"I dream of a hard and brutal mysticism in which the naked self merges with the nonhuman world and somehow survives...Paradox and bedrock."-Edward Abbey

18 February 2014

Epic Mundanities

I felt a little lame when I decided to just do the Bull's Head for my walkabout. One of the places I have wanted to go is up on Berthoud Pass, but, given its terrain, there's been a lot of avalanche blasting as of late. The trail I thought of as a fall-back was decided as something for Sabina and I to do together the next time the sun rose. Hence, my at-least-I-got-out-of-the-house-for-a-bit hike.

Perhaps, it could be argued, I had other reasons as well. Either on my way to a trailhead or after a trek, I run the trash and recyclables for the week. What with having a motorized vehicle, I needed to register it for another year, and, with it being the day after a government holiday, I might have a line of at least one other person making my wait around five minutes, which was a bit of Kafkaesque bureaucracy I wasn't necessarily looking forward to. There was also the historical society meeting later in the evening, and having an longer trek might have left me too wasted to pay attention, much less care.

It seemed as though my day was packed. Packed with mundanities. Although, I suppose no matter how epic your life is, or, how epic you think your life is, there are moments of the mundane. Groceries need to be gotten, bills need to be paid, and laundry needs to be done. That's just the way of it.

Perhaps then, it could be argued, it's how you deal with the mundanities that tells you who and what you really are...

It was a warm enough day as to not bother with a jacket. The sun was bright and omens of melting were all over town. Once more, the river can been seen from past its battered armor of now rotten ice. March is closer than December. The taste of warmer days is on the wind.

Once I got past the museum, the hominid tracks gave way to either pristine snow or the passing of quadrupeds. Although I loath surprises, this was a pleasant shock. Even when I reached to ruins of the Diamond Mine, it was obvious I was the only one who'd been that way in good long time. It wasn't until I rejoined the 730 trail that I saw human tracks once more. I noticed there was enough snow that Sabina and I could probably snowshoe as far as the avalanche chute at Cherokee Gulch before calling it good.

It was lovely to catch some beloved solitude so close to home. Although, it's rare as hen's teeth I run into another person on the Bull's Head, despite its accessibility and proximity to town. The reality of no human footprints across the snow was oh so very seductive. Suddenly, I didn't feel that lame at all for my choice of trails. In fact, despite it's mundanity, I felt quite epic.  

4 comments:

  1. I can't think of the last time I felt epic...how cool you managed it today... ;D

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    1. It happened completely by accident, I assure you ;).

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  2. I've read only one story by Kafka. "The Penal Colony," which was...twisted.
    Best to avoid all Kafkaesque activities if at all possible.

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    1. Yeh, that one was pretty fucked up. Come to think of it, all of his tales are in one way or another.

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