Cooperative Living September 2016 - 18

That Old Mountain
by Deirdre Conroy
There is a melancholy in the fields of
the Virginia countryside in the morning,
a feeling almost bittersweet in its
familiar ache.
As the cover of night inches away, the
grass changes from an aqua back into
deep green as the sun burns off the
morning fog.
It must have been around 4 a.m.
when we set off, coffee mugs clutched
in our palms, trying to slow the early
October chill from sucking all of the
feeling out of our fingers. The car ride
began sleepily, heads supported by
spaghetti-weak forearms, but gradually
we grew more buoyant and excited as
we flew down empty stretches of
highway. We howled into the milky
morning sky.
Part of me always longs for the
beauty of twilight to stay, although my
love for the richness of the morning
coloring in autumn battles that longing.
The contrast between the spiraling
reds off the trees against the stark,
dewy green of the grass is enough to
make one blink to steady the focus,
and swoon in the vibrancy of the lateyear
shades.
We set off into the dark. I imagined
how we looked from a distance - the
little orbs of light from our headlamps
bobbing away into the trees. As it was
my first time up this particular trail, we
were careful as we picked our way
16 | Cooperative Living | September 2016
among the boulders. There was a
quiet in the woods, a feeling that we
were up even before the birds. I
struggled between staring up to the
glowing pinpoints of stars in the sky,
seeing them as a map of sorts through
the darkened woods, and watching
my footing along the technical singletrack
path.
Peaceful
Morning
Hike
There is a unique peace and
stillness earned by an early morning
hike, different from the regular hustle
and bustle of the forest by daylight. In
the rosy dim, we reverted into a
primitive, natural state of movement.
Instead of words, we used body
language to communicate twists in
the trail. The only thing to break our
focus was the steady crunch of leather
boots on the gravel underfoot.
I had thought getting up quite that
early would be a rough start, but the
movement in the crisp air had a
feeling of rightness to it. My mind felt
sharp, my legs strong, the weight of
my pack nonexistent. We followed
one switchback after another, until my
heart rapped against my ribcage.
We stopped to catch our breath at
a small, unassuming break in the
trees, only to be astounded by the
view in front of us. It was a ruddy,
gorgeous impressionist painting
smeared across the backdrop of the
Blue Ridge Mountains. In that
moment, I could truly imagine their
magnitude in the years when they
gave the Himalayas a run for their
money. I could sense the amazement
of the first Anglo settlers setting
eyes on these mountains for the first
time. I could see the history of
Appalachia steeped in the folds of
their ridgelines.
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK
http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living September 2016

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