Backing Away from Everest

In flying towards the Mount Everest trail, many passengers became weary of the flight skimming over the Himalayas. The updrafts produced a turbulence throughout the small plane that shook not only our bodies, but the core of our very being as well. As we approached our small landing strip perched on the edge of a gorge, the plane stopped shaking but not my fellow travelers.

This runway was barely a quarter-mile long. If the plane landed too fast, we would smash into the mountain at the end of the runway; if we came in too slow, there was the risk of rolling backwards towards the gorge and plummeting into the Dudh Kosi river. Yet as only the soul's depths can sense, this was not the source of my trepidation.

After the calming effect of stepping off the plane in Lukla many set off on their way to trek through the Himalayas of Nepal. As I was adjusting to the drastic change in altitude, we remained in Lukla. My body adapted quickly enough, but the strain inside was growing. Though the first night in a rustic mountainside lodge was cold, it was something else that kept my tension bottled up inside.

The next day was a struggle as we hiked up another thousand feet in elevation to almost 10,000 feet. As she who had accompanied me on this journey was focused on her own priorities, there was little room for me in that moment since I was walking down a different path - figuratively, and a bit literally as well.

As I wanted to rest and hydrate every hour or two, I was reminded that we were pressing to make the next lodging settlement before sunset. Wanting to hold on to the source of strength in her, I suppressed the physiological needs of my body after such strenuous hiking. Only after finding a vacant room in Monju did my body start to react to my adherence to an energy that was out of sync with my own soul.