The sun doesn’t rise up in the morning and set in the evening here. It moves sideways across the sky, hovering close to the horizon throughout the day. It keeps you teetering between wakefulness and sleep. Dreamtime.

It’s how I feel in my body these days, half-awake, half-asleep, hovering like the sun, moving sideways instead of up and down like I did when I was younger. Steady. I’m trying to hike before more snow and ice come and the mountains will be off-limits. The light holds you in a gentleness, allowing for how you’ve slowed down, but the terrain pushes you, forces you to remain strong. In this way you’re allowed to be both young and old, right in the middle, right where you have landed–on this day, in this new place, in these altered parts of yourself you must embrace.

After years of taking care of others, it’s strange to be a completely separate human, working and wandering alone. The sea, the sky, these unfiltered colors, nourish me and give me back to myself.