My Name Is Vale

My Name Is Vale

 by Roya Sorooshian
 fin. 4.11.01

I climbed and climbed and climbed. My shoes scraping against the rough rocks and boulders. I hazarded a look up and my eyes narrowed. I looked down and my breath caught in my throat. I'd climbed high, higher than I thought I had. I must have stopped paying attention.

My name is Vale. And I am searching. I'm not sure what I'm looking for, exactly, but I know I'm missing it. Everyone says that Joshua Tree holds answers. My Mom told me in her "I know what's best" voice that climbing would be good for me. That I needed the exercise. Work out aside, I knew the desert would be good. The poignant air, the clarity, the sunshine. Maybe a change was all I needed. Maybe.

And so I climbed, looking for the answer. Maybe it would be beyond the next rock face, maybe if I climbed just a little higher, the scraped palms and torn pants would be worth it. My name is Vale. And I am busy climbing.

My Mom was unconscious for the 24 hours after I was born, so it wasn't her who named me. I heard my name was bestowed upon me by a nurse. I'm used to the jokes, the bad puns. I'm used to describing my moods with stormy-weather metaphors. Maybe that nurse was a fairy godmother or something, imprinting a personality on a sleeping baby. I'm certainly nothing like my mother. She is nothing stronger than a flighty whimpering breeze, rattling bare tree branches in an effort to make some noise. This lack of anything more meaningful frustrates me. So I make louder noise. I gather the storm clouds around me, hold fistfuls of lightning and let rip. I open my mouth and wind picks up whatever is in my path and redistributes it far away. "Dramatic" some people call me. "Intense" say others. "Nothing is ever boring where you are" I've heard. I've gotten used to being the bit of static electricity in everybody's hair.

My name is Vale. And clouds are rolling in. I can see out over a valley when I turn around. I can see the desert floor like an ocean, rock piles like islands sticking up over the waves of creosote bushes and dried wild flowers. My chest is heaving with a ferocity I've never experienced before. The boulders are perched so precariously, like I am the first person to climb them since a very recent avalanche. I can see the occasional gap underneath the rocks, housing cold chambers with sandy floors. My heart beats like a cold stone inside my chest. Every step I take I am sure will be my last, jarring the rocks and sending me plummeting. I try to quiet my breathing so as not to cause a rockslide.

The only reason I knew about the nurse and my name is because of my older sister, Heather. My Mom and dad had gotten in a fight the day before I was born. My Mom didn't tell him she was in labor, as punishment. That's the way my family works. My dad's lived with us my whole life, but he was never a significant part of growing up in our home. Meaning, for permission and signatures, we always went to my mother. But when I met Brick, I didn't tell her either.

My name is Vale. And the ground is falling away behind me. I am shoving it away with my heels, and frantically scrambling away from it. Desperation is growing, panting in my throat like an animal. My hands sting and my nose hurts from breathing so hard. My foot slips on some gravel and my elbow thuds hard as I bite my lip. Stupid, that was stupid. I am going too fast. I am reminded again how perilous my situation is. One wrong move, one faulty step and my search would be over.

Meeting Brick was like crashing headfirst into a wall, complete with the stars rotating around my head afterwards. I'd like to think that he crashed just as hard, but I never really asked. He tamed me, maybe that's what I still think about him. He turned my storms into the softest wind, and I loved it. I loved being held by someone as solid and strong as him. He anchored me like no one else ever had. My mother was flighty, my dad wishy washy and my sister had her own life. Brick held me from flying apart.

My name is Vale. And the world is stinging. My hands, my knees, my eyes. tears are forming and drying before they fall. I keep climbing and gasping, frightened when I look back and where I've come. I hope I find the answers soon. I don't know how I will be able to get down again. My legs tremble from exhaustion. Maybe I will climb so high my eyes will turn into stars and my sobs will be like thunder.

Brick supplied security in a turmoil world. I still felt like I was tumbling through the sky, but now at least I had someone tumbling with me. I never thought that he was weighing me down. With Brick things seemed to be a series of crashes. I crashed into him, and then I crashed and fell.

My name is Vale. And there is a long way to fall. I wedge my body between two rocks, inching my way up a steep incline. I am getting more courageous. These leaps of faith have always been hard for me. I would stand on the ground and watch people run up rocks, their feet barely touching the surface. I would be amazed, and jealous, envying that ability and experiencing complete incredibility. I wish someone was here to see how far I'd come. But I know I could never have gotten here if someone was with me.

Falling away from Brick was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. It was pain, physical pain. My Mom (after she found out) told me that I was too entangled in a B.O.Y. Privately, I thought that she would be better off if she let herself become entangled. But she had a point, I was entangled, and had no idea how to get away. I still loved him even as he pushed me over the edge. I fell down, down, down. Loved him as I crashed. I lay, in pieces, and daydreamed that he'd ride in and put me back together.

My name is Vale. And I have a powerful imagination. Every time I look down I can see myself in a mangled heap at the bottom. I can picture so vividly, what it would be like if I slipped and fell, thudding and thunking my way to a painful end. I don't believe I can make it to the top. The wind picks up and my cheeks start to numb.

My vivid imagination must have been what led to my months of wishful thinking. Whenever I saw Brick, or talked to him, I imagined so much in so little. Even when he cut off all contact with me, I clung to the belief that it wouldn't last. I was still in pieces, and sinking. I knew I was missing parts of myself, but in my fractured state, I thought I was missing Brick. People started noticing, and then the advice came in torrents. The one piece that was consistent was "get away." So I came to the desert land of rocks and oddly angled trees, of sand and wind. Searching. I was searching for something missing that was as large as a mountain.

My name is Vale. And the sky is opening up to me. The rocks that used to fill my vision are piling up beneath me. I am at the top, but there is no feeling of relief. Instead, the rock at the bottom of my stomach grows heavy. I found nothing. I am the highest living thing and I am all alone. Alone and with no answers. I look around, the muted colors of the sand and bushes seep into my eyes. There is none of the pride I thought I would be experiencing. No gleeful victoriousness. My eyes feel heavy and my legs twinge with soreness. I look for a place to start my descent, gulping when I realize that I am not safe yet.

It's amazing how small you feel when you are alone for the first time in years. How it feels like everything's out to hurt you. You are fragile. I always felt helpless in the grips of something so much larger than I was. Like a mountain, unmoveable. But not for a lack of trying. I shoved and pushed against that metaphorical mountain until I wore myself down. This was so horrible for me, a person who was used to being the one in control.

My name is Vale. And the ground is rushing towards me. I let out a small whimper as I slide out of control into a thorn bush. I brush away the branches, and decide to ignore the lines of blood that are forming. I sit, quivering, between two cold boulders. The ground looks as far away as the top ever did. I stand up and keep climbing, testing every rock before I put my full weight on it. I climb and I climb, sometimes sitting and inching myself down steeper parts. Finally I scramble over the last boulder and I am on sand again. I did it.

I look up at the top, squinting to see the trees and bushes. As I walk away, my feet feel light. I just climbed over a mountain. Suddenly, everything connects, and I know I found the answer. I had stopped beating my head against a wall that yielded no results. I went over it. And even though it scared me, the thought that I might fall, alone, with no one to help me, I still did it. I thought I had been weighed down by Brick, and my mother, but I was still able to leave the ground. I had kicked my legs free of everything I was entangled in. The mountain was just putting into action the struggle inside of myself. I feel solid, strong inside. As dependable as rock. My name is Vale. And I have moved a mountain.