I spend every weekend finding a trail to wander. I spend hours between responsibilities finding a mountain to climb. I scroll trail guides between the chores of adulthood. I dream of where to go next as I sit in the school drop off queue.
The more secluded the destination the more ideal. The most lost the wander without a trace the more I thirst for it.
These moments spent far from my reality have become my saving last gulp of water before I collapse from dehydration. The days between hiking are days between living for me in this season of time passing slowly. Too, too slowly.
I do not know why I hike. Or maybe I do know.
I do not know why I hike. Or maybe I do not want to let in the truth between the grey.
I do not know why I hike. Or maybe it is beyond the ability of words to speak to share. The reason is beyond the ability to logically wrap a mind to understand as to why.
I do not know why I hike so much. I have the burning itch each moment to run away. And I push myself step to step in the weekday prison serving my time until the freedom keys come jingling attached to the guards utility belt.
As the golden key clicks once, twice, free; I load up who I must load into our car. I strap them in mindlessly as we start a hour or two drive all while my anxiety builds to my frontal lobe pulsing. The traffic lights lesson as brakes are impatiently pumped. My heart racing against the glass windows watching mountains beg me to join them. As my first steps carve imprints on the dirt trail I finally begin to breath. The five days of holding my breath between weekends as I find myself willing myself to just survive from sunrise to sunset.
I walk a step or two into the forest and I breath. I just breath. All begins to calm. I just breath.
When I stand among the treetops as birds sing effortlessly around me I just can not describe that emotion. When I click picture after picture of the view upon which I stare they pale in comparison as I revisit them later. The places I have climbed too few others will follow my scramble. The emptiness of static I have relaxed in is a rare peace reserved for a handful. The miles taken upward and through the wild are secrets of beauty that I get to keep where others can not follow to. It is this honor to go where we go. The silence of solitude. The silence of solitude.
I hike because I have to. I can not muster the cement as it swells my ankles to painful swollen stumps. I limp along parking lots. I shield my eyes against artificial light. My soul groans as the clicking of supermarket scanners poke holes in my gut.
Who am I among the trash piles in alleys as homeless scrounge cans and bottles.
Who am I am among the team of doctors as they go on and on about treatment and therapy tools and no hope of any sustainable progress.
I want to scream at parent conferences as the papers cut my fingers sly. Can they tell I have grown so numb to the endless input that I care no more?
I care no more as white noise blocks my ability to hear.
I do not know. But I love it. I do not know. But it saves me. I do not know. But I love it so very much. I do not know. But I must. Oh I must.
The mountains are calling so I must go.
The mountains are calling so I must go.
