Sherpas

Two nights ago, as I was temporarily driven out of bed with aggravation at my two bedmates (one human, one canine) I found myself in the unusual position to do a little solitary thinking.

And at 3AM, as I sat on the couch deciding whether to just sleep there, I started thinking about the image of a Sherpa. Not something I ever think about, and I’m sure not an accurate image, but what folks generally picture when they think of Sherpas. I was thinking that, while vital above all else to the climb, the Sherpa is not only denied the glory of the accomplishment (often solely lavished on the foolish European/American climber), but he is usually denied the view to the top as well. Carrying supplies, measuring each potentially perilous step, always staring up to gauge the weather or down to gauge the ice, he is never afforded the splendor of the journey. And as I sat there wrapped in the chilly darkness thinking of my “expedition” as a partner, I felt very much as a Sherpa. While I may end up somewhere “important” (a highly subjective idea in itself), have I spent so much energy securing the safe passage of my companion that I will not have my own experience of the journey - or for that matter even have journeyed to the peak of my choosing?

Albeit an abstract an image to pluck from the darkness, it was, to say the least, somewhat sad. But the oddest element of my musings was to then receive TWO subsequent references to Sherpas on the two days following my dark night. Both involving Sr. Edmund Hillary – one a brief mention in a random National Geographic documentary of Hillary and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal and their climb of Mount Everest, and one today as I read the surprising notice of Hillary’s death this morning.

While I often maintain the belief that there are no coincidences and I believe that these three uncanny occurrences must be related, I’ve yet to figure out how.

However it feels as if there is gravity to the unusualness of the situation, and I am scared that I will miss its message.

It is unsettling…