The Sharp End of Life. Dierdre Wolownick
it wasn’t allowed. I was told it was too far. Too dangerous for a girl. Too heathen. And the kicker: too expensive. Whatever their reason, my parents wanted me nearby. Decades later I learned that their plan had always been for my brother to go to college—so he could better support his future wife—and for me to marry after high school and have children. In my parents’ world, girls lived at home until that goal was achieved.
Fortunately for them, I didn’t know about their plan. Had they explained it to me then, it might have driven me to go to UCLA even without their consent. As it was, I settled on commuting from home to Queens College, with the proviso that I could spend my junior year in France with the study abroad program. An equitable compromise since they were, after all, footing the entire bill except for the bit of scholarship money I’d won.
By my midtwenties, I was teaching in New York and paying my own bills. I’d met Charlie while on vacation, and our nonstop barrage of letters and cards had worked their magic. I had no trouble finding a job in southern California, and I shared my decision to move with my parents the way they’d always shared their decisions with me. I announced that I was moving and began getting ready. I simply had no idea that it could be done any other way. My parents never said anything, positive or negative, about my fait accompli. In my family, no one ever said a word about anything that mattered.
In a few short weeks, I packed or gave away everything I owned and drove west to my new home. To compensate for the large cut in pay I had to take, the school I ultimately chose had offered me free lodging. I would live in a Mediterranean villa nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in the town of Sierra Madre, near Pasadena.
After the kids went home for the day, I shared the villa and park-like grounds with Joyce, another teacher. We could run on trails under exotic trees I couldn’t yet name or play tennis on one of two courts or pick avocados and oranges off the trees. I had seen orange trees only twice, on vacation in Florida and in Rome during my one Christmas abroad. There were even olive trees, which I had never seen growing before. An alleyway of carob trees filled the whole park with the rich, chocolatey, homey scent of fresh-baked brownies. My new life was a delicious, idyllic fantasy.
And the central focal point of this idyll was Charlie. We spent all our weekends and free time together that year, and under the potent spell of the magic of this new life, we decided to share our lives forever.
GETTING MARRIED IN PENNSYLVANIA the following summer was my gift to my mother. She’d been planning and dreaming about it for years and loved telling me all the details. How Lobitz would do the catering—he’d gone to school in Hazleton with my mother—and how he’d catered my cousin’s wedding and it was so beautiful. There had been all the Polish food and a band from Philadelphia at the reception. Mine would have one, too, someday. It didn’t matter to me. I would have happily eloped. And Charlie’s whole family was against organized religion. A big church wedding was anathema to him.
Fortunately, my mother approved of the gown I’d bought in California. The rest, though, brought out tsk-tsks and pursed lips.
“No, no, you can’t wear a veil like that. It’s old-fashioned! And look, look how skimpy it is, here.” She poked so hard that she pushed her finger right through the veil. “See? See how skimpy it is?!”
So now it was useless—I couldn’t wear a ripped veil to my wedding.
And sandals! Beautiful, patent-leather, shiny sandals from California.
“No, no, no—no one wears sandals to a wedding!” More pursed lips and head-shaking. “Have you ever seen a bride in sandals?”
I had to admit I hadn’t. I’d seen very few brides in my life. But my mother knew clothes; she had made my clothes for me for over twenty years. Every Sunday she carefully perused the New York Times fashion section for ideas. Her biggest delight was to greet me after school with a new blouse, dress, or pants that she’d made that day. Sometimes they fit and I loved what she’d made, sometimes they looked awful and I hated them. But she’d worked all day on it, so to her my lack of enthusiasm made me “an ungrateful brat.” I was her doll, to dress and show off.
Nothing had changed. She was still the adult. I was still the child.
During that week, not a word was exchanged about people pledging to love each other for life. Or love, devotion. The future. Not a word. They were still the adults, who had nothing of import to say to a child.
As always, my mother and I spoke only of the details, the chores, the doing. Never the thinking or the feeling. Life, for my parents, was in the details. I was a kid again, and I longed, ached for someone to talk to me, to care about my opinion, my feelings. Adult to adult. About something that mattered.
I could have initiated it. But I’d never learned how, and I didn’t want to start something that my mother or father might not be able to finish. I didn’t want to mar this perfect time that she’d dreamt about and planned for so long. So I let my parents be. I followed their rules. I kept the peace.
MY MOTHER COULDN’T DANCE, so I had seen my father dance at only a few family weddings or parties. But it was important to me, even if I didn’t quite understand why, to dance with him at my wedding. We had rarely done anything together, and I thought a dance after my first dance with my new husband would be something meaningful we could share.
When the emcee announced the first dance of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Honnold, I didn’t recognize a single note of the waltz I had requested. The band was winging it, having clearly never heard of the piece I’d chosen. My father took over from Charlie after a few minutes. I was surprised at how smoothly he moved, guiding me easily across the floor. I had rarely seen him smile so much. Through his warm fingers, I seemed to feel all the things that he never dared say. All those years of remote silence melted away as we shared our first, and likely last, significant moment together.
Only the love came through. I knew they both loved me as much as they could. Either of our parents would have died for my brother or me; they loved us that much. I had never doubted that. They just didn’t know what to do about it.
Charlie and I left in a rush after the reception, to drive to New York. From there, we set off for our honeymoon in the Caribbean Islands. We quickly changed our clothes in the large room where we had stored our suitcases and dashed out to a waiting car, driven by friends from out west who were on the same flight.
I didn’t understand what had just happened. I knew it was the end, but of what, I wasn’t sure. I was just beginning to comprehend the devastating absence of connection that my parents had taught me to live by. But I still didn’t understand how that would affect the rest of my life.
In the car, glimpses of what I had lost, and what that loss might mean, began to crash over me, wave after wave. It felt as if I’d just left a funeral, not a wedding. A monumental sadness gripped me, wracked my body. I cried, as softly as I could in the back of the car, for all the things no one had said when I was young. I cried for the father and mother I’d never had. For the emptiness that had been my life. I cried all the way to New York.
Charlie just held me and let me cry. He never asked why.
four
IF YOU’RE GOING TO conquer a monster wall like El Capitan, you have to have a damn good reason. My friends in Sacramento were too polite to ask me outright. “Why? You retired from teaching; you can rest now. Read the books you always said you had no time to read. Write some books. Why this? At your age?” But it still came through in all the things they didn’t say. I recognize it, because I’ve asked all those questions myself.
Eight years before I stood at the base of El Cap, when I was fifty-eight, I asked my son to take me to the indoor climbing gym where he trains. A bout of tendinitis was keeping him from climbing for a while, so it seemed