My mother, myself

A preface: The older I get, the more I understand and appreciate my mother. And that relationship informs the one I have with Alex. This story rings SO true to me. I hope it will with you.
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I went to a mountain.
I wanted to be alone.

The night before hiking, I spoke to my mother. I was filling the backpack with a map, a bag of hardboiled eggs, a water bottle, and an attractive 7 oz. bar of chocolate in case there was any catastrophic burning of calories.
My mother is the last living adult from a childhood filled with concerned parental figures. She alone worries whether my raincoat leaks, whether other car drivers realize how drastic my loss would be to humanity, and whether I am sufficiently rested. It is a precious and undervalued job, but I appreciate it, especially having reached an age where much of life is spent worrying about others.

“You aren’t going alone, are you?” she said.
“Of course not,” I said. “Absolutely not.”

The deceit was automatic and protective. I did not want her worries for company on the mountain. I wanted to assure a mutual peace of mind.
The mountain’s parking lot was crammed with busloads of Rhode Island middle school students on Nature Day. They were heading up, and I was, too. I wandered among them, feeling caught in a herd longhorns about to stampede. They climbed slowly, clutching their dragging pant cuffs with one hand and plastic baggies for leaf samples with the other.

“This mountain’s a pushover”' one scornful boy said. “I seen 9-year old babies running up.”
“I like a boy, but only one,”said a girl to another girl.
“Is there a gift shop at the top here?” said her friend, rubbing a bug out of an eye full of eyeshadow.
“I gotta stop smoking,” said the girl who only liked one boy.
“All I will say,”' said the scornful boy, “is my wife better have dinner waiting for me when I get home tonight.”
“Shut up,” the girls said together. “Shut up.”

We came to a blessed fork in the path, and I took a left onto an obscure trail. I was finally alone. In the company of rocks, leaves and cicadas, I climbed all morning, all the way to the top of the mountain, where there was no gift shop. It was a perfect solitary experience.

That satisfied night, I spoke with my mother again. I told her about the rocks, leaves and cicadas.

“But you didn’t go by yourself, did you?” she asked again.
“Of course not,” I said.
That should have been that.

“But the karmic circle is a wide one. After we hung up. I went to cover my baby, in her crib. She climbs mountains every day: sofa legs, end tables, closet doors. I know this because I am watching. I know her every mountaineering move. A day will come -- not too soon, but it will come—when I will not know which mountains she is climbing. She may decide, beginning that day, to protect me with loving deceits- - for instance, assurances that she is with others when she is actually alone, or, that she is alone when she is actually with someone else.

I don’t want to be protected. It is too close to being placated. The idea makes me feel old, dusty, antiquated, set behind a glass breakfront and carefully maintained in artificial air for my own preservation. I hope I will never be so old that my baby feels she needs to preserve me.

I called my mother back.
“Mom. Me.”
I spoke up, so that the gods who tally these cosmic wrongs could hear without straining.
“Listen, Mom. I wasn't with anyone else on the mountain today. I went alone. I thought I ought to tell you.”
I waited for the sounds of Karma; coins rattling down the side of some round-bellied bank.

“I know that,” she said.