You have no idea how long it has taken me to actually write this post, a post or even anything to be truthful. A lot of words and thoughts have been circling inside my head and I have been waiting for the right ones to reappear every time I recycle my drawer of notions, hoping that when the time comes I'd have the perfect sentences to put on paper. It didn't happen. I have developed this sense of quality in whatever I make that cannot be shared without proper inspection, and it seems to have failed every single time. So, let us start the way we did before, by simply writing what comes to mind.
I have been living in the Bay area for about 6 months now and I can easily say that I have found a precise balance to my life. This did not come easily and can be off-putting sometimes when poorly planned. These different areas of my life that make up this balance, have all been extremely time consuming and tend to fight one another when one takes a bit more than usual. That's simply trial and error. But like most beautiful things, it doesn't last, and away it goes as you keep moving forward. Lingering in the past is the easiest, but also the roughest route you can take.
Time is one dimension that science hasn't allowed us to control, which seems unfair, but I believe it allows us to turn to others that are attainable even if it takes an unsettling amount of tics from the long hand.
For a while now, Yosemite has crept inside my head and made its appearance within my drawer even though I had never put it there to begin with. And with heart ache, comes escape or closure. And with closure, you can escape from time for a very short period. With that, I chose nature.
For as long as I can recall, being stuck inside my head, which isn't big, but seems to contain an entire galaxy inside it, has been something I have dealt with. I used to feel so alone and not in control at a younger age because things I couldn't control would overwhelm my young self. Through the nights and years, I have tamed that beast to be able to go to sleep peacefully and understand what I was able to make of life. With long flights, nights, car rides, training sessions, I have experienced myself over and over again, going through hundreds of scenarios to find the best outcome even if it was out of my reach. That's how I deal with my emotions. I don't show them and I rarely share them, but they are there. This time, I wanted to flush out months and months of scenarios and solutions, and simply enjoy the things I truly could not contain. Yosemite.
I set out to find myself for a short weekend. I wanted to find more solutions, but all I found was peacefulness and the last page of a chapter.
Let me take you on that trip with with me.
I had been planning this excursion for quite a few weeks now knowing I'd be camping and hiking alone in the middle of February. I left early on a Saturday morning with my gear for a 4 hour drive through what California had become, green. For the past month or so, California had been flooded, literally, with a unheard amount of rain which quickly resolved the drought issue and allowed the rolling hills to be vibrant green. A very pretty drive.
Inside the park, covered in snow, I found myself smiling at what seemed to my subconscious as utopia. This was my first time inside the valley and nothing pleases me more than the cold mountains...to a certain extent.
There I was, walking inside the legendary, flooded, Camp 4 site with a shattered soul hoping to find some bandaids. I set up my tent and laid there for a bit looking at Sentinel Rock out of the zipped down door while breathing in a perfectly balanced crisp air. I fell asleep; I think I was at peace.
Once I woke up, I quickly packed my bag to start my hike up to the higher falls. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. I started slaloming up the north side of the valley, from my camp site onto the wet stones that served as a path. The more I climbed, the more tired I felt, my head was hurting and the view wasn't changing. Like any hike, we never really enjoy it the whole time. But finally, I had reached what I thought was the end of my hike by coming face to face with the mighty Yosemite falls.
As the path climbed new heights and a new face, snow was starting to appear more than ever until it became all that was. Not many were going up, but a lot were coming down. I was ecstatic being there looking up at something so unreal and massive that could, at any time, take me away. I remember stopping and looking back at the valley and telling myself "I wouldn't be upset dying here" and continued on.
I found fewer people making their way down who seemed experienced and were letting me know checkpoint times. I had set my turn around point at 4:30pm to keep it safe since rain was a usual resident here. The fog was starting to creep in, somewhat fast, up the mountains and taking away my sunlight. One of the last guys that I encountered told me to take the right path when it seemed to split.
When I found that fork, I went right, only to discover a steep snow climb which I had no crampons for. I took out my hatchet and started picking my way up while my legs drilled though the ice and my adrenaline pushed my muscles harder. That was a moment of fright. Once I got up to the regular path, I pushed my turn around time by 15mins. This allowed me to make it to the sign and start making my way back down.
I took a moment to sit and take in what I had just experienced coming up all this way. I felt accomplished in a non-glorified way.
I started sliding my way through the path, twisting my ankle here, hyperextending my knee there, trying to make up the time before sunset. As I came down, a group of young adults were still coming up. Classic line was asked "We're close, right?" Which I rebounded with "I can't really give you a true estimate. You should come down with me though." The fog was really thick and the sun was setting. We were 3000ft up in the air. They continued on and I slipped down and away. The moment I saw the rock path starting to appear, I felt confident in my survival, which seems funny now, but true in the moment. As I ran down the rocky and river-y trail, I was competing with the light to see who would win. My last 25min on the trail were in complete darkness and enabled me to lose my way 2-3 times. I was truly concerned for the groups still far behind. But I finally made it back to my tent and was ready for some warmth.
I threw on as many layers as possible, ate my soup and started reading while a light rain was covering the surface of the site. It was only 7pm, but I was done and cold. My boots were wet and so were my only pair of pants. That night wasn't my best sleep and I didn't care since that wasn't why I was there. I came out that morning with the residue of light coming through the clouds and fog. It was freezing cold, my clothes were wet and I was drinking dissolvable coffee, but I was smiling. I made friends with whom I believed were Canadian by their accent and exchanged a few stories. I packed my gear up and planned my next hike. If you were there camping that weekend in flooded camp sites, we all knew we were from the same planet.
The last thing I wanted to do was stand at the feet of Half Dome and simply look up. I wanted to feel small. It is so easy to believe that we are the center of existence when everything revolves around ourselves. Remembering that you are just a simple speck of dust to something larger and stronger than you is an amazing feeling. I saw some beautiful nature on that trail as well as the effects of recent rain storms on flora and fauna. It was a "quick and easy" hike compared to the day before. I jumped in my car and left my utopia. On my way out, I snapped a few photographs that somehow seem to be unreal and proved that this heavenly place is one that I can come to in time of need.
The shutter clicked, I smiled.
Much love.
