In the Slick of Things

Visible: A small circle of rock, mud, guano. The way ahead becomes illuminated only when I move forward. Our necks are in constant motion: down to check footing; left and right to keep tabs on the boulders and slabs alongside; above in awe.

Spelunking is an especially adventurous adventure. Descend far enough underground and the pastures and wooded hills above will never again look solid. “Rock bottom” becomes a koan in limestone country.

We follow our guides, though we know little about them. This trip is sponsored by the university department we’re all a part of. The guides play a hard game with us, but we don’t know it’s a game. Our path has ended at a steep, slick slope of mud. The way onward is up there.

A rivulet narrower and shallower than my boot offers a fickle grip. Somehow I slither a short way up. As long as my whole self is one with wet clay, I do not slip back down. And I do not move upward.

Spread-eagled against steep mud, lift one hand. Slide down. Start again. Denim plus hoodie equals just enough friction. Lift a cheek off the clay. Above, one agile guide and two fellow adventurers urge me upward. Below, the other guide and first-time cavers cheer me on. All that attention and nowhere to hide.

Cling: A place I cannot stay.

Slip down: A place I cannot stay.

Ascend: How?

We believe this to be the only way deeper into the belly of the cave. (We have not yet learned that this cave has no belly; its streams continue, seeking sea.) So we try. And try. Until at last, we’re all gathered at the top—which turns out to be just an alcove, barely big enough to accommodate our small group. Before the truth of this can fully sink in, the guides jump up and slide back down. “C’mon!” they call. “Let’s go!”

That muddy slope was sidebar, challenge. Not an obstacle on the One Path.

Forty years later, it appears they may have right that succeeding at the challenge would reveal courage and resilience we could draw upon in later life. I haven’t decided if that makes the trick OK. If I had known the ascent was optional, would I have given up and sat it out? Without the reluctance to be the one who keeps the whole crew from reaching its goal, would I have kept trying?

I can recall reaching, finding a fingerhold and raising my body a tiny increment, powered from my core. What did boot ever find to grip? Most vivid in my memory is the impossible edge between needing to complete this climb to continue our journey, and being unable to figure out the right motions to do so.

I’ve teetered on that impossibility, at different scales, countless times since: Hours after my bony right knee was replaced with metal and plastic, anesthesia wearing off, I’m standing by the open door of the car. I need to maneuver my body into it via an unknown sequence of movements that does not require my right knee to bend or hold weight, then sit down and fasten a seatbelt. Because the nurses refuse to send me home the way I’d prefer: stretched out on the back seat, wantonly unbuckled.

Or, a dozen years earlier, sustaining long months of trying simultaneously to find a full-time job, a date, and a publisher for my book. So, why not lift one hand from the mud slope I cling to and apply for a Fulbright scholarship, to study language and translate poetry abroad? Slide all the way to the bottom when Fulbright says “No thank you.” Then, go in to my part-time job and get laid off. These no-thank-yous and good-byes are not unique, not even uncommon.

Now, in another terra incognita, the way forward is again full of uncertainty. And therefore, equally full of possibility. Two faces of the unknown, in a small circle of light.

From the caves of memory rise urgings and cheers, encouragement for when my core can barely hold me up. I tune my ear to them. Ascend in increments almost too small to reckon.

A glimpse into Breathing Cave—the same one we journeyed into, lo those many years ago. Video by David Lucas.