Through the window in my bedroom, unbearable in the morning light, I see the mountain in its incomprehensibility, see that the weather is never quite the same, that the clouds always discover new ways of being, a ceaseless dance, inscrutable and unbothered by human affairs, and I know that if I could stitch together each of these mornings, this would capture best the ineffability I’ve long felt here. I see that the light, without effort, suspends the morning in weightlessness.
I imagine that for every being, there exists an equally unbearable sight, such that to behold it sends the soul into a perpetual state of longing, a lifelong chase for equanimity and a sense of home, and I imagine for many it must be the sight of their newborn child, the gaze of a lover sleeping calmly; for me, this mountain in morning light.
Each morning begins by lifting layers of darkness, first the eyemask, which is usually already a bit misplaced on my eyes, having been tossed about in the night, and then, rather unconsciously, I glance at my phone and the darkness returns. The blue light makes me tense as I hold it too close to my face. I check the markets and the news, check that the world is still here and that I’m still afloat, my mind races and my neck aches from leaning off the pillow, so as to be able to see.
I open the blinds. Depending on the time, and the position of the sun, I may need to be cautious about pulling one of the curtains completely open, as the light can fall directly where I sit in bed afterwards. When the sun touches my face, when I see what can only be described as my paradise on earth, the anxiety I’ve cultivated dissipates. I am calmed, the worried thoughts about the stability of our world and my place in it are quelled, and at least while the morning light is orange, no new anxiety fills me. Only when the sun is high, and the mountain appears flat and shadowless, does it return.
One can take very long walks on the mountain, endless really, and I often do, though never alone as it’s not particularly safe, many tourists have been robbed and some killed, while others have tripped and fallen to their death, and while this doesn’t happen often, those who walk alone and fall face much worse odds as their screams for help go unanswered and what could have been a simple broken bone and a helicopter rescue becomes a festering wound and a rather lonely end, and I’ve always imagined that it must be spectacular to die slowly and alone amongst so much beauty.
Safety is a strange thing, something that the lucky few take for granted, and occasionally, are vindicated for doing so, going about their lives with a secret sense that everything will be okay only to drop dead with it always having been, while for others, it's simply not the case and never was, even at their mother’s breast they were not safe, for their mother too was not safe and this lack of safety was transferred to them, but this was not the case for me, I count myself as lucky, for the illusion of safety was shattered rather late, when I was 10 years old, and I consider myself blessed, because the illusion of safety which I had in my younger years gave me the courage to persist into my teens and adulthood, it formed a solid foundation for my life now, though the anxiety I feel – the constant checking of the phone, the news, the markets, a distrust of being alone – indicates the silent anticipation of a crisis which has been with me since these early years. One can’t help but feel that it has arrived.