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Sunday, May 11, 2008 8:25:13 PM
i am raking the grime beneath my fingernails and testing my skin for sunburns. i consider a career amongst nature and wonder if it could be possible to tire of faraway landscapes and tall skies. my toes are sore from stretching against the dusty ribbon of my shoes and my shirt has finally dried loosely on my back. i am resting.
the mountains are littered with shiny hulking cars, and white people gripping walking sticks and taut leashes and the arms of their small children. sometimes i climb off the trail up the steep edges just to feel i am not one of them. there are thorny flowering plants and tiny sunbleached bones and flawlessly cornered rocks here. tsuki zigzags through patches of shade and we act like pioneers.
i love the kind of freedom sun invites.
my hike today was difficult and beautiful and fully symbolic. i knew this when i realized i had forgotten to pack my music. all of my thoughts circled loudly until i spoke them to the scenery like a sermon. the air was quiet and promised to understand.
it isn’t easy, leaving. the act of departure is like digging in a cavern and expecting to find precious things. everything in my life has changed these past months because what i have loved was killing me. have i cherished my own pain? has it grown into me like a root through a steel fence? have i come to expect that my devotions will be strenuous and complicated?
you are complicated. you are a new mystery that is still pure and sincere. but there is a delicate trace of unease, because i have been so surprised. will you disappear? will i need to be rescued? will this be a lesson? and could i bear it?
what is the worth of vulnerability? why do we nod graciously when we must let go? my grandfather loved very little so that he would not be missed at his death, and he accomplished this. i did not mourn him, and i do not remember him. he believed he was cultivating the greatest gift, that we would not have sorrow. i judged him once, but now i reconsider.
and what to do now.. is there something to learn or will i do it again, giving myself over until i cannot recognize who wrote these words? i believe in transcendence but i cannot fathom where i have been. i am guarding against emotion because i sense it will overtake me and be of no use.
i discovered an assembly of thin trees at windy peak that were bare at eye level. sap bled from the exposed bark in perfect fat beads, clear like water but sticky and sheathed. there were clumps of black fur caught in the blonde shards, and i could see the imprint of claws in threes. i wondered if the bear who lived nearby had marked this intentionally so that i would know i was trespassing.
it was time to go home.
there is nothing like this, leaving the mountains. i drive away with grief and renewal, side by side.
and i will go again in days and find stunning rocks to keep and the trails will not mind if i stray.
