Smoothing Out Rough Edges

On a cloudy, rainy, foggy Monday in Juneau I was stuck indoors for most of the day, imbedded in meetings and computer-generated tedium.

My youngest son called me this morning to let me know that he was safely back in the United States.  Good.  Very good.

Phone calls between myself and my Mountain Boy re: furniture and ferries and schedules and money.......

I was thinking as I was talking with him so many times today by phone and by email, how very lucky I am to have met this man. 

After two failed marriages on my part, and three failed marriages on his, and with us meeting under unusual and trying circumstances, the odds were not in our favor that our initial meeting would ever amount to more than just a brief and unusual one-time encounter.

To those who know him well and to those who have just met him, this mountain boy is obviously hard around the edges - a result of a challenging upbringing, a strong personality, and extraordinarily challenging times in both the military and law enforcement.  He has seen more, done more, experienced more than anyone I have ever known.  He is the toughest man I have ever met.  And at the same time he is the most loving and tender man I have ever met.

I am not so obviously hard around the edges.  I certainly don't look the part.  And because of my own upbringing, because I am a woman, because of the kind of work that I do, I have learned not to show the so many rough edges that make up my personality.

This hard man somehow manages to smooth out those very rough edges that I have.  He moderates my anti-social ways.  He softens my angry and hardened heart.  He taught me how to smile again and laugh again, when I had forgotten how to do both a long time ago.

I was unexpectedly and powerfully drawn to him the first time I met him.  I started to love him the second time I met him. 

About a month after our first encounter we decided to meet again at a campground in northern TN.  It was early spring and very cold and we pretty much had the entire campground to ourselves.

We went hiking on our first day - an all day affair in which we took many pictures of each other and the trail, talked and got to know each other better, and we shared our stories - something that came easy to neither one of us.  That evening, in the freezing cold he cooked me dinner on a camp grill, and then we sat around a blazing campfire, constantly feeding it to keep it burning, until very late.  We talked to each other non-stop, as if we were both making up for all the years of staying quiet and keeping our own council.........lonely people starting to wake up after a long winters' nap.

The next day we did it all over again. 

A month later we decided to go camping yet again, assuming that it would be warmer this time around.  It was colder..........so cold and snowy that even though we set up a tent at the campground we never actually stayed at the campground the entire weekend (instead opting for a rustic - and warm - cabin just down the road from the state park).  On Sunday afternoon, before we headed in separate directions to our respective homes in our respective towns, we tore down our unused tent. 

By that time I was hooked.  And so was he.  And for the last three years (against the odds) two cynical, angry and resigned people actually wake up each morning knowing that there is someone just like them, who loves them absolutely. 

It's been very tough on both of us to be so far apart during this time.  LC says we were dumb to divide our forces - him staying in TN and me coming to Alaska. 

I just say that I hate going to bed every night and he is not lying beside me...........

I did not have time to take pictures today - the weather was bad - I was busy with work - and I am still feeling sluggish and slightly tired and sick.  So here are some more pictures of the mountains surrounding Eaglecrest Ski Resort that I took on Saturday.........

When my life feels, even remotely, that it is gaining momentum and starting to spin out of control, I walk on a trail and my world makes sense again to me.  I feel grounded when I am out there.  I felt grounded on Saturday up there in those mountains................