It had been such a long, trying, stormy day out I remember... Many of us on that Outward Bound course had not experienced such sustained rough weather before. Yet, not only did we endure, but we bonded and were to experience the potency of humour and playfulness in the midst of the winds, sleet, and rain. The next morning we were up early before our Instructors, had cleaned up and prepared breakfast even before they got moving, all amidst even more joking and good natured teasing. They gave us much space and time that stormy day, night, and next morning to become 'something more'. When they joined us for our meal they simply smiled and said, "Somethings different about you crew", and then let us find our own meanings within that message...
I could not have been more pleasantly surprised when, many years later, a close companion and Mountain Guide, said as we reached a very elusive summit, "Somethings different about how you climbed today...". The memory of our Outward Bound course, the smiles and strong feelings, echoed from both of these moments even though they were decades apart...
Here, now I write, having returned from a solo summit, where I had climbed for time to muse and wonder while scratching out some ponderings. I had been up there before, yet this time it felt, it seemed, so surely that somethings different now. The rocky terrain may have been the same, but the emotional vistas were not, and the older eyes now looking out were very different as well...
On special occasions I find myself, in a very particular way, looking into the faces of younger adventurers and then passing on these two words during some high wanderings. "Somethings different", I quietly say... and watch as they smile, now each of us knowing, that within such adventures, something very elementally is truly, wonderfully, different.....
DSD
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