Climbing Benediction

[billcoe]

This is from Tom Higgins on the supertopo thread discussing the late Frank Sacherer. A reminder to all of us to treat others the way we want to be treated, for soon, all too soon, our time to pass will come as well. Then what have we left? What is our legacy? Higgins last line is a good summation.

A Small Benediction

 

There is no Frank anymore, and hasn’t been for some time, meaning we are here discussing the memory of Frank. Yes, there’s the Frank in a few books and pictures and a grave in Chamonix holding remains which once held Frank. But really, once I realize (again) Sacherer is gone and Kamps and Pratt to name a few who most influenced me, I realize they all are only in my mind now. Then it dawns on me they were just so when they were alive. These climbers, all climbers, are only our view of them, the intake and processing of the talks, the movement on rock, the laughs, the glory, the bickering, the ranking of feats, the unraveling of how they were and why -- all only fleeting sparks between minds working just as now, here, on this thread, back and forth.

 

It takes some time to grasp there really are no climbers or even climbs other than our making, naming and assessing of each, our passing along witnessing all to our joy, wonder and sorrow. All is only low voltage firing of neurons between our ears, tiny electronic summaries of the earthly formations we climb upon, of the people with whom we climb, of even our selves moving along as before a mirror, time all the while clicking. A man named Frank we knew and now remember ended at a little square of ground in Chamonix which, Jan said, she and Frank’s family have not yet been able to visit. And yet here we all are making the only visit we ever can make – in our minds.

 

And so my small benediction: let us be most humbled, thankful and awestruck at the prize of consciousness, the sunny days on what we call rock and mountains with others we call friends, the noble globe itself only a dot in the vast swirl of matter and time, in the great physics of it all Frank pondered, the same which pounds and baffles each of us under a clear night sky. And there, looking up, perhaps I am not alone making a quiet vow to hold more tightly to good friendship and love before sleeping Frank’s sleep.

 

Tom Higgins

LongAgo

 

This is what the internet should be, great discourse on Frank Sacherer there from those who knew him. http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=268647&tn=0&mr=0

[archenemy]

Beautiful