Sunday, January 20, 2008

Mountains

3pm on a hot Sunday afternoon, languidly flipping through John Berger's Hold Everything Dear (thanks Newty). The fan's on full blast and a little trickle of sweat is pooling at the base of my spine. I'm almost sleeping, then I read this passage:

There are certain moments of looking at a familiar mountain which are unrepeatable. A question of a particular light, an exact temperature, the wind, the season. You could live seven lives and never see the mountain quite like that again; its face is as specific as a momentary glance across a table at breakfast. A mountain stays in the same place, and can almost be considered immortal, but to those who are familiar with the mountain, it never repeats itself. It has another timescale.

I'm impossibly moved and I can't really find it in me to say why. It is like falling inevitably towards action and momentum. All it took was a word, and must be the right way to keep going.

2 comments:

gnute said...

I love that passage, too, comrade :)

The Ghost Eater said...

missin ya newty! hope singapore was good to ya.