scattered

One leap after the next, I attempt to stretch myself far away from a world I have no intention of holding onto.

This has been my normal routine for quite some time now. My rocky impressions in the sky are distorted, each tearing across the sky in a way unlike the one preceding it. Jagged layers fade into a new milky haze, almost blending into the pale horizon – a blink in time. Here, I believe endings themselves disappear. They wait to be swallowed whole and reimagined among dreamy peach-colored clouds — an opportunity to begin anew in a sweet, bright space.

I’m not yet there, but I desperately want to be.

Common observers may note that my cascading body – my fleeting body – resembles a smattering of muted and distant ranges. Some refer to a combination of biology, chemistry and physics to explain this. Something as boring as Rayleigh scattering, a sterile description to explain how air dances in the light. My journey’s whimsy is as alive in this definition as the man who coined the concept, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh (who, sorry to spoil the end of his story, is very much dead and buried in the ground).

Well-known, rocky titans have fallen victim to this exact myopic view. Academics claim that wild swaths of conifers in the Appalachian Highlands emit tiny molecules, unfortunately named volatile organic compounds, that react with the ozone to form a multitude of light-scattering bits. Accordingly, when scattered, the picture morphs into a haze that people call the Blue Ridge Mountains. To some extent, this is true. Every living thing, from moss to towering trees and moths to elephants, sheds itself into simple eternities that exist outside the planet they inhabit.

Those keen on the art of escape see it properly – a giant chasing a dreamscape tucked within the horizon. Here, I can be a part of the sun rather than viewing it far from where I sit tethered to the land. A place that embodies serenity, where not even cold salt water crashing into itself can be heard.

Sorry to repeat myself, but humans tend to be forgetful and you’re demanding an answer. Quite incredulously, mind you. You say this sounds like death, which, as an aside, I suggest you develop a healthier relationship with (spolier, it’s inevitable – just ask Rayleigh).

However, mountains don’t see it that way.

Earth’s crust is dynamic and always shifting. Groans, trembles and murmurs of clashing continental plates constantly pierce through the ground. Thick slabs of rock may battle against each other's weight, crumpling and folding. Buckling and splitting plates birth mountains, and every heave pushes our summit higher. Billions of years of thick fog coiling around us fostered a home for tiny living things, or what I suppose your academics would call microbes.

My bones are ancient splinters spit out from the earth. My muscles are cords of rock. My skin crawls with life – no, life is my skin. And I feel so delighted to exist as a space for this energetic buzz of creation. Sadly, this world of creatures is also what keeps me here. Funny enough, this is where you and I are the same, as we both cannot describe the hold Love has on us. A feeling that is simultaneously so sound and irrational, more beautiful than a sky full of a cloud-hazed burn of gold.

There’s much to admire: the harmony between algae and fungi as they form a completely new lifeform; a song produced from the gentle bend of pine trees; and the wonderment of onlookers as they admire these things and everything beyond, even the trails I leave in the sky as I try to leave. This world furiously clasps onto me and refuses to let go, but I do the same. My listing of adorations could last billions of more years.

So, why does a mountain want to leave, you ask? You’re dangerously curious, aren’t you?

Unfortunately, you won’t be satisfied with my answer: it’s complicated. Well, at least for a human to grasp. I’ll try to put it simply, and you can allow your mind to fill in the gaps. After all, we exist within the same eternities, so you can search for the answers.

After so long of being solid, I want to be weightless.

l.e.