me & the mountains

Listening To: Skinny Love by Bon Iver
Line Love: "Seven and a half million hearts were beating in close proximity in this heaving old city, and many, after all, would be aching far worse than his. Walking wearily past closed shops, while the heavens turned indigo above him, Strike found solace in vastness and anonymity." - from The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

I found a note that I typed into my phone while I was roadtripping recently, just some freeform happy-writing. I was so relaxed that week, which partially had to do with the beautiful scenery. But I think it also had to do with how intentional I was about disconnecting. I had no computer. I never connected to twitter, or Pinterest. I barely had enough phone service to turn on web/email stuff for more than an hour or two. It was bliss, basically. I should disconnect more often when I'm here in the real world, too. Too much interweb breaks my focus all to bits. And it mangles my creativity. I can't have roadtrips through the mountains every week, but I could definitely benefit from cutting that out occasionally. (Wouldn't it be great if you could teleport to pretty places, and totally disconnect while you're there, whenever your heart feels too heavy?) This is what I wrote: 

--

The thing I love most about driving here is how steady it all is. How the world looks so flat until I get to the rocky edges. 

This place overwhelms me slowly. Steadily. My eyes take in first. But then my heart takes it in, too. I think about how I never want to leave and then I realize I never will. It's not like I could, if I wanted to. Because now this place is in me. 

It's just me and the mountains. 

The mountains and their high, dragon-back spines. 

The mountains, so old the cloud shadows get stuck in their wrinkles. 

This is the wild west but when I stand in the middle of it, all I hear is sweet silence. At first. Then comes the whispering wind and the tenor-cry of a hawk. And then the restless thump of my heart, wild and reckless.

It's easy to see why people come here to heal, to explore, to create things, to start out. To start over. Sometimes you need to know you can climb this high. You need to know what it feels like to stand on the edge of the world and shout your dreams over the horizon. Or just whisper them, even. It's not the same as tossing pennies into wishing wells, when you do that. It feels a lot more like taking some ground in your life. 

This place is so pretty I don't want to close my eyes but I do. I blink, and the mountains are still there - the same but different. Look all you want. There's more here than you'll ever have time to see, they seem to say. But not in a taunting way. They're a comforting presence, always welcoming me, always pulling me further in until I disappear and become part of them. Until they become part of me. Dust unto dust. 

I want to set my heart to the rhythm of this place. I want to take it with me when I go. 

If you could teleport (...can you?! ;) and go anywhere you wanted this weekend, where would you go?