Finding Kindness in the Mountains

We shared this view, the two girls and their boyfriends at the top of Pas du Chevre.

I was crossing a barren field full of boulders on the route leading up to the Pas and this group passed me by in the middle of it. No one else crossed my path from the time I started my trek till they passed me.

One of the guys kept looking back as I made my way ahead on all fours. He kept watching till I was on top of the first ladder of the pass.

He did not have to.

Small acts of kindness move me deeply.

Someone bringing a glass of water when I cannot be bothered. Someone fetching an extra raincoat when I couldn’t get mine.

A fellow trekker teaching me the right way to do a thing when they could just pass by.

A stranger giving me a kindly pat on the head when they can tell I need it.

And someone watching out for me on lonely routes.

It brings me back from the brink every time. Each time someone acts in kindness they don’t know they are giving me much more.

I am bothered by the dependency and yet I cherish the interaction so much. I am burdened by the compassion shown to me and yet that lights up my world. I am entirely undeserving of this grace and yet it I experience it repeatedly.

Being in the mountains gives me the space to unravel these strands of thought. Here, I search for that space for respite between thoughts written inside me.

Sometimes I look at a great sky to find that bright and indescribable wedge of freedom in my own heart.

In the stillness of the night I lie awake to find if someone has written something new in the ashes of the fire that has gone out.

In the glory of the morning I wait to hear the mountains sing to me.

And the world works on my behalf catching me in its arms when I go too far.

I don’t know what I could have done to have earned such kindness.