We are thrilled to share a sampling of work from Grit & Gravity, volume 11 as we accept submissions to volume 12. Submit now to GRACE IN JUSTICE, volume 12, to be published by the Washington Writers’ Publishing House, in fall of 2027. Details here.
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A MEASURE OF SUCCESS
by Claire Manibog
When Joan Didion wrote her essay “Goodbye to All That”—leaving the New York City she’d fallen out of love with for the renewing embrace of her native California—she said this: it is easy to see the beginnings of things and harder to see the ends. I disagree. I think it’s easier to see the ends and harder to see the beginnings.
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A Google search this late revealed what was left: one spot remaining on a weeklong group trek to deep Yosemite, fifty miles into the backcountry. There would be no running water, no showers, no phone reception, but also no noise, no subway, no notifications, no news, no demands, no pain. Just one foot in front of the other. I wanted my Cheryl Strayed moment, damnit, and Elizabeth Gilbert, too—women who got lost and came out winning (right?).
I signed up, lying to the tour company about my experience (none) and to myself about whether I could afford it. I had finally quit my job, but had nothing lined up. This would be a luxury.
On a routine prep call one week before the trip, the customer service representative informed me there are two raging wildfires, one to the north (Tahoe) and one to the south (Sequoia), but they are far enough that the trip could still go on. He also mentioned the other guests, by pure coincidence, are all women.
I was left at once terrified and reassured.
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Aurora says that at fifty she stopped giving a shit. She declares this, yells it even, as the rest of us arrive at a resting spot, desperate to take off our fifty-pound backpacks. Jane has already scurried behind a bush, barely out of sight before she’s pulling down her underwear to pee again; Shannon’s wincing as she pulls up the back of her shirt so Annie can examine her bruises; I desperately fumble to find a snack to feed my grumbling belly. Meanwhile, David, our expert guide, is quiet, backpack still on, leaning gently against a tree as he slowly sips water from his bladder, as if Aurora’s outburst is just another run-of-the-mill soapbox speech by a guest high on endorphins, fruit bars, and altitude.
The scene is chaotic, medieval, but Aurora is standing there tall, head held high, pack fallen at her feet, like Joan of Arc proclaiming her vision, eyes feverish, as she yells to everyone and no one, so loud it echoes across the valley. “YOU JUST HAVE TO STOP GIVING A SHIT!”
The air is so dry, I worry my nose might bleed like Shannon’s did earlier today. Nostrils like sandpaper. I stick a finger in—nobody can see me—and pick out a big, waxy booger, blackened from dust, and maybe a bit of blood. The nasty thing is so grotesque, I feel compelled to examine it before flicking it away; this curio, resting on the tip of my finger, curled up on itself, fetal almost, like a devilish worm. The look of it taunts me as if saying, “You’ll never get rid of me, not even here.”
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It’s Jane I can’t figure out. She talks nonstop, so fast she’s hardly got time to breathe. And yet she’s going. She’s strong, fast, and athletic. One night in camp, she reveals a perfect six-pack. You wouldn’t know she’s had two kids. She’s tough, no doubt, but it’s her eyes that give something away. On our first meeting, I noticed her sussing me out, examining me like a desert lizard. For what, I don’t know. As we take off, she comes closer, sticking to me all day throughout the climb, probably because I’m the only other solo traveler (the others, three friends, came together). She’s got a lot to say, and I must look like the person who’ll listen. She takes little time to chronicle the many marathons and races she’s accomplished, enumerating them with a forcefulness that belies a desperate need for validation. After the marathons, she schools me on the logistics of camping. But, after several hours, she runs out of things to say.
It’s when she doesn’t talk that Jane says plenty. She assures me her face is puffy because of the altitude, but I can see her eyes are wet. We’ll reach the
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summit and take out our phones for pictures but she’s not looking at the view. She’s staring at her screen, her sunburned face overpowered by fear.
On day two, she starts to open up. It’s her husband. He’s a drunk and a bully. It’s been going on for years, the pandemic made it worse, she had to get away. He sent explicit, angry texts the night before the trip. Didn’t like that she was in a hotel without him. Today, he texted her that she’s a bad mother. She knows it’s time to leave, but what about the kids? She feels so guilty, but they’re not safe anymore, and she doesn’t know what to do. I assure her that staying together for the kids is worse, but she doesn’t hear me. She’s checking her phone. That evening, while she’s alone in her tent, her phone’s glow breaks the perfect darkness of our remote backcountry camp.
On day three, we arrive at the most beautiful lake of all lakes, a placid mirror that reflects the snow-capped peaks rising high above it. After admiring its striking stillness, we tear off our clothes and rush into the crystal-clear alpine water, the frigid sensation both a shock to the system and a balm to our swollen muscles. The glassy surface is rippled by our bodies, yelps and laughter, but Jane is standing fixed, still fully clothed on the beach, frozen, her face downcast to her phone. “PUT IT AWAY!” we all yell. The power of our collective voice, multiplied by the echoes across mountain faces, forces her to join us in the lake, where her wet eyes quickly give way to shrieks of laughter, weaving its way into our boisterous gaggle.
On day four, Jane asks me how big London is, after I manage to get a word in. She asks me if I’ve ever been to Paris. I tell her I actually have family there and I know it very well. She wants to know about the Eiffel Tower and the cafés and is it really as beautiful as people say it is? After many questions, Jane admits she’s never left the country. She met her husband in high school and got married shortly after. He doesn’t like to travel, so she takes the kids camping nearby. But she says she might be single soon. She asks me what it’s like. I realize she’s been practicing her new life on these treks, this being her third. Along with the marathons, they’re her way of breaking free. This athlete has been getting stronger, braver, ready for a life lived on her own.
On day five, it seems we’ve grown closer. I tell her about my dream of motherhood and she reassures me it’s the best thing she’s ever done. She asks me if she’d be able to get around Paris with her high school French. I notice with each passing night she builds her tent nearer to mine.
On our sixth and final evening, Aurora introduces a surprise from deep within her backpack: an extra water bladder, more than a liter full, she’s labeled “Absolut Citron” in Sharpie marker. She announces we’re having a costume party. We can’t refuse Joan of Arc’s conviction, and I suspect some are keen to be rewarded with a shot of vodka. We have fifteen minutes to come up with something. I scramble for pine cones and sticks and ask Shannon if I can borrow her leggings. Annie pops over to my tent and asks me have I got any eyeliner by any chance? David is quietly strapping on a sleeping bag to his head when laughter explodes. I unzip my tent to peer out: Jane is naked but for pink underwear on her head, a blow-up pillow strapped to her chest, and a bright green tent rain cover wrapped around her waist. She looks like a cross between Josephine Baker and a camping store, and she’s beaming. After a few swigs of Aurora’s vodka, she’s dancing, and our collective heart is lighter.
On the last day, I’ll see her at the visitor center’s gift shop, but she’ll ignore me. I’ll know she’ll have looked at her phone to get ready for the long drive home. She’ll have closed in again, eyes cold and distant, trapped once more.
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It’s on day four, our hardest climb, that I’m really struggling. The rocks are getting bigger, the air thinner, my pack heavier. My left shoulder, frustrated from day one, is now seething. No matter how much I adjust the seven straps available to me—across hips, chest, shoulders, back—the pain won’t ease. I am feeling corners of my body never felt before, bony parts I’m not supposed to feel, suddenly aware that my tailbone is compressed by fifty extra pounds it was never meant to carry, and my right hip is grinding in its joint. I repeat to myself, “Don’t think about it, it’s only temporary,” but in this silence, in this vacant expanse of endless boulders and rock faces, there is nothing to do but think about it.
It’s louder now that I am alone; the group has disappeared from sight, no doubt eager to get to camp after a day of near-constant uphill climbing. I know we’re in real backcountry because we haven’t seen any other hikers for hours. I know my tank is empty because I am making mistakes—a foot slips off a rock, my arms and legs have fallen out of sync, my two poles skidding off rock, hitting the ground only after my feet need their support. My heart is pounding in my chest, the altitude sending frantic pulsations to my temples. After another push, I finally listen. A deep timber delivers the terminal message: you’ve reached your limit. I need to stop, even though we all know very well by now that each pause makes it harder to begin again.
“You’ve got this.” It’s Aurora. As if embodying her name, she appears like a rising sun above me: first her head, then her shoulders, arms, torso, and legs. She’s
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stopped and turned around, casting her eyes down at me. As I hear her footsteps coming closer, I am ashamed that I’ve made her come down the vertical rocks she’s just climbed—a wasted effort. “Don’t let me slow you down,” I say, but she hushes me. “This is a team sport.”
For the next hour, Aurora takes up the rear, protesting at every apology I make. She assures me she wants to go slow too, though I know she could be at camp by now, judging by her front-of-the-pack performance these last three days. She asks me how the drive was, if I am going straight home after the trip—enough questions to distract me, but not too many that I lose my breath. I ask her a few questions to be polite—how old are the kids, what do you do for work—and like a switchback, the conversation turns. Aurora says she was fired a week ago. She tells me she was the CEO of a fast-growing company on track to be the next global cosmetics brand. I normally don’t have much interest in the subject of lipstick, but as I learn more about her business, I develop a newfound respect for this woman.
She explains that investors came in a few months ago—French men in suits, she adds—first promising her a bright future, then without much notice they told her to leave. They didn’t think she was the right leader, she says, despite having grown the business to that point. As she tells her story, she exudes a command over a rage I can feel seething underneath. They’ve stolen her life’s work, but she’s not going to let them get away with it, she says. She’s going to fight back with lawyers, but in the meantime she’s here to “have some fun” with Annie and Shannon, who urged her to come. It comforts me to know I’m not the only one who booked last minute.
At night I write it all down, in the small window of time between our evening meal and the overpowering drowsiness that comes with a day’s worth of climbing. I scribble on my tattered notebook, the lightest one I could find, my usual neat cursive butchered into scratches by swollen mountain hands: Aurora says good people make it. Don’t be scared.
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We’re walking along a river when Annie, Irish and feisty, shouts to her best friend and countrywoman Shannon, who is at the back, “Whatcha gonna call ‘er?” I realize she’s talking about Shannon’s backpack. “BITCH!” shouts Shannon. “She’s a fecking bitch!”
We laugh, the mood made lighter, and I ponder what I’ll call mine. I know. I’ll call her Bertha, after her wide berth. Like a ship, she’s steering me up, down, left and right, above tree lines and down into valleys, sturdy and strong. Halfway through our trip, I realize she’s getting lighter. Or I’m getting sturdier. The bear canister designed for holding six days’ worth of food slips inside without trouble now, no longer competing so fiercely with the water bladder and the few clothes and simple toiletries I brought along. She’s my vessel now: bandana tied proudly like a flag to a mast; clothes wet from a swim attached to the outside to dry, giving her character; rubber sandals, for crossing streams, hanging off the sides like buoys.
That evening, as we arrive to camp, the others hurry to unclip their belts and straps, throw down their packs and run to the nearby stream for one last refreshing dip (or a pee) before it gets dark. I pause for a moment, resting my hands on Bertha’s hip belt. I don’t want to take her off; she’s been holding me all day. We’ve grown close now and I don’t want to let her go.
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It will have been easy to see when this journey ended because we’ll return to where it all began: the visitor center parking lot. We’ll say our goodbyes, but stay in touch via group chat (except for Jane, who will never respond). The end of our adventure will mark a new beginning for each of us: Annie will launch a backpack design company, Shannon a nutrition business, and Aurora will become CEO again. And I’ll have fallen in love with mountains, more energized than ever before, the slick dried up by Sierra dust and washed off with alpine water. I will honor this trek with an annual pilgrimage to the mountains for years to come.
And on every trip, I will find myself conceding to Joan. First, to stop giving so much of a shit, the way women do, then to see that the ends, when they do come, have also brought with them new beginnings.
Claire Manibog is a digital editor, yoga teacher, and aspiring mountaineer. A Washington, DC, native, Claire grew up as a third-culture kid split between American, French, and Filipino cultures, finding her way back home to DC by way of Singapore, China, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In her day job, Claire has published across a variety of print publications and websites including National Geographic, the Financial Times, CNN International, Time, Forbes, Business Insider, Upworthy, and the Huffington Post. After years in journalism, Claire is only just finding her own voice. This is her first personal essay.
GRACE AND GRAVITY 