Rhizo Issue 08 by rhizomagazine

Winter Solstice 2024 Taos, New Mexico

Winter Solstice 2024

About the Cover:

Sam Stroh photographed by Victoria Kohner-Flanagan

Winter Solstice 2024

Contributing Artists - Rhizo Community

Moon Calendar - Diggy & Sue

Letter from Sue - Editor’s Note

Natural Elements, Motherhood and the Creative Journey - Becky Jane Krotts

Selected Works - Erin Marie King

In the Pines - Chimera Mohammadi

Selected Works - SMKM

Echos of Snowfall - Eli Zablosky

Selected Works - Matthew Bourbon

No Expectations, Try Hard & Floating Downstream - Rhizo Feature by Sue Hunt

Air and Earth - Fiona Nodar

Selected Works - Moss Halladay

Heading Home, Again - Jake Winn

Contrasts of Being - Diggy Lloyd

Orange, Tangerine Dreams - Bruce Katlin

Tonantzin - Sonora MindWerl

Connectedness - Chris

Editor & Creative Director: Sue Hunt

Designer & Photographer: Diggy Lloyd

Published by: Rhizo Magazine Taos, New Mexico

Opposite Page: Paige Beeber

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Aubrey Nicole

Aubrey grew up obsessing over Nancy Drew books and has since evolved into a cosmic detective herself. Based in Nashville, she’s a spiritual consultant, tarot reader, artist, author, and small-press publisher dedicated to exploring moksha — the experience of fulfilling life’s purpose through self realization. When Aubrey isn’t conversing with astronauts and other cosmically-inclined guests on her podcast, she works as a business strategist and publishes books that amplify way-shower voices in the realms of metaphysics, spirituality, poetry, and fiction. Listen to ‘The Infinite Drop’ podcast on Apple and Spotify, and find Aubrey at MokshaDestiny.com

Becky Jane Krotts

Becky is a visual artist and writer who specializes in pigments homemade from the earth. Each piece she makes reveals the depth of the hues, and also holds deep meaning and stories from where the pigment originated from. Becky lives with her husband Dustin, three children, Owen, Lily, and Tessa, one dog, and two cats in the outskirts of Cincinnati - often dreaming of living in the middle of a forest in a faraway land. You can find her work at becky-jane. com or on Instagram @beckyjanekrotts

Bruce Katlin

Bruce Katlin’s eclectic background includes landscape oil painting, wood carvings, climate change influenced sculptures, performance art, and fiction writing. He combines is love and passion for high mountain trail running and plein air oil painting which, he has discovered, creates an unparalleled nirvana-like state, where pragmatic thinking and intuitiveness flow effortlessly.

Chimera Mohammadi

Chimera Mohammadi is a Californian writer whose work spans magical fiction, Queer theory, and art criticism. Their work has been featured by Autre Magazine, Artforum, Fruitslice Magazine, Femme Art Review, and the Santa Cruz Art Museum. Read more of their work at www. chimeramohammadi.com or on instagram at @faithless_the_ wonderkid

Chris Dahl-Bredine

Growing up in the vast New Mexico landscapes Chris DahlBredine had always dreamed of flying. When he took up flying trikes, much like a flying motorcycle in 2002, it was a dream come true. He experienced the desert Southwest from a whole new perspective. In his tiny open aircraft he was immersed and connected to his environment and photography naturally evolved into his passion. “Some moments up there are so transcendent. I feel immersed and connected to everything and sense the interconnectedness of all life that we are part of… it’s pure magic!” These feelings of connectedness, gratitude, awe and wonder are what I hope to inspire in sharing my imagery from above. Discover more @Shotsfromabove & shotfromabove.com

Diggy Lloyd

Diggy Lloyd is a commercial photographer based in Taos, New Mexico, with 15 years of experience creating compelling imagery for brands such as Target, Sephora, Adidas, Bliss, and Athleta. As the Co-Founder and Creative Lead of Benthouse, Diggy specializes in defining and building meaningful brands through research, strategic planning, and a collaborative design process. One of Diggy’s greatest joys is creating this magazine alongside her sister, Sue, and spending time with her incredible family. Find her work here @diggylloyd / diggylloyd.com & benthousecreative.com

Eli Zablosky

Eli Zablosky is an analog film photographer based in Taos, New Mexico. His work captures quiet, contemplative scenes across the high desert frontiers, exploring the stillness and vastness of these landscapes. Through subtle details and soft hues, Eli’s images evoke a deep sense of solitude and connection to the land. View more of his analog stills at zablosky.com

Erin Marie King

Erin Marie King is a contemporary abstract painter living in Denver, CO. Her artistic practice is an introspective ritual of looking at what lies beneath, examining the stories we tell ourselves. Erin appreciates the creative process as a lifelong exercise in being present and learning to live at ease with herself. When not in the studio, Erin practices as a fractional brand strategist— with a love for creating something out of nothing, she sees the big picture vision as well as the roadmap to get there, serving as a calm, confident partner to help teams navigate uncharted territory. Find her at erinmarieart.com

Fiona Nodar

Fiona Nodar is an artist, writer and designer with lifelong roots in earth-based Christian mysticism. You’ll most likely find her making friends of strangers, indulging in the everyday awe of things or sharing provocative ideas online regarding the transformational aspect of conflict. She is a creative peacemaker and mediator working in Taos, NM and online. To read more of her writings visit: fionanodar. substack.com

Ian Dzilenski

Ian Dzilenski is a photographer and director specializing in outdoor, adventure, and climbing storytelling. Known for his ability to blend artful composition with raw authenticity, Ian’s work captures the spirit of exploration and the beauty of the natural world. With a focus on meaningful narratives and striking visuals, he collaborates with athletes, brands, and publications to bring unique stories to life. Whether on towering cliffs or in quiet desert landscapes, Ian’s photography is a celebration of form, movement, and connection.

Jake Winn

Jake Winn has been featured by the Inner Loop reading series and the forthcoming issue of Barely South Review. Originally from South Florida, he earned a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and currently lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, Campbell, and their hound dog, Hadley.

Matthew Bourbon

Matthew Bourbon is an artist and writer. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Bourbon earned separate undergraduate degrees in Studio Art and Art History from the University of California at Davis. Relocating to New York City, Bourbon earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts. Since then, his art has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Shows include Wider West at the Oil Tank Culture Park in Seoul, South Korea, C’est de la Peinture! at Bankley Studios and Gallery, Manchester, England, Time, Space, and Process at Bethel University, St. Paul, MN, and Waiting For Now at the Old Jail Art Center Museum in Albany Texas. His art emerges from a long practice of Buddhist meditation coupled with an abiding commitment to painting as a daily practice. Bourbon is an active art critic contributing to Art Forum, Flash Art, ArtNews, Dallas Morning News, Patron Magazine, and other arts publications. He has called North Texas home since 2000 where he’s a Professor of Art at the University of North Texas’ College of Visual Arts and Design. Find his work at www.matthewbourbon.com

Moss Halladay

Moss Halladay is an obsessed outdoor lover with a passion for rock climbing and snowboarding. Raised in Northern New Mexico, Moss splits his time between Lake Tahoe, California and New Mexico. He is a former professional snowboarder turned photographer and now rock climber. You can find Moss roaming the southwest and the eastern sierras looking for new climbing routes and untouched powder.

Paige Beeber

Beeber is an innovative artist and the visionary owner + founder of See You Next Thursday (SYNT) and its sister platform SYNT.Pi, a platform dedicated to fostering independent artistic voices. Selected as one of Art in America’s top 20 global artists to watch, Paige blends her passion for art with a mission to help creators discover their own unique style. Her work has been showcased worldwide, spanning from solo exhibitions in Sicily, various group shows worldwide, and to completing her third solo exhibition in Manhattan last year in Tribeca.

SMKM

SMKM is an artist, mother, doula, curator, and space builder. She produces community conscious events through her businesses Maggie Knox, an arts incubator/non-profit for women and families with a mission to inspire through creative expression and 1020 Collective, an arts and event center based in Erie, Pennsylvania. She works in darkroom photography, clay, painting, and writing as well as curating art exhibitions, and happenings. Find her at sarahmkmoody. com, maggieknox.com, & 1020collective.com

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Rhizo Community

Sonora MindWerl

Sonora Mindling Werling is an artist and designer living in Taos, NM. She was raised in the countryside of Oaxaca, where she spent her time running wild on the dusty backroads of a land still vibrant with tradition and ritual. In her adult years she has sought to deepen her connection to the inner realms of emotion, intuition, and mystery. For Sonora, creativity is the purest form of understanding between these unseen worlds and the tangible world that we live within, and art is Sonora’s way of trying to understand and express the impossible duality of love and grief that come with being alive. Sonora has been creating paintings and symbol jackets for over a decade now, which you can find at www.mindwerl.com

Sue Hunt

Sue Hunt is a radical Buddhist, author and astrologer. Her first book was published in 2021 Transitory Nature: Breaking Binaries for Integrated Being. Sue is also a real estate broker in Northern New Mexico and loves the tangible and ethereal aspects of HOME. As a Cancer Pisces Virgo the root of home and place identity is a cornerstone in her creative practice. She is also co-author of The Sister Body Oracle Deck and Creative Director and Co-Founder of Rhizo Magazine. She lives in Taos, New Mexico. Find her at suehunt.com @suehunt_

Taylor Shaffer

Taylor is an expedition and advertising photographer in the outdoor industry. He has worked with the very best climbers in the world and documented expeditions for National Geographic as well as photographed commercial campaigns for prominent brands in the outdoor industry. Taylor’s imagery blends the raw human spirit with beautiful unforgiving environments. Bold and unique perspectives have allowed Taylor’s work to stand out over other artists.

Victoria Kohner-Flanagan

Victoria Kohner-Flanagan is a traveling rock climber and photographer. She finds joy capturing people in moments of vulnerability on and off the wall. Her work strives to capture the meaningful connections forged between the people and landscapes she encounters on the road.

How to use this Rhizo Moon Calendar: Each moon design contains the date, the new or full moon, the zodiac sign in which the lunation occurs, and the somatic touch points deeply affected by this lunar transit.

Connecting astrology to the map of the body is very supportive in your ritual process for these new and full moons for the next six months.

It’s very transformative to actually connect movements of space weather with your physical form, hence the reason here at Rhizo resident astrologer Sue Hunt gives you her interpretation of astrology’s somatic touch points, so these transits have a place to actively live in your body/mind.

There is a real gravitas in our tone when we “tell it like it is”. It is a potent moment when we can actually feel our emotions deep in our throats, bones and skin, we can feel them. No more rationalizing for that keeps the mind busy on the surface. Or sugar coating because we don’t want to feel the truth. Our inner state of being becomes expressed in our posture, erupts in our words and sinks into reality with some real weight. Once this surfacing happens, boundaries are called in to protect and project a self-concept that is secure and creative all at the same time.

Single points and so focused; almost addicted to work-life in the second half of this year. A work-life balance has not existed, and at times felt like a mirage in the future. “Will I ever get ttthhhheeerrreeee….?” Then I stop thinking about it and stay head buried in the details.

I notice I need so much more time to actually get into my feeling body. Allow myself to feel what is moving beneath the surface. Some of these letters from the editor have been motivating, others poetic, others inspiring, and this one just feels raw and real having processed deeply, integrated and grown a new outward skin in 2024.

I am coming up on two years of reprogramming my self-image, my daily life and my central nervous system. The journey gets more subtle and more obvious all at the same time. This can be a dumbfounding crossroads, because the habits we are trying to break take on new costumes and the solutions to these changes are sometimes hiding in plain sight. We have to get tired of the hamster wheel, and actually GET OFF.

2024 has been one of those years of realizations that create huge cathartic breakthroughs and piss you off at the same time. Sounding like in the waves of the inner sound current,

“WTF, this again, how did I miss this?!”

The same old loop but different people, places and things. But the emotional contents, and the gut knowing, were ignored. The scenarios are similar to ones you have played out and learned from before.

2024, astrologically, felt like a holding tank. A bit of a theme park ride, with no exit and no solution.

So we tread, we wait, we get exhausted and we eventually learn a new emotional and psychological posture to keep waiting. I know that sounds a bit bleak, and nonetheless astrologically accurate. A cosmic treadmill as we kept acquiring subtle skills to propel us forward. Does this resonate?

I myself have kept taking the steps of returning and yearning for a new end point. Coming back to the most basic of the most basic in my personal self-care practice and spiritual practice. Good sleep, good food, time outside, noticing that gorgeous and transitory light, the moments of beauty and despair are punctuated with a certain kind of gaze. Adjusting the mindset around what appears to be earthly monotony. A lot of spiritual escapism arises and the trip of reality - the hardest drug known to man brings you back.

Eclipses happening in the Libra/Aries axis as we transition into Pisces/Virgo axis for 2025 — Pisces and Virgo from January 11, 2025, until July 26, 2026.

2024 — North Node of Destiny was in Aries and the South Node of Karma in Libra, a position that began on July 17, 2023 and will continue until January 28, 2025.

Messages of self-concept and how we function in relationship and among communities coming at us from all angles most of 2024.

Realizations of, you, me and w and which one was it? On a social cultural level exploring and transmuting victim narratives and finding the intensity to hold ourselves accountable without getting jaded around the communal trajectory of humanity. Really putting the pressure on our personal view of self and how it motivates behavior. The behavior we consciously or unconsciously choose and how that is received by our surrounding community and relationships.

Once we read the room, we kept asking ourselves the subtle question of,

“Is this environment right for me?

Do I need to make a massive change? That would require deep internal work to see myself differently.

What a scary moment? I know I felt it too.

Aries North Node in the destiny pocket, which is in complete alignment with my personal chart. This will always be about asserting personal power and being brave enough to hold that seat in a public space. This can create repercussions in the self-sensory system, feelings of smallness, guilt, shame, frustration, impostor syndrome when the stance we powerfully exist in makes others look at themselves.

Oh the Aries/Libra axis at its best, learning how to assert personal power and group dynamics of: Who does she think she is? Fall in line, that’s not how we do it! Gossip, scarcity mindset, talking poorly of others. This can all arise in the communal space when we take a powerful self-asserted stance. 2024 was a lot of holding that powerful posture and standing in the same place no matter what gets thrown our way energetically.

It can feel lonely in mind/body/heart, to hold a standard for the new version of you; knowing you aren’t quite there yet, but if you don’t try you won’t ever get there.

This is pure Aries North Node Energy, in astrology sessions like I explain Aries energy as a baby crowning. Intense on all levels, pointed, filled with pain and transformation giving away to joy and an all time high flooding the body with hormones. Creating an ecstatic experience. Riding the waves of pushing a new self-concept into the world, Aries energy is a beginning and an ending all at once.

I am not sure our human sides will ever acclimatize to this spiritual process. This feels like the exact gap to keep doing the work, right here, right in this in between space.

+ Sue Hunt

NATURAL ELEMENTS, MOTHERHOOD AND THE CREATIVE JOURNEY

With a card for each week, this art deck walks you through the seasons of the year. Each image has a corresponding poem in the accompanying poetry book that offers a space for contemplation and reflection. Inspired by the elements of nature, motherhood, beauty, imagination, and the birth/death/rebirth cycle, every image was painted with pigment hand made from natural elements. This deck blends abstract with concrete and art with words for a deeper connection to self, earth, and in turn others.

+ Becky Jane Krotts

What is grown in the shadows, is very different than what is grown in the light. Both are necessary. both abundant.

One builds an armor of silver, Glimmering so softly you would think it permeable. But ah, it is not so.

One strings flowers between braidssweetness and grace, but also great strength.

Two truths, One tree. Do you remember when we lay on our bellies looking into each other’s eyes giggling? Sisters.

I never wanted to leave you. Like tree branches, you to the left and me to the right, the farther we outstretch, the deeper our roots grow. We can’t be undone.

At Ease by Erin Marie King

Porto Patchwork by Erin Marie King

IN THE PINES

+ Chimera Mohammadi

The pearls looked unnatural, scattered across the forest floor under the pregnant glow of an incoming Sunday dawn. They sparkled softly like willo-wisps, sending up soft plumes of reflected moonlight. Some fell into the thin white sheen of a grass spider’s web, which caught the pearls and celestial light like a halo glued to the ground. The spider ran in frantic circles between them, entombing them and striking its fangs against the frustratingly hard, white, bloodless flesh. Others were impaled on pine needles, sticks, blades of grass, a thousand dark spears sticking up from the ground.

The forest floor held the beads in rows, like chalk lines marking the body they surrounded, like pearly scars across the ground. Some still clung to the snapped elastic thread as it stretched from the woman’s unmoving neck to the dark black pools surrounding her. The thread was pink and white, an ineffectual IV losing the battle of absorption with the dark mud, which hungrily drank that which poured from her. In a few hand-print puddles, clusters of pearls bobbed and clung to each other like masses of alien eggs. On its own, her blood was blackened by the sallow, colorless dawn light, made opaque and mysterious. It became recognizable only when it stained her skin, clothing, or jewelry. Her dress bloomed dark red over her increasingly pale skin.

The forest was peaceful around her. It seemed like the natural order of things. Birds darted over her body, fierce and glassy-eyed, running to helpless children in thorny nests, some now lined with soft hair. The surrounding trees seemed a little stronger, brighter, more nourished. Their limbs hung over her like protective mourners. Dark stripes of blood ran over their trunks, cordoning off the area. By the time she was found, the blood smears had dried, darkened, and crackled to match the burned, charcoal bases of the trees, the bottom few feet of which were marred by a long-extinguished forest fire. The scene bore traces of trauma unimaginable in the lush verdancy that cradled her body. Above the cauterized wildfire scars, the trees stood over her white and fair.

She lay peacefully for some time. Her skin once matched the fresh white flesh of the birches, high where they met the heavens, untouched by fire. When she was discovered, it had withered to match the deadened ash low on their trunks, close to where the ground held them. She was unseemly. The reporter who rushed to the scene with the police couldn’t stomach the sight of her, so long left unseen, relaxed, and rotting, even through the camera. He relegated an account of her body to the invisible realm of word. The young woman’s final actions were to throw her hands over her chest and hips, one cradling a pocket rosary and the other holding her skirt down, protecting her modesty even in death. His softly eroticized description sowed a seed of myth in the fertile public consciousness.

For a photo, a large closeup of the dirty pearls was emblazoned below the headline - Missing Woman Found in Pine Forest - with an old, small photo from her high school yearbook. Her seventeen-year-old face, virginal and sweet, beamed with radiant purity below the soiled pearls. The public was enchanted. More footage would emerge slowly. A security camera fuzzily remembered her walking through a pharmacy a day or two before her death, her face blurred and indistinguishable as though even then she was seen through the veil. The footage of her buying the fake pearls in the pharmacy covered the front pages of newspapers along with updates about the investigation, which was going nowhere. The image was striking: her lean fingers, nails painted a dark and striking red, crinkling the thin cellophane bag that warped and bulged with the mass of beads, softly pregnant with the unfertilized eggs, hung on a curved metal rod in the beauty aisle. It was the first of two items she would purchase there. The public elected to keep the second item forgotten.

Her funeral was a quiet affair. She was buried quickly before the enormous news spread from the small town. Her closed casket was insulated with family, friends, and old lovers, her world’s population reuniting before dispersing one last time, no longer glued together by her life. They murmured amongst themselves under the supervision of a larger-than-life reproduction of her face, sweet and distinguished, which reigned over the ritual from behind her contained body. Finally, her body fell through the earth it had rested upon for so long, and she descended from purgatory with peace. Shovel by shovel, dark dirt exploded into fireworks over the solid wood surrounding her. So she was laid to rest.

The police examined the forest and her body with little interest. They were tired; crime was abundant; no more women were found, and solving this wouldn’t do any good to her anyway. It was too late for that. The man who had taken her final few minutes of life left his house every morning to go to an uninteresting job. He was unknown and unimportant, left to disappear into the matrix of normalcy from which he had momentarily ruptured. Eventually, he would fall wholeheartedly into the church, feeling himself cleansed by that community of divine power. He would be respected, trusted. His violent act was behind him. He relived it in alien flashes whenever he passed posters of her face on the town bulletin board, proclaiming vigils, services, and speeches in her honor. The news began to spread, and the world lovingly renamed her St. Pearl. Her true name died with her.

With the ashamed excitement of curious children, everyone began to whisper about her death and flesh out her life, birthing the tulpa of St. Pearl from the dead woman’s remains. As the reporter had described her, St. Pearl was a Godly woman, a chaste and modest creature, crushed in that dark wood by some lustful animal. Her spirit was as pure and incorruptible as the pearls that circled her delicate neck. Through the fogs of death and fear, she knew that a woman’s most sacred mission was to remain hidden and untouched in soul and body. The rosary, held so tight that it pierced her gentle hand, protected her clean soul from the sinful aura of her murder as it drew beads of blood from palm to heart. Her hand on the hem of her skirt removed her from suspicion of sin, marking her death as in defense castitatis: in defense of chastity.

St. Pearl became beloved by the church. Across the world, noble heads weighed down by mitres bowed in celebration of her virtuous death. Her name was spoken sweetly in prayer, bellowed from pulpits, forced out between sobs in the rich bellies of churches across the world, echoing into thick velvet tapestries and against thousands of stained windows. Some small sects of men clustered around the idea of her, dedicated hour after hour of reverent prayer to her sweet purity. Countless chains of pearls on rosaries passed through as many fingers and palms.

Months after her burial, the church sent angels in the unremarkable bodies of normal men, who set upon her grave to undo what had been done. Their shovels sank like blades through the soft flesh of earth, which crumbled and reformed into small mountains around them as they dug. They labored for hours while she waited, patient and silent at the bottom of her hole, as the world reformed around her. Finally, they brought her into the world for a second time, her body warmed through the casket by the light and air of the living as she traveled the world. Her flights were paid for and her lodgings arranged with a care and respect she could gain only through death. Her famously untouched body passed through hundreds of hands on her way to Rome.

In that holy city, she was declared to be blessed. The wardens of death there erased the hideous suffering from her body, smoothing wax and paint over the woman’s skeleton, hiding the terrible remains of her mortality. She was given a new face with her new name and life. Her waxen skin was beautiful, pale, and smooth, like the birches where they met the heavens, new flesh swallowing the flawed skin below. The hair of another woman was lovingly sewn into her artificial scalp. Soft lips curled below paintbrushes held by skilled hands. Glass eyes, round and inhumanly pure, watched the hundreds of thousands worshiping at her canonization, the fine and powerful men crying her hagiographic praises from below mountains of rich and beautiful robes.

Once the ritual was done, she was left to lay on a lavish bed of velvet as dark and red as her thin, blooddrenched dress in the forest so long ago. A new casket made of eternally clean glass was built around her. She lay peacefully with a ring of true pearls around her false neck, her fatal wounds gently rendered in bloodless wax and paint, one of many in a museum of agony. Around her, countless beautiful lips and fingers curled in unmoving pain, eyes rolling back below foreign tresses, wounds marked by sparingly painted droplets of blood, delicately arranged that way by lovers of God. Lovers and sinners flocked to her, their fingertips resting against the glass as her own had once brushed the clear plastic that held her fake pearls.

All of this love could have been lost by the second broken ring of pearls on her body. Hidden in a small compact in her pocket — the second thing purchased at that pharmacy – was a ring of twenty-eight pale birth control pills, each assigned to a day, one missing. They were stuck counting down a life that had ended, expiring in a police evidence locker, marking the final days of the young woman’s life leading up to St. Pearl’s birth. Each tiny pill had the power to end something. All had the power to kill the myth of St. Pearl.

+ SMKM

ECHOES OF SNOWFALL

+ Eli Zablosky

Matthew Bourbon, Place to Forget the Question, 2024, 32” x 28”

Matthew Bourbon, Unlabeled States, 2024, 20 x 16 inches

Matthew Bourbon, Contradiction Object, 2024, 32” x 28”

Matthew Bourbon, New Day, 2022, 46” x 36”

NO EXPECTATIONS, TRY HARD & FLOATING DOWN STREAM

Taylor Shaffer

Sam Stroh sponsored athlete and professional rock climber for Arcteryx, La Sportiva, Maxim Ropes & PhysiVantage in conversation with Sue Hunt

Sam and I open this two hour conversation with some friendly banter. Discussing sleep schedules, his indoor/outdoor training plans and his most recent inspiring session at Smith Rock, an iconic sport climbing area in central Oregon. Sam tuned into this interview from a settled place outside Bend, Oregon, his first grounded location in months, after traveling, climbing and filming all year.

We immediately start talking routes and grades, and the Smith Rock style, which suits his strengths and technique. He explains his process of climbing 5.14a and 5.14b more quickly nowadays in a certain style and his gym training finger numbers to translate into the 5.14+ grades.

Sam is from Taos, his family still lives here. Now a professional athlete sponsored by brands like Arcteryx, La Sportiva, Maxim Ropes. I met Sam when he was still in high school and climbing around the Taos area. It’s been so very cool to watch him rise in the global climbing scene for the last six years.

We dip in and out of friend conversation, to specific climbing beta, to his creative direction of projects with some of these mega brands. Then most interestingly the mindset and worldview that propel him into new spaces as a professional climber and creative.

We enter this convo together laughing about vaping, our age difference and a bit of Sam’s highschool to college experience and his coming of age years as a climber.

Sue:

Sam:

Sue:

Sam:

Sue:

Sam:

You vaped in highschool!?!? No you did not! I mean, it is kind of a climber (european flex) to be smoking, climbing and skiing hard, so part of me gets it.

Every single person at my school had a jewel in Texas. But not when I moved to Taos, so finally they are done now because they got sued. I tried cigarettes. Even on El Cap (El Capitan in Yosemite National Park) in my early days I smoked a bunch of cigarettes to release energy and calm down. We definitely didn’t have enough food and it got super funny at times being so ill prepared looking back on it.

Are you going to get to ski this winter? Or does climbing take precedent?

I will ski in Taos! I will be in Taos for like two to three weeks!

I can’t wait to hang!

A bunch of climbing banter back and forth about styles and rock types. Laughing, joking and saying dude every other word and then we finally get into El Cap and his process.

So when your 600ft+ off the deck, what do you say to yourself in your head? You have multiple pitches to go, maybe the crux pitch ahead and what does your self-talk sound like?

I remember when I was younger, it had been days on the wall with my partner and I had the crux pitch ahead, pitch 25, probably like hours 14 in at that point. There is this idea about that particular route, that if you send the crux pitch you will mostly like send the full route, and I knew that. So I kept saying to myself…

As I was tying in I was saying that to myself, I have gotten better at understanding the difference between rational and irrational fear.

Taylor Shaffer

Wow, that’s a very aware and mentally mature distinction. Can you describe the difference between rational and irrational fear?

There is a difference between ‘afraid to try hard, or blow a foot off a chip, or getting in your own head’ in an objectively safe environment with the gear. Then there are places where it’s just a no fall zone. In those places I can feel my mind zoning in and actually fully focused, I just execute and stay super focused. There is also a difference depending on the grade and my preparation. If it’s long - 5.12+ climbing, it’s pumpy and you can’t place much, you know that and I am mentally prepared for that. I am psyched up and it’s very “ goey climbing” full commitment is present. In the more scary no fall zones it’s often less about physical performance and learning how to keep your head screwed on right.

Ok, so that makes sense in theory. That’s a whole different level of self and body awareness, plus route preparation. Can you tell the difference in your nerves and body response if you’re scared from circumstance or if you’re nervous to really TRY HARD and give it your ALL? (TRY HARD is a climbing term that means - at your limit - full make effort of your given physical abilities)

Sue:

Sam:

Sue:

Ian Dzilenski

Sam: I had this on the Zodiac, I found myself in a situation where I was really in peril. It was somewhat easy climbing. But it was day fourteen and I could tell I didn’t trust my body in the same way that I usually do. My body was so ruined and my mind was pretty tapped. I found myself in an anxiety provoking situation, because my systems felt tapped. But really it wasn’t a rational moment because I haven’t fallen on that grade in seven years. So these mindset shifts and techniques don’t always work out perfectly in preparation and self-talk.

It’s a classic moment, most of the time,

THE IDEA OF SOMETHING IS ALWAYS SCARIER THAN ACTUALLY DOING THE THING.

Sue: Great point, that’s such a great statement outside of climbing as well. Let’s extrapolate that to life and not just climbing, what do you think?

Sam: I mean being from Gen Z and being on social media my whole life, it’s probably scarier to sit down next to someone on public transit in real life and say, “Hi”. It can be intimidating to start a conversation in person with someone. But on El Cap you get acclimated quickly and the “idea” of it gets less scary, and the comfort returns. At some point 2,000 ft. up the cliff a certain level of comfort sets in, in your mind, your ability, with your partner and with your safety systems.

Ian Dzilenski

Victoria Kohner-Flanagan

Sue: Oh yes, I love that you bring up partners here, is there anything in particular that you look for in a climbing partner, knowing the levels of intensity you will be in together? How do you click with someone like that?

Sam: That initial chemistry starts on the ground. If you’re on the ground friendship is real enough and strong enough, it translates to being up on the wall. If you can manage crazy life situations with an overall chill attitude, often it translates. Realistically the best thing about a partnership is being with someone where you both make the really shitty moments bearable. If you’re getting rained on, you just gave your 6th attempt on a pitch and you split your tip, you’re super bummed, you drop a shoe and everything is going poorly. Your partner brings up a funny movie line, and you both start laughing. You have enough inside jokes to maintain a light at the end of the very difficult situation.

Sue: This seems so necessary, on and off the wall. This is one of the reasons I think climbing friends and partners have a different kind of deep connection and friendship that feels so unique to climbing partnerships. I want to talk a bit about the balance of climbing partnerships here. Because when you are really going for it, or your partner is really going for it, even as the belayer there is a certain psych you need to maintain for your partner and their successes. Even when those successes are not your own yet. How do you manage this energy back and forth in climbing partnerships?

Sam: This is really hard to strike in a very well balanced way. You need to be present with your partner and their objectives and focus on your own. Overall I feel like it balances out, but there are moments when you each need your own selfish moment. Both people need a time to have their moment, and you both work to maintain this balance.

Sue: Totally get this, you definitely need to understand each other’s subtle cues, of when each of you need center stage to work through different aspects of the full experience. And 15 days with someone in a porta-ledge, you’re really going to get to know them. Their breakdown moments, their beta, their slap-happy exhausted funny sides. I mean you’re going to watch each other poop at least once a day I hope.

We both break out into laughter and it takes a moment for us to return to baseline.

Sam:

Sue:

Sam:

Sue:

Sam:

Sue:

And truthfully some people won’t be able to handle your slap-happy moments and your lowest of low moments. Because sometimes the lows are really low. If you can let it all out and they can hang, then you know that’s a keeper person in your life. If they can’t then that’s ok too.

This is one of the most rad parts of climbing, because you get to learn yourself as well and who you are deep down in the most exciting and nail biting situations.

For myself, this is a process. It is so good and it also has a sharp end to it. What’s so cool is to give a really focused, intentional redpoint attempt on a pitch we have been trying for days, that is super rad. There is a dark side to it, when it doesn’t go well, there is a moment when you blow up. Being able to harness all of that passion into something that you really care about, and when you don’t get it done…that reaction moment can be UGLY, in all honesty. You also have those ugly moments, and so does your partner. You get better at dealing with them over time, but it happens.

That sounds healthy to have a reaction to a level of passion and intensity, it feels like it’s a huge piece of the energy you channel to actually get the thing done!

So what else are you nerding out on right now, climbing wise?

El Cap seems to be your main interest, and that big wall style, epic planning and execution process seems to really get you super excited! I know you still have so much fun bouldering and sport climbing. But there seems to be a lot of excitement and knowledge for you around big wall, multi-pitch. As well as traveling to climb big wall stuff you haven’t climbed before. Can you take us deeper into this, what’s it all about and why does it keep your attention?

I wouldn’t say I am solely obsessed with El Cap. That type of climbing is very much like tripping on mushrooms, there is this non-addictive side to it. Like when you have a challenging trip, or challenging moments in a trip, when you come out of it, the last you want to do is do another one right away. You have to get back into the headspace, the set and setting is really important when getting ready for a big project on El Cap.

You are sounding so TAOS right now and I love it. So you have to do a whole dieta before you climb El Cap, I am loving this!

Both of us were laughing hysterically mid interview.

Ian Dzilenski

Sam: Yah, I mean it is kinda true. I do a lot of journaling to get ready for it. Because when I am up there and all the ropes are tangled and everything sucks,

I HAVE TO REMIND MYSELF TO JUST FLOAT DOWNSTREAM. EVERY SITUATION IS IMPERMANENT.

I had a great season last year in El Cap and I was only in the valley two months total. I had a really successful season, so I am less of an urge to go back right now. Yosemite is a proving ground in a way, with a rich history. It’s historic, and you know about these climbers that have done these groundbreaking ascents. It’s a place you go to prove yourself.

It’s so iconic and if you climb you know it and you watch it. And it’s been so cool watching you take on these iconic climbs from afar. I just knew it, the first time we met, I mean I was in my 30’s and you were in high school. I just remember being like, “this little dude is so talented and I can’t wait to see what he does!”

I am loving this chill sport climbing experience at Smith right now, being with my girlfriend and people I love to climb with. All in all I also love these complex trips and experiences of big walls and climbing in places that are new to me.

Let’s talk about some international trips that you took this year and the exciting details of those. You get to creative direct a lot of your athlete shoots for some of these major brands. I am sure there are some fun stories to share. I mean many of the viewers and consumers of outdoor industry gear might not really get what goes into these climbing trips and shoots. This is such an expansive iteration of your career and I wanna hear all about it.

I was just in Spain trying this hard big wall climb up in the mountains and it had a lot of logistical hurdles to get over. Sleeping at basecamp in a tent, no bathroom, eating dehydrated food, long approaches, and you’re just dealing with so many discomforts. You’re trad climbing so there is inherently more risk, planning and self-protection mechanisms at play for me climbing and for the crew photographing and filming. You tend to move a bit slower. These big, high risk trips have also taught me to have more of a restorative mind set, and when I get that chance to restore I have to take it.

Photography by Taylor Shaffer

Sue:

Sam: Sue:

Sam:

Sue:

Sam:

This totally resonates, sometimes you have to temper the ‘try hard’ or the risk and the pressure it puts on your mind and the bodily systems. It’s high stakes climbing, and its high stakes now that it’s your job as well. I don’t think you could be climbing at the level you’re climbing at without a serious drive. Do you see this drive translate to other parts of your life in a positive way?

Oh yeah, this drive has helped me so much sort out the difference between personal habits that are helpful and some that are degrading. I have this ability to work with and work on the degrading ones, and really see a vision. And then work to see it come into fruition. Having the patience and drive to see something through; progressing my relationship with my girlfriend, Madeline, or quitting smoking, or seeing this commitment to other relationships or goals. My work is so related to my climbing but this innate drive, climbing stokes within me gives me a strong sense of self when communicating with designers on the Arcteryx teams, or teaching a clinic at a climbing event. I just want to do the best I can in every situation.

I want the time and effort I am giving to many situations to produce the most value that it can.

Sue: Sam:

Sue:

I do think it is innate to your core personality and values, and I can see how climbing- it being so problem solving oriented really has refined this physical, emotional and mental skill of yours. To harness that drive and funnel it in different directions, professional and personal.

Agreed, I think climbing at any level and being willing to tie in for that redpoint again and again gives you a certain ability to take on big things and stick with them.

This is an insanely interesting cross section of the mental space, to keep trying something that’s hard for you with no real end point of when it’s going to be accomplished, really until you do the damn thing. Sometimes that takes days and sometimes that takes years. There is a mental fortitude that gets developed, let’s talk about it, this is gold…

Sam:

Sue:

Sam:

It is cliche to say “trust in the process”, I think you can take it one step further to enjoying every step of the process. Tying in to “try hard” and you are confronted with failure and you fail so often in the sport of climbing. We fail a lot in the process of trying. You have to look at the little wins and the tiny moments of progression. Noticing the smallest little thing can transform your mindset from negative to positive.

I totally agree, “projecting” has totally changed my mindset out in the world as I am living my life, really echoing back what you just said in a larger context. This problem solving mindset with an edge of grit is a learned skill set. We learn to negotiate with ourselves while working through a project towards an end goal. We learn to adjust our mindset quickly when it gets flat or down on oneself. Do you have any mental moments, or projecting experiences you want to share in the context of climbing and how that has affected the way you move through life?

Well…I am honestly really thinking about it…I trend more toward trying to have no expectations, I really see this in my climbing! I am naturally a worse case scenario kind of person. My girlfriend is totally the opposite, which is a great balance. In terms of projecting, and life mindset I see the benefit to pessimism and optimism so no expectations seems to be the middle path for me. Most of my best climbing moments, and best performances were not when I was being optimistic or the context was perfect. I was being realistic “I am good enough and experienced enough to try!” For the Zodiac, we went up there and totally said “let’s just see how this goes”. My expectations were low, and I had to keep coming back to, “I am just going climbing”. I can still harness my drive and keep my expectations low, and give myself full permission to try no matter the context - be it weather, bad skin day, feeling tired etc…

Victoria Kohner-Flanagan

Photography by Taylor Shaffer

Sue:

Sam:

Sue:

Sam:

Sue:

Sam:

Sue:

Yes, I can hear you saying you have the skill and confidence in your body, it sounds like a certain level of self-trust. Staying out of the positive/negative binary. You trust that your body can do it, you know you’re in your league. This was so well said Sam and really helpful mindset shifts in climbing and in living a full life.

When I was younger and greener, I had a bit more of that force it mentality. These little moments do feel necessary for accomplishing big goals. I do see it as unsustainable to always be pushing and going for these mega rigs all of the time. No expectations feels a bit more full spectrum for me.

I hear ya, it’s not always pretty to get the big stuff done. In the micro moments you have to push to get some things done. I also hear your saying your worldview and bigger picture of life/climbing is shifting and your grappling with how I keep pushing my limits as a climber and love the sport along the way. Seems like two tracks of mind running side by side. This feels so important to climbing at a high level. You have those micromoments of try hard and it’s like an existential/physical push, and then you have another gear of reflection, sustainability and no expectations from a bigger view.

YES! And then there are the magic moments where, you’re crimped down trying as hard as you can, your mind set has no expectations, you’re performing well and then you add a little bit of luck — the part you can’t control. Like a breeze or something, and this whole moment is few and far between, but when it happens it’s rare and you never lose that. Sometimes I come back to a psilocybin trip to relate these epic climbing moments to, so much feeling is going on those moments. All of this makes a huge impact on my climbing and how I live.

I am sure! When you look back at the whole thing it’s probably so hard to put it into words, so embodied and so out of body. You asked me a couple months back for a link to an Alan Watts book to read. I love how your interest in Zen and eastern philosophy has grown over the years. I can see you linking this philosophical outlook to your embodied climbing experiences.

Totally, reading an Alan Watts book in itself, like just reading it — is not going to change how I act out in the world. But how I feel in those moments link it all together with that philosophy really changes how I behave out in the world. On top of that you are spending time with people you are really connected to, you’re in beautiful environments, you are putting yourself in challenging scenarios, using your mind and body all creating flow states.

Dudes, YYYEEEESSSS, turn on all the sensory data portals and let it rush through like that, it really does change you! I really understand what you mean when you say “it’s sticky”. Climbing and the experience of it has a way of making massive changes in us. And many of us who get obsessed seek these experiences. I am so excited for you and this trajectory, always rooting for you from afar!

Sam: Last thing I want to talk about to close this out, is that in climbing you also have massive periods of regression and this can be hard to take a step back and reframe these. Sometimes it’s hard to remember while regressing, this will end at some point. I like to think that when things are regressing it’s just as impermanent as when things are clicking and you’re sending.

Sue: This is brilliant, I know this pivot moment in the psyche, now I am totally getting you on an embodied level. You stop prejudging and you stop wondering or thinking forward about how you are going to perform that day, because in the end the more you climb you have the “best” experiences in the most unfavorable contexts and it totally rewrites the self-talk around expectation.

Sam: I have been having that experience lately even while climbing, not just on the approach or the morning of. I will pull the first crux, and I am honestly feeling worse than normal. I am on the rest and I can hear myself saying,

“This doesn’t mean that I can’t do it!”

And this is actually a really big moment in itself. Some days you feel like a million bucks and some days you feel like complete shit and it’s pretty arbitrary. We can steady our ability to feel good and perform well, and overall it’s just craziness and really impermanence.

Sue: MIC DROP SAM. Can’t wait to talk to you soon, climb soon and ski Taos this winter dude.

So much love to you.

Photography by Taylor Shaffer

AIR AND EARTH

+ Fiona Nodar

There is no skyscape without the land

No air without earth

No earth without eyes

Her slits squinting into noble vision

Beyond the splitting valley, beyond the hushing river, beyond that great ball of fire

He who bronzes, burns and scatters the ashes among hardy fields of wild sagebrush.

There is no love poem without demolition

No deep breath without death

No death without intuition

One August I intuited a timeless land

She quieted me, brought me hand-to-hand across the desert sea

Awoke in me those survival skills of the cells, laid out a brand new stretch of membrane, covered me in dry and thirsty flesh.

There, a flash of remembrance

Nested in a renaissance of ancient existence

Chop wood, carry water, repeat

Howl at the harvest moon, rest in peace

Wake up blinded by the light, reap

Sow, reap, sow, reap

Pause, repeat

Find a dusty peace beneath the dry blood of these holy mountains that watch over me.

Photography by Moss Halladay

Moss Halladay

Photography by Moss Halladay

HEADING HOME, AGAIN

+ Jake Winn

The water on the lake was very still but every so often a boat would come by and leave some wake. She wanted to climb down onto one of the docks and go into the water and I didn’t say anything either way. We dropped the bikes in a bush then noticed a man tying up a boat. She said we would do it at the next dock, but then there was a person pitching a fishing line, and at the next one a woman sitting out on an Adirondack chair, humming.

We kept on. Sweat started down and mixed with the sunscreen and dripped into my eye and tasted very bitter. A few men working on an old boat in a long driveway told us to carry on this way, and they offered us a beer. The road was not well marked, and the signs were all grown over. There was a gate to stop the cars from coming, but you could get around it if you went up in the trees. The path started beyond the gate. We did not know if we could pass there but we saw another couple do it, so we did it as well. She did not recognize anything until the path ended and we could hear some children and smell the water. We dragged the bikes some fifty yards in the sand underneath the trees until we could see the water. We took the swimsuits from the backpack, and I checked to see if anyone was watching. There wasn’t anyone for a while each way. She told me this was because there were many other ways of getting to this beach. I offered to tie the strings of her bathing suit.

“The sand is hot,” I said. It had gotten into my shoes. “Are you ready for your sandwich?”

“In a minute,” she said. “I think first I’d like to swim.”

A party boat was moored out some ways and we could hear their music and some splashing. She waded out towards it. The water came only to her ankles for a while, and then slowly to her knees, and by the time it reached her stomach she was very far out there. It was cool in the water. The air was hot and dry, and she said to me how it felt good once you warmed up to it, and she went under. I waded out, and then looked back at the things and the bicycles in the brush. She was splashing. The sun glistened on the water and the water reflected in her eyes.

“You come alive in the water,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“What I said, I don’t know.” I went under. “It happens every time we’re in the water. You just come alive.”

“It’s because I’m a water sign, maybe.”

“Yes,” I said, “maybe.”

She wrapped her legs around me; I was sitting on the sand and still our heads were above the line. She brought me in so that I could hear her heart while the water beat gently against her back. From the shoreline you could see the tide was slowly falling.

“There’s a parking lot somewhere around there, but we only ever came here on the boat. My dad had a boat since before I was born, and we used to take it out here and anchor and swim around a bit while they drank and forgot about us. It was me and my cousins sometimes, and sometimes the kids of my parents’ friends. When they all weren’t there, and when it was just us - him and I - we would take the boat out into the open water, and go skiing. Sometimes we would go skiing all day long. He loved to pull me on the boat. I could stay up for a really long time, and on one ski, too. I would kick the other one off and we would leave it way behind and have to come all the way back around for it.

I had this friend, Nathan, back then, and he would sometimes come out with us. He was also very good at skiing. We would let him out and ride him hard on the waves and he would call in to slow down and we would ride him harder; back and forth in the wake until he gave up and let go. My dad would pretend like he couldn’t hear him at all the whole time.

“That sounds dangerous,” I said.

“I don’t remember. He was in control, I think. Though he sometimes couldn’t see out of his one eye. That only got worse as he got older, and so we had to stop skiing eventually and then we hardly ever took the boat out at all.”

“Do you want to have your sandwich now?”

“Can we swim out a little further?”

“How much further can we go?”

“It’s shallow like this for a while and then it falls off at some point, but I’m not sure when.”

“Dark water.”

“Yes. It’s much colder there, but I like it. It’s exciting, and it makes you remember to breathe.” She went under and propelled off me and I watched her from above the water and because of how still the water was and how clear. She swam out far without coming up for air.

I followed her. I was not used to swimming in such cold water, and it sometimes did take my breath away. She was a very good swimmer. We floated out in the cold, dark water. She wrapped her legs around me again and we both went under because the water was just too deep.

“Alright,” she said, “let’s have our sandwiches, now,” and we raced back to the shore until the water got too shallow to swim and we had to stand, and she climbed onto my back, and I walked in with her on my back like that.

We did not pack towels in the backpack, so we wiped our hands on our dry clothes. I put my sunglasses on, and she set up the sandwiches on a picnic table. We had also brought one cider and a beer, which had made the backpack heavier. I knew it would be worth the weight. They were both still cold.

“Maybe later, when we get back, we can watch a movie if you want to. We have some leftover pasta, and we could finish that puzzle maybe, if there’s enough light for it, what do you think?”

“That sounds nice,” I said. “We could stop in town for a nice bottle of red.”

“Yes, that would go well. We still have some vodka still, and that bottle of white.”

The beer tasted good, it was very warm out and the water was peaceful. You could still hear the music coming from the boat and the other people down the beach were laughing in one direction.

“How far have we come, would you say?”

“On the bikes? A few miles.”

“What time is it? Do you know?”

“We still have time, still.”

The sandwiches were good, too, but somewhat soggy. She was disappointed in them. They were not like the ones she remembered getting when she was a kid.

“Did you come up here every year?”

“Not every year, but sometimes twice a year. It’s all much smaller than I remember it. Isn’t it funny how that happens?”She had her sunglasses on, and I could not see her eyes, only my own reflection, and the water behind me.

“Are you finished eating?”

“Yes. You can have this half if you want it.”

“That’s alright, we can save it for later.”

“I don’t think I’ll want it later.”

“Should we go?”

“In a bit. I’d like to finish my cider first.”

We laid out and dried off in the sun, quickly, and she sipped her cider slowly. I wished I’d brought another beer. The sand caked to our backs and the backs of our legs and suits. She found some long black rocks and she took my hand and laid them out on top of my fingers very delicately. I took a picture. Then she skipped the rocks on the water until she got bored of this and knocked back her cider and tossed the can in the backpack and we left.

“Will you write a story about this one day?” She asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, “maybe.”

“How do you know what will make a good story?”

“Sometimes you just know, I don’t know. Sometimes you don’t know until a long time later. Some you think will be, but then they just aren’t.”

“Do you ever wish you’d written more of it down?”

“Yes. But you can’t write everything down. Sometimes the memory has to be enough.”

“But it’s always a little bit different, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s sometimes much smaller.”

She smiled. “It’s sometimes bigger, too, though, isn’t it?”

“Often, I think it’s much bigger.”

“If you write a story about this sometime, you should try and get it just right, because it’s harder to get it just right, and not to make it bigger or smaller or different. You don’t have to remember everything, or that I said this, or that.

But you should try and get it right, because I think right is better, even if it’s not exactly as it happened.”

“Okay.”

“I think you’re a very good writer.”

“I don’t feel that way. I feel like I’m just pretending to be someone.”

“That could be part of what makes you very good.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I know I am. One day you will be great.”

She kissed me and she got on her bike. I followed her on the dirt path back toward the gate. Where we took the bikes up through the trees and around, back to the main road.

“Why don’t we go out to dinner?” I called after her.

“What about the movie, and the nice bottle of red?”

“We could do that, too, if you want.”

“It’s up to you.”

“We can see how we feel when we get back.”

She nodded. “I still think I might like to write movies, someday. Although, they tend to get things bigger than they are.”

“Sometimes, yeah, I guess.”

“Most times, probably. It’s very hard to get things just right.”

“Maybe you could be a journalist. They get things right sometimes.”

“I could be. I don’t know.”

“Or how about a politician, they almost never do.”

She laughed. Her father was a journalist. I remembered the videos of him. I remembered her remembering his videos.

We turned the bikes in early and they gave me back my driver’s license and I signed the receipt. There was still so much sand all over. We got it all over the floor of the rental car and everything. We stopped for a bottle of wine. She checked her messages on my phone, and we talked about tomorrow. The plan was to drive back to town in the morning and to meet some friends of hers out at a gorge.

“Elaina and her boyfriend want to get there at ten, the weather should be nice for it. Her friend Danny will also be there. Danny and Elaina were very close in college. We used to make out together every time we got drunk. Whenever I went down to Rhode Island to visit, which I guess was only two or three times. He’s very nice, and very funny, and I think you might like him a lot. Elaina says he’s changed a lot since graduating, but hasn’t everyone? Except for me. You know, I don’t think I’ve changed very much.”

Eli Zablosky

The car was packed up in the morning before the sun went up, and we stopped at the general store for coffee and some gas. Marianne slept most of the way there, it was only a few hours drive. I had to wake her when we pulled off the highway, because I did not have enough service to get directions, and the place was well off the main road.

There was a sign on the way, and some crosses decorated in faded fake flowers.

“Those are for the kids who died here,” she said. “Five or six every year. You hear about some of them, some of them you know, most of them you don’t know.”

“And yet you all still go?”

Their car was parked on the side of the road and theirs was the only car parked there. We changed behind the open car doors. Marianne thanked me for coming here with her. I carried the backpack down the hill through the woods. I turned around to make sure I’d locked the car. She went down barefoot and stubbed her toe on a rock, it did not bleed. She held my arm for balance, and I held onto a tree.

“I used to be very good at this,” she said. “We used to come down here every weekend, when it wasn’t cold, and even sometimes when it was.”

“I can’t imagine coming down here in the dark.”

“We came down here when we were drunk, too.”

The others were on a rock slate down the way. You had to climb up and over and down another rock formation just to get to them. They’d spread out towels and carried down a cooler and they had music and their feet in the water.

We had brought a very small bottle of sunscreen and not enough spray for the bugs. They were on us already. I lathered her back and she mine, until we were pale with it and there was no more left in the bottle. The sun baked down and it made the rock hot. I had a hat and so did she, but I had not brought any sunglasses.

Henry rolled a joint. He was without a shirt on. Elaina had a shirt on. Danny was in a very small bathing suit. Elaina asked Marianne about the drive in and if she’d taken me yet around the town.

Marianne said, “We went to the playground at the elementary school and there wasn’t anyone there. We sat on the swings for a long time. It was very strange to be back there.”

“I’m sure it’s strange to be back here, entirely.”

“In some ways, yes. And how is school going for you?”

“I’m off for the summer.”

“Of course.”

“And in the fall, Henry and I are going to Brazil again, to volunteer.”

“I didn’t know that you were going back to Brazil,” Marianne said, and to me, “that’s where they met, volunteering in Brazil.”

“I know,” Elaina said, “I haven’t had the chance to tell you.”

Henry offered me the joint. Danny fiddled with the music. It was very oppressive music; the beat was repetitive, loud and continuous. He did not move along with the music. He only changed it, and, like the others, pretended it was not playing. He smoked a cigarette. His teeth looked like he’d smoked a lot of cigarettes. He offered me a cigarette. I took a beer instead and thanked them all for it.

“We have to initiate him,” Elaina said, “whenever everyone’s finished with their beers.”

Marianne opened a cider and she and I waded into the water. It was very cold and felt good on our feet.

“I feel very high,” I said. “That was very strong weed.”

She said, “I never used to smoke it in high school because it always made me paranoid.”

“I can see how that could happen.”

“I can feel myself burning.”

“Do you want more sunscreen?”

“We don’t have any more.”

“I can go back out.”

“Will you be alright to drive?”

“Maybe I will wait a little while.”

“It’s alright, I’ll be fine, I’ll just try and keep in the shade.”

I asked Henry where he was from, and he said from around here, also. His whole life he’d been coming to this gorge. I said how crazy it must’ve been to meet Elaina all the way down in Brazil, when they’d grown up so close to each other. He agreed that it was crazy, but admitted he hadn’t really thought of it. We waded out to our waists. Danny finished his beer and started up behind us, but had not paused the music, and it echoed faintly off the rocks and off the water.

Then it got deep, and the current picked up and we had to swim, until we reached the rocks, and climbed out and up. The rocks were very slick. They led to the first pool where the water was much colder even than the stream had been. It foamed from the waterfall and also it was very loud.

“We take everyone here,” Elaina said, “everyone we’ve ever brought to the gorge.”

“It’s true,” Marianne said.

“Are you ready?” Elaina asked.

“Sure,” I said, “alright.”

She led the way up the next set of rocks to where the waterfall began and poured into a smaller, colder pool, much louder than the first. It was a maneuver and a leap over slick rocks, and I was feeling alert and also very high. Henry went after and then Marianne. She was not as graceful as the others had been. She did not hesitate though, and tested footholds and trusted the placement of each hand as she went up. My foot slipped on the landing, I wavered and quickly squatted to join them. They said I had done a good job.

“So, I just put my foot here?” Danny asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Or there is just as well.”

“Careful on the landing,” Marianne said.

“Just jump,” Elaina said. “But, yes, you ought to be careful on the landing.”

The way back down was the same as up, though we were prepared for it this way, quicker and with a little less fear. Then, we climbed back out, on the slate rock beach. Walked up the rock formations, into the stream and up into the forest. Then up, up, further upstream. Henry took the lead. He jumped quickly, from one rock on to the next. Danny, in the back, was not wearing any shoes and he was timid with the climb and spread his arms out wide for balance. We passed the large rock where some other kids practiced their high dive jumping. Marianne wanted to jump off and Elaina said we could come back and do that, because you had to go all the way around to get back.

We climbed like frogs over the rocks in the shallow stream to an area of brief calm. The idea was to lean back and let the current pull you back down stream, but you had to keep your legs up and your stomach up so that you would not scrape on the rocks as you went. Henry went first, and I followed him. It was nice and fun for a time and I did nick myself some and stood up when I got to where Henry was.

“I can’t imagine what it was like to grow up here,” I said. “Where I’m from, we don’t have rock formations, or gorges, or mountains even. It’s mostly marsh and ocean. Our greatest adventures were around the cul-de-sac.”

He told me about his adventures with his fathers and his older brothers, long hikes, and excursions. He had very thin, light hair that dried quickly in the sun. We stood as the stream beat around our legs.

“Are you going to get to do any hiking while you’re up here?” He asked. I told him we were. He recommended some mountains for us to go to.

“We went biking yesterday and kayaking the day before. That’s when she dropped her phone in the lake.”

He laughed at that. I looked upstream. We could not see them from where we stood, or what it was that was taking them.

“Should we go back and check on the others?” I asked.

“I’m sure they’ll be along. But we can, if you want.”

He climbed out and I followed him along the rocks. They were laying in the water before the drop off. Marianne was rolling on her stomach, running her hands through the murky water, filtering the rocks from the mud like she was looking for gold. Then she looked up at me. Her eyes looked so much bigger in the water, always. Freckles formed along her nose and cheeks. Henry got in and went for the same ride over the rocks once more.

Elaina said, “we’ve just heard there’s going to be a wedding someday.”

“Yes,” I said, “someday.”

“I love weddings,” she said, “I hope I’ll be invited.” She followed Henry over.

“I’m very fried,” Danny said, “and could certainly use a cigarette, and another beer.” He climbed up on the rock ledge. “I guess that’s the best way back, huh? I just lay like this… and…” He followed Elaina.

The screams and voices disappeared up stream and the water calmed, and trees went back to their sway.

“It wasn’t intentional, us talking about marriage and all of it. I was just looking for something to talk about, and it came up that we drove by the Old Lantern and walked around and looked at it. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I don’t.”

“She really likes you, I think. She just misses me, misses what we had. I feel bad. We both do.”

“I understand.”

“It’s sad in a way though.”

“What is?”

“That we can never really go back. That is, that things won’t ever be that way again.”

“I understand.”

“Are you ready to go?” She asked. I smiled, and so did she.

“You go on first.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just got a chill, and now I can’t seem to get warm.”

“Get under the water,” she said.

“I’ll be alright.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“You know I didn’t have that Tom Sawyer kind of childhood.”

She ran her hands against my shoulders and arms, and we got out and sat on the rocks and in the sun and I laid back and I closed my eyes and she started to sing. The colors of the trees and the rocks and the water were all much brighter with my eyes closed. The wind spread around her song and then swallowed it and brought stillness.

“Think of the generations of people that have stepped on this shore,” I said, after some silence. “They’ve all done this already, you know. They’ve been, and seen, and known, and died, and maybe even been again. You think of all the people that this sand has known, and all the experiences it’s been a part of.”

“And now we’re here.”

“And now we’re here, and this is it. This is our turn to take our part in it.”

“That makes it sound so futile.”

“Maybe. I think it’s peaceful. At least there’s peace in it.”

“I don’t know if I know what you mean.”

“We could be anywhere,” I said, “anyone, at any time.”

“Yes. I’m glad we’re here, though, and I’m very glad we’re together.” She rested her head on my chest until it calmed, and we went back into the water.

They gave us the name of a campsite at the base of the mountain where you could set yourself up right off the lip of the path. We drove into town and stopped for gas. She went inside for some water and a snack so that we might sober up before driving all the way to the mountain. We sat in the back with the trunk open and watched the cars pass by.

“You got some color,” she said.

“Well, so did you.” I looked in the car window. “I guess I did, too. But we didn’t burn, or at least not too badly.”

“We never got to jump off the big rock into the water.”

“That’s alright.”

“It was always my favorite part.”

“Well, I’m glad we didn’t… It wouldn’t have been worth it.”

“You enjoyed the rest of everything, though, didn’t you?”

“I did. I feel like I know you much better now.”

“In which ways?”

I told her the ways.

“It doesn’t feel much like a home anymore, not since I left for school, or since they moved away. We have to sleep in a tent. I don’t have a home here anymore.”

There was an old Coke machine around the side of the gas station, and some crushed up cinder blocks stacked up against the dumpster. And at the curb, a puddle from an old rain, and in the street, the cars passing.

“I can be your home,” I said. She smiled, and then she started to cry.

We climbed the mountain in the morning. There was a very nice view of the other mountains from this one and that is why she liked this one so much. The mountains were lush and green and the valley deep and also undeveloped. We ate sandwiches away from the other people there. We nuzzled in a deep crack in the rocks, with a ledge where we could place the beer and the cider on while we ate and without them spilling.

Diggy Lloyd

“I wish we could stay up here forever,” she said.

“We could, we could just live up here. People do that, people live in the mountains.”

“Yes. I know. I’m sure we could. I’m ready to head down, though, whenever you are.”

“Let’s stay a while longer, why not? Tell me again about your dad.”

“Which story?”

“Any of them.”

“Okay. Did I ever tell you how he packed my lunch with Cheerios and a banana every day. Or how I got mad at him for not having any food in the house ever, and then when I came home from college the first winter, he was so excited to show me all the things he’d bought? Or do you want to hear about the time at the horse show, or about the way he surprised me at the eleventh mile of the half marathon. And how he came to every performance of all the school plays?”

“Any of them.”

“You’ve heard all the good ones already.”

“I’ll hear them again.”

“Okay.” She told the one about the plate she threw and how mad he got, and it was the maddest she had ever seen him. I had heard that one before too, but even though it was a hard story to tell, it did not make her sad to tell it.

“What did your mother do after you threw the plate?”

“I don’t remember, she cried maybe, why?”

“I don’t know, no reason.”

“I wasn’t very easy on her.”

“No. I don’t think so either.”

“It was hard, even though it might not look like it.”

“I know. Still, she loves you very much.”

“I know that, of course I do.” She finished her cider and shoved the empty can back into the backpack. “Maybe later, we can go into the lake by our camp.”

“Yes, I think I’d like to do that, after dinner.”

“Or we can play a game and wait until it gets very late and we can lay in the road and watch the stars, like we did that first time. There are a lot of trees but also a lot of stars, and I’m sure there are hardly any cars that come through here at nighttime.”

“I think I’d like to do that, too.”

She held my hand, and we caught the mountain air, and she closed her eyes and I mine. Then she stood, and we walked together back down the mountain.