An Uphill Climb

When Cindy was in the ICU all time could do was move slow. I remember just sitting and simply watching her chest move up and down for hours on end. Everything in the hospital moved slower than expected. They said her first surgery would take 4 hours, it wound up taking 8 hours. They said the second surgery would take 90 minutes, it took 3 hours. After the surgeries, they said we had to sit and wait 14 days before she was out of the woods for spasms. And I remember just sitting in her room listening to 2 sounds: the sound from her breathing machine and the sound of the minute hand from the clock in her room.

Today at the park, I purposely chose the path with the longest incline. I've always felt that there was something meditative about moving your way up a mountain and not having to worry about the time. When I am on a steady uphill climb, time cannot pass slow enough. I never want it to end. When I was hiking up Ryan Mountain Trail today, I stopped often to look at all the trees and plants around me. I continually searched out flat rocks for which to place my trusty tripod on. I hummed the title song to "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" over and over. I said "Hello Hiker" to any person I encountered on the trail. I remembered that sometimes the slow, monotonous passage of time can be a welcome comfort.