Curse the clouds, let them know how you feel. Maybe I should be cursing the forecast. The pulsing of wind with every passing poof of deep grey moisture taunts me. It knows I didn’t bring a rain fly. It knows the intoxicated carelessness I felt an hour ago, picking thimbleberries until my fingers dripped red. To move through the world at 3.5 miles per hour is to be close, but not too close. Always leaving the things you admire, to again satisfy the subsequent longing. Digesting of the past while consuming the present, with anticipation for the future. Time begins to take on the ethereal form of an illusion and suddenly you snap back to the aching of your feet and contraction of muscles taking you to a place you see in fictional works. The spots of sun evaporate the moisture on my skin, sending it back into the atmosphere, to surely fall back down later as a minor inconvenience to me. Who’s really creating the rain here? Perhaps if I slow down the clouds will dissipate. Face buried in my pack and too tired to contrive anything hinting at a pillow, a spotlight slices my eyelids. The full moon cresting the ridge brings shadows long enough to make the evening sun proud. I step out of my noseeum cocoon, as one might when the sun rises, and watched the shadows move with a slow elegance. The world has seemingly perfected it’s rituals and rarities, shapes and complexities, and when you sit to view such shows, you begin to understand your own insignificance. I didn’t have to open my eyes. I didn’t have to focus on anything other than getting a few hours of sleep. The moon would have risen anyway. The shadows would have walked across the lake anyway. The wind would have kept pulsing anyway. And the clouds would have formed and dissipated, without dropping a single dollop of rain anyway. I thought about my friends until the moon snuck below the opposite ridge and the electrifying blue of a wakening sky lifted me back onto my feet. I had recently gotten to experience small pieces of their respective multi week trips on the colorado trail. They had expressed varying levels of worry prior to leaving and, I feel, just as quickly made themselves at home with their choices. To see those you admire in a state of overflowing bliss is… calming. Stare into their eyes and they’ll suck you down a whirlpool of gold. Shimmering, pure gold. Cresting the pass and peering down onto the tundra, beaming with crystalline light, I felt their eyes staring back at me, slowly coaxing me down swirling torrents of color. I hope as I passed by the few other admirers I crossed paths with, that they too collected remnants of gold littering the hillsides and lakes. That color entangled their days and forced a calm satisfaction to cloak their worries.
Happy new year :-)
