Far away and getting further
I just have one vignette I have to get out of my brain since it’s now almost one in the morning.
The village near the top of the mountain consisted of a single restaurant and no more than six relatively modern looking duplexes. Above us, upon a steep hill, were three men anachronistically harvesting wheat. In the foreground, a purse-sized dog (as clean and as white as a cloud) was incessantly barking from behind the metal bars of a gated patio.
Though I’ve only seen the one, I’m sure Switzerland is awash in wheat-covered peaks above the clouds.
Passing the village, I hiked behind Max and Zosia panting heavily. We stopped for a momentary breather in the shade of a large sycamore tree where I sprawled out shamelessly in the tall grass, exhausted, eating apricot after apricot until the bag was rightfully taken from me. I felt that, by now, we must be nearing the top and my body started to release some of the tension it had been carrying on the way up the two thousand five hundred meter ascent. We stood, turned a corner, and to my dismay we still had another five hundred meters yet to go.
The last five hundred meters, as it turned out, were stupefying. I kept my distance so I could stop to take in the views privately. Cresting the top, we hiked uphill between two seas of grain glistening in the wind like wet skin under the sun. The dry mountain air rushed past my ears as I turned to look at all we had ascended.
At the top of this high mountain, even though I wasn’t moving, I felt far away and getting further.