4:30am and the world is noiseless, which is to say the sun hasn’t yet dawned, the day’s opportunities are catatonic, and the weight of air is so still and heavy it can be felt pressing down on your shoulders, kneecaps, fingertips.

This place doesn’t feel the same: less feet, less footprints, less bodies, more disembodying moments atop summited peaks. Time has slowed to a painful crawl, it is bleeding seconds so thick a half-day hike takes less than that. Seven months suspended in a sour soupy mix of time and chaos and fear and panic. But today, this morning, this afternoon, during the sunset drive home, everything is okay, life is good, our lungs are cleansed, our wonderment restored, and our sense of adventure reignited.

Thank you, Yosemite National Park and the day-pass gods for bestowing on us a pass for an abnormally uncrowded Sunday. Skeleton bare and bone thin, we didn’t need to weave in and out of crowds during any hikes; we exhausted our legs and pumped them with lactic acid biking carelessly and speedily down empty paths leading into the Valley and Curry Village. We took a lazy nap by one of the numerous beaches, with only wildlife around us. For an entire day, it felt like Yosemite was all ours. We absorbed this feeling of solitary existence and gave thanks by tiring our bodies with hikes, swallowing up the day entirely without a second wasted, and becoming whole and wholly sublime.

9:20pm and it is black, which is to say there is a total and gut sinking absence of colour, the day is concluding, and you can feel your bones creak, the back of your knees stick, and your blood vessels contract. This is your body’s stimulus for the end of a gorgeous day, of unforgettable memories, of tired feet being put to rest. Night falls and so does your heavy body, into bed to dream about another day in Yosemite.

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Posts tagged with Yosemite

Yosemite, June 2020