There this white man, long haired but balding, in a baseball cap, on the train. His gray-white hair and pink scalp peak out from his cap. His sentences are drawn out and snarling, speaking the way I imagine an elderly crocodile would speak.
The train is packed and the smell and the people and he occupies two seats.
There's a man who legit looks like Jesus eating a loaf of bread. A fucking loaf of bread.
Am I going to miss this?
I'm reading trail reviews and I ran across the sentence, "I do love that mountain." And that seems so weird.
How do you love a mountain?
Like, I definitely understand how someone can love the ocean. I love the ocean. The ocean is beautiful and wild and kind and selfish and and dangerous and terrible. How can you not love the ocean? Sure, the ocean takes and takes and takes. But it's the ocean. It is supposed to. Besides, it gives so much more. The ocean feels like home and family, and like those things it can alienate and turn on you. Loving the ocean is frightening, and maybe it's a reflection of my own faults, but I think love should be a little frightening and unsettling. Why work hard if it's a sure thing? Why strive if it's comfortable? Not that being happy and comfortable aren't good qualities and that people shouldn't seek them out, but they don't seem very conducive to a life full of adventures and new experiences. And that's what I want: I want to experience all the things.
But mountains? Mountains just kinda hang out. They don't demand sacrifice and pain and uncertainty. Or maybe they do and I haven't learned how to appreciate it. There are definitely bears and snakes and high places to fall and plants that are trying to hurt you, in mountains. There are a lot of ways to die in the mountains.
Maybe I'm having trouble loving mountains because of the way they make me feel.
When I'm at the beach, I feel bigger, stretched out. Not thin, but like the load of my emotions and being myself, is more evenly distributed across a larger area.
When I'm in the mountains, I feel so specifically me; like all the particles that make up me are being finely milled into this exact pinpoint of me-ness. There is no doubt that I am Ynez, none of the overlapping of Ynez + Ocean. And right now, I'm having a hard time with that. It's uncomfortable.
So, I guess I will have to learn how to be me, with diamond cut precision. I will find a way to love mountains.
