Do it for the gram…of freedom

Would you still do the thing if no one saw it?
If you had no one to tell about it afterward?
If it was just for you—would you still go?

When I head into the mountains, I take plenty of photos. Little anchors for memory, portals to the past. But they never make it to social media. Why? Because I feel doing something for any reason other than the experience of it, misses the point entirely.

But I have been asked to share as a challenge (and I love a good challenge), so share I will….

My legs burn with the grind of the climb. I slow my breath, bringing the air deep into my lungs and fighting the urge to gasp for more oxygen. Some people hate the schlog and bypass the climb for a shuttle or a chairlift. But I seek the physical “suck”. The effort becomes a relief. Working hard drowns out the head. I crave the moments when the mind quiets and the spirit takes over. It is welcome reprieve to think nothing and feel everything.

At the top, I pause to appreciate. I take in the vista, awed by the peaks; my steeples. There is more to moving through the outdoors for me than the inevitable challenge. When I go wandering—in the woods, the mountains, the depths of the ocean, the surface of the sea—I’m finding reconnection. Nature strips away the extras and drops me back into my essence. I can be fully myself. As I am.

I was raised Quaker, taught that every person carries an inner light, a spark that is inexplicably links to everything around us. I remember hearing this as a kid and feeling it to be true. I feel my inner fire most fiercely when I’m close to the earth. And I’ve always wondered why.

I mean besides the majestic magic that our earth holds in the form of rainbows, snowcapped peaks, hidden hot springs, and caves veiled by waterfalls, what’s the big deal?

I rip down the other side. Flowing into turns and berms, navigating rocks and roots. Finding that speed where the bike feels like it knows where to go. Given the choice, I go solo. There is a layer that gets peeled away when I’m on my own. It feels more vulnerable, and that feels like surrender. The silence allows me to commune with my surroundings and to be aware of things I might otherwise overlook.  If something goes wrong, it’s on me to figure it out. I enjoy the dance of evaluating the risk, exposure, and consequences in isolation. Is this psychological fear or is this tangible danger?

The trail levels out and diverges to a barely noticeable path. I drop the bike and explore to an empty beach of a remote mountain lake. It was instinct, not a decision, to strip down to the body I was born in and step into the frigid water- a baptism of sorts. In that moment I feel everything on this planet, living or not, is in a perpetual shifting state of phase change. Solid to liquid to gas, and back again. Landslides melt down mountains; the silt squishing between my toes will harden into stone. Rocks become liquid lava under pressure. Vapor gathers into clouds, falls as rain or snow, nourishes life, sinks to soil and fills this lake. Even our bodies will one day decompose into gases, liquids, minerals, folding back into the cycle. My inner light feels tethered to that constant transformation whenever I’m immersed in it.

Much has been written on this topic. I suppose it doesn’t matter. Words are limiting anyways. They only allow my brain to process one sensation at a time with labels: delicious chocolate, sensuous kiss, soft skin, melodic music. All lovely things.  But there are moments like these when my mind can’t keep up and my body feels everything simultaneously. In these moments, time stops, and the experience becomes engrained in a way that it is a part of me.

And I want more.