Yesterday my sister and I hiked 10 miles, 2980 feet up to where glaciers thoughtfully dug two perfect holes we call Surprise & Amphitheater Lakes. Two and some months into living this mountain life and the thin air is starting to come easier. Whereas just a month ago the trail seemed endless, yesterday it seemed just right. A rigor and a reward my body now finds familiar. I think the feeling that amounts to in me is pride– that the ascent isn’t so hard anymore, that my own diligence made it that way.

Although outwardly I may appear totally healthy, the last decade has been a basket of health woes for me and I’ve generally blinded myself to the physical strengths I do still possess. But– I can literally climb mountains.

Knowing that truth and the peaceful exhaustion that a long hike brings, I thought yesterday of how the same can’t be said… yet… for my mind. I’ve been on dozens of hikes this summer– by myself, with friends, with family– and the one dissenting factor is that as far my body wanders, my mind wanders too. I’m not the first to find the solitude of nature a vast audience to my thoughts. Sometimes thoughts relevant to my surroundings, but most of the time not. Like gazing into the clear lake water and knowing how perfect it is, how exceptionally lucky I am to dip my fingers into it. But simultaneously thinking about something or somebody that hurt me yesterday, last month, 10 years ago.

Why is it so hard to grasp the progress we have made, the destinations we have gifted ourselves, and have that be enough? How can we gaze off a cliff, know the sheer strength it took to make it all the way up to the top, and still think of something that happened way down on the valley floor, when we were so much smaller.

Maybe its much easier to exhaust your physical body than it is to exhaust your mind. But maybe the first endeavor can feed the second. I’ll keep hiking and let you know. Its only August, and my feet aren’t tired yet.

Moment of Gratitude: We have come so much farther, we can go so much farther, than we think.