We sit alone on a peak overlooking Chinook Pass. The mountain breeze whips around us and we both pull our hoodies over top our heads and turn our backs slightly to block it out. Below us Highway 410 cuts a seam into the side of the mountain as it winds up the East side of the pass and then back down the West side. We sit here, at some 5400 feet of elevation, between two worlds. To the East are rolling hills, apple orchards, Ford Broncos, horses and a big blue sky. To the West are mighty evergreens, city lights with coffee shops on every corner, BMW dealerships and somewhere beyond in the night -- the raw power of the Pacific ocean. Sitting in the quiet solitude of the late summer afternoon, surrounded by mountain peaks and whisps of clouds, we somehow are a part of both and neither at the same time.
"So what do you think?" He says to me.
"About the job offer?" I say. He nods his head.
He reaches into his his sweatshirt and pulls out a pack of Backwoods Sweets and a green lighter. He offers one of the cigars in my direction.
"I'll share yours." I say to him. He leans down and I cup my hands to block the afternoon wind as he lights the cigar. He then hands it to me. I take a long puff and let the smoke linger on my lip until it catches the breeze and disappears.
"It's a freaking dream come true." He says. "I mean, this is life changing money we're talking about here."
"True." I say. "No denying it."
"Then why do I feel like you're not on board." He says. I look down at the pass and watch the occasional car climb the last quarter mile to the summit before crossing this imaginary line on which we sit and then beginning the decent down the opposite side.
"I can't explain it, really." I say. "It's just that I feel my stomach in knots when I picture living the next 20 years locked up in a corporate high-rise, tucked away nicely from everything that really matters in life as I make some schmuck more money in a year than I'll ever see in my lifetime. I guess I'm just not cut out for the 9-5 shit."
I can feel his look of frustration without having to see it. We sit, quietly, for several minutes. The wind whistles softly as we share our cigar in silence. Below a mini-van stops at the lookout view overlooking the East side of the pass. Finally he breaks the silence again.
"Yeah." He says. "Well, I have a family now. It's not as simple as it used to be." He says. "At some point you have to grow up, bro. At some point you have to put childish things behind and step up and be a man." He says.
I watch the cigar until he stops talking and then I take another drag.
"If growing up means dying inside each day because I long ago traded in my dream for the 'American Dream'..." I say. "Well, then... no thanks, friend. I pass." I say.
The sun is sinking dangerously close to sharp, rocky peaks over the West side of the pass now. The wind is picking up too, a warning that the warm season is almost gone. Soon this pass will be snowed over. Soon it will be closed for the winter all together.
"Man time flies." He says to me. "Do you remember all the times we've sat in this very spot, as kids? Where did it all go?" He says.
"It just goes." I say. "It never stays; no matter how much you pray for it to stay... time always goes away."
I notice a scent of some purple wildflower around us and I sneeze because of it. I hand him the cigar as he rubs his own nose with his other hand.
"So what's your answer then?" He says. "You seem to have all of them."
"It's pretty simple for me." I say. "I'm not going to let anything distract me from my dream. I know why I was put here and what I am supposed to do. And that's what I'm gonna do." I say.
He takes a puff off the cigar and hands it back to me.
"Even if that means that everyone around you has to support you while you chase your dream?" He says. It's not really a question, more of a statement. I don't say anything. Instead I take a drag from our cigar.
"Look at Uncle Johnny." He says. "The man should be on the verge of retirement. But instead he's still insisting that his big break, his dream, is just around the corner." He pauses.
"I don't want that for us." He says. "This job offer is the ticket to our dream. Once I stack enough cash then we will be able to do what we always talked about doing, since we were kids." He says. "Besides, I am good at what I do. There's something meaningful about being good at what you do. You know?" He says.
The sun is a giant fireball of orange against the white and gray of the rocky mountain peaks and it sets the meadow below ablaze in golden light. The evening breeze is picking up its pace and I have to yell a little to hear myself above it.
"You don't have time for it all." I say. "Life gives us a choice. But it's just that... a choice. You don't get it both ways. You never will." I say. "I don't have it all figured out like you do." I say. "But I don't need to have it all figured out. I have faith that the road less traveled will be the more meaningful road... in the end."
The cigar is nothing more than a stub between my thumb and index finger now. The sun is setting. A couple hours drive still awaits. We cannot afford to linger in this no-man's land much longer.
"We have to make a choice." I say.
We pause, praying for this moment to stay... just a little while longer.
"What are you going to choose?" I say.
"I don't know." He says.
The words ring in my ears as the wind howls around us. Nothing more needs to be said that hasn't already been said before. Quietly we push ourselves to our feet. As we walk down the side of the mountain, toward the car, we leave behind a single set of footprints. As the sun sets to our left, a single shadow stretches out behind me and to my right. He and I are two sides of the same coin. Life is giving us a choice. One road leads East -- toward art, toward spirituality, toward world travel, toward the road less traveled; and one road leads West -- toward the corner office with giant windows, toward a home with a white picket fence, toward real estate investments and a 401K, toward roads that are more like veins, ceaselessly pumping lifeblood through cities that never sleep.
In the end, we can't have it both ways. We never will.
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