I had just finished a very long hike up the highest point I had hiked, the highest point I could find in Switzerland that you can hike up to without equipment. I saw great mountains, lots of interesting mountain animals, including the ibex, and breathed the most amazingly fresh air.
But now I was inside an inn. What a difference. There are lots of locals talking and laughing; it's very warm, so warm that the windows have all fogged up. The only similarity to the four hour trip on the tall mountains and ridges was that I was still alone. I was with my journal, writing down the things that have happened. But in my bones, I still remembered the cold, more than the beautiful scenery and the animals and the exhilaration of reaching that highest point. It was cold and even colder as the son started yawning and preparing itself towards the inevitable meeting with the horizon. And the horizon of the mountains is higher than what most people are used to. The chill could be felt in my lungs, and could be seen in the breath that came out. I had to keep walking but then I had to rest, and when I rested, I could feel my sweat collecting and then chilling my body again.
But here I was safe, I wasn't afraid, I was in the company of people, even if they are strangers. Whenever I travel in a cold place I remember that night, how grateful I was to see the road, even from a distance, at least I knew I wouldn't get lost in the field that increasingly looked the same everywhere I turned. At least someone could help me even though this was a very sparsely populated place. There was a sense of gratitude in my mind that stood above all other feelings from that night. I was writing with warm fingers and on a small notebook. I was able to think about the people I cared about with a sense of safety and hope.
I wasn't in danger during that trip. There wasn't a snowstorm brewing. There wasn't vicious animals. I wasn't hiking on dangerous grounds like glaciers. But the sense of loneliness had set in as the sky got darker. I had wanted someone to be with me, as always. I had been hiking for so long alone that I wanted someone to join me sometime. And with that longing came all the longing, the general longing of someone. And the thought that I might get stuck in the mountains and valleys in the darkness deepened the sense of despair over lack of a companion.
And so I was grateful for many things, and among them was that I was sitting among people. Even though they weren't my companions a the time, I was accompanied by the familiar, their voices, their food, their energy. I remember the dark, wooden table I was sitting in. I remember that next to me were books about the mountains and that I took one to skim through while waiting for my food to come.
And then, as I remember, I wish I wasn't sitting alone. I was grateful that I was back in the warm arms of civilization, but I also remember writing that I wish I had someone to tell about my adventures that day, to brag that it was the highest I had reached, that it was the climax of my hiking experience in the nearly one year I had been living in that mountain paradise of a country. I wanted to tell that person about the ibexes that I saw and the accompanying thoughts. But nothing. And so with that gratitude, I waited with some remnants of the preceding longing for the wonderful food that I would have to share with just myself, including the experience I would have with it.
