Opa had no teeth, he hadn’t had them since after the war. He would lock eyes as a western filled the room in the Netherlands with the sounds of the American West and flicker his dentures erupting in laughter as I would shy away covering my face as the dentures clanked against his gums. He survived the war living off of scraps from garbage cans and tulip bulbs with sugar. All of his teeth had rotted out, come end of the war, dentures were in his near future. I remember him describing those first bites of chocolate from the air drops by the Canadian and US forces. I often found myself thinking of opa when working remote trips or on long pushes in the mountains. Drawing on his strength, his resilience. The last time I saw him was when I was 16, in the doldrums of addiction, and yet through the haze of the world he still stood 100’ tall. A man who had through odds continued on. Twelve years ago now, two years after his passing.

     Resilience seems to be a genetic marker when I think of my family, the same way alcoholism is. My fathers dad left my oma with nine children and chose a bottle. Through this my dad became a rock of stability, a dreamer. With a suitcase of belongings he and my mother left family, community, home, for more. A commitment. The commitment I’ve desperately grasped at, in the mountains, instead of questioning instinct, follow the line. My parents' sacrifices and fierce kicking in of the door left me the room to dream and chase curiosity, chase the feeling of dancing in the mountains or on vertical faces. As I immersed myself more into the world of mountains and pursued the guiding career the loss began to enter. A familiar feeling from childhood and addiction. Sense of belonging became skewed by grief reminiscent of the pull of two cultures yet always being on the fringes of both. What is resilience?

The first time I saw a man cry was opa. South East Michigan still had winters at this point and I was walking in the basement. He was staying for the holidays in the downstairs room, I must have been around four or five. I remember faint sobs coming from the other side of the door. Inside was a man whose wife's alcoholism was hitting a pinnacle, a woman he loved until his passing. He must have caught the flu or something. It's a foggy memory, in his febrile delirium between sobs he was asking me for his mom. Yet even in this state he was larger then life. I have often grappled with the question of what is resilience? What does it look like on an expedition or climb? How does it present itself without machismo? When we dig deep what do we draw on? 

The lake shore is filled with the heavy warm air of humid Michigan summer heat. I can’t be older than six in my memory but it's all subjective. My brothers four and the excitement of the beach is almost overwhelming. We run through the sandy trail to the water, both of us in our underwear, I rember green underpants in a tighty-whitey style with an allover dinosaur print. My fixation at that time was all things dinosaurs. The water is the perfect temperature lake Michigan becomes in the late summer days, yet our excitement is quickly cut when the other kids realize we are in underwear and not swim suits. Perfectly normal in the Netherlands but far from it here, I think this is when I became cognizant of needing to fit into the American landscape to avoid this once again. To camouflage myself as what occupies the space around me. Fixations had crept in whether the worries of losing my native tongue, falling asleep by ten or that everyone may pass away in their sleep unless I am in the room with them. My obsessive nature felt like a super power when I began to climb. The fixation on systems, maps, techniques and real world application slowed the world down. I’m transported to being in Cody Wyoming. Beyond gripped on my first ice leads, unable to rationalize what I’m doing or slow down the world anymore. Eli and Naifun have passed at this point and the world doesn’t seem to slow down anymore when I’m in the alpine.

I’m crossing the paradise parking lot and I hear the familiar hard g sound of dutch. I often get excited when I run into Dutch people and love the chance to speak Dutch again. They're on vacation visiting the states, A dad and his two boys. My english used to have a slight dutch accent but now I’ve traded this for having an American accent in my dutch. As I turn to rejoin the clients I hear the boy ask his dad what kind of dutch I am.

“He’s not really dutch at this point he’s just an outsider”

Me and Naifun are at a bar in Lander, toiling over maps and beta for the Mooses tooth. We are looking over the west ridge and thinking of how incredible the experience can be. Yet I had the opportunity to join a seminar for work in the Chugach that would conflict with the trip so as the evening progressed we pondered over who would be the right fit. All roads pointed to Eli. Alaska was always the goal from the first time I tied in. I believe there are ranges and areas that just speak to us and for me it has always been Alaska. 2023 was the first time I set foot in the state and I haven’t been back since. We got the news of their passing over the satellite phone. I felt the same as the small boy in his dinosaur underwear, lost in an unfamiliar place. 

That January Dan had passed away from alcohol withdrawals. I’m 17 again in a park covered in my own vomit. The opioid/benzo-induced withdrawals are sending electrical charges through my body and I’m shivering beyond control even though it’s August. Dan found me in my meager state and carried me to his house down block. Dan was a force of nature that skated pools with ferocity but a smoothness that didn't fit but somehow did his Chris Farley like persona. Dan lived in a “punk” house at the time and offered me a couch to stay on as I cleaned up my act. Graduating high school was far out of the picture at this point and the opiate epidemic was in full swing across Michigan like a grim reaper swinging its scythe through every city, town, and household. But there was Dan. A complex man fighting his own demons, punching me if I didn't stand up straight on front side 5-o grinds, carrying me to safety. I had asked him to please help me and he did. What Dan did for me in those couple of days before I could get into an outpatient was more than the system had done since my spirals. 

I’m now 15 or 16 and going to a psychiatric facility. I’m strung out as shit and I don't remember much because of the cocktail of ativan I was somehow able to convince the nurse at the e.r to give me. Whatever dose they gave me has put me in a full brown out because the intake goes as poorly as it could have. I ask for help, I remember asking if a medical taper is possible and being laughed at and called a junkie. I see red and next thing I know my face is on the ground with a knee on my head. I spent what felt like days in restraints and that's when frequent strip searches and touching began. I was a child. The facility employed a man who knew that the make-up of at-risk youth and mental health issues were the perfect guise for him to take full advantage. I wonder how many more of us there were. 

Tears well up again as it becomes evident that the lightning storm is on top of our heads. Over the summer seasons this has become a knee jerk reaction for me. I am in the tent but the rest of the instructor team is in the kitchen. Every couple of minutes there is a flash with an immediate bang. I watch as static electricity dances around the tent and feel my hair standing. Pinned and unable to move not knowing if the kitchen has been struck or not. This particular season's storms of this nature would easily persist for an hour or two. Even indoors now I’ve grown to hate lightning. If you’re counting, you are alive.

It’s a cool summer morning at paradise as our gear clinks, being stuffed into the bag. The rack is light and the goal is the dance. We shoot up the Kautz and enjoy the perfect conditions as the sun dances off the snow and ice just like we are on top of it. A team of two, a connection. Frequent laps are the theme of summer at the base of Rainer. Weeks prior I had spent the month alone not knowing anyone, in the consistent rains of the vernal Washington in my ‘99 grand caravan. I was once again taking a leap. Little to nothing to my name, new place, but a world of opportunity. Just like my parents risking so much to be so far away. I so desperately wanted to be like my dad yet connection feels hard in the world of the mountains, Often it feels like my origin story and experience is too different then those of my peers. I have lied, cheated, robbed, and broken trust. Imagine sisyphus happy, there is a line, a purpose to each trip, each day striving for growth. I ride the waves and hope that my resilience nowadays is not the misguided machismo but a vulnerability, to show up.

Yet in all of this I am beyond lucky, I have slipped through cracks of survival up to this point. I decided not to hang out with people on a certain day and they’re serving a 10 year bid or passed. I don’t think climbing saved me, I think people saved me. The connections I have been lucky enough to make over this first decade of sobriety have led me to meeting people who have changed my existence. A trope of “it’s the journey not the summit” rings truer each year and I count my blessings that I get to stand where I am currently. 

Her hazel eyes watched the jetboil as steam filled the tent. I felt her hands on my back as she passed me oatmeal. The brisk pnw air flowed through our assault tent. I hadn’t slept much. We both had leaky air pads and the van had collapsed 2% up the road before we hitched in. Some Canadians had given us the lift and we road up in the truck bed, the smiles quickly turned to laughs and eventually some silent suffering as it dumped rain on us over the 5 mile drive. Yet here in our warm dry perch below mount baker may have been the first true experience of “home”. There was no code shift needed. She saw me as I am. If nothing else I was lucky to experience a cosmic love like this. The same way the air flowed through our tent effortlessly, we too danced up North Ridge that day. A tradition began there where we hold hands as we make the final steps to the summit. We joked about only assholes fall in open crevasses to only watch her hockey stop one minute later right above the lip of one. 

The ideal phase of slow ritualistic days has brought me back to once again dreaming of alpine runouts and measuring not my self worth but measuring the way I dance through these places. Is my passage allowed today or is a lesson on the horizon? Often at the end of an expedition a wrap up is done with clients and a good friend would always give a speech alluding to how life will teach us the same lesson over and over and over until we are ready for it to stick. It may have stuck this time in the slow down. Stepping away from the relentless push to achieve has given me the space to once again appreciate training. To appreciate grieving and facing my losses and shortcomings head on. I look forward to the magic that lies in the cascades and wonder what of the greater ranges will peak the flame inside of me.

My parents stood in the airport with suitcase in hand and made a dream a reality. This was done through resilience. Not a silent stoic trope of carrying on. A messy, explosive, passionate and loving resilience. The type of resilience I hope to bring to my partnerships in the mountains, and especially to my connections. When I stand below these beautiful mountains analyzing the line I think of them. I am a statistical anomaly in recovery but I am not defined by recovery. I am defined by a resilience passed from my grandparents to my parents to me. I am lucky to strive for this dream of improbable stances in wild tall places and to feel the love of a rag tag community that has welcomed me as I am. 

Doorzetten.Doorzetten.Doorzetten

To Opa, Naifun, Eli, Kenny, and Dan. I miss you all.