One week ago, I woke up around 2:30 am to an urgent windstorm on the island of Mallorca. Odd lights strobed outside and the branch of a succulent tree knocked on my window. Having just traveled across eight time zones, I was not sleepy, so I walked outside.
Where I am staying near the municipality of Bunyola, the mountains rise dramatically to the north and west, from farmlands to the south and east. Standing below a covered porch I had a unique meteorological experience. Looking to the farms and directly above, the night sky was starry. But clouds shrouded the mountains. Every minute, heat lightning would flicker through the cloud banks, wordlessly, without thunder. Winds gusts pushed out from the cloud bellies, carrying a spritz of rain onto my feet.
I’d left my phone out on the pool deck, and grabbed it. A few missed calls from Jesse at 1:30 AM Mallorca time. One text: “Hey dude, give me a call if you can”
There are times in life when you know before you’re told. I spent 30 minutes watching the storm before I called him to confirm that Mike died. I spent the following three hours calling friends back in the States.
In July, I visited the memory of my friend Dan in the Enchantments, where he died climbing in May 2021. And in August, I visited Mike in Squamish to catch up with him over four glorious days of our favorite shared pastimes: play, laughter, and soul-baring. I am sparing with the photos I take, but after a run at the end of our visit I asked him for a photo together. I told him, “I trust you in the mountains, and I want a photo of us.” Mike replied, “Jimbo, it’s always good to have photos together.” And he is right about that.
There are many things that we caught up on during the trip. His journey as a professional athlete. A movie project he was working on, and the way he was working to be true to himself and his story. His plan to help family and friends out with newfound earnings. How he was in love like never before.
For all of these things, I am so, so proud of him. He was becoming the man the world invited him to be. “The force of character,” Emerson wrote, “is cumulative.” It sure is.
There will be many stories and elegies written for Mike. Mike loved creating and sharing stories. But he was also a man of idioms. I have three favorites.
Rationing is for the birds. On a 2016 trip into the Alaska range together, poor weather lasted three weeks before we got a decent climbing window. Mike and I brought a liter of whiskey in total. On or about day six, we were trying to decide how to apportion our whiskey for the rest of our time. I argued for temperance. Mike said “Rationing is for the birds.” We finished our whiskey that night. The next day, we started finding dead sparrows on the glacier. Out of guilt and fear of karmic retribution, we held a tiny funeral for each one.
The mullet is the most sensitive organ on the human body. You bet it is. There’s nothing like feeling wind flow through your shaggy mane, to make you feel alive.
We’ve got to see the whites of her eyes. We were in Telluride for the 2019 bluegrass festival, and Kacey Musgraves was on the lineup. When she came out, we were in the middle of the pack, but Mike grabbed my arm and shouted “We need to get down there! We’ve got to see the whites of her eyes.” Whether it was karaoke at the Fairview or navigating a sea of people at a music festival, he wanted to be as close to the music as possible. And, in this case, I think he wanted to marry Kacey.
For me Mike is — will always be — the silent storm in Mallorca, the winds across Wyoming, the salmon twilight of the Alaska range.
A force of character.
A force of nature.
supernova
I learned about a supernova, the brightest point before the end: a star’s luminous coda, its bold finale to life fervent. we delighted in icy winds together, brothers bound, a rope between. courage, stupidity, no matter whether, we simply loved each other’s keen. today, running up a hillside breathless, a kaleidoscope of memory, every kind of grief’s …