I’m lying on my back, staring up at the light filtering its way to me through the leaves of an oak tree. Dust motes, illuminated by the afternoon sun, float like dancers through the air.

It’s hot today. The sun has been baking The Valley floor all day, but my spot under this tree, lying on a crash pad is peaceful and cool.

Standing at its base, your language betrays you. We don’t have words for the size, for the complexity of what you’re seeing. Is it a mountain? No. A mountain protrudes up out of the ground, it has a peak and a summit, El Cap has neither.

I turn the key in the ignition and begin to drive home with a load of groceries sitting in the passenger's seat. A rumpled brown paper co-pilot who can only feed me.

I am the baby monkey in the lab. I am the fake cloth mother she holds. I am the plate of untouched food.

I wind up and punch it, trying to gain enough momentum to propel me the 20 or so feet I need to get to the next hold. It takes me three tries, but finally, at the apex of my swing, I press off against the wall and leap sideways into the air. All of this is made more hilarious by the fact that I am wearing a pink dinosaur onesie. I woke up that morning and chose style instead of practicality.

I hear the sounds of people moving around in the morning. Car doors opening and closing quietly. The click click pop and then whisper of gas stoves coming on. The quiet rumble of someone hand grinding coffee. I hear accented English good mornings. The upward bracing lilt of an Australian greeting collides with the mellow downward tone of a cheery Canadian ‘Hello!’. The long ‘o’s and drawn out ‘a’s make a tune out of the ritual.

Breakfasts with Eric started during a heat wave in Squamish, BC one summer. We’d parked our vans sliding door to sliding door in a dusty yellow parking lot at the base of the Chief. I slid open my door and felt the summer heat roll into me. I sat on the floor of my van with a cup of coffee, grinning a good morning to Eric as he rolled out of bed and did the same in his van.