By Elissa Ely, 10/31/97
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 of 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 to 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.
Elissa Ely is a psychiatrist.