The Old Woman and Her Mountain
written by: Karen Bayly
The old woman ascends the mountain, her steps heavy. She has journeyed this way countless times in the past when her legs were younger, her heart lighter, her vision unclouded. But her world has changed. So has she – for better and worse. Perhaps that is why she faces the climb and its challenges.
She doesn’t know why she climbs, cannot remember her reasons. All she understands is her longing pulling her upward year after year, even though previous ascents yielded nothing but confirmation of her aloneness. At the summit, she’d stood on tiptoe, arms raised in the sky. Every time she’d asked a single question.
“Why am I here?”
The question remains unanswered.
Her feet shuffle onwards. She is used to living alone, to creating art alone, the words flowing through her hands, the music through her fingers, the love through her breath. She has devised new worlds, given birth to many invented children. In that sense, she is not alone. However, she misses the camaraderie of kindred spirits, craves the meaning that comes only with sharing her gifts in a place of fellowship.
A jagged pain of realisation dissolves her unknowing, shakes loose her forgetfulness. It is community she seeks. This summit once knew life and love. It represented a haven of belonging, the home of a tribe of fellow creators. They are all gone now though, subsumed by time, mere dust in the wind.
She shakes her head in dismay, and a single tear trickles down her soft, sunken cheek. There is nothing more foolish than an old woman attempting to relive her past.
A soft rumbling tickles her ears, floating through the air from afar. Usually, the silence of this place overwhelms her and only her ragged breathing punctuates the vast quiet. Not today.
At first, tantalising echoes are all she hears, but as she climbs, these reverberations resolve into whispers. Her feet find wings and she surges forward. Whispers form into conversation and then into storytelling, poetry, music and song, and colour swoops and dips around her like a bird in flight.
Her heart bursts with exertion and expectation. A burst of laughter urges her forward and as she crests the mountain, she faces a host of beautiful beings. An explosion of love and joy fill her soul with wonder.
“Welcome.” The voice is warm and kind.
More voices echo the greeting. Soon the air resounds with that one word made manifest.
A woman steps forward. Despite never meeting, the old woman remembers her face from deep inside her soul.
“We’ve been waiting for you.”
The old woman smiles. She has found her people. She is home.
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