You’re getting close to 40. Things hurt that never hurt before, in your body and in your heart. You worry.
You worry when you’re on the mountain: is whatever body part’s talking to you today up to the task? Do you have enough strength and balance and patience for what’s in front of you, which often feels different from what your reference material described?
The mountain does not care.
The mountain never had a guidebook, nor needed one.
For millennia, the mountain has been whatever it had to be.
When there was water everywhere, the mountain was a ridge at the bottom of the sea.
When the ocean receded, the mountain was an arrowhead sticking up from the desert.
When the rock couldn’t hold it together anymore, it fell. It didn’t care who or what was under it.
The mountain doesn’t care who got hurt, or who died.
The mountain doesn’t care how much being there means to you.
That is why it means everything.
Woman Seeks Elevation 