Gotta See About a MountainWords
[Fiction]
Manhattan smelled of snow the morning I decided to leave it---not for eternity though, just for the weekend. The weather was right for skiing.
And without thinking about the work I'd miss or the stories needing my time, I threw my warmest fleece in a backpack, grabbed the pod, and sat down at my MAC: "Dear Editor and colleagues, I'll talk to you next week. Gotta see about a mountain, Meagan."
That morning, as New York highways turned into New Hampshire roads, the wintery sky above my car was as resistant to categorization as any sunrise scene I'd ever known. Gray clouds--fat and stoic--formed castles in the air, while whiter, wispy things lingered oddly outside their gates. Together these fat and small clouds barely veiled a pink sun, and I looked at it often and in spurts--a routine I kept up all the way to New Hampshire.
The cloud castle gates had closed on the sun when my car finally stopped. I wasn't in a parking lot though. And I wasn't at a ski resort. I had stopped at a footpath leading to a mountain named by no map. Just a mountain somewhere. I'd seen it from a distance once and thought it might want to be visited by someone willing to climb.
Snow made my climb especially quiet that dark afternoon; no sounds but my own deep breaths and the occasional hawk. The hawks were watching me but I was watching the view, and the way the mountain slope was slipping into a misty depth with my each upward step.
It was a steep mountain, that's for certain, but I hoped it would slip steeper still on the opposite face. When I got there and threw down my pack, I was glad to see just that. It was peace enough for the moment--hunting and finding a great decline. So I enjoyed it, but not by skiing down on the skis I'd brought. Instead, I opened my backpack and took out a book.
Like the mountaintop, this book had no name. Its pages weren't filled and there was no preface. There was no author either--not until the pink sun peeked out from cloud castle gates and blinded all wild eyes on the mountaintop. That's when I was moved to pen something--fast and strong--on those very blank pages. I authored the book, writing something so raw and true it might have been just like a hawk's pulse in flight.
I felt easy...
Before too long, I grabbed the book and my pack and flew down the mountain on a slope skiied only by wintering deer. And perhaps it was the wind's kiss or the birds closely watching, but I had never felt so alive.
.MGW.
Manhattan smelled of snow the morning I decided to leave it---not for eternity though, just for the weekend. The weather was right for skiing.
And without thinking about the work I'd miss or the stories needing my time, I threw my warmest fleece in a backpack, grabbed the pod, and sat down at my MAC: "Dear Editor and colleagues, I'll talk to you next week. Gotta see about a mountain, Meagan."
That morning, as New York highways turned into New Hampshire roads, the wintery sky above my car was as resistant to categorization as any sunrise scene I'd ever known. Gray clouds--fat and stoic--formed castles in the air, while whiter, wispy things lingered oddly outside their gates. Together these fat and small clouds barely veiled a pink sun, and I looked at it often and in spurts--a routine I kept up all the way to New Hampshire.
The cloud castle gates had closed on the sun when my car finally stopped. I wasn't in a parking lot though. And I wasn't at a ski resort. I had stopped at a footpath leading to a mountain named by no map. Just a mountain somewhere. I'd seen it from a distance once and thought it might want to be visited by someone willing to climb.
Snow made my climb especially quiet that dark afternoon; no sounds but my own deep breaths and the occasional hawk. The hawks were watching me but I was watching the view, and the way the mountain slope was slipping into a misty depth with my each upward step.
It was a steep mountain, that's for certain, but I hoped it would slip steeper still on the opposite face. When I got there and threw down my pack, I was glad to see just that. It was peace enough for the moment--hunting and finding a great decline. So I enjoyed it, but not by skiing down on the skis I'd brought. Instead, I opened my backpack and took out a book.
Like the mountaintop, this book had no name. Its pages weren't filled and there was no preface. There was no author either--not until the pink sun peeked out from cloud castle gates and blinded all wild eyes on the mountaintop. That's when I was moved to pen something--fast and strong--on those very blank pages. I authored the book, writing something so raw and true it might have been just like a hawk's pulse in flight.
I felt easy...
Before too long, I grabbed the book and my pack and flew down the mountain on a slope skiied only by wintering deer. And perhaps it was the wind's kiss or the birds closely watching, but I had never felt so alive.
.MGW.
posted by Meagan G at
2:58 PM
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