Hiking

The most drab of tales – one which is not unlike the worn jeans, smelling of smoke and spilt whisky, that drape over the legs in front of me, perhaps wishing they were covering the legs of some adventurer, or worthy wandering legs of some nomad in a field never to be tread by myself – is about to be related. Now don’t take such warnings too seriously, as you may find something within this simple monotony that relates to some of your attire, be it internal or external.

Now that I mention it, the tale is less exterior than interior, and in it’s simplicity and repetitiveness, you may find some chord that makes you sing and cry in the same breath, but most of all reflect upon your own simple human nature. It seems that the difference is minimal, to myself at least, as I have come to believe that the cloth that we choose is really only covering limbs impartial to wandering elsewhere but the mind.

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The winds blew through the branches in the undergrowth. The simple bamboo swayed in the heavy breeze, making me think of the ferns back home, and how, like they curl up and sprout forth in the spring, I had decided to sprout as well. The goal is always vertical, as upward momentum creates a magnetism in the mind more similar to growth and development, and conducive to moral improvement. But I have not yet learnt to sprout like these branches, and will for the time appease myself to walking in the undergrowth, listening to the earthly tempests giving spirit to the leaves, while still trudging horizontally in futility, looking for the place where I can climb more rapidly.

The stones that fell under my footfall rubbed against the gentle soil underneath, and hummed against the sands mixed in the gravel. Time falls just the same way, creating the pleasing yet disturbing sound that has sent me walking on this path of reflection. Is the goal to summit the path, or to simply enjoy its winding way? Either way I keep hiking, listening, and racing against the sands dropping down the subtle banks of the slope ahead.

At the time I was alone on the path, but it did not feel that way… it never does. How could I feel alone, while my mind races in a conversation with everything? I hear the winds, and see the branches, swaying with breezes I create in my movement, wafting up scents of future springs, and coming falls, of decaying life, feeding new generations, and promising changes not so dissimilar to seasons past. The forest changes, and I change with it. At first glace it’s stale and unyielding, but last time I was up here I saw snows break connections I thought steadfast, and now the broken is unrecognizable among the sprouting of the new bamboo.

How did I get up here you are wondering? The same way you did – along the woven trail left by predecessors and colleagues of humanity. Along the path forged by my fathers and mothers of time and nature, along the synapses of akashic corridors that I am still too naive to read, but just human enough to follow and recognize… and pretend to understand…

There is a mercy in the way I am allowed hope with each step. I may not yet understand mercy the way it has been told, but I pray it is somewhat like the thing I do see, like the forgiveness of the seasons that tempt the leaves to continue growing, that tempt this man to continue walking. Being a glutton for temptation I will continue the trek, laurelling these jeans with the hopes of walking in the summits fields, like those nomads who have found their way there prior, and thankfully left some semblances of a path.


PrioriThought 2009