| What a joy it is to bathe in a high mountain wilderness! Upon finishing a days hike, I face down an alpine lake or a pool in an icy stream. My body is encapsulated in a salty film from my efforts in the rarified atmosphere above 12,000 feet. I don't think. Sure its cold, but rumination will not warm the waters. I take my clothes off and I'm in. Funny as it may sound, I'm always warmer after a swim in the icy waters. More awake and alive too! There's no need for soap. I want only to rinse away the salt. My natural oil conditions my hair and skin... I stand naked atop a boulder at the edge of a lake with last winter's snow still clinging to its shores. Only a few rocks in the lake near my pearch are visible, tinted with a hint of the azure abyss that extends beyond. I squat and let a deep breath in, then let my legs uncoil. For a moment I fly, then a splash and I glide into the infinite. My diaphragm seizes up. I fear my heart may stop! Frantically I scrub a few stragic spots. A few strong strokes and I'm back to shore and out of the water, trying to breathe normally again... Liquid ice emerges from an ancient glacier melting under a blanket of boulders. A hundred yards below an inviting sand-bottomed, grass and wildflower rimmed pool forms. I go for a quick dip. It feels as if the bones close to my skin--my skull, ankles and wrists--are being crushed. I spring out but don't feel clean. Did the water even touch me? Had I raised a force field around myself? Maybe the water is too cold to dissolve the salt on my skin, or my skin is too numb to feel clean... Wind whips rain across the lake. I leave my clothes and hand towel in the lee of stunted trees and step out on spongy grass to the lake shore. Thirty feet I hopscotch out to a dinner-table-sized slab of rock two and a half feet below the surface. I lay down. The water feels warmer than the rain. Hovering above the rock, only my heels rest on its rough, crystalline surface. A full exhalation releaves buyancy from my chest and my shoulder blades gently touch down. Time stops. Time starts again and I come up for air. I skip back to shore, dry and dress, and stroll back to camp for a nap, fresh... |
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