Mountains.

I finally got out into the woods as I'd been dying to do for a while. The trail I took was one I hadn't been on in more then ten years. As I walked, my vaguely remembered familiarity with the mountain made me smile. Eventually I came to a little clearing where a large boulder had been deposited by a melting glacier thousands of years ago, a place that's existence had been buried deep in my subconscious for more than half my life.

I had a flashback to being a very small child, with the same light caught up in the trees, and our long-lost family friend, with his faded red sox cap and salt-and-pepper beard, hoisting me up onto the slanting rock face.

On my return I was able to pull myself up and scramble to the top ridge of the boulder where there was a perfect indent for sitting. I stayed for a few minutes in the warmth of reminiscence and then decided I should continue up the trail if I wanted to get to the summit for it got too dark.

Ten more minutes of hiking and I remembered Jack Kerouac's musings over an old Zen saying in his book Dharma Bums, "When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing."

Within a second, I had turned around and was on my way back down to the rock with a better way to get to the top in mind.

I climbed up the cool grey of the stone once more and sat to meditate.