8:29 in the morning I am sitting in an armchair, my laptop on my knees. When I peak through the windows I see immense mountains in every direction. With their majestic energy they reach high up into the sky. And make me feel appropriately small in their presence. My body still remembers the last three nights of broken sleep on hard floors. My face still feels stiff from the overdose of sunshine I collected. My mind is calm, a bit excited and a bit tired. I feel like I am slowly arriving in my new rhythm, arriving back in the present moment.
In November 2024 I decided I would go on a cycling trip, by myself. I set my departure for early May and left my return date open-ended. Since then I had months to idealize and glorify this adventure.
I was anticipating with impatience. I was preparing with excitement. I was telling people about my plan with confidence.
This trip became the answer to all my questions. “I will leave anyways…” became an excuse to walk over my own boundaries. “I’ll see what I find…” became my condolence when I wasn’t sure what I am doing with my life. “Soon I’ll be by myself…” when I couldn’t stand as situation I was trapped in.
This trip has been a thing of the future for so long, that I am overwhelmed now, by making it a thing of the present.
“What’s the thing that does or would excite you the most right now?”
For me the answer is and was: Cycling through the Alps. But then why couldn’t I feel any of that accumulated excitement anymore, the second I left to do just that?
On Wednesday, late morning, I leave, the sun is already high and burning warm. I was supposed to leave on Monday. I feel a bit guilty, for not keeping my own promise but try to accept this. “It doesn’t really matter when I leave, as long as I do leave!” I tell myself.
When I pack all the gear on to my bike I have my first crisis. Too heavy and too much. I thought I was prepared for that. I thought I knew how this works. I barely manage to attach everything on to my two wheeled companion. I am close to tears and already hungry.
My mood doesn’t brighten when I start cycling. “Where is all my excitement for this trip?” I don’t feel like laughing and singing. The beautiful sunny warm day, the endless blue sky above me only makes it worst. I am free, healthy, the weather is great. I have no reason to be sad at all. Then why do I feel like crying, giving up and curling into a cave?
“Next day will be better.” I tell myself.
Even though the swim in ice blue fresh water that evening and the next morning helps. I am still not feeling the way I’d wanted to. Which is why I decide to take the detour up to a hidden mountain lake. Pushing upwards, going through endless slow slopes in order to reach the top of the mountain has, until now, always helped me to sort out my thoughts and emotions.
It helps. But there are more tears and more sadness to go through. I still don’t understand. Nonetheless I foreshadow that I might be doing the right thing here.
I swim, I eat, I make another fire the second night I spend up here. I write again, and notice that is has been almost seven days since I touched a pen or a book. I read. And all this starts to evoke some calmness in me. “Did I forget to be present?”
I sleep terribly. But wake up full of excitement to spend another morning at this lake all to myself. Clouds cover the sky and the water is fresh. Fishermen and a helicopter appear. They don’t fit into my scene of playing “woman in the wild by herself”. But I accept and keep my swimming costume on. After the swim I make a coffee and the sun shows up just in time for the first sip. I am starting to arrive in the moment, here on that bench. By myself with the morning sun on my face.
Was it just that? Was I just being out of sink with the present? Maybe.
Since this trip has only been a plan in the future for so long. I had to bring it into the now. All the preparing was over. Just for me to notice that it’s not about preparing but actually using the things. Anticipating might be exciting and living it is always something unexpected. And it seems to be a dangerous thing to look forward to something for that long.
It seems that once you get to that thing, loosing the excitement of anticipation hurts much more, than the feeling of achievement you get from finally arriving.
The cold water and my pen writing my thoughts down on paper, slowly pull me back into the now. My pedals turning endlessly make me accept where I am. I can not rush anything. To get there I always have to go through every kilometre. I have to embrace every moment, as endless or as joyful as he might seem. There are no short cuts. Endless talks to myself on my way through the valley bring me back to the person I have in my head. And then I look at the mountain chain in front of me. She is showing me a slightly different angle of her face now. Even more beautiful then the last one.
They make me feel appropriately small those mountains. They make me remember that I am just a tiny part of something so much bigger, than my fears. They put me back into my place and make me remember that love is just that; expansion and amplification.
On the third day I am starting to arrive, back into the present moment.
How do you arrive back in the present moment?
Thanks for stopping by, have a lovely Thursday!
All photos and words are owned by ©kesityu taken and written by myself.
