CONTENT WARNING: Old-time religion
Can you believe, I want to ask, that this happens every morning? I am standing on the slope below the summit—alternately hushed and roaring—where the world expanded from the square foot illuminated by my headlamp to rays of ridgelines half submerged in slow-cooked morning light. I'm standing and watching and struggling both to breathe and to believe that even if I weren't, even if you weren't, even if we all still slept in the staircase towns lost somewhere below in the haze, the sun would rise over the mountains. It would wash gold into the canyons whether we knew it or not, as it did the day before and it will the day after, as it does and it has since the ice chewed out the valleys and spat out the scree. And so I think there's something to it that, from a thousand minirets between me and the arcing horizon, men are shouting, God is great, God is great1, get up and see it in the dawn2.
I would also like to say that while Jebl Toubkal is not the highest place I've ever walked (hurrah for Africa's non-technical joke peaks), it is the highest place I've ever peed3. Awesome.
_________________________________________________
1. Or whatever else you suspect gave you the High Atlas and the sunrise—in my opinion, plate tectonics and the rotation of the Earth on its axis. Praise be, etc.
2. Yes, there's something to it, but boy oh boy am I looking forward to being able to sleep past five—particularly now that Stephen and I are both sick as dogs and hitting the Ciproflaxin. Mmmmm.
3. Not counting airplanes, smartass.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
much wind, much wind!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Too bad all you see when you wake up in the city is the smog. Anyway, this reminds me of my morning routine while I was still living at my parents house. Every morning I'd wake up at 5:30 or 6:00 for work and drink coffee while I watched the sun rays start streaming out from behind Mt. Diablo.
You don't just sleep through the idhaan? It takes me about three days before I'm completely inured to it (the early a.m. one, anyways.) If you're not in the same place for more than a couple of days at a time, though, I could see how you'd keep hearing it.
Praise be to plate tectonics!
Post a Comment