walkwithme413

Beauty and Trouble

I awake to a noise.

Is there something inside the house? Someone? It seems too early in the season for the mice to be moving back in.

I get up and move closer. No, only rain, torrential, Biblical rain, plink-plunking everywhere, onto everything. I rush to close windows, mop up puddles.

Reflect.

I’ve been thinking lately about where my treasure is. This long season of injury has kept me cornered, held captive by my broken body and restless mind.

Only God knows how long I must remain in His crucible, and as it is His will that I am here, no amount of crying, crawling, or complaining will get me out.

By His grace, I have found a way to wait. Today, I fly to Korea, land of Joseon!

In an irony not lost on me, when I am least able to move, I will be journeying far further than I have ever been in my life.

For a long time, I’ve wanted to see the home country of many of the beautiful boys that I teach. Where does their kindness, humor, industry, and courage come from?

I believe I am about to find out.

In the process, I’ve had to submit. Surrender. Wave the white flag of self and shout, “Okay, okay: if You will it, it must be good.”

It is a truth I must accept that trouble and beauty are both equal partners in His plan. To accept that it was my own stubborn nature that had to yield before He could reveal any of this valley’s pearls to me.

I needed to stop going away sad.

Listen:

“A certain ruler asked Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Upon further questioning from the Master, it is revealed that this man had been doing his best to keep the commands, to obey. He wanted assurance that he was on the right path.

Don’t. We. All.

His pride, however, reveals that none of us can do this perfectly. Perhaps this was Jesus’s point.

He knows our blind spots, our carefully guarded secrets, the things we refuse to unhand. He sees this heavily defended fortress in the rich young ruler. And it is right there, on the tenderest of spots, that he lays his nail-scarred hand and applies the firmest of pressures.

After hearing the man’s defense, Jesus said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When he heard this, the man became very sad, because he was very wealthy.”
‭(Luke‬ ‭18‬:‭18‬, ‭22‬-‭23‬)

The unhanding has always been up to us. It appears the rich man did not like Jesus’s answer, and part of me, quite honestly, understands. Sympathizes.

Giving up just looks like trouble. We want to hold on to what we think is beauty, perhaps dreading that it may never appear again.

And why does it seem that beauty has trouble as its constant warden? A patch of ripe blackberries in my yard requires a thorny battle; hands stain with blood and juice to pluck just a small bowl. Ears of corn, a distant summit, muscle. All demand trouble to attain.

The value of the thing is maddeningly proportional to the difficulty acquiring it. I’m learning this, O- so-slowly.

The kind of faith that can keep believing, after so many relentless deaths, must never come to the end of itself. Rather, it can, it must, become so shiny and pure that no future trouble will ever crush it.

The Master is in no hurry. I’ve read time and again that we will need no such lessons in heaven; now is the time for the fire to burn, now, so we’ll be ready then.

Three days later, I land in Incheon. Thursday has time-traveled itself away, and en route to customs, I walk through the most beautiful airport I’ve ever seen.

Even the bathroom is a marvel.

Haha, in a world of chrome and glass, it is trees that greet me. It’s three in the morning and I can’t stop grinning.

I’m reminded of what Jesus said to assure his disciples:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭25‬, ‭28‬-‭30‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Bathrooms dressed in trees, heat like an oven, steep climbs and sweet strangers. Beautiful, awesome, faith-building trouble.

May you find it, wherever you are.

What if -?

I wake one morning this week to cool air, windows open wide.

In my tiny house, I can practically touch fingertips to opposite walls, and all around me birds are hailing in the morning. For a moment, it feels expansive, like my tent somewhere deep in the woods, and I tunnel under quilt, reluctant to let the moment pass.

When I finally drift outside, stand by porch rail, the wildfire sky is pink, pulsing as if alive. It’s a wonder, despite the source.

I’ve had lots of time to think, recently; not the moving-over-rock-and-root kind of thinking, the kind I love and miss; but anchored, centered introspection about where I am and why and how.

There’s a story in the Bible about a woman who has been bleeding for twelve years. Mark writes, she had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better, she grew worse.

She’s been ostracized, forced away from neighbor and temple, considered unclean, untouchable. I long to talk to her, to draw close, to ask how she’s managed it for so long.

What’s your secret?

Under the weight of this injury, my muscles soften and my body grows thicker by the day. I want to walk, run, climb, stand on summit, cross rivers, burn my skin red. I’m stuck – like my friend, I’ve bled money and time searching for the cure that ever eludes.

But what if-?

Mark describes what happens next. Desperate, the woman with the issue of blood gambles through the throng, trailing behind the One whom she has heard can heal. If I could just touch his hem, she reasons, maybejustmaybe, all that they say about Him will prove true, for me.

And it does. Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

And after a somewhat comical exchange between Jesus and disciples – Who touched me? – Are you kidding, Lord, don’t you see this crowd? – Jesus stops everything and focuses on this one lone lady.

Daughter, your faith has healed you, he tells her. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.

What if-?

What if all those years cowering on the outskirts, being shushed and shooed, ignored, beaten down, drained of hope? What if all of it pointed to one singular encounter with a Savior who was willing to break open her suffering heart and set her free?

I want to ask her, though I’m sure I know the answer: was it worth it? To go through all of that for that one momentous moment, and all the hereafter that followed?

I want to think it that it was. That it is, for me.

What if the moonscape of the last 12 years has simply been leading me into a covenant of greater trust in Him who holds back the crowd for just His beloved one?

Have I been moving so long and so fast that He’s had to sit me down for this season? To pull those pieces of my reluctant, petulant heart that kick and scream like an angry toddler who thinks she knows what’s best?

Summer has always been a time of growth, but I sit here, again, shrinking, day after day, pleading my cause (Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me), tiptoeing around His promises, asking skeptical questions, doubting but wanting to believe.

Like Abraham did. He, too, endured years of waiting on the God who promised.

Paul puts it this way: Abraham dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do.

I long to meet Him at the hem.

To pray through. For it not to matter if I am ever healed, to say that it was worth it, even if.

To declare, as Habakkuk did, not through gritted teeth but with open, surrendered, triumphant hands:

Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Like a wink, I read the last lines.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.

What if-?

Lessons from a Little

She came to my daughter’s house late one night, a tiny tugboat of a girl, bird-boned and face-scabbed from some yet-unknown less-than-benign neglect.

I’ve been watching her.

From the very beginning, it seemed her arms, her heart were open to whatever new presented itself. She is fearless, sweet, unabashedly inclined to ask for aid.

She’s not the first foster my daughter’s family has taken in, but she is quickly becoming my favorite.

I sense there is a lot I can learn from her.

Stuck in a washer of injury/rehab/recover/repeat, I understand now why the cycle is called vicious, and I desperately crave an exit.

I have to admit the days since being forced off-trail have not been my best.

Days were spent at a Super 8 willing my legs to heal, ordering takeout and coming to terms.

Once at home, turtling in on myself, indulging in obstructive self-pity, railing at God and whatever this thing is that He thinks He’s doing. Wondering, like Saint Teresa of Avila, if this is how You treat your friends, God, is it no wonder You have so few?

Yikes.

But then – I look at this little and see how unbothered she is by her own novel circumstance. She does not protest the food she is offered, the new crib where she sleeps, or the hours she is asked to spend outside.

She is part of the fabric of this busy family, for now, until her own can mend and take her back.

I recently read how Jesus tells his disciples, his friends, that they must count the cost of following Him: “hold no opinions, make no demands, retain no privileges, abandon all cherished sins, worldly possessions, and secret self-indulgences,” as the footnote in my translation reads.

Without reservation or question? Really?

Impossible.

Yet knowing what weak-willed, selfish creatures we are, unable to say no to ourselves, I am not surprised to turn the page and see the very next parable Jesus tells them.

The lost lamb.

He knows our sheep-nature will lead us to bracken, cliff, and hole; but He chases us anyway, lifts us up anyway, brings us back anyway, to start anew.

O Savior, how do you not weary of us?

Like my small friend, maybe it’s time to quietly pick up my cross.

Open my arms and heart, bravely face the changes I never asked for, temper my rebellious and immoderate spirit, ask for the help my Father is ever poised to give.

If this small slip of a soul can fierce the unknown, and do it with such calm and trust, then so can I.

So can you.

O Captain! my Captain! When will this fearful trip be done?

We cannot know nor see.

And perhaps that is best. Had I known I would be back here, injured and alone, so soon after the last time, I’m not sure I could have borne it. Knowing the work ahead, exacting heart work that, apparently, desperately needed to be done.

As quickly as the trial comes, it may, perhaps, just as swiftly, depart. I think of Paul and Silas in prison, singing and praying an earthquake into being.

Friends, multiplying joy and dividing sorrow.

Prayer, working, as Spurgeon once observed, as “the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence.”

Pick me up, our toddler girl gestures with chubby arms aloft.

Pick me up, Jesus, because I’m just not sure I can do this again.

Yet I have to believe that You believe I can.

Try Try Again

Last summer, I blew up attempting a long walk I had been planning for a year. It’s time to try again, but I will posting blogs on the backpacking platform The Trek should you wish to follow along.

If you go to my latest post, and scroll to the bottom, you can subscribe there. It looks like this:

I think it helps the algorithm or some such thing, so thanks in advance.

So much has happened in the months since last summer.

I’ve learned so much about doubt and fear, ebbs and flows, aging and hope. Suffice to say, if my hip holds, I’ll likely have lots of time on my hand to process and pray.

The youngest and I used to start the first days’ miles on the Appalachian Trail by quietly thanking God for getting us to wherever we were and interceding for friends and family. It felt like a sacred discipline, a foundation for the path ahead, before his boyish exuberance would scatter the wildlife and fatigue made us cranky. (Okay, made me cranky – he seemed uniquely hardwired for resilience and joy).

I wouldn’t mind some prayer over this trip. Let me know how I can be praying for you.

I’d like to say see you in August, but only God knows when I’ll need to pop out of the woods. Until then:

I stand upon the mount of God With sunlight in my soul; I hear the storms in vales beneath, I hear the thunders roll.

But I am calm with Thee, my God, Beneath these glorious skies; And to the height on which I stand, No storms, nor clouds, can rise.

O, this is life! O, this is joy! My God, to find Thee so; Thy face to see, Thy voice to hear, And all Thy love to know. ~Horatius Bonar

Ten

On the evening of our final end-of-year meetings, our school community gathers to celebrate. It’s been a sweet year, one marked by fewer, smaller conflicts, where our credo We will know your boys and love your boys rang spectacularly true.

I looked forward every day to seeing my students, trying to teach them skills, sharing laughs at table, cheering them on.

That night, our Head of School shares a list of milestones, and my name is read (along with his own) to commemorate 10 years of service to our school. It is, of course, cliche to say It does not seem possible, and yet, here I am.

Ten years.

Though my brain ages, I am able to command it yet to think about those first few months, ten years ago.

Shattered raw from my son’s accident, I moved into the space he had inhabited only years earlier. It was grace to be able to work alongside his former teachers, gaze at his old team photos, find his name etched in pencil on the bottom of a drawer (naughty boy).

Say his name to those who knew him.

If I were to do the math, in those ten years, I have taught hundreds of students, known thousands more.

They are men now, boys no more.

Forever 22, my son will never meet these brothers of his. Never rove his old haunts, stand at fence on the new turf field, give an alumni tie to the next class of boy.

On this day, the 28th of May, the wind swirls as I write. Seeds soar through the air outside. Papers blow to the floor.

It feels like change.

What is ahead, I cannot know.

This world – this shining, heavy, glorious world – is not my home.

It was never his.

If we are lucky, alert, we may catch a glimpse of what is to come.

Not ten years, but an eternity.

He’s waiting there now.

Snakes and Stones

A new song brushes by on Pandora this week, and the first line wrecks me, a perfect mirror of the pain and frustration marking the past month.

Tired and I am angry at the nature of it all
Fighting just to find myself a breath

After scrapping all year to heal from last summer’s injury, I was ready to try again to perhaps be the first woman to hike the 115 tallest mountains in the Northeast in one continuous footpath. At least give it a try.

I was feeling pretty good, actually, most of the year.

I’m able to get back on the trails that I love, covertly start a second Grid (shh).

I spend time with the littles, joy at my son’s engagement, teach the sweetest bunch of middle school boys on the planet.

All along, in the back of my mind, is The Hike. A metaphor for overcoming: injury and age and the steady drip of the world.

Then.

It starts as an ache in my shoulder, travels down the muscles of my back. A nagging there-ness that begins to shout the moment I put on a pack.

Sparing no attention to rehab my wretched hip, I had neglected other places that were bent on rebellion. The pain is constant, a reminder that the time to leave is short and I can’t leave, I won’t, until it does.

Not this time, I tell myself, and try everything available to excise the growing knot hellbent on shipwrecking my plans. Chiro, deep tissue massage, reps with rubber bands, a tennis ball.

I go back to the stories that have always brought me hope.

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11)

How. Much. More.

And yet – though I know it can’t be true – it seems that all I get are snakes and stones.

I love the forest. It is a place where I can be, silent, away. Away from other weighty pains, where it’s okay to be alone.

Can I trust, at home, my own tired soul? Not good with empty time, I fear I could be a danger to myself.

And then, just when it seems my shoulder starts to calm – bread! fish! – I cannot even. Attention drawn away from its constant demands, my hip reverts back to its old treacherous ways. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t just so darn sad.

Can these dry bones live?

I wonder and worry. Will these compound setbacks be a dark night of the soul, leading me to oceans of deeper trust – or will they send me spiraling?

I realize I have a say in the matter, and who wants to willingly spiral when it’s surrender that is necessary?

So I try. Remember all the fish, all the bread from seasons past.

Number present blessings. Pray and cry and pray some more. Banish those doubts and disappointments to the empty tomb and roll back the stone.

God’s plans are rarely linear.

I do wish He were predictable. So much of the last decade has been anything but.

But what I can count on, what is as unmistakably as granite solid as the mountains I crave, is Himself. His presence, provision, and care.

So I wait here in limbo, knowing that his howmuchmoreness will one day win.

What will this summer hold?

Ah, Sovereign Lord, you alone know.

Rivers and Roads

March has finally simmered down enough for me to find some time to look back on this year’s section of the Florida Trail.

It’s been my joy every spring to leave duty and winter behind and simply walk in a landscape that is both foreign and familiar, terrible and beautiful .

I decided this year that I was going to lighten my pack as much as possible due to some longer (heavier) water carries. This meant forgoing a hot morning beverage (no stove, fuel, or cup), taking a chance on precipitation (no rain pants), and reading an evening selection on my phone (no physical book).

Even paper can be heavy, if there is enough of it. Ask any teacher.

I leave my maps behind, as well, gambling that the FarOut App would be enough.

No Florida Trail endeavor (for me) has ever begun without some form of drama, and this year it was fire. Eager to hike the most southern section of the trail, Big Cypress, in what is turning out to be a significant year of drought in Florida, I was sad to learn just days before my departure that Big Cypress was ablaze. All my plans for car parking and shuttles had to be rejiggered.

Image from Naples Daily News

Though the Big Cypress fire consumed 35,000 acres and even shut down Alligator Alley, the main east-west corridor north of the Everglades, burns are essential to the ecosystem of the swamp. What was an inconvenience for me turned out to be a boon for BC (lest I appear, dear reader, whiningly callous about my change of plans).

Having only two other unhiked sections to choose from, I decided to shift to the Suwannee. Every year previous that I have tried to complete this stunning segment, it has been flooded, so with water levels 10 feet below the safe margin, I finally got my chance.

But not before more drama. On the morning my shuttle is supposed to arrive, I venture outside of the White Springs B & B to catch the blood moon and realize I’m hot and dizzy. Queasy. Stumbling back inside, I call Earthworm, my trail angel ride, to reschedule, then book two more nights at the B & B.

Younger me would have been frustrated, upset. Older, calmer me made what lemonade I could. I sleep most of the first day, watch Korean dramas, hydrate.

On day two, I feel well enough to hike Big Shoals, a short piece I had skipped years before due to a high water bypass.

The Shoals are down to a trickle, hardly the torrents that routinely draw kayakers and white water enthusiasts. Footsteps connected, however, I was ready on the morning of day three to head out.

After an hour of lively conversation, Earthworm drops me 100 miles north of White Springs to begin what will be the first challenge of this section, a 40 mile road walk on pavement, dirt, and sand.

I typically don’t mind road walks, given one can forget one’s feet and breeze along at a pace incompatible with forest trails. But along this stretch there were only two options for me to spend the night: a cemetery or a church.

The church would be a push, given my late drop-off time, but I wasn’t terribly excited about the cemetery, even though when I walked by it around 4:00 that afternoon, it looked grassy, cool and quiet.

But the church!

New Hope Baptist had everything a tired hiker might need. Flat grassy spaces. Picnic tables. A roof. Electric outlets. Water. Even a huge industrial fan I use the next morning to dry out my tent. Luxury!

It’s hard to pull myself away to pound out the remaining road.

Fog pools around me as I set out in the dark, hoping to get in “10 before 10” (10 miles before 10:00) in advance of the heat.

Dogs I pass are remarkably well behaved for rural Florida, a relief.

Other critters and I criss cross along forest way.

Pick-ups and logging trailers hustle by, kicking up dust. The hot arrives as I pull over to truck stop only .3 off the trail.

Yippee.

Subway and DQ for lunch, snack resupply and water for the afternoon.

The last miles of road I have to measure off in small, reachable goals, as all shade disappears and I am surrounded by massive farms.

Three miles, rest.

Two miles, rest.

Last intersection, turn.

Thunder that threatens all afternoon produces no rain, only a beautiful distant bow.

I’m ready for the woods.

For the next sixty miles, I hug the Suwannee.

Tributaries occasionally force the trail away from the river, to a bridge or safer crossing, only to lead it gently back to banks high above tannin-tinted water.

I pass an incredible sign which marks flood levels over the years. I stand at its base and try to imagine everything above my head covered with water.

Other signs mark how the river is gauged over time. They, too, are high above the current stream, and I am grateful to finally complete this section without fear of drowning. I met two hikers a few years back who said they had been forced to swim in the very places where my feet were currently dry.

Yikes.

Of course it’s hot, even in the woods.

I detour when I can, to shady tables or over graffiti bridge, which leads to a mini mart and a bench where I chat amiably with a man named George who has lived here all his life.

I’m sad when he leaves and my phone is still charging, so I sit there, alone, and watch the traffic pass.

After five days, I’m closing in on White Springs. There’s no rush, only a long drive home ahead.

I love this trail.

I love the tiny twinkle of ant eyes in the dark as I bumble by.

How pine needles and sun-baked leaves crepitate under my soles.

Gossamer leavings in the elbow of a branch.

Sweat in my eyes, the ache of a long, hard day.

It’s the perfect antidote for a long school season, and the reason I return every March.

Only two sections left.

I don’t really ever want to finish.

A Better List

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time or inclination to write, but today, as a wintery mix falls and my car sits idle in the driveway with its check engine light on, again, it feels like a need.

The haste with which Christmas came and went felt cruel. Though it happens every year, it seemed particularly thus this time.

The hopes and fears of all the years: they are a weight I can’t shake, a long list of assaults that sap my faith.

Frequent injuries that linger long. Brain fog. Mice in the walls. A Judas car. Loneliness. The pounds that creep back on.

The very socks I pull on this morning. His socks, the one who left too soon, who loved this season, his family, life itself.

The elastic crackles as I pull, and I realize there are some things that just go, no matter how hard you want to hold them tight.

Maybe I need to look up, not down.

There was another list I started to keep this season, inspired by something I read on the Bible app earlier this month. Apparently, there are more than 700 different names for Christ in the Bible, and author Robert Morgan writes that “each one meets the various needs in our own lives… (and) discloses the many layers of his relationship with us.”

I start to count.

Compassionate One. Fuller’s Soap. Redeemer.

Every morning, as I sit at desk, I journal names.

Promise Keeper. My Delight. Lord of Power.

I circle the number, every day.

My Shepherd, 29. The Lord My Banner, 51. Commander of the Angel Armies, 105.

As I count, two birthdays arrive, my own and the newest little.

Everlasting Father. Bridegroom. Master. King.

In less than a month, when Christmas finally arrives, I’ve hit 383.

Alpha. Omega. Lion. Lamb.

Look up!

Do you not know? Have you not heard?

That hip, those mice, your son.

Why do you complain, O daughter? Why do you say, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”?

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. (Isaiah 40:27-28)

He is your Strength, your Champion, your Great Reward.

Faithful One. Rock. Abba Daddy.

Always close, always listening, my very breath. Immanuel. God with Us. Never Leaver or Forsaker. Life itself.

I can’t stop counting, and neither will You, Meeter of My Every Need.

Thank you for all the ways that You are You.

Hope of the Ends of the Earth.

Good Girl

I didn’t want to write this post.

In fact, I’ve been waiting the last few weeks, hoping, praying that I wouldn’t have to, wouldn’t feel that I must.

But no amount of walking the neighborhood, no matter how loudly I call her name or how many times I look at the door, scour the woods, despite the signs I tacked to telephone poles or the pictures I posted on Facebook, the chasing down of false leads or speaking to strangers, I have to finally admit: she’s gone.

My sweet, constant, loud, fuzzy sidekick has disappeared.

Yes, I know – she’s just a cat, a pet and not a child. That is a truth I wish I didn’t know as well as I do.

And yet…

I got my good girl the summer of another disappearance, the summer the one I had trusted with my heart broke covenant and walked away.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, the tiny kitten we invited into our home would become a timekeeper for whenever I thought back to that awful summer.

How old is she?

How long have I been alone?

Children aged and flew; I sold our too-big house, got a job, came to terms, felt the wounds slowly scab.

Through it all, at the end of the day, there was always one face waiting for me when I opened the door.

She moused the house and chased chipmunks in the yard. Hid under the bed when the grands came to visit, destroyed more couches than I care to admit, woke me up when I wanted to sleep. She insisted I brush her by falling underfoot, endured the scissors when her long fur clumped. Her favorite perch was atop the couch, eye-level with me as I watched or read, absent-mindedly scratching her ears as she purred. She was a sucker for an empty box.

She was a good girl.

I try not to think about the scratch marks I find on the porch stairs, the lone tuft of fur.

What took you? You must have been so scared.

I try not to look at her silly toys.

The treats she no longer needs.

Yes, I know.

I know she was just a pet.

But she was my pet, the one live thing that has kept company with me all these years.

She was a love. My good good girl.

The Necessity of Clouds

About a week ago, I saw a window between duty and the many appointments dealing with my injury.

Impulsively, I packed up the car and set out early one morning to drive to the Gaspe Peninsula, a place I’ve long wanted to explore.

I’m so glad I did. So much beauty packed onto one spit of land, it wasn’t possible to see it all in one short week.

So many trees!

And seals that howled like wolves.

The largest colony of Northern Gannets, squawking and tussling like my middle school students.

Rocks everywhere, grand and common.

Ocean, gulf, river, lake: water in all its diverse forms.

Did I mention trees? The stunning variety of them, their sweet shade, the heady, pine-y scent; spontaneous gratitude would often erupt in my soul for God’s gracious gift of trees.

Every day, I tried to walk a little further on the local trails until, at last, I felt ready to tackle an actual mountain.

Standing proudly on the tip of Gaspe in Forillon National Parc, Mont Saint-Alban, at 285 meters, was a little over a five mile loop, much of it on the International Appalachian Trail.

Seemed like as good a place as any to kick the tires.

Rain pelted my windshield as I parked at the trailhead, waiting for a break. Yes, I wanted to see the views promised in the trail description, but I also longed to see if my damaged soft tissue was healed enough to propel me up the mountain.

Muscle memory took over as I exited the car and practically danced – cautiously – toward the summit and the observation tower at the top.

Perhaps, upon discovering that my legs did, in fact, still work, a view would be nice after all. I willed the misty clouds to part at every outlook.

When I reached the top tier of the tower, they did, in part, recede, affording me some of the most elegant displays of the entire trip.

And that’s when it hit me.

Without the clouds to frame the landscape, the tip of the Gaspe, the cliffs and trees and sea, would have appeared flat, dull. It was the clouds themselves that revealed the beauty.

For the rest of the trip and thereafter, I started paying attention. Cataloguing.