Light brown is the color of my mountains in summer. The smell of a dry meadow warmed in the August sun, a breath of cool wind, getting colder the higher I climb. Space, emptiness, solitude. The good, anticipated and needed one.

I always picture the Tatra Mountains on the Slovakia side with serenity. The trails I’ve walked so far have been quiet and poor in the company of other hikers. This is a good thing. That’s what I need. Step by step, like meditation. Thoughts wander on their own, they don’t need stops. March is what they need.

Despite the long climb, I don’t feel tiredness, only lightness, as if just reaching the destination is the body’s resignation to further hardship. On my hands I have cycling gloves, fingerless, pink, borrowed. To make it more comfortable to hold on to the chains where they make the ascent easier. I take them off and sit down on the dried grass. And it stings the palms of my hands.

I close my eyes and feel all the surrounding peace inside me as well. The whole space of these mountains is inside me. I am as big as the mountains, as big as the whole world. But I don’t burst, I just experience the feeling, celebrate it. The space is inside me and tickles gently from the inside. I am myself and everything at the same time. 

Smiena 8m (and her unique eye)