I wandered into the basement market store out of curiosity.  She was reading a snack bag label.

“It’s vegan.”

She looked up questioningly – but then remembered her shirt: “Plant Powered.”

“You’d be surprised.”

I left her to amble upstairs into the great hall.  Here in front of a huge unlit fireplace, a lounge chair beckoned.  After sitting, my backpack proffered a book – Hannah Arendt’s “The Human Condition.”

“I read that. What do you know about forgiveness?” 

It was now my turn to look up at a person who spoke without prompt.  The girl with snacks.  

My mind raced through the pages to grasp a response. 

“The human condition furnishes two faculties to help us in the present; promises and pardons.  The former supply a measure of predictability in an insecure future, and the latter allow us to undo deeds of the past.” 

“For example, if we were to promise to meet here in a year, it would bind us to each other.  A vow providing continuity for a relationship just started, interrupted soon by time and distance.” 

“But you asked about forgiveness.”

“When we hurt others as a consequence of our actions, or someone hurts us, forgiveness is integral to our path forward.”

“We forgive ourselves every day, but don’t call it that.  We let go of regret or resentment from mistakes in due course. Otherwise we could never function, always being focused on the past.”  

“Embracing mistakes in relationships – regardless of who made them – allows us to clear the emotional palate.  Our next actions may then be clearer.”

She took a seat next to mine.  “I have not yet forgiven. I’m hoping the glacier will help.”

The conversation continued into the night until the lobby was empty but for us.

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The next morning I moseyed down to the pier and gave my ticket to the dock master.  He led me to a ferry boat which would motor across the lake, to a forest path which led to another lake and another ferry.  After that a trail led up to Grinnell Glacier.  

“I have on a different shirt today.”  I looked up to see “Namaste Vegan” peeking out between an unzipped jacket.  

“Did you bring snacks to share?”  

After getting off the second boat we started walking toward the summit.  I expected her younger legs to take off but she was matching my pace.  “Are we walking together today?”

“Sure.  But we must tell each other stories if I have to wait on you.”

“You know it is a six hour hike.  But there are many stories,” I replied. She grinned.   I decided to start with a tale about the trail we were on.

“Grinnell Glacier is melting away – it is only a shadow of what once was.  Such is how we all end up, isn’t it?”

“I used to come here with my son.  The first time he was six, so I carried him much of the way.  We reappeared as years followed – when the flathead cherries would ripen.  Soon he walked with his own pack, a small one.  Then we had same-sized packs.  In the end his burden was heavier.  Now he has gone off to college.”

“I originally saw our visits as discrete walks.  But actually it has been one long journey, the hiker starting as a younger man and ending eventually, as an older one.  Along the way I morphed from teacher to student, changing roles with my son.  His job is now finished, so he has left.”

“What did he teach you?”

I stopped at an outcrop and looked out over the valley. “No one belongs to us.  We only borrow them.  In the end, we walk the trail alone.  We are lucky to have the company of loved ones for part of it.  But they are not the same loved ones – and that is ok.”  

My mind wandered back to last night’s conversation.  “My son also taught me about forgiveness. I was not a very good parent.  I am forgiving myself slowly for this.”

We were quiet for a few moments.  Finally she sensed it was her turn to speak.

“I don’t particularly like hiking.  Beaches are my thing – it was my ex-husband who preferred the mountains.  He is gone now, having found a new love.  But we had already booked this trip.  So I came by myself.  Probably my last hiking junket for a long time.”

This could not go unanswered, so I responded.  

“The wound is still recent.  Perhaps a measure of forgiveness will eventually arrive, and with it you may find serenity on the trail. Who knows? You might even join me next year.  I’ll be here when the flathead cherries ripen.”  

“And skip laying on a beach?  I doubt it.”

She continued.  “Have you heard of Kintsugi?  It is a Japanese concept, the art of repairing broken pottery by mending the breaks with a lacquer mixed with gold.  The idea is that the cracks are part of an object’s history – something to be celebrated not concealed.”

“Long ago a Japanese emperor broke his favorite tea cup.  When sent to China for repair, it came back with ugly metal staples.  Local artisans removed the staples and filled the cracks with gold lacquer.  Thus the object returned to favored status; repair not hiding but adding to the charm.  A tea cup broken and redeemed – a reflection that all our experiences, including tragedies, give us our character.”

“The dream of sharing life with a partner was shattered with my marriage.  My travel companion was suddenly gone.  Yet in gathering the fractured pieces, my dream emerges intact.  I celebrate the trails this week as I glue the tea cup back together.  But my fragments have an ocean painted on them, not a mountain.”

We continued up the switchbacks.  Familiar with the way, it did not seem to tire me so much.  I was ready for bounding under the waterfall and scampering up the loose detritus of the rock garden, after a break in the shade of the bighorn meadow.  When we got to the top I led my companion along the ice pond to a spot where the crowd was thinner.  We sat and ate our lunch, lingering longer than the others who had scrambled up with us.  When we started back down something between us had changed.  We were comfortable together now – friends.  

The next two days were filled with hikes to Ptarmigan Tunnel and Iceberg Lake.  And then we said goodbye.  During the long drive home I found myself missing her company.  

—————————————

“That was last year.  And so ends my story of Grinnell Glacier.”

The volunteer park ranger had been listening intently.  She was handing out maps and advice in the lobby of Many Glacier hotel, and had inquired about my trail experience.  The reply had been rather long-winded.

“The glacier does call many of us back.  Do you think she is lying on a beach?”

Just then a woman approached the tour desk, visible from the corner of my eye. Her shirt said “Team Herbivore.” 

“I thought I might find you here.  Where are we hiking tomorrow?”

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Grinnell Glacier ©2021-2025 by Dean Jen