To Feel Small, Once Again

This weekend I went to Yosemite with my siblings, their partners, and some extended siblings, for my younger brother's birthday. We relaxed, watched a movie, hot-tubed, swam and hiked one of Yosemite's most delicious trails. Vernal Falls is a beautiful, strenuous, 2.4 mi round trip Mist Trail with an elevation gain of 1000 ft. It's challenging, invigorating, and beautiful.

Throughout our childhood, my parents toted my brothers and I to Yosemite National Park, to expose us to the wonder of one of the most awe inspiring wildernesses I've met yet [Washington's Olympic National Park is a close second]. With a bit of nostalgia, fond memories, excitement (and some other feelings) six of us navigated the steep terrain of the stone steps, carved into the granite rock face, as mist from the waterfall rained down on our skin, warmed from the April sun.

Rainbows graced the foot of the falls as spray met sunshine. My beloved, the soulmate who has gone before, was conceived during one such rainbow, his mom swears.

"Hi Babe!" I yelled into the cascade, for, even as I move forward in this life post B, he is always with me. [The dude showed up via his trademark green hummingbird, as I rested down into the hot tub at our rental, both at the start and finish of our trip. That's the guy I still love, one who is thoughtful enough to bookend me]. Love fucking remains.

As we made our initial ascent, the joy of being in the wilderness and navigating the trail ahead ushered me into the present. We were not on our phones, we were in our bodies, in nature, together on a trail with others whose mouths lay open with the breathless awe of realizing just how tiny we actually are.

Amidst the glorious granite mountains, giant pine and sequoia trees, the water gushing over the mountain's edge, the powerful river, I was filled with wonder. Out on the trail, my cardiovascular system felt strong, heartbeat and breath steady from years of swimming. My gluts however...my gluts burned. I lost a pound of ass on that hike! 79%, babe!

When we are children, everything seems so big. The elementary schools we went to---HUGE in our memories! Then we return, as adults, for reunions and walks with our dogs and wonder, as we tread once-familiar territory, how we ever fit into those tiny buildings---let alone an entire village of elementary schoolers!

Yosemite Valley, upon returning nine years since our last rendezvous, still feels freaking HUGE. As it should. The rock formations, the trees, the gushing rivers, they have been here for 5 [likely 10] million years! Long after we leave this earth and our love transitions, Yosemite its groves of trees, its granite giants...I imagine they will still be here.

It's good to feel small, and it's good to meet our old friends, the majestic mountains, again. In July 2016, the last time I visited the park and Vernal Falls, I was with my boyfriend at the time. Three steps from the top, I took a step, felt a pop, and broke the fifth metatarsal in my foot.

"A stress fracture," the doctors said. So I was a little hesitant in trekking up the slippery mountain trail again. In doing so, I'd have to face the fear of experiencing another break.

But with the support and camaraderie of my fam [and a kind stranger] I got to the top of Vernal falls again. Wondered nine years later how it was ever possible that K and I swam across the Emerald pool at its top. Relieved and elated to have made it, I sank into the granite bed at the lip of the falls.

I am no longer the small girl I once was, who climbed to this peak with my parents and siblings and cousins in our youth, and yet I am. I am no longer the 28 year old in love with the beautiful and emotionally distant man I was, and yet, I remember that girl from not so long ago. I have experienced true love and loss since then, and even still, I am not the same. I am still evolving, still climbing this unexpected journey of life.

In the presence of the giant granite mountains, I realize once again how very small I am in proximity to the massive rocks, the powerful force of the wilderness, the knowing of the pine and sequoia trees...the interconnectedness of it all. And I realize...we get to be BIG, yes. We are purposed and created for such a time as this. And we are also very small.

We are connected to it all.