PORTLAND, Ore. — For John Waller, movement is life — each moment holding its own details.
"I find myself paying a lot more attention now than I used to," he said as he admired South Falls at Oregon's Silver Falls State Park.
The park holds many a moment turned memory for Waller, who in his college days was a cross-country runner for Willamette University. "Our cross-country team would come up here and we'd run the seven-mile loop as our practice," he said with a smile.
An avid explorer and filmmaker, John has an eye for the bigger picture and perspective on each passing moment.
"I'm always looking to buy more time," Waller said.
In October 2020, at the age of 44, Waller was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer. It has since spread to his liver. Dr. Emerson Chen, an oncologist at Oregon Health & Science University has walked through some of this medical journey with Waller.
"Every mindset is different," Chen said. "There's no right or wrong, and I think that John is a very active person and also someone who will want to explore all the options. But certainly not at the cost of sacrificing hobbies and people that are important to him."
Waller has multiple Mount Hood summits to his name; in his words, "I lost count after 30." His appetite for adventure and making the most of the remaining time he has left both humbles and drives him.
"I've had to shift my mindset about what I'm physically capable of ... and that, that doesn't define me," he said.
In 2023, Waller raised $22,837 through an ascent of Aconcagua in Argentina — his fundraising efforts matching the elevation of the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere. The money went to Project Athena, a nonprofit with a mission, according to their website, "to help survivors of medical and/or traumatic challenges reach new athletic goals and achieve their adventurous dreams."
Waller climbed with a small hepatic arterial infusion (HAI) pump embedded in his abdomen, delivering chemo directly to his liver. There were a lot of variables to consider due to the high elevation; Waller recalled the concern the unit might freeze or not work in thinner air at higher elevations.
Dr. Chen was concerned about the chemo levels for a mountaineering trip. "We had to kind of plan out the days that John is going to be away and to make sure that the reservoir would not run dry," Chen said.
Waller acknowledged the confinement of a once strong and capable body. Now his motto (and his former video production company) is called "Uncage the Soul."
"My next mountain may be a lot smaller," he said. "But the mindset is similar and that I'm still going to try to do what it takes to climb that mountain, whatever it may be."
A year after Waller's diagnosis, he got an expected gift "out of thin air," you could say. A saunter on a dating app led him to Liz Salas.
"The outdoors was a real connecting influence for us at the very beginning," said Waller.
Salas recalled first connecting with Waller on the app. "John had listed a bunch of his interests there, and he mentioned owls as one of his favorite things. And so I'm a bird nerd myself, but I was too embarrassed to put it on my dating profile," said Salas with a smile. "I was like, okay, tell me about a cool experience that you've had with an owl, thinking he's gonna have some lame thing to say."
"I saw one once!" Waller playfully interjected.
As it happened, Waller had made a video years prior through Uncage the Soul Productions of a great gray owl hunting a vole. Salas was amazed.
"I've been waiting to play that owl card for years and then Liz came along and I was like, 'This is the time!'" Waller said, laughing. "I remember our second date, you know, I was very open, very transparent about my circumstances ... and at one point she looked at me and she said, 'You don't have to protect me.' And I was just 'OK!'"
"He's just a very authentic person," Salas said. "And that means not just talking about the good things in life, the cool things, you know, the things that he feels proud of, but his vulnerability and things that are hard, things that are real."
In March of 2024, Waller proposed to Salas beneath the northern lights at the Arctic Circle. On July 20, they were married at a familiar place.
"He asked me, like, 'So where do you think we should get married?'" Salas recalled. "And I was like, 'Well, you know, I think we should go to Silver Falls,'" said Salas. "It was the perfect wedding."
"Like, why would you do that? Why would you go through that? Why would you spend all that money?" Salas said of the event. "It's, for me, really a proclamation to John and to the world that I adore this man. I love him."
In January 2020, Waller spoke at TedX Portland's Salon on Mortality, sharing the rawness of his reality. While he deals with a progressing cancer, he deflects labels like victim and warrior.
"I really love the word healing when it's applied to what I'm going through as a substitute for a battle, because healing can take place regardless of the outcome," Waller said. "I'm not in a battle, I'm not in a fight. I'm here to heal myself … and fresh air, looking up at these trees and hearing a river, hearing the breeze through the leaves. That is healing that can happen just about anywhere at any time."
Reflecting at Silver Falls State Park on the memories as an athlete, and more recently, a groom, Waller is at peace with how he's treating each moment of his life, particularly his potential last ones.
"At the end of the day … in those sort of final moments of life, what really matters is, what were the fingerprints that you left behind for the people you love?" he said. "Not so much how many mountains did you climb."
If each of us is a droplet tumbling over the falls of life, we're all heading back to earth. Waller is already deeply grounded.
"None of us know how much time is left," said Salas. "You don't know if 'happily ever after' is really a thing, so why not make the most of what you have today?"
