This story wants to be written.  Every time I try to avoid it, it pops up again, nagging me with an insistence I really can't like.  Writing it wouldn't mean I had to publish it, but I have decided to, with a little help from a friend.  (Thanks, Wendy; and for these quotes that helped.) 

  I was standing in the kitchen of a modern house in Boulder, Colorado, staring down at a letter from my mother on the counter.

  The house, where I lived with three roommates and four dogs, was eerily silent, and I could hear my heart in my ears.  It was a sterile suburban house, and none of us would have chosen it, except for the fact that the owner allowed dogs, which was becoming rarer all the time in Boulder.  The white, textured walls and grunt-green carpet in my peripheral vision contributed to the rubbery-reality-stretching I was experiencing.

   My parents were in the process of separating, and I had just flown to California (again) to drive my mother back to Boulder for a visit; she wanted to formulate a plan for her life during her stay.  She'd been injured in a car accident years before, and her doctors hadn't found some broken cervical vertebrae that were causing her lots of pain and immobility.  As it sometimes happens in those cases, there were vague accusations against her of malingering, or hysteria, or who the hell knows what, but she was nevertheless well-supplied with pain meds.  Between the drugs and increased alcohol use, she devolved over time into an unhappy and paranoid version of her former self.  The eventual surgical repair several years later helped her pain somewhat, but couldn't fix the damage to her soul or her spirit.  So I brought her to Boulder to try to help her heal, or at least give her some respite from her personal hell...or something.

  She had the most romantic notions of log cabins and mountains, and nothing would do for her but to stay in a little cabin.  I found a motel at the mouth of Boulder Canyon: each room was its own petite cabin, with a tiny bathroom and a tiny wall heater.  She loved it.

  After a week or so, she said she wanted to take a trip into the mountains by herself.  Check.  She would call me after a few days and we'd plan from there.  Check.

  On this particular morning the day after she had 'left for the mountains,' I got a letter in the mail.  It said, in effect: By the time you read this, I will be dead.  I am in a motel near the Denver airport, and close to your cousin Jim's house.  I have left a note with his number on it, and being near the airport will make things easier for all that will come next.  It was apparent from the letter's date and the postmark that it had arrived earlier than she had counted on.

  Much of what ensued is blurry for me.  I called the police, who said they would send a car and some officers to help.  While I waited, one roommate and her boyfriend came home.  After reading my mom's letter, they asked for a description of her car, and headed to Denver.  They would damned well find her!  An absurd notion, but off they went, while I waited for the police, who never did show up, which is still perplexing; but against all odds, my friends found her!   They had cruised motel parking lots in areas near the airport until they did.  She was still alive when the manager unlocked the door to her room.

  They phoned me with the unbelievable news, and I managed to cadge a ride to Denver General Hospital where the ambulance had taken her.

  I asked for her at the admissions desk, and was directed to the basement ('follow the green tape on the floor' instructions included).  Fuck.  It was the Jail Unit of the hospital.  It was still illegal in Colorado to attempt suicide.  Illegal.  When I walked into the room, I found my mother handcuffed to a gurney, lying on her side, trying unsuccessfully to find a comfortable position that the short chain of the cuffs would allow.  I can cry now to remember the stricken and sheepish look on her face, mixed with the despair of finding herself still alive. 

  I remember none of the dialogue between us, save her pitifully small voice asking for a cigarette.  Now, back then smoking was still allowed in hospitals, but there was, by God, no smoking for hospital jailbirds!  She should suffer a bit more; having her stomach pumped of the barbiturates she'd swallowed wasn't quite punishment enough, I guess.

  Shock protects us in emergencies like this, ensures that the molecules of our brains and bodies don't explode into space, dulls the pain into almost manageable levels.  It can help us to perform like automatons; but it makes everything seem like we are moving and speaking underwater, at least for me.  Bright lights, merciless bright lights showed every pained angle of my mother's face, and her struggle, mirroring my own.  What next?  What do I do?  I'll have to call my pop for help; I'm twenty, haven't any money or a car, or any of the skills this calls for; I'm in a strange city, in a fucking jail cell.  Oh, mom.  I can recall sitting with her, and talking, and holding her free had, but like still shots produced by a camera, with no flow or continuity; just the click-click, whirr of the shots.

  Gradually I tuned in to a voice softly calling, "Help me; please help me."  I followed the sound of the voice, a woman's, to a corner, where I saw a hand gripped around the bars of a door.  A cell door.  "Please come here," she begged.  I went over to her cell.  She was dark-haired and forty-something, and well-dressed; standing in a tiny barred cell.  "Call someone for me; I should not be here.  You have to help me."  And she must have told me more about her incarceration and its wrongness, but I didn't register it; I just wasn't able to.

  Christ in a canoe, it was like I'd gone through the Looking Glass.  Ennui and confusion engulfed me; there was no way I could make an informed decision about whether I should help her, much less could help her!  I must have whimpered, "I'm sorry...my mother...I don't know..." and backed away.  Her voice, louder, followed me.  I retreated, trying to gather myself.  I should call my pop; he'd have to help.

  I was so hungry, it had been at least a day since I'd eaten.  I went out to the nurse's desk, and asked if there were a place to get something to eat or drink.  "Ah," said a nurse.  "We have some milk in the refrigerator; I'll get you a carton."  She did.  I was so grateful, it sounded heavenly to get something in my stomach, to sop up the acids of fear and shock.  I opened the little box greedily, and sucked down a big glug of it.  And immediately realized it was rotten, so out of date it had curdled and smelled like it was black around the edges...  I threw it up into the nearby drinking fountain.

  It may have been the day that I subconsciously decided that it would be good for me to become a fan of irony; I swear. 

  Did the nurses let me call my pop?  I can't remember; but he said it would take some time to get to Denver, but he'd try to send someone from the Denver branch of his company to help until he could arrive.  Mr. Had-two-heart-attacks-already would come and help sort things out.  Oy.  His surrogate arrived a couple hours later, and was very helpful.  He advised getting my mom the hell out of the nasty Denver General, and checked in across the street at another, better, hospital.  Under his direction, we did it: my Homely Angel of Mercy, in front of whom I was embarrassed for my mother's condition, and afraid that he might gossip about it to others in the company.  I'm sure I never thanked him adequately, and am equally certain he didn't mind.

  Somehow during the night we got my mother to the tall, blue edifice of Saint Joseph's, where it was said they had a nice mental wing.  They could take care of her; God, I was glad to leave her in someone else's care for awhile.  There would be more hell to come, but for now, this was a blessing.  And at least she could smoke.

.........................................................................................................

A Brief Respite in the Wilderness

  I visited my mother in the mental ward as often as I could, and met most of her fellow inmates in the common area.  She took on the informal role of social worker, a job she'd had for the county for a few years in Ohio.

  Occupational therapy was the clay-ashtrays, potholders and leather-craft sort, and my mum wanted to make me some moccasins (preferable to a popsicle-stick jewelry box).  We decided on the size, and over a couple weeks she made them.  They were the Tandy Leather Kit kind, remember them?  Split-leather suede that tied below the ankle, with three inches of machine-cut fringe around the collar; no hard sole, just the same suede--you could curl your toes in them.  They were grand and pathetic all at once.

  And, it turned out, useful.

  I'd been earning a modest living sewing dresses made from cheap India-print bedspreads for would-be hippies; a few stores carried them, and I sold enough for the basics, and sometimes I could even afford a little pot.  Over the past two years, I had spent a lot of time in San Jose, helping my parents with the hospitalizations of one or the other of them, so self-employment worked best. With frequent interruptions, funds were tight, and I was down to my last pair of shoes, semi-dilapidated sandals.  So the mocs were handy, if not great for my feet.

  During those months I moved into an apartment (more olive green ookiness) and got a couple new roommates, one of which invited me on a wilderness camping trip.  It would be my first.  Two of the young women knew some men who had been hiking the Continental Divide for a few weeks, and had made plans with a two other men to meet up at a cave in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness on the Colorado-Wyoming border.  I needed a break, (boy, did I need a break!) so I borrowed a short sleeping bag and pack and whatnot from a short friend, packed up, and we got underway.  We stopped at the house of two men who would join us at the cave the following day, and they loaded our packs: pounds and pounds of rice, lentils, granola, dried fruit, etc. and we found room again for our clothes and bags and other necessities.  Oy; they seemed heavy!

  We drove five hours to the Mica Creek Trailhead, and we creakily unfolded ourselves, and our dogs, from the crowded car.  There was a plan to this, it seemed.  Three confirmed city girls and one non-stop-talking woman with hiking skills from Montreal had a map to this cave.  Now, Montreal Mary Kay elected herself leader, which made sense, given her extensive back-packing experience and extreme self-confidence.  She would lead the way, call the breaks, and carry the map.  (Shut up; you can see it coming; but we couldn't.)

  We were almost bent double by the packs, and trudged up the steep start of the trail.  Hi-yup!  Here we go!  Dogs, heel!

  It didn't take long to realize we were...uh...not in shape for this.  We might be twenty-year-olds, but for this hiking and schlepping gig, youth wasn't quite enough.  We toiled, we rested, we bitched, we groaned...and kept doggedly on.

  After a few hours, we got separated; uh-oh.  I can only think that it was due to the pounding of the blood in my ears, and keeping my eyes on my feet to encourage them to keep moving that I lost track of the others.  My feet!  My dear feet, clad in the Tandy moccasins my mum had made for me!  Not exactly worthy boots for hiking, but... there they were!  Thanks, mom!

  I called behind me, "Leslie?  Be-eth?"  No answer.  I walked up the trail, "Mary Kaaaayy?"  Nothing.  The dog I had inherited from my parents, a wonderful, smart, black-and-white Springer Spaniel named Lincoln sniffed and snorted and pointed at picas and whistle-pigs.  (My mother thought his freckles made him look like Abraham; don't worry about it.)  Surely Miss Montreal would be up ahead waiting for us; she was our fearless leader, after all.  Lincoln and I came to a fork in the trail.  Fork: that meant there were two trails, and there was no Mary Kay with the map waiting at the fork!  No handy little Forest Service sign pointing, "Cave, that-a-way."

  Shit!  I was hungry, so I decided to find some food in the hulking pack I was toting.  Digging madly through it, all I could find was food that needed cooking.  Bad planning, this was.  I called again to my hike-meets; no answer. 

  And then it started to rain.  I had a little plastic tube tent with a rope, so I set that puppy up, stashed my pack in the doorway, and gathered some rocks and branches to make a fire.  My friend had lent me a tiny cooking set, so I got some water out of the creek, made my fire, and set some rice cooking.  As I sat in the opening of the tube tent with Lincoln, the rain finally eased, and with the quiet came, "Hellooooooooo!"  And again; I went out and the voices kept up.  I tracked the sounds to some tiny figures high up on the nearest mountain.  I waved.  "Come on uuuuuup!" they hollered.  One was a small female; well, how special of Miss Montreal to have found the Cave! 

  "Noooooooo!" I yelled back, "Come on dowwwwn," and we all repeated that discussion a few more times until I sat down to eat my goddam rice; no Tamari, either. 

  By and by, they came down, and we introduced ourselves to each other, and I refrained from busting Miss Montreal in the mouth.  They complimented my little camp, though they found my efforts pretty funny given that I wasn't really very far from the Cave as it turned out; but my inappropriate footwear simply knocked them out. 

  Not long afterward, the other two women arrived, exhausted and grouchy. The men kindly took some of our burdens, and we set off up the mountain.  In the shuffle, I discovered someone had taken my pack, but left me with four gallons of water to carry!  (One of those bearded wilderness-loving hippies I would one day marry.)  Up the scree fields to the cave we went, my moccasins clinging well to the rocks, but the edges denting my good feet; ouch.

  It was a grand trip in the end, and Leslie and I ended up staying after the others had 'gone back to civilization.'  We had passed a magical spot on the way up the mountain I'd fallen in love with: a tree graveyard.  It was along the bubbling Mica Creek, and there were so many trees, and so much under-story, that the shaded and moist fallen trees were melting into the ground in ways you might see in a rain forest, but not in arid Colorado.  Trees were turning into soil in such a vivid way; lichens grew on the fallen trees in every imaginable color, and we saw a fox traverse one and skitter away.  It was a place of true enchantment, a place of pixies and elves and maybe even a Merlin.  We made a home there for two blissful days.  Blissful except for the very large black bear who came into our camp, left his "calling card," took a nap, then left...but, as they say, that's a whole n'other story.