A two-parter -

Today, I walked Saihan mountain today (though I suppose it’s not the ‘real’ Saihan mountain, just a mountain with the letter written on it). My immediate steps from the door put me into a new world. That may have been due to the fact I was wearing a new a different pair of shoes, but what of it? The spring in my step was simply a noticeable difference.

            And so I walked. I had some idea of a destination in mind (the top of the mountain), yet I only knew that that point must be included. The how and when were yet to be established. Well, on my way to the base, I remembered walking along a cow trail following one side of a narrow valley that ‘Saihan’ mountain and a small hill created. Well, I knew I must walk straight along that flow, right down the center of this river valley.

            After winding along for a ways, I encountered a small family of cows (well they had to be a family, didn’t they? There were maybe three or four adults and two kids. At least, that’s what I think now…funny, when you look at a group of cows you never really think about how they may be related to one another. I mean, maybe a cow farmer actually thinks about the relations of cows…I do not know). Either way, at this point, I decided to begin my hike. Three steps up from the dried streambed in the valley an overwhelming sense of déjà vu struck me. These mountains were in Scotland once. Well maybe not these exact mountains. Scotland was more damp and had much cheaper whiskey…but the eyeful of greens…that and all of the rounded stones that make you feel like an ignorant little ant on this earth. The drunken giant’s Stonehenge, way out here in the steppe of Mongolia. Or maybe the rocks look more like a giant decided to unload himself right then and there (who’s to say he didn’t. You ever seen a giant take a dump?).

            Anyways, it was incredible. I couldn’t help it, the kid in me leapt out and ran up the nearest mound of giant crap I could and proceeded to play ‘hot lava’ all the way to the top. On top of most of the rock piles were owoo, a pile of small rocks collected from all around the mountain with a stick in the center and a prayer flag tied to the top of the stick. Hell, even Mongols love their giant crap too. Suddenly, I was a little boy again. But not the true sense of a little boy. More the sense of a man (if I can be so bold as to call myself that) who has lost some part of his youth and dreams of regaining it in fits and starts. Like the young boy Bon Iver uses in his “Holocene” music video. I was the boy who was finally able to escape into nature, travel around my hills, fields and lakes by day, and live in a quiet cabin lit by candlelight at night. I truly was that boy in that moment. My thoughts were foreign to me, but more than welcome. I was finally myself again. And after that boy mounted every owoo, spread his wings at the top of each and pretended to fly, and descended back down to continue “Lava”, that boy saw a drainage flowing down the mountain and decided to follow it down the mountain. But there was a piece of the ‘man’ that returned with him. No longer was I the little boy, but I was not back to the jaded 23 year old either. And on the long walk back to my home, a sort of contentedness crept over me. Perhaps it could be called happiness, but that wasn’t my mind at the time. It was simply a feeling of ease.

            For as long as I care to remember I have been searching for one thing in life. It has very little to do with physical possessions or physical desires. I want to say it has little to do with mental desires as well, but, somehow, that just doesn’t make any rational sense. What I want is a realization. A realization of a deep connection with some one or some thing.

            Maybe that is why I ended up here in the first place. I felt a need to abandon all I had in order to find something I did not have. That may have been the wrong approach. What I abandoned were simply superficial realities: showers, electric heat, internet, and the like. What I discovered was that I already possessed what I wanted all along. I do have a deep connection with some one. But he isn’t always here. Sometimes I find him lodged in the pages of a book. Sometimes he jumps out of a pile of boulders. Sometimes his smile twitches at the edges of my mouth when I talk with a friend, or a complete stranger.

            This isn’t necessarily a new discovery. I found him long ago, deeply entrenched in the diversion of music. I would nod along to some song I was particularly inclined to, and there he would be and a flood of euphoria would wash over me. What is most frustrating is the unavoidable truth that he cannot be with me always. The hardest times are when he doesn’t appear for weeks, or when his visits are merely fleeting.

            He is the reason I took up meditation, and soon moved on to include yoga. His is the mind I envy, yet possess all the same. Ironically, he shares the same mind with one who obsesses to control his presence – something he finds incredibly annoying. And so, while one battles to control the other, the other simply turns his cheek and marches on solemnly, waiting for the moment that the other releases his hold so he might turn around and embrace him…so they may be one once more. It truly is a dance to maintain a gentle balance. Both will walk with me for the rest of my life. And both will remember this hike as another moment where they embraced.