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October 7, 2002 ~ Mountaintop Entry
Monday.
I am sitting on the summit of Jones Mountain, listening to the breeze and the birds, watching the leaves fall. I don't know what got into my head this morning when I woke up, but I thought, I'm going to climb Jones Mountain Today. Climbing a mountain is generally something that one spends a Saturday doing, not a goal one sets for oneself upon walking on a Monday, when one has a full day of work ahead. I think that I was born with one too many "spontaneity" bones.
I've been living in this area for four years now, and three of those years were spent right here at the college within a mile of Jones Mountain, yet I've never bothered to climb it. No, I wait until after I've graduated, on a normal work-day Monday.
Oh, but how could I have resisted? Morgan had to be at a training early this morning, so I knew that he would be dropping me off quite early, which meant that I would be getting off early, and he also wouldn't be back to pick me up until almost six. I would have two hours with nothing better to do. And, as we rounded the bend in Warren Wilson road, where the trees draw back and the valley opens before us, the sun rose. Pink and lavender spilled across the clouds. Blue mist poured into the valley and the fields flushed green beneath it. Mountain peaks poked through the clouds. It was the most impressive and breathtaking sunrise I had seen in a long time. The day turned out to be a beautiful, cool, mostly-cloudy autumn day.
And so, this afternoon, as soon as I was off work, I crossed campus and made my way down Warren Wilson Road. Traffic had been stopped by the farm crew, for they were moving the herd from Dogwood pasture across the road to one of the pastures near the river and the red barn. The herd was following behind me, farm crew members shouting and cows mooing and mooing and mooing and grudgingly moving along the road. I hopped a fence, crossed another pasture, and made my way to College View and the trailhead.
I examined some of the ruins that are scattered about the base of the mountain. Old foundations of houses long gone. Stone walls. I passed by the old orchard, where the college harvests apples every year to make the most delicious apple cider that I've ever had. We bought a gallon at the garden sale a few weeks back, but it is long gone. Two ladders were still propped against the trees.
As I made my way up the mountain, all of the trail markers contradicted the trail names on my map, and numerous times I came across trails that didn't exist on the map at all. My map was old. It seems that when the natural resources crew went through these trails and made all of the new signs and trail markers, they renamed all of the trails as well, and, somewhere along the line, someone created several new trails. My map was useless, so I stowed it away, relying instead on intuition. Luckily, I picked all of the correct turnoffs and picked a route that led to the top of the mountain.
There's another one of those strange piles of fur that I mentioned in the footnotes of this entry about thirty feet or so from where I'm sitting. This time I picked up some and felt it thoroughly, and it is definitely fur. Very strange.
There is what looks to be a television broadcast tower here at the summit. The little cinder-block hut next to it has a hole in the wall which I peeked through. Lots of little blinking lights. The tower itself has been consumed by kudzu, the vines completely covering every surface and pulling all of the electrical wires running to it down to the ground. I found this spectacle rather amusing. Kudzu will kill an area of forest practically overnight; it is a great enemy of trees. But here! Ah, what a worthy match. Kudzu has taken on television as a foe (and kudzu is winning, it appears--highly symbolic, that). I've gained a little more respect for the plant.
I didn't see a single person on the hike up. It is very quiet here. Peaceful. Just the wind, the birds, and me. There are several little woodpeckers flicking about in the trees. I'll have to look up the exact species later in my book. Two hawks just circled by, as well. It is so silly, the way us humans talk about "climbing the mountain," as if it is a great feat, as if the journey is over when you reach the summit. To one of the foxes, coyotes, deer, or black bears, this is just another point in a series of points. It is not particularly special. Some, perhaps, walk up and down the mountain every day, looking for food, just wandering, not looking for the highest spot as we humans always do.
A few weeks ago, when we were hiking on Looking Glass Rock, we had to stop halfway and turn around, because Morgan was getting too hot and uncomfortable. We didn't go all the way to the top, as had been our intention, but, as is obvious from the entry, I still enjoyed myself immensely. Morgan asked me about it later, apologizing for being the reason that we turned around and didn't go all the way up. He mentioned that he was really disappointed with himself. I assured him that it was no big deal, that I had had a great time. We talked a little about how I used to be extremely goal oriented, but that I am trying to break myself of that habit now. I am trying to focus on truly enjoying every moment, perhaps stopping on the way to the top to explore an interesting feature, such as the ruins. And if my explorations take too long and I have to head back before I make it all the way up, so be it. I'm not so worried about destination so much, anymore. Now, what matters is the quality of the trip.
This philosophy, of course, translates to other areas as well. We are always encouraged to have goals in life, to the point that we are often so focused on The Goal that we never see the other opportunities that crop up around us. When I left high school, I was very focused on the goal of finding a college that will give me a degree, going to grad school, then perhaps getting married, then getting a good career, et cetera et cetera et cetera. The common Life Plan. Yes, in caps. And in college I still held on to that for a while. I had to get perfect grades, I had to graduate with honors, and, after I graduated, I had to find a good graduate school. But it was that sort of planning, goal-oriented existence, which kept me from ever setting foot on Jones Mountain the whole four years that I was here. It was not part of The Plan.
Now I've got a job that I'm happy with, one that leaves me with plenty of free time, I'm experimenting with my writing, and I'm not particularly concerned about grad school, because I know that what I need right now is a little time to stop, breathe, explore, and find feel out what my next step should be. I will know when it's time to change directions.
So I suppose that the top of a mountain is a rather odd place to be musing on the idea of not coming to the top of the mountain, but at least I came here slowly, on my own time, exploring everything that interested and distracted me along the way. Yes, I may someday go to grad school. Or maybe I'll have kids really soon and put it off some more. Maybe I won't go at all. My writing isn't ready for grad school anyway. I need to stop and explore it a little first. Find the twists and turns, maybe turn around and go down that mountain a bit more before I head back up again. Because it's the quality of that journey that matters. If I don't make it to the top, perhaps that is the way it should be.
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