The Trouble With Wilderness

"No pain here, no dull empty hours, no fear of the past, no fear of the future. These blessed mountains are so compactly filled with God's beauty, no petty personal hope or experience has room to be. Drinking this champagne water is pure pleasure, so is breathing the living air, and every movement of limbs is pleasure, while the body seems to feel beauty when exposed to it as it feels the campfire or sunshine, entering not by the eyes alone, but equally through all one's flesh like radiant heat, making a passionate ecstatic pleasure glow not explainable." - John Muir

In this death trap that is exam time, with an overdue essay, white stuff on the ground and coming from the sky, experiencing hours that are not explainable. It's nice to think of an escape, although sometimes one's own hell has its own nostalgic beauty. It would be nice to think of good things, but it's always easier to dwell and wallow. The pathetic weather is a direct mirror of my inner state, this me who can be the only me to dig myself out of this hole. I dwell in hours lost, I dwell in so many nights gone, I dwell in the wishes that they will happen again, only better. I yearn to stop caring about insignificant things that are impossible to change. Dwell, yearn, wish. These are all symptoms of inaction.

Afternoons in the park, with a blue sky and the sun warming the brown grass. The murmur of my friends' voices, the smell of the Quaker factory, the rush of the river. These are stuck in my mind, a place I like to go back to as often as I can. It's all changing, it will be different for better or worse, and I'm preparing myself. A year ending, a season of change, and perhaps this time I'll have to learn again how to be alone.