Mitchell’s Mountain

She’s jagged, but not sharp. You don’t clearly remember the first time you saw her, but she did remind you a little of your father— that was her lonely, rocky outcroppings— and a little of yourself. You’d never seen something so unyielding and still so lovely under God’s great big sky. And she was a little like your grandmother, and a little like a song, but only in the way that everything beautiful is.

Fog always shrouds one side of her or the other, or conceals her form altogether, so her shape is never fully revealed. You thought if only you trudged up her east slope one promising sunny morning, you would finally understand her and finally have your fill. But her winds whipped at your clothes, and drenched you in cold spray. So you cursed her grounds and spit on her as you set up camp, only because you had to. To struggle against her is your very nature, and to break you is hers. That’s why you’re drawn to her like flies are drawn to vinegar.

There’s a funny thing about her. Just when she has you believing you’re beat, that’s about the time the air clears, and the blazing sun starts to sink low in the violet distance. A few lonesome stars hang themselves above you, and she holds you up close to them. She no longer feels cruel beneath you, but almost friendly. And compared to the biting night air that is descending, her soft earth is so warm and familiar that it scares you.

In the morning, you’ll fight her steep sides again, and pray to God for fair weather. It’ll be muddy and mucky and terrible in places, but you’ll make it. And when you reach the end of the cleared trail, you’ll be sorry it was over. Her alpine music will bid you come back soon, and she’s held you in her grips for so long now that you dare not refuse her at least a hopeful and longing goodbye.

She is wildly foreign, and older than you by many thousands of years, and you will never truly hold her in the way you want to. But you have many things in common, and one is that you are created from dust, and one is that there’s no guarantee you’ll both be here tomorrow. So climb her while you can.