Even in a lightning fast world of 60 second turbo dogs, instant coffee, and instant messages; instant gratification has always seemed to elude me. In school I was slow. Outside of school I was slow. It’s just always been a long learning process. Personally I don’t feel it was detrimental. I feel that when most people were given lessons in school or life they would immediately accept them as truth, and never stop for a second to wonder about all the “why’s” which could be asked. I’ve always been slowed down with lots of “why’s”, and everything I want to do ends up being an epic because of it. By now I might be well on my way to being a highly successful businessman, save for a few more why’s? For example; “Why does Alzheimer’s Disease exist? Why does Parkinson’s Disease exist? Why does my mother have Alzheimer’s? Why did my grandmother die from Alzheimer’s? Why does my Father-in-Law have Parkinson’s? Why haven’t these diseases been cured?There has always been an ocean of time between me and my goals, but I keep swimming.
In March of 2002, I was in the Mount Kisco Borders Book store to pick up a few new climbing magazines and a few architecture books. I could spend hours in a book store. Just before I head out my usual stop is by the magazine rack where I came across an article called “Soaked” by a writer named Bruce Barcott, who writes for “Outside” magazine. In the story he describes his own expedition to climb Mount Wai’ale’ale.
My wife and I had been to Kauai on our honeymoon like thousands of other couples from around the world, so I’ve seen this place before. But, at the time it didn’t quite strike me the way it was about to. While there on our honeymoon I’m sure there were a thousand more romantic things to focus on, but I do recall the mountain. Wai’ale’ale rose before us with its summit covered in mist thousands of feet above. It’s significance was quite understated. I had no idea that this mountain was so unique. I had no idea it was such a challenge to those who thought they might reach the top of it. I had no idea how it would pull me back with an almost supernatural magnetism to court it years later.
Unfortunately, Mr. Barcott and his small team did not make it to the top. That’s not to say that their effort was any less meaningful or determined than others that tried before him. Just knowing he tried to make it, then went on to write about it has brought me to this very moment in time. In fact, the mountain has seen people come and go for almost 30 years without allowing a single person to reach its summit by any means other than that of a short and dangerous helicopter flight from the low lands. Of course for even this, Mother Nature needs to grant her permission by lifting the perpetual mists for enough time to fly in without crashing on the mountains 3,000 foot vertical walls. You see, the summit is hidden from view in these foreboding mists on an average of 320 days per year. Mount Wai’ale’ale is known as the "Wettest place on Earth”, it is surrounded by the “Alakai” which is the "Highest Rain Forest in the World”, and to this day no one in this generation of explorers has reached the summit on foot. Not a handful. Not ten. Not five. Not one. No one. Period.
Standing there with the smell of coffee in the air, the buzz of spring outside, and the feeling that part of my own personal renaissance was lying there before me in the black & white text was larger than life feeling. Mount Wai’ale’ale could give me a chance to see what I was made of. This was a chance to challenge myself. This was a chance to conquer myself, and to conquer one of the last few places on earth which many now consider impossible to reach on foot.
I’ve never been drawn in so quickly. I could feel the blood rush back into my stagnant fingertips and the hair on the back of my head was starting to stand up straight. I was going to make this happen. Somehow, some way, someday this mountain was going to beaten, and if I can help it, my feet would feel it beneath them.
Then came a special delivery from my own Devil’s Advocate. It’s that little practical voice of reason that haunts every mans dreams of doing something great. Just as quickly as I had been struck with by the desire to climb to this mysterious place came the realization that I’d never planned an “expedition” before. How was I going to do this? What did I have to research? Where can I find the information? What do I have to learn? How will I climb it? Do I need special equipment? How long will it take? How much will it cost? Where can I get my climbing team? What do you know about any of this, and what makes you so special that you think you can do what many others could not? Question after question after question like torrents of rain storming in over me trying to dampen my enthusiasm and make me quit before I would ever start. “What the hell?” I thought, “If I’m going to climb to the wettest place on earth I better get used to the rain, so pour it on!”
In the 3 years that passed since that moment I prepared in every possible to help me achieve this goal. All my faculties were tested, physically, mentally, financially and on the inside I rode the emotional roller coaster between confidence and self doubt. There was much to be done. I searched out every internet site, downloaded countless photos of the area, read every newspaper article, reviewed every topo map, bought every book which had any mention of this mysterious place. I had even emailed my former counter parts at the USGS Hydrological Division (Hawaii). Then, when I was done checking everything I went back and double checked the information I had. Some of it was credible, and some of it was sketchy, but when a place is considered to be as mysterious as Wai’ale’ale everything had to be taken with a grain of salt. Collecting background to all of this was in itself was a challenge.
Likewise at the same time during this period, I had been climbing my own personal sort of mountains. I was busy working between 60 to 70 hours per week (and only being paid for 40), while volunteering on two village boards. I ran in my first political race. I bought my first house, then I found myself out of work for 6 months while paying for 2 mortgages. In addition to those mortgages, I had to contend with construction costs, as I went on to completely gut, demolish, renovate and build additions to our first house.
It seemed as thought I’d made so many big strides over the last few years - personally, professionally, and in volunteering for my community. Although, trying to extract information about Wai’ale’ale was difficult, I felt that I was nearing the limits of what I could possibly know about this place short of going there to get on the mountain itself. The wheels on the big machine were spinning, but I wasn’t getting any closer to reaching the summit of Wai’ale’ale. I wasn’t taking the next step…whatever that might be. Maybe now it was fear of the unknown or worse – procrastination.
It had always been my intension to create a project to raise awareness and funds for research in Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s but I didn’t know how to go about it. Where would I begin the process of inquiring. Which organizations would be best to contact? What did they do for these diseases? Would they somehow sponsor my expedition and help me pay for some of the expenses? There were still so many unanswered questions.
“All talk and no action”. I hate that expression, especially when someone directs it at me. I hate it even more when I’m thinking it to myself, and not knowing why I’m not moving ahead. Sometimes I find that I’ve been prepared to commit to something and stood still shell shocked in some way. Maybe it’s partly the mentality where in its more comfortable to stand still in hell then wander over the next mysterious mountain not knowing what would be on the other side. Maybe it’s worse than where I was, or maybe it would be the heaven I was looking for. It wouldn’t take much to push me over that edge and get the machine rolling, but it does sometimes take just that. It’s funny how that little push can present itself in our lives, and thank God my eyes and ears are always open looking for a sign. In my case the power of the push wasn’t physical. The push came in the form of words.
Let’s go back in time for a moment. You’ll see just how these words lay dormant in the backbone of my life waiting for a trigger to make me stand up and move.
When I was young for the most part I didn’t idolize the usual suspects like celebrities and sports figures from the leagues of rich and famous personalities. KISS was the only modern day equivalent to the idols I had in this day and age. Regardless of what music critics and the media were saying in the land of hype and glory, at the time the message I was hearing was something they’d been conveying to fans throughout their reign. If you could dream big and were determined to succeed you could turn those dreams into reality.
From the perspective of my family, the stories I’d heard about my own ancestors were big enough to set the bar high for me to aspire to. I admired my Grandparents, my Uncles and my Father, who left everything they knew behind to move here from Sicily.
My Mom’s family – the Chadwick’s were older and more complex than my Sicilian family. Her family is one of the oldest British families on record and has more than its share of knights, Saints and other interesting characters. To this day it boggles my mind to see how they were intertwined with historical events spanning back through more than 1,400 years of the island’s history. They were there before England was England, and they let the conquerors army know that. But, this is a long story for another day.
I’ve always maintained that we are all a sum of the people in our families who have come before us. So, for a little kid growing up as the first born American in a family of immigrants living in working class Mount Kisco, New York, just knowing that my ancestors were passionate and larger-than-life in their own ways was fuel for me to try to live up to their ancient standards.
My Mother was an even keeled personality, but would not stand for being treated unfairly, and would go out of her way to see to it that other people were treated the same way. It was a quality that she also tried to instill in me when I was growing up. I remember hearing the story about how I was conceived out of wedlock, and she was still not quite sure how my dad felt about marrying her and raising me. She basically laid down the law and said if he wasn’t going to do the right thing she would move to Australia and raise me on her own. I’ve always been profoundly moved by knowing that she was willing to leave, and face the hardship of moving while pregnant to a strange land far away from her safety net in order to have me. I suppose in the 1960’s abortion was also popular, but she wouldn’t have it. She chose to have me regardless of the difficulties she might face raising me as a single mom. In essence she saved me from never having ever been, and I think all these years later in some strange way, I’m probably trying to save her right back.
As it turned out my father had no intension of letting us go to Australia, and they’re still together today.
Growing up two idols made the biggest collective impression on my character. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, and Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci. More simply put, Michelangelo and Leonardo DaVinci. I loved the fact that they could do more than dream big, they could act on those dreams and turn them into reality. They were Renaissance Men. Even for as young as I was, I seem to get the impression that so much of the world around us sprung from their minds and I admired that. It wasn’t that they never made mistakes, but rather that they believed in the ideas they wanted to convey to the world and moved toward proving those ideas with complete conviction and super human determination. When I was little I thought, “How great would it be if I could just try to be like that”.
In elementary school it didn’t matter that I was always the last student to finish my class work. It didn’t matter that I had to stay in during my lunch hours to do this while I could hear the other kids playing out in the playground after lunch. It didn’t even matter that it took me twice as long to finally learn my subjects. I just had to learn to accept certain things and not to be to be saddened the pressure of keeping up with everyone else. I learned early that everyone has their own special strengths and weakness’. I thought… “So what if I wasn’t going to be the quickest at things other kids were good at. Instead I’m going to be creative, and when something is too hard for everyone else I’m never going to give up until I find an answer.” Basically these two things moved me through life. Be creative, and never give up. In my young mind this was exactly how Michelangelo and DaVinci lived. I was going to do the same, even if I could never equal them with my accomplishments, I was going to try my hardest at everything I cared for.
Let’s flash forward again. This is going somewhere... believe me.
So, one evening during a birthday party for my friend Nino we found ourselves in a club located down in the basement of the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. The club was dark as usual and it looked like all the vamps were out that night, but in the middle of all that commotion I met and had a chance to talk to a girl named Jackie. She was beautiful at first glance, at second glance and third glance. She was very elegantly dressed, and this immediately set her apart from everyone else in the room. She had a fantastic personality and was also a great speaker. I remember thinking she could easily maneuver between conversations on any range of topics. It didn’t seem there was a subject that could throw her. Jackie’s talks were strikingly faceted. In mid-stream she could amazingly change her vocabulary to suit the subject. If we were going on about music it was contemporary, if the topic was about other more serious matters of the world her words and tone would elevate to something more fitting a college lecture, and the glide in that transition was seamless. She was different from most people I usually meet in life, and as I would come to find out she would mark me and then move me in the greatest of ways.
Afterwards I only had a chance to see Jackie a handful of times. We stayed in touch mostly through email, sometimes by phone, but ultimately it was something she said to me which turned on all the big engines and really started this project moving.
As you recall I was making strides in learning all I could about turning my charity expedition to Wai’ale’ale into reality, but I was making absolutely no headway on actually moving forward with it.
One day while on my way home from work I had been on the phone with Jackie. At this point she already knew quite a bit about what I had been doing with my life. She knew I was working for an architecture design firm in Greenwich Connecticut. She knew I was planning this expedition to Wai’ale’ale. I was trying to turn the expedition into a charity event. I was involved in politics. I was involved in volunteering on village committees. I was writing and recording music. I was getting more involved in graphic arts and my photography. I was starting to write more. I was redesigning and renovating a house my wife and I had recently bought. There were so many other things going on in my life as well, and she had been making a mental note of it all.
So, in the middle of our conversation her voice cuts through with a quick sentence which dropped on me like a bomb I never expected to fall. Jackie said, “You kind of remind me of a Renaissance Man.”
I went… “What?”
“You remind me of a Renaissance Man.”
“Oh I could never be a Renaissance Man. Michelangelo and DaVinci are Renaissance Men. I might try to do some big things, but I’m just me. They’re giants in the scheme of things.”
I know what you’re starting to think, there goes my head. It was super inflating.
I’m not used to being on the receiving end of compliments at all, so any compliment would have thrown me, but this one was different. This one kicked me out of idle and into high gear. Never in my life had I ever expected to be associated with the words “Renaissance Man”, a term I had affectionately held in the highest regard for my two childhood idols – Michelangelo & DaVinci. In one stroke Jackie had given me the greatest compliment of all time, and at the same moment motivated me into this surreal ultra high energy, full throttle, larger-than-life mode of invincibility. Instantly everything I had been working toward flashed through my mind, and it felt as though it was all more possible now than ever before.
I remember finally getting home to my little apartment and turning on the computer. I looked around me at the shelves full of books. I looked over to the rolled up maps of Wai’ale’ale and plans in the corner by the Kitchen. And, I pinned up a photo of my mom to the inside door of my computer armoire.
I thought to myself, “This is it. The wheels are turning. I’m going the distance now.”
Within less than a year from the phone call with Jackie. I had reached out to the Alzheimer’s Association, and established a relationship with the local Hudson Valley Chapter. I had made a number of attempts to contact the various Parkinson’s Disease organizations and held out hope that they would be interested enough in my project to call me back. I decided that I was finished with research toward my first charity expedition, and had gone to Kauai on a reconnaissance trip with Ken to personally size up the route I had designed for the future expedition. Six months after our reconnaissance trip to Kauai, it was “Game on”.
The Regulars “A Trail Called Hope” Mount Wai’ale’ale Expedition 2005 was now a reality!
World up,
Enzo
(to be continued)
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