In the darkness of the lounge the mountain climber told me of the moment he died.

He had lost his grip and fallen backwards into empty air. He fell to his death. But in a snap moment, the rope caught him, and held him up against the sky like two fingers holding a pebble above an ocean.

He gazed down at the swirling clouds beneith, and clung to the rope with every bit of strength he had.

He took a deep breath, and focused his sight on the cliff. Slowly, he began pulling himself back towards the rock, centimeter by centimeter, inch by inch.

The nylon was patient. It held strong. It waited.

When the mountain climber had reached the top of the mountain he arrived with a realization. Ultimately it wasn’t the rope that had saved him.
“It was my grip!” He exclaimed in triumph. At that he grinned, patted my shoulder, and went back to his friends at the other side of the bar.
And I sat in thought.

2

Several weeks later, I walked by a man asleep. He sat on the sidewalk, back against a wall with a sign cradled in his arms. Scratched in the dull cardboard was some common plea for help. Something about being homeless; maybe traveling.

But I caught a glimpse of something. Curled between his fingers was a string of plastic beads, and at the end, a white cross, dangling in the air. His fist clung tight to the beads. Even in sleep he wouldn’t let go.
For some reason I thought of the mountain climber.

When a man hangs in the air, it isn’t the strength of the rope that holds him, it’s his grip.

We met up because he was new to Philly, looking for a job in video production. At that time I wasn’t in much of a position to help him- I had as tentative a grasp on my own survival as you can have before slipping away and spiraling off the earth, but really he needed someone to
talk to.

As it turned out he had lived here before, years ago. He had gone to California in search of a new life.  Traveling, exploring, learning the world. The lines on his face and his hunched, timid demeanor gave me an idea of the lessons he had learned.

After a beer or two he confided: “One thing I learned from travel.. You can’t trust anyone.”

I nodded in sympathy, but sensed a disconnect.  I knew his lesson wasn’t true, but I understood why he might think it was. When you’re traveling, all of your relationships are temporary. And there can be no foundation of trust within such temporary circumstances.

I’ve heard stories of friends striking out on a journey across the country, only to end up hurting each other, betraying each other, and abandoning each other. They made it to California alone, or they just didn’t make it at all. Maybe that’s traveling, or maybe that’s just the kind of friends you make when your idea of a road trip begins with stealing a car.  Looking at Andy, I couldn’t tell which he was. A victim of the elements, or a degenerate.

In any case, he had come back to Philly, haunted by some ghost. A girl he had left behind. Or maybe she had left him. Or maybe they had never been really together. He didn’t say, but clearly some memory of her had brought him back here.

And now he had become a ghost. I imagined him wandering the streets- filled with regret, desperation, guilt.  Searching for whatever it was he lost.

After that meeting I never saw him again. There was no real connection. Nothing I could do to help him, but also I didn’t want to get sucked into his world.

So there must be a reason that Andy popped into my head today.  As I look into the future, I can not think of a thing more frightening than becoming a ghost in my own past.

I’m haunted by Andy’s story. Will I become like him someday?

I’ve thought about it, and here’s what I’ve decided:  Ghosts aren’t here to warn us of the future. They’re here to focus us on what is important.  You can’t worry about regret. You’ll regret things or you won’t.  But either way, if what you’re going after is worth it, these consequence
don’t matter.

I wonder what Andy would think of this…  I wonder if things worked out.