Some reflections on the fiction of Paulo Bacigalupi
Cathedral Peak is the second of three “easy” alpine peaks in Tuolumne that constitute the Triple Crown. John Muir wrote […]
I have been here before: yearning to remain on vacation forever, but feeling the inevitability of return, gathering on the horizon like a change in the weather.
Maybe that is today’s task, I think: to battle this demon, to face something in myself even harder than the mountain.
Now I find myself contemplating what it means to intentionally depart a place. The easy thing would be to simply jump in the van and leave. I want better than that; I want a departure that both honors this place and safeguards it in my memory.
When we returned to Truckee, I committed to learning about the place. I wanted to be more than a tourist. […]
Day after day, this trip reminds me: take nothing for granted. Experience everything. There is so much life to be had.
I needed to decisively commit to an ending before I could reap the benefits of a new beginning. Once I took that step, things fell into place quickly.
It was such a simple but deeply countercultural ritual, taking so much time to truly arrive in a place.
A well-lived life thus entails hard inner work on two fronts: training ourselves to live more fully in the present, and becoming better custodians of our own past.
If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different places. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.
Even here, on a timeful vacation, Hannah and I must make choices about the life we want, the way we want to be in the world.