I have found myself in a local outdoors club meeting. Sitting in the third row of chairs in the back room of a local store, I am surprised by how happy I am to be there. I had insisted a club would be too much for me. I changed my mind.
I introduce myself to the group when it’s my turn and the leader at the front proceeds to go through a schedule. I add events to my calendar. I listen to other people’s trip reports. I make a mental note to bring a notebook next month, it’s a lot of information to take in all at once.
At the end, we are told to practice tying a knot before we disperse. I will be training to rappel soon and I am determined to learn this skill. Tying these knots correctly can be the difference between a fun trip or a complete disaster. Life and death.
I eagerly take my rope as it’s passed down. It’s thin and green, checkered with bands of red and white. I run my thumb over its coarse surface.
My vision blurs around the edges. I blink twice.
I divert my eyes to the pamphlet I was given and make the diagrams on the paper come into focus. My friend next to me points to the first knot on the page and begins to show me how to start it.
I watch him for a moment before staring down at the rope in my hands. The volume in the room gets louder, I can’t make sense of it. I line the rope ends parallel but I can’t tell if the rope needs to cross in front or behind. The more I try to move the rope, the more my hands feel like I have somehow put on a pair of invisible wool gloves.
‘Let’s go over here so you can practice tying it on,’ my friend says suddenly. I look away from my untied knot, to the left, and see the others wrapping their ropes around the horizontal bars of the chair racks. The cacophony of the room reaches a fever pitch. I stand up and my mind goes completely blank.
No. No. No. I can’t do this.
I start to move towards the racks. My breath feels shallow in my lungs.
‘Hey! We need you to fill out your membership form!’
Thank fucking god. I turn to the man who has approached me and I follow him to a folding table to fill out forms and pay my dues.
By the time I finish, the room has been packed up. It’s time to leave.
I excuse myself to the restroom. I wash my hands slowly, looking at myself in the mirror. I don’t break eye contact as I pull a towel from the dispenser, drying my hands on the rough paper.
We all reconvene at a pizza place down the street. My friend and I are some of the first to arrive.
I stare at the menu board. I can’t make sense of it’s layout. I find the section that lists individual pizzas. I remember I don’t eat meat anymore. I look at the ingredients of each pizza. I narrow down which one’s don’t have meat. I promptly forget which ones I was comparing. I reread the different pizzas and different ingredients again. I can’t remember which one is which.
I feel tears building in my throat. What the hell is my deal?
I get to the front and pick one at random. I won’t remember them well enough to wish I had gotten a different one anyway.
We settle in, one by one, along a long table. An older man sits across from me, to the left. He has been around a long time. I cut a bite off my pizza, I can’t stand the idea of my hands being greasy. I lift it towards my mouth, pausing as I watch the steam from the cheese coiling upwards.
The man is telling a story about teaching people how to rappel off a local bridge. Someone driving by called the cops. They thought he was hanging people. He laughs at the absurdity of it.
I feel an internal record skip, a little bit of static and then a pause before it starts playing again.
My friend, sitting to my right, asks him a question about different devices and this starts a conversation among the table around the physics of ropes and knots.
The man across the table describes how his time using ropes outdoors was completely different than what he did for his training to work for the local Search and Rescue.
The record skips. I am looking straight at him, I can still see him in front of me. I can still feel that I am sitting on a black, vinyl chair in a restaurant.
My body is split.
I feel the weight of a blanket curled around my body, the sensation of the leather couch under my fingers.
The man’s face begins to take on a different appearance.
‘Did you learn how to tie all these knots in the navy?’
No, no, no, no. We are not going there.
I return to the full present with a harsh slam. The man is still talking. I remind myself that he is extremely knowledgable and deserves the respect of my full attention.
He is describing how the friction and the amount of loops onto a surface can make anything a rappel device. I ask how you know how many loops. I believe the answer was by weight. The person directly across from me tells me his weight and the corresponding amount of loops. I mentally calculate how many loops it would take for me, half of the amount.
He would have been 2/3 of that.
Skip. Static. Pause.
Nope, absolutely not. We’re not going there.
The man is describing how they used to wind the ropes around their arms to descend, he would wear leather. He laughs that he has some pretty nasty scars from the friction of the ropes still burning his skin.
He would have loved this guy.
Shut the fuck up, I hiss to my own mind, shut the fuck up.
But it’s already done. The thought summons a feeling of presence, my body splits again.
I am in the present in both worlds but in one, the person sitting on my left changes.
I live both scenes simultaneously for a moment before my conscious mind resists, ripping out the alternate present with the fury of a rabid dog.
I give up on following the conversation. I look out the window. I wish I could go outside to smoke a cigarette. I feel myself furrow my brow. Gross. I haven’t smoked an actual cigarette in years.
Good lord, get it together woman.
I look down and realize I have eaten all of my pizza. I don’t remember how it tasted after the first bite. I think I liked it. I stand up to gather my plate and the other’s around me. I walk to the trash can, throwing away the greasy paper and stacking the slim metal trays. I turn back to face the table and the friend I came with is standing up to push in his chair.
We are leaving. Thank god.
On our way back to my car, I push through the fog that is threatening to take over. I think about why I want to learn how to tie these knots, how much farther into caves I can go if I can rappel. I try to remember what I liked about caves. I try to remember what I like about anything or why I have done anything at all, at any point in my life.
I keep pushing back the fog. I ask my friend if I can borrow a handful of books and a bit of old rope to practice with. He sends me on my way with them.
I realize, once I have driven halfway down the street, that I have not pulled up my maps to direct me home. I wonder if I can make it without them.
I glance down at my phone. The fog pushes back.
It was a noose.
My head swims.
I forget about the map.
It was a noose. You were tying a noose.
It was not a fucking noose. I wasn’t learning how to tie a fucking noose.
Stop being so dramatic.
Stars start popping up in my line of vision as the field closes in, going dark around the edges.
Absolutely not.
I take a deep breath. I am about to get on the interstate, I have been finding my way home.
I take another deep breath. In through my nose, out through my mouth. In through my nose, out through my mouth.
My body splits. I am driving down this interstate in the dark, I can see the streetlights and the road in front of me.
Simultaneously, I am on another interstate.
Midafternoon, it’s raining. I am driving home. I am breathing like I am breathing now. My head swims, I don’t know if I can make it.
I just need to get to him.
No, wrong. That’s the past. There’s no one to call, no one to get to.
Stars, tunnel vision.
I blink my eyes rapidly while extending my arms straight out, stretching my spine backwards into my seat. I push my focus fully onto the road in front of me.
I’m walking into the garage.
I, once again, rip myself back to the present. In through my nose, out through my mouth. Stop this, you’re fucking driving.
I’m standing on the top step, I can feel it under my feet. I can smell motor oil. He’s standing in the middle, on a stool.
I just need to get to him.
You stupid bitch, it was just a fucking rope. It has nothing to do with this. You are being dramatic. You are being dramatic.
I am at the edge of the stool now, looking up. The noose is still around his neck. I can see how strong the rope is, the texture and the colors that check through it. His face is contorted, he’s angry.
Blink. Blink. Blink. Deep breath in, out, in, out.
I watch the rope as it moves with him, rubbing against the tender skin of his neck, the knot on the side jutting out at an awkward angle.
You’re okay, you’re okay. You’re almost home, you’re almost home. You’re okay.
As he gets down, my stomach rolls with nausea. If he had jumped, how would I have saved him? Could I have held him up? Could I have cut the rope?
I feel the roughness of a rope around my own neck, it rises and falls with my breathing.
It was never fucking around your neck, now you’re just making things up.
Stop. Being. Dramatic.
I pull into my driveway, snaking back until I am able to turn and reverse my car, backing it up to the gate.
I haphazardly gather my things. My stomach clenches and burns. I stumble up the rough terrain to the front door. I feel drunk. Uncoordinated, unsure, out of sync.
I rush through putting everything away, my limbs are not cooperating. I get in the shower. Slightly hunched over, I rub a bar of soap between a washcloth. I focus on the feeling of hot water on my skin.
It was a noose. It was a noose. You were tying a fucking noose.
I don’t fight it anymore. I am home. I am safe. It can play all its tapes.
Just get on with it.
With that permission, it all plays, a mile a minute, image after image, clip after clip, until it slows to a stop.
It tired itself out. There’s nothing left.
I exhale. With my eyes closed, I reach out a shaking hand to turn the water off.
I get out of the shower, wrap myself in a towel and look at myself in the mirror. I look into my own eyes. My head feels empty, like it will wobble precariously around on my neck if I move. Without breaking eye contact, I reach for my brush and begin gently untangling the knots in my hair until it all lays smooth, curling against the contour of my skull and down my back. I turn away.
I settle into bed and put my headphones on, queuing up a simple binaural beat. I lay back, close my eyes and breathe in, feeling my body begin to relax into the softness of the mattress on the exhale. I follow the beat with my eyes, left to right. Left to right. Left to right.
I wake up the next morning, groggy and heavy.
I dreamt of ropes, long and winding, seemingly never ending. In the dream, I made my way methodically down them, tying one life saving knot after life saving knot.
None of them became a noose.
Relief washes over me as I sit up. I stretch, turn and then stand, placing both my feet on the cold floor.
They are just knots and rope.
And I found my way home.
