends to help plan the festivities. There were rumors of a slide show.

Before the party, Matt took me to dinner and we went back to my apartment to loll on the couch and have a few glasses of red wine. Across the room, my parakeets were having one of their domestic arguments involving loud, indignant squawking. Nothing and everything was different.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he said, clinking his glass against mine. “Ready for your present?”

I nodded eagerly, but inside I was uneasy. Matt's gifts were always a bit of a wild card. Two birthdays ago he'd bought me a beautiful jade necklace. The year after that he'd given me a handheld Oriental fan and a miniature porcelain tea set, which he'd suggested I put in my parakeets' cage for decoration. I got ready to deploy my best fake smile.

He took my hand in his, and I felt something cold and metallic on my skin. I looked down at my wrist. It was a gorgeous sterling silver cuff.

“It's beautiful!” I breathed. I twisted my arm back and forth, admiring how the bracelet glinted in the light.

“I know you almost never wear bracelets. But I thought trying something different goes with the spirit of your project,” he said. “Also, it's hard to monogram earrings.” I pulled the bracelet off my wrist and peered at the inscription inside:
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”—Eleanor Roosevelt

Sentimental tears pooled in my eyes. How did he know? It's one of her lesser known lines. I'd never mentioned it to him.

“I looked up a bunch of her quotes,” Matt explained. “At first I considered going with ‘Do one thing every day that scares you,' but it feels like you're entering a new chapter of your life. The boldness of this one reminded me of you.”

As I blinked back the tears, I put on a saucy grin. “So I'm bold now, am I?”

Matt shrugged. “To me,” he said, “you have always been fearless.”

He and Dr. Bob were right, of course. This whole time I'd thought I was trying to get back to the person I used to be, when really I was growing into the person I was always meant to be. I was relaxing into myself.

Now I was looking forward to getting out of my own head. I knew that Eleanor would approve. “There is a danger in this self-examination,” she wrote. “Some people become so interested, so fascinated by this voyage of self-discovery, that they don't come out of it again. They remain completely absorbed in their self-study.”

I put the bracelet back on my wrist. Focusing on myself so much this past year meant that I wasn't there much for Matt. “I'm sorry if I neglected you this year. It's been all about me.” I'd once worried that I'd always feel slightly inferior because of Matt's many talents. But he supported me while I'd hogged the spotlight the past year. I'd been going on adventure after adventure, and he'd come along for the ride (well, driving mostly). It made me appreciate what we had even more.

“What do you mean? I'm always happy to support you, honey. We're a team,” he said.

Something else that happened gradually over the past year was that I no longer felt like Matt was upstaging me. I'd realized that, frankly, it was up to me to make sure that he didn't. As Eleanor said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” He took my hand and kissed the back of it.

I was quiet for a few seconds. It probably wasn't the right time to bring this up, but what the hell. I still had one fear left to face.

“Remember that night at the wedding in Nantucket?” I asked. “What were you going to say?”

“When?”

“When that guy at our table asked ‘So are you two getting married?' ”

His brow furrowed for a moment as he thought back to that night. Then he smiled. “I was going to say, ‘We don't even live in the same city! First we have to live in the same city. Then we'll move in together and get engaged; then we get married.' ”

Inwardly, I sighed with relief. For so long I hadn't dared to ask. I was afraid of his answer. Afraid he'd want to get married before I was ready. Afraid he'd say he never wanted to get married. Afraid he'd be evasive. Afraid whatever his answer was would upset the fantastic thing we had going. But his was the perfect answer. Everything would unfold as it should.

Matt looked around the apartment and said, “I think your furniture and my furniture will go together nicely.”

“Mhhhmm.” I made a contented noise. “Me, too.”

“So what happens now? You going to keep conquering one fear every day?”

“Actually, I don't even think I could find a fear every day. I've been struggling to find fears the last few weeks. The world isn't as scary now.”

I added: “Besides, now I have to focus on finding a job!”

“And?” He laced his fingers in between mine and gave them a squeeze. “What are you going to do?”

“I don't know.” The world was wide open. I smiled, just thinking about the possibilities. “I mean, I can do anything.”

In 1960, two years before Eleanor died, she looked back at how much she had changed from the timid girl consumed by self-doubt. “It was not until I reached middle age that I had the courage to develop interests of my own,” she said. “From that time on, though I have had many problems, though I have known grief and the loneliness that are the lot of most human beings, I have never been bored, never found the days long enough for the range of activities with which I wanted to fill them. And, having learned to stare down fear, I long ago reached the point where there is no living person whom I fear, and few challenges that I am not willing to face.”

I'm not presumptuous enough to think I'll ever be as fearless as Eleanor. But she taught me that courage is a muscle. It needs to be exercised often or it'll weaken.

It will take time for me to understand all the ways that year changed me. A meaningful experience is a glass of wine. It needs to breathe and open up; it can only be fully appreciated when you return to it later. I suspect I'll return to this year many times throughout my life. With each passing birthday, the memories will blur and some may disappear entirely. But I know I'll always remember the startling sensation of diving out of the plane headfirst, the bright air pushing its way into my lungs, and the world rushing up to greet me as if to say, “Where have you been?”