El Aguacero

When the aguacero, a violent and sudden thunderstorm, came in four days ago, I was on my terrace, doing circuits on my little climbing wall, trying to distract myself. My mind has started to get fixated on different ideas daily: on the people I will see when this is over, on future plans to travel, on routes outside that I would like to climb, on how to build a life that does not result in being alone in times of crisis. Climbing keeps the fixations at bay, giving me relief from the chatter, at least for a few hours.

I was not the only one with this idea to exercise. Many of us are trying to tame our demons. The city streets are empty, but rooftops are bustling. I could see others on their terraces too, running laps back and forth, doing jumping jacks, or jumping rope. Some did yoga, others dance routines. More than a few just paced: back and forth, back and forth. 

Between attempts on the climbing wall, I would watch these neighbors. In turn, they watched me. After a month in quarantine I feel like we have gotten to know each other, though they are far away and we have never spoken. The woman doing jumping jacks had bright pink hair at the beginning of all this. She wore lycra outfits that accentuated a body that, even from a distance, I could tell was not entirely natural. These days the black roots of her hair have grown and the pink is retreating farther and farther out. She exercises less and does not seem to care about what she is wearing. She and her boyfriend come outside late in the afternoon and spend most of their time now sitting and talking with each other.

Across the main road is another couple. They had lunch together every day on their rooftop terrace when this began. He would grill and she would make cocktails. They turned on the dangling Christmas lights above them even during the middle of the day. They would clink their cocktail glasses together and sit side by side and talk as they ate their meal. They have not been out for a few days now. The last time I saw them, they still sat side by side, that time working on their laptops and talking less. The Christmas lights remained off.

Their neighbor sometimes climbs atop the little building on the roof that accesses the stairs. He stands on it and talks with someone on his phone. He must use video, because he puts the phone out from time to time and pans around himself, showing whoever he is talking to his view of the hushed metropolis. He is there every few days. When he is not on the phone he stands pensively, unmoving, staring out at the city.

The aguacero sent everyone into their apartments. I have a little roof over part of my terrace and so I decided to stay and continue climbing. To be out of the apartment and climbing is always better. The first drops fell large and heavy and beat against the thin roof in staccato. At first, it seemed that the storm might be capricious, threatening only a little and then going away. But it was not so. After a brief lull, the staccato returned and grew into a deafening white noise, drowning out the music I was playing. Hail pounded the open area just beyond the climbing wall and thunder rolled in the distance. 

There have been full days during this quarantine where I have realized I did not say a word, days when there are no calls from friends or family, when I do not have to meet with my students via video conferences, when I can’t find the motivation to sing along to music nor to keep myself company with advise or, failing that, derision. But when the aguacero had reached its crescendo and the heavens were unleashing their deluge, I yelled back at it at the top of my lungs.  

My terrace filled with water, the rain still mixing with hail and bouncing against the pool that the drains could not release fast enough. I shouted and cheered and felt alive again. I continued to climb, more aggressively now, throwing myself at small holds, kicking my feet through the air. The water came in under the roofed area and threatened to soak my crashpad and so I had to move it to a corner. All the while I laughed and shouted and hoped the storm would never stop.

But the pool spread so much that I could no longer climb on the wall, and so I too had to retreat into my apartment like my neighbors had retreated into theirs. I ran to my stairway, getting soaked in the process, and pounced down my stairs, my chest heaving and heart beating madly.

At my window I watched the rivulets pour down the glass and distort the image of the street below and the apartments beyond. There, across the way, was a woman by herself, also standing at her window. The rain lashed down between us and our figures melted into something impressionistic. I watched her. She watched me. The storm flashed and boomed around us. Framed in her window, she became like everyone was becoming: a distant abstraction. 

The evening darkness seeped in and though the storm began to lift, I could not make the woman out in her window anymore. When the last clouds moved on, and a few stars appeared over the city, that familiar quiet returned: quiet enough for my thoughts to start creeping back. I stayed at the window, watching, and waiting to see who would return now that the storm was over. 

On Isolation -- Weeks, Months, a Lifetime

The early mornings are still immune. At least, they pretend to be. Asleep, I dream as I normally would have — of a classroom of unruly adolescents, of a day in the mountains, of Her. And when I awake, the dream-ether hangs in the air for a moment still; I exist in a world that, even though it was born from a dream, is more normal than the reality that awaits outside.

One wall of my apartment is entirely made up of glass. Six stories up, I can look down on an avenue and watch its quiet abnormality. If I am still waking, I can fool myself back into that dream-mind. Let it be like it was before. But then a lone Bogotano will appear below, walking his dog, a facemask secured over his nose and mouth, surgical gloves on hands holding the leash. And then the dream-mind must let go, leaving my true mind to face the realities of isolation.

* * *

A month ago I had one of my best days in Colombia so far. I went climbing in an area not far from Bogota. We had been spending every weekend there in order to make progress on the hardest route I have ever tried. On that day, I did the route, achieving a life goal of mine. There was a crowd there and when I came down, there were hugs and cheers and high-fives from friends I have made over my last nine months here. How easily we embraced then. How simple the pleasure.

That night was my friend Santiago’s birthday. Many friends gathered to celebrate and again we sat close to each other, greeted each other with hugs and kisses on the cheek. We joked about coronavirus then, all sat together eating lechona and drinking beer and being merry. 

A week later they closed the climbing area. Then they put up controls leaving the city. And then the quarantine went into effect. 

Photo: Juan Sebastian Riaño

* * *

It’s been fifteen days. They say the quarantine will go on for a month, but even now they are hinting at an extension. In all likelihood it will be at least two months. There is a chance it will be three.

I live alone. 

The ocean of time ahead of me is hard to fathom. On a call with my mother — I call more now — she reminded me, “At least you have spent a lot of time alone before. You are used to it.”

She is right. I’ve been spending time alone since I was young. When I was twelve, I spent three days camped alone in the Canadian Rockies, a rite of passage designed by my father. (He was camped nearby, though out of contact, and was ready to rescue me if I ran into trouble.) By the time I was eighteen I took a year off before college and traveled the U.S. alone, living out of my truck. In adulthood I have taken international trips alone, climbing in Asia, Europe, and South America, traversing the Himalayas on a motorcycle — I even named the bike “Solivagant” on that trip, which means “to wander alone.” I’ve written magazine articles on the pleasures of solitary trekking in the mountains, the peace that it invites. My career for the last twelve years has involved me questing out alone into one foreign country after another and adapting to the challenges of new schools, new languages, new customs. It has been a professional life that is often isolating, and yet I have made it through, I’ve enjoyed it, I’ve called it adventure. 

But to equate those experiences with what lies ahead is false. On my travels, there were always new people to meet, new places to explore. Travel invites the potential to move from isolation into new and exciting communities. There was also always the physical challenge and reward of climbing and hiking in these new places. There was fresh air and vast landscapes, aspects of the experiences that were fulfilling and good. And even that twelve-year-old who was restricted to a small camping area for his solo had something that I now know is a great luxury: an end. He just had to make it three days. As lonely as he got, he had a number to count down from.

I’m counting up now. Fifteen days today. To what number I am counting to, I know not. And though I do not know when this will end — none of us do — I know that, having finished one more day, I am that much closer to the end, whenever it may be. Knowledge of that forward progress offers some reprieve. It has been my mantra, in fact. At the end of each day, I tell myself: You are one day closer. You are one day closer.

If nothing else, this time is teaching me about my pride. I once felt so successful in my ventures alone. For being the archetype of the loner, I would pat myself on the back. (Who else would there be to pat me on the back anyway?) In December of 2016, after a year in a remote part of Bhutan, I wrote, “This part of my life, I feel, is a great story. But the theme continues to elude me. Is it about abandoning the materialism of America? About finding spirituality among Himalayan Buddhists? Is it about adventure and challenge? About loneliness perhaps?” Now I must face that question with new eyes. I’m also aware from my experiences that for those of us who are known for our independent resiliency, there are less check-ins, less calls. He’ll make it, they believe. He always does. 

I continue to tell myself the same thing. You’ve weathered other storms. You’ve known the darkness and have beaten it back. You can do it again. Loneliness has been your companion more than once. A lifetime of lonely adventures has given me so much good. And those experiences are an advantage for the challenges to come. But that life has also led me to the way in which I must now face this challenge: alone.

January of 2017, the next entry as I left Bhutan and set off on my motorcycle toward Nepal: I wrote, “as is the plague of the wanderer, other existential questions have started to arise ... What purpose does this adventure serve? When will I grow up, settle down, commit to something stable? What is the effect of such long-term loneliness?”

For those of you who have stayed put but have cultivated communities around you, have built families, have fallen in love — I envy you. To spend this time in quarantine with others is a blessing. I spend more time than I’d like wondering how much easier this would be if She were here. And if you have Her next to you (or Him), as much as She might be grinding on your nerves these days, know that you are lucky. Don’t take Her for granted. 

* * *

I am not beaten. Not yet. I have convinced myself to slip into something like a monk’s mind. In the mornings I meditate. I built a small climbing wall, and I use it almost daily. I do the perfunctory work I need to get done for my virtual classes. I cook new recipes and hone them for the day when I can share the meals with friends again. (You will eat well, my friends. You will eat well.) I read. I write.

And I continue to examine those existential questions on loneliness. I weigh what it has given me and what it has taken. There is now time to reflect on a whole life that has led up to this moment. My hope is that by scrutinizing these questions with this monk’s mind, I may now start to arrive at answers. And if not, well, at least I successfully distracted myself for another day. Then, before going to bed and returning to the normality of dreams, I can say again to myself, You are one day closer. You are one day closer.