Nature has a way of recharging and humbling you at the same time. I find it is an antidote to modernity and algorithm driven lifestyles. Mother Nature has no human designed algorithm, and I escaped to the forests of the Appalachia mountains for a brief interlude, a temporary fugitive, from the monetization of my body.
The morning was cool and the weather unsure. Clouds, hail, snow, rain, and sun raked over the ridge line and dove into the hollow. The mountain side trail down to the river and falls was well-trodden, gnarly roots and sharp stones could catch an unwary foot. It was clear from the incline the mountain was going to levy a toll on my body on the way back up. One and half miles back to the start of the trail, with an elevation gain of nearly a thousand feet.
The falls were a disappointment; the clear mountain stream on the other hand offered lichen and moss-covered rocks, gentle drops and translucent pools. The photography gods smiled upon me that morning, but the trail nymphs and spirits of the forest hiding behind oak trees and under pink and white petals of Trilliums would soon have their laughs.
A mile into the hike up the mountain side, after some 800 feet of elevation gain, my legs were spent, my lungs on fire. My body of three score and two years screamed to my brain, which thinks itself 25, “stop, please stop.” My only thought was that if I die, I hoped my body is found before a black bear fresh from its winter sleep drags it into the hollow.
My soul left my body at the last switchback and only returned when I arrived at the BBQ Exchange in Gordonsville. It appeared in the form of a pulled pork sandwich and a cold Dr. Pepper. Such was my interlude.
