I had made that long trip to Bald Rock Heritage Preserve, driving in the dark, around those steep curves up the mountain, parked my car, carefully walked over the mountaintop and then down the side, in the twilight. I had found my favorite spot, 50 feet or so down the side of the mountain. I had put down my camera and my thermos of hot English breakfast tea, and sat down beside them. I had watched the sunrise and taken a few photos.
Then, I heard something up on the mountaintop, two young female voices, sounding excited, one much younger than the other. And I thought to myself, “There goes my quiet morning.” But in this case, it wasn’t a bunch of rowdy kids yelling at the top of their voice for no apparent reason, as had happened recently. Just two people enjoying the scenery, talking quietly to themselves, barely audible. After a few moments I forgot they were there.
I got my sunrise photos. It was time to climb back up the mountainside and see if anything up there looked photogenic. It took me a few minutes. These old lungs can’t handle walking up the side of a steep incline without taking a couple of breaks.
I made it to the mountaintop, stopped and looked around. By this time, I was close enough to see the two females. They were still there. Most sunrise junkies leave right after the sun comes over the horizon. These two seemed intent on getting the most out of the sunrise-from-the-mountaintop experience.
Usually, I would speak to folks I met up with on the mountain … at least say good morning. But these two were quite close to the edge of the cliff. They were alone, female. And I was a man, a stranger. I did not want to take a chance at startling them, and possibly causing a disaster. I kept my distance as I quietly walked across the mountaintop looking for compositions. Occasionally, I would hear the younger voice, still excited, and then the other voice, much quieter and calmer, in a reassuring tone.
At one point I was standing directly behind them, probably 50 feet away. There they sat, apparently unaware of my presence, lit up by the sun, the child sitting in the young woman’s lap, wrapped in a blanket, a soft glow around them, like a cocoon of familial devotion. I suppose they could have been sisters. But their intimacy suggested mother and child. Since I could not see their faces, I clicked a quick photo of them, hoping that would not be too much of a breach of their private moment.
Noticing Table Rock in the distance off to my right, I clicked a couple of photos, spacing them so that I might create a panorama. Then I turned back toward the two figures. They still had not noticed me.
Something about seeing them there, sitting on the mountaintop, with the morning sun caressing their young forms … something about that stirred me, made me feel good and then made me feel sad at the same time. Although I never understood a word the two of them said to each other, only hearing sweet sounds from them, I felt as though I had some sort of connection, a connection to an intimate part of life that I never experienced for myself, causing a painful reflection upon the tragic novel of my childless life; occasionally misremembered or rewritten … sometimes to soften the blows, but often to sharpen the real or imagined jabs and cuts to my mind and body.
I have always been a bit of a softy; sad stories, sad movies … they always get to me. When I was a young man, that sensitivity occasionally came in handy. I still recall watching the movie Love Story and turning to my date, seeing tears in her eyes as she saw tears in mine. That turned out to be a pretty good night for me. After that, whenever I was dating someone new and a sad movie was playing, I always suggested we go watch it. I was shy and passive around girls back then; needed all the help I could get.
But after my bout with an aggressive form of prostate cancer and the operation required to remove it, I came to believe they cut out something else, something other than some very important stuff that a man needs to feel like a man. Whatever was surgically removed, the absence of it has made me far more sensitive to sad or sweet stories.
I stood there for what seemed a bit too long, and felt intrusive, though it was probably only a few seconds; watching mother and child, warmed by the morning sun on that cold mountaintop; not even trying to fight back the emotional release that streamed down my cheeks as I turned and headed toward my car, almost blissfully unaware of the emotional hell I was about to go through.
[Note: The “emotional hell” I just referred to is described inside the next article, which is the last of this three-part series of articles. It is titled The Troubling Ride Home. Click below to read it.]