I had been educated
in the rhythms of the mountain, rhythms in which change was never fundamental,
only cyclical. The same sun appeared
each morning, swept over the valley and dropped behind the peak. The snows that fell in winter always melted
in the spring. Our lives were a cycle --
the cycle of the day, the cycle of the seasons-- circles of perpetual change
that, when complete, meant nothing had changed at all. I believed my family was a part of this
immortal pattern, that we were, in some sense, eternal. But eternity belonged
only to the mountain.
I had a thousand
dollars in my bank account. It felt
strange just to think that, let alone say it.
A thousand dollars. Extra. That I
did not immediately need. It took weeks
for me to come to terms with this fact, but as I did, I began to experience the
most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.
What a person knows
about the past is limited, and will always be limited, to what they are told by
others.
The temperature
plunged, dropping to zero, then dropping further still. We put the horses away, knowing that if they
worked up a sweat, it would turn to ice on their backs.
The thing about
having a mental breakdown is that no matter how obvious it is that you're
having one, it is somehow not obvious to you.
