THE MARMOTS’ SECRET CITY


By Marco Cesare Lobascio




Some mountain peaks
Hold a special power over me
They stimulate my fantasy
And make my juices flowing

Mountains such as North California’s Mount Shasta
An active volcano sacred to the Native Americans
Or the pink hued Monte Rosa
The towering Matterhorn
And the imposing Mount Blanc

Mountains I will never be able to “conquer”
Peaks that took the lives of several of my friends

As in everybody’s life path
I had my share of climbs
Not all of them made of rocks and snow
Some existed only in my mind
In my dreams and imagination
In my fears and my shortcomings

For example
Learning quantum physics
And the theory of relativity
Grasping the laws of harmony
In music and in human relationships
Learning the rules of seduction
And the pleasures of romantic love

Then again
Moving from Europe to San Francisco
Becoming a husband and a father
Change profession and career
From nuclear to environmental science
Dealing with a progressive disease
Transforming it
Into an opportunity to grow
And see the preciousness
Of this tenuous life

Many years ago
I was still a young man
Totally unaware
Of the many mountains
Inner and outer
Real and virtual
I was going to climb
Later in life
Some of them willingly
Other without a choice

This mountain did not even have a name
But it was haunting me

Every time I drove
The winding and narrow mountain road
That leads to the famous pass
Of the Grand Saint Bernard
Where the big and brave rescuer dogs
Are coming from
This mountain’s silhouette
A dark green upside down V-shaped wall
Made of granite and ice
Called “La Grande Rochere”
Was staring at me in silence

Thousands of years ago
Hannibal with his army
Including elephants and mercenaries
Crossed the mountains there
To surprise the Romans
Attacking them from the north

Hannibal might have glanced at the mountain
And not even flinched
He was pursuing an incredible enterprise
To punish the Romans
For having kicked his butt years before
When he attacked them
From the more obvious southern sea route

That weekend I was dealing
With much less serious problems
As I had been kidnapped
By two Italian college girls
To spend a few days in a fancy mountain villa
And tutor them in biomathematics
So they could finally stop
Failing the test
And get their degrees in biology

My problem in those green days
Was that one of the ladies
My own girlfriend
Just disclosed to me
She had fallen in love
With one of my best friends

Up to that point
She had been my “chosen one”
The one I waited for
All my life

I remember how I refused
To lose my virginity
Just for the sake of it
And how I applied the teachings
Of the Kama Sutra
In its chapter about
Initiating a young virgin
To the joy of sexual union

We took one beautiful year
To get more and better intimate
And then we did it
And it was beautiful for some time
Until we began to grow apart

My heart was broken
She was calling his name
When we were sleeping together
And she was talking all the time about him
When we were on a date

I did not know what to do
I have never been monogamous at heart
But I left my other girlfriends
To focus on this one
Although I lost my trust for her
Our bond was still very strong
And it was getting ugly

Our sex was becoming
More physical and raw
Less affectionate and unfulfilling
Almost violent

So there we were in Paradise
As you can imagine
The beauty of the flowers
Raging waters of the streams
Butterflies and puffy clouds in the sky

Despite all of that
I was in a big quandary
Trying to deal with my emotional issues
And my mathematical physics textbook
About the general theory of Relativity
That was a tough nut to crack

It took the professor
Many hours of lessons
To arrive at the formula
E = mc2
And it was going to take me
Much more to start understanding it

The girls were very demanding

During the day
And also during the night
But my love for my girlfriend
Was changing flavor
Due to the my jealousy
And her games

One morning she spent quite
Some time on the phone
With her new lover
While I was looking from a distance
It was clear she was smiling and chirping
The way that she used
To be with me

I told myself
I had enough
So I took the day off

I borrowed the car
And disappeared
Driving the dirt roads
Leading to the base of
My mountain

I put on my hiking boots
Got my camera
And nothing else
And started hiking
What seemed like a trail
Made by and for mountain goats

The mountain was very steep

The grass just took the place
Of the melting snow
And there were signs of
Big avalanches that had fallen during the winter

I spotted a small group of people
A man and a woman
And kids
Collecting and piling up wood
From the trees crushed by an avalanche

The man
A big burly mountain guy
Started talking to me
From a distance
So I went there
And we had a conversation

I told him I was from Torino
A nuclear engineering student

I was always proud of my major
Because I believed
That nuclear was going to be the solution
To plentiful energy
Without spoiling the environment

History proved me wrong

The shepherd warned me
That the mountain was very steep
There were no trails
And he was very concerned
About me going up
All by myself

But I often liked to climb and to explore places
Completely alone
I liked the feeling of being in a faraway place
And having no one know here I was

It was kind of exciting

I thanked him for his good advice
And I continued up the mountain

A couple of hours later
I was as high as the clouds
And I got a sign of the destiny
A very large eagle feather
That I still own to this day

Corroborated by the gift from the mountain
I decided to try to make it to the top

The trail disappeared
And the grass was getting more precious
When I heard the call of the guardian marmots
Advising the rest of the community
That a visitor was approaching

The marmots live in communities at high elevation
They are shy and very social
And they have their own language
Allowing them to communicate detailed information

When I reached the top
I saw an amazing system of caves carved in the mountain
Connected by small freeway-like trails

It was the beautiful secret city of marmots
And I felt so honored for the discovery

I spoke to the rodents hidden in their caves
Assuring them I was going to keep their secret

It was getting late and dark
So I headed back down very fast
Barely touching the ground
Almost as I was flying
With the eagle's feather in my hand

At the bottom I found the man and his family
He said he was waiting for my safe return
“Just in case”
I felt the love in his voice
And a sense of deep gratitude

I resolved to stop the nonsense
Of a dead-end relationship
And live the rest of my life
Following my heart and my soul

Every morning and every evening
The marmots stand in line before their burrows
And contemplate for about one half hour
The rising and setting of the Sun

When I think about them
I almost cry of tenderness

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 01.02.2010

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Widmung:
To all young men coming to terms with becoming adults