the climb
Early in the day I find a branch by the roadside that is the perfect height and size for a walking stick. It quickly becomes my new best friend and most trusted confidant. The stick has two white strings tied around it at different heights, and was conveniently tucked against the side of the road, almost asking to join me on my way. Perhaps it’s a gift from a fellow traveler no longer in need, or just a chance discovery. Either way, it found me right on time. The universe gives, the universe takes. Ebbs and flows. Thankful for this timely present.
Climbing and climbing.
One step after the next, one foot in front of the other.
Life metaphors abound here…
No matter how far the climb ahead, you can always take just one more step.
Just one step. One breath. Then another. And another. Onward.
When the day grows long and the legs get tired, a thought comes to mind…why am I doing this? Carrying this bag, climbing these steps, out here wandering. Of all the places I could be, all the things I could be doing...all the places I could be sitting…why this?
The thought doesn’t stick with me for a very long time, but I find it to be a curious one. It’s not a negative thought, in terms of not wanting to be here, or wishing I were elsewhere. I had intentionally come to Nepal, and had intentionally decided to trek after my months of teaching. I knew that I was enjoying many aspects of the challenging climb.
But why was I doing it?
I can think of a few reasons, some personal and others on a deeper level, beyond my own ephemeral existence…
One day perhaps I’ll be old, probably be tired, maybe my senses will have dulled and my limbs won’t work too well anymore. I think when that time comes, I’ll want to know I spent my days well, that I used my body and mind while I had them intact, and that I explored the depths and breadths of the human condition while I had the vitality to do so.
Or perhaps I won’t get old…despite my current good health and good fortune, none of us is guaranteed another day, or even another breath. I’ve seen too many decent, deserving, unsuspecting people fall ill, suffer accidents, or just get dealt a shitty hand to expect more out of life than it’s already offered me. Whether my time comes tomorrow, next year, or decades from now, I want to know I tested myself, explored the world, and capitalized on the breaths I’ve been given.
I think of the friends who never saw this age, or those who no longer have the health to go on a hike, let alone get out of bed, and I feel grateful for the life I’ve been gifted and the stupid amount of chance that’s led to this exquisite experience.
I climb for myself. I climb for them. To help myself learn, grow, and explore worlds within and without. To celebrate my health, to make these observations, to pass along these musings. To make sense of it all.
I climb for perspective. Perspective on the places I’ve been and the places I’m going. The fresh air and the rhythm of repetitive stepping provide a meandering quiet that allows for a clearer understanding of where you were and where you’re headed.
There’s also something surreally, sublimely humbling about going up, and being able to look back down at where you came from. Whether looking down at a rocky wall where you stopped for water an hour before, or the buildings and fields of the village you’ve been living in for the last few months, the immediate effect of zooming out on the microscope of your experience is hard to overstate. That place I just was, that path I walk each day, those buildings where I work and laugh and stress and eat and sleep? They’re all right there, and just look at how tiny they are…compared to all of this!
This realization can be at once gut-wrenching and wholly life-affirming. You see how small your world is in a grander scheme of things, and yet you’re able to appreciate your trials, both trivial and triumphant, as part of this inconceivably large and complex web of life.
Awe-inspiring is perhaps the term to best capture both the existential terror and worldly wonder that hang in the balance during such a moment of reflection. Our earthbound existence, our entire cosmic sphere of influence, is a single grain of sand amidst the infinitely expanding beaches of the universe. Our time in this life may be but a breath in an eternal orchestra of ever-unfolding chemical phenomena. We are bound to a pebble, rotating around a star, floating through an endless sea of space, and as far as we know, we’re given one chance aboard this ride.
Upward we climb. More steps. More breaths.
Little talking. Enjoying. Enduring. Existing.
