Relative Something

Every once in a while, when I am ensconced in the comforts of my home and surroundings, I am struck by the awareness of vague and random memories of my time in Nepal. It becomes like a song that you can hear in your mind, or the portion of a song that repeats over and over. For a while, I enjoy the song in my mind, but it can reach a point where I become more and more driven to need to hear the actual song played for me. I can entirely understand the situation that implores a person to return to a place like the villages of the Himalayan Mountains and interact again with the people who reside there.

I have yet to experience the intense urge to make a return visit, but I do find that I dearly miss being among the people I was lucky enough to be grouped with for the trip in April 2009. Gary, David, Bonnie, Pam, and Carol, as well as a couple of days with Lisa. What a bunch we were. One of the days of hiking we found ourselves randomly exploring movies and actors, our dialogue dancing in segues of actors and actresses, titles, and scenes. Of course, that memory is punctuated with the recollection of Jim Klobuchar’s terse advice being inserted that we could, “look at the mountains once in a while,” or something to that effect. It was one of the complex moments of being in a rather exotic far away place, sharing a bond of physical exertion and modest comforts, yet mentally revisiting a topic of familiarity and pleasure for a brief time as a way of augmenting the whole experience. That, and, quite frankly, we were still in the early stages of learning who it was we were trekking with, by way of comparing notes that served to reveal our cinematic orientations.

There is something about a defining event that is very difficult to package. A trick of balancing retaining the experience while containing it. I am reminded of a person who has survived and recovered from a serious accident. Everyday to wake up and realize how lucky it is to be alive. But they can’t say that to everyone they meet or to people they already know, everyday for the rest of their lives. But at the same time, I think to myself, “How do they not?” You know what I mean?

I believe it would appear rather dysfunctional if I were to daily remind you all that I went on a trek in Nepal, but at the same time, it is a message that I am moved to want to tell myself precisely that often, lest I begin to forget one of the defining moments of my adult life. But there is a part of me that recognizes, were I to do this, a time would come where I am driven to need to hear the actual song played for me once again…