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[Best paired with music by Vancouver Sleep Clinic]

 

I woke up early to color my lungs with fresh morning air. When I slid my stiff feet into hiking shoes, I planned to leave my house and head Right to loop through sleep-dusted neighborhoods and admire the hush of dawn. It wasn’t until I was partway up Madonna mountain, pausing in the trail to watch an invisible crane lift the sun over earthline, that I realized I went Left.

Gifted by the powers at play, I stood sandwiched between growing sun and shrinking moon–the rays and reflections catching on tiny silver tightropes, swaying with blades of patchy grass. My shadow leaned soft and brown on the hillside. From the air, nothing more than a tiny birthmark on a small knoll.

 

Sam, Sarah and Jack

My friend Sam’s been growing out his beard and I’m convinced he’s hiding wisdom in there.

Last night I took a looksy at the full moon, and a looksy down at my lazy self before calling one of my oldest friends to take a night hike with me. There was a splatter of residual laundry powder hanging to my sleeve from the load I’d just put in. Sheets. 

When he showed up on my doorstep, singing a tune to my porch light and wiggling to the beat the way he does, we picked our peak right then and there. Bishops. Not too far, not too easy or hard, short or long.

It met the Goldilocks principle, so we met it with high-quality footwear: his Merrell’s, mine Salomon’s. And we talked about normal things, you know, work and friends and honesty and goals and songwriting and lentils and biking and Thanksgiving plans. Occasionally, we’d take breathers along a switchback. The fields below grew motionlessly, the lights winked with secrecy. 

Everything is so manageable from up here.

He said it without knowing its impact. And we pressed on, following the trails as they meandered around and up the mountain.

Want to hear one of my favorite quotes? I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.

Sure.

“Energy creates energy. It is by spending myself that I become rich.” 

Is there a word that combines yeah, woah, mm, love and fascination? If so, it would describe my reaction to that Sarah Bernhardt quote. The idea of spending yourself … being spent…giving everything…becoming currency. It was so wonderfully charging and inspiring, and I thought of it for a long while, long after the echo of his words left the crisp air. I thought about it as I came home to my clean, warm sheets and tucked myself in, airtight. I read a bit of Kerouac to set the tone of my pending slumber and stopped on this sentence and Buddhist quote:

When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing.