Upon the mountain, there is a line. Before it, help. Beyond it, you're on your own. The steps are no different, to lift, find a hold, belay. The mountain itself makes no such distinctions. Nor do the clouds, wind, rain or cold. But the climbing before and the climbing beyond is as child to adult. And everything the same, looks different as if beyond that line, you enter a new country with a new language, where miles are now meters and water turns to gold, and the burden of a jacket is now the thin line between hypothermia and seeing another sunrise. The few who climb these slopes beyond have no need to talk of it, for the talk of it is not it, can never be it, can never be but a lie of it. And these few are drawn as baby to mother, as buttery lips to nipple, to nourish this lost continent within the soul, this vestigial, atavistic longing to know the sky and the mountain within, this place lost below the tree line, where the paths are compacted and the shrubs receding as lives are lived watching others.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
sky and mountain
Upon the mountain, there is a line. Before it, help. Beyond it, you're on your own. The steps are no different, to lift, find a hold, belay. The mountain itself makes no such distinctions. Nor do the clouds, wind, rain or cold. But the climbing before and the climbing beyond is as child to adult. And everything the same, looks different as if beyond that line, you enter a new country with a new language, where miles are now meters and water turns to gold, and the burden of a jacket is now the thin line between hypothermia and seeing another sunrise. The few who climb these slopes beyond have no need to talk of it, for the talk of it is not it, can never be it, can never be but a lie of it. And these few are drawn as baby to mother, as buttery lips to nipple, to nourish this lost continent within the soul, this vestigial, atavistic longing to know the sky and the mountain within, this place lost below the tree line, where the paths are compacted and the shrubs receding as lives are lived watching others.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
I wonder at these times when I am effected so deeply by someone's writing that I am at once struck with silence and filled with words simultaneously. I think for now I'll just sit.
Is that your art accompanying as well?
atavistic, vestigial.
is it born into us?
or are we born without it
and so turn toward it,
a tropism of the soul?
(durnabit! more words! so much for the sitting.)
Erin, the picture is one of my early attempts at painting. As for the post, feel free to sit as long as you like. I'd like to think of you sitting with me as if we were at a museum. And inside, I'm smiling at the kindness from a northern neighbor. I suppose above all else, this is why I blog, because of blogger like you Erin, because of what you give so freely. Thank you.
Erin, I think we all live by a set of beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. My own belief is that seeded somewhere within us, for lack of a better way to say it, is a homing beacon, something perhaps that lived perfectly with the adams and the eves, something we can't quite put our finger on, something beyond our conceptual universe, something whole, something before we break it into labels--and, I believe, only a few brave souls discover this landscape and that the rest of us are lost in the desert.
Forgive me the gobble above, still on my first cup of coffee. And, you know what? My fear is that I don't even believe what I say that I believe. I fear that I don't believe anything. And when you don't believe in anything, well, that is a very, very dark place. Sigh.
When I was in college, a friend of mine died unexpectedly. He was early twenties and we had been good friends, who partied and drank and caroused and worked together. He was also the first "non-natural" death I experienced. I was absolutely certain that I would see him again as some apparition. That I would see a vision of him, that he would communicate to me somehow. I cannot tell how strongly I believed this to be the case. But, I never did.
When my father died, and then my grandfather and then my grandmother, well, you get the picture--it seems that gone is gone. Sorry for the dribble--I need more coffee.
I think you're dead on that few cross the line. Most of us prefer to straddle it or to peek across it and then retreat. Our comfort zone is living in the swamp, dark and moldering, with all the others. The world on the other side of the line is seductive, shiny and warm, but can we overcome our fear of being a stranger in a strange land?
Limes, I think you are right. And we all suffer the splinters for our fence sitting. I know, my head has been up my rear so long, I've plenty of time to examine a forest of fear implanted in my arse. It seems I am a hair-ball of fear masquerading in human form.
The way I phrase it is this: "That picket is giving me a pain in the butt."
Tree, when I worked for the union, I was put under the tutelage of a hardened, old "real union guy". Think sweet young thing and crusty curmudgeon. Almost his very first words to me were, "Sweetheart, tuck this in your little purse and keep it sacred. Only two things drive people. Greed and fear." I was so young and tender, so trusting of the good nature and nobility of all mankind. I knew he couldn't possibly be right. I'm still tender. I'm not young. I've come across a lot of human beings in my time. Most of them are not good natured OR noble. I think he could possibly be right.
By the way, fear ruled me for most of my life. I've only been brave a few short years. I'm sorry I lost so much time.
Limes, I too was educated but with the duality of pain or pleasure. I can live with this as I think it is mostly true but a bit vague, over-generalized and watered down to be meaningless. The devil, as they say, is in the details. The other, "true-ism" I was given by a mentor that at first I resisted was that people are not truly happy for you when you succeed. I couldn't believe that this could be true when I first heard it many years ago. It is a broad brush. Still, I've learn to keep my successes as quiet as possible, for I've found no profit otherwise.
WELL said! " . . .to be meaningless . . " Ex used to say something I really liked. "I find it good to believe just a little bit in everything."
"My fear is that I don't even believe what I say that I believe. I fear that I don't believe anything."
Tree, I know this. I live this. It's held within that coin I mentioned yesterday, the belief and lack of belief, two faces of the same thing. How can that be? And yet it is. And neither of them weaker or stronger than the other, except for their being on any given day. It was startling to read this of you. Usually, it seems, people either believe or don't believe, know or don't know. I thought I was one of the only ones who believed on Mondays, didn't on Tuesdays, and who ate or drank or screwed Wednesdays away.
Erin, those last nine words of yours makes me so frailing incredibly hawt! As if your fingers were in my soul, caressing me against my faux resistance. I feel as the plum, ripe with cloud and sun, skin tight, purple, filled to burst. And I'm wishing it were Wednesday. :-D
Post a Comment