clarity.
I run for clarity, to be alone with me, my thoughts. In a world filled with white noise, when clarity is far from realization, one of the few places I can turn with absolute assurance that I’ll find what I want is a mountain trail. Almost any will do. They fuel me, give me hope, challenge me, and they beat me down. I am reminded of who I am, what I am, I am reminded to be me, even when being me is what I want least. While the views are majestic around me, I rarely look at them, rather, I find myself most often looking deep into my heart. Fighting battles, conjuring emotion, settling things that can’t be settled when white noise is permeating from all directions.
Per suggestion of a friend I found myself driving towards the Indian Peaks last Saturday. Twelve noon, I parked, splattered myself with sunscreen and bug spray and I hit the trail, quickly. The map I had purchased earlier in the day went useless as i was in the mood for exploring, I was in the mood for some altitude. My leg had slowly been getting better over the past few weeks. I was able to scale Flagstaff mountain on Tuesday, pain free. I was aiming for more altitude on this day, i was gonna go for two thousand feet, maybe more. My body wanted it, my heart had been pleading for it, and my brain was slowly opening to the idea.
I stopped for my stretch ten minutes in, a few hundred feet higher. I was now at at Long Lake. Families were stomping around, grandparents sucking down what little oxygen was available, people snapping photographicas. Sitting on a rock, in the distance I could hear a child crying, sobbing actually. A noise that dug deep into my heart. From the sound of the sobbing somehow I could tell, I could sense that the child had down syndrome.
I continued to stretch, the sobbing got louder. The family was making their way toward me coming from where I had just emerged from the forest. As they neared, my mind strayed from stretching to observing. A little boy led the family, four or five by my guess. Curly blond hair and eyes of an explorer. Next was the father, a tallish man with a soft, loving face. Followed by the mom who was tugging behind her a eight or nine year old boy. His eyes were red, tears visibile on his face. Tube socks pulled up and blue shorts to match his blue shirt. His beautiful face was one that I’d seen hundreds of times. One that has taught me more joy that any other in this world. But today it was tired and hurting and upset.
The father asked if I was going running, I responded with a yes, and some casual conversation. They slowed and I glanced over at the kids, “You guys are gonna have fun today…It’s so beautiful out here, you’re gonna love it”. The smallest boy’s smile now reflected what his eyes has showed me moments earlier, he was ready, he was loving it, and he didn’t even know why. The dad passed me, the little boy passed me, the mom passed me and said hello. The second boy, the sobbing boy, released his mom’s hand as he neared me. He stopped, he turned, and streched his arms high into the air. He walked towards me, off the trail. I bent down to meet him. Crying, he wrapped his arms around my neck, and I responded by wrapping my arms around him. I could feel his emotion. It was pouring onto my shoulder. It was pouring into me.
I felt a strange sense of happiness, of unfilteredness. From one human to another, a kind of emotion that is hard to express consciously. An emotion I wish we could all feel more, that we could all experience and know. I hope you understand what I’m talking about. That hug, it clued me into greatness, the greatness that can be.
And yes, I hurt myself again that afternoon, 1800 feet up. I was mad at myself again, mad at the world, amazed at the startling beauty around me, but upset that I could hardly enjoy it. In one small hour I had reached two very different emotional extremes, and I hardly knew how to cope with either.
Filed by ryanroth at July 28th, 2006 under Life