We are climbing up Whistler Mountain.  It is a slow ascent as we walk up.  Ar first, it is all stones, and there is a railing and some gravel that serves as a path.  We walk  slowly to acclimatize our heads, hearts, and lungs to the increasing high altitude–we do not want to faint.

Small rodents inhabit the mountain and are unafraid of the people who are along the path up.  They come running and rushing across, and squirrel-like they pause at “safety” beside slightly bigger boulders, benches made from stone, and small vegetative bushes.  They are fast and we are unable to capture these moments on our cameras.

The kids are loving our journey.  They’ve been in the car today for two hours, and they were behaving, abstaining from fights and not really in need of a session of yelling familiar songs out.  But, they are also glad to be out of the confinement.  My eight-year-old is keeping up with the others.  He is strong and has spurts of energy to rush suddenly up twenty metres ahead.   There, he either waits for us to catch up or he runs back down to scream at us about what is up ahead.  He has not yet developed an interest in cameras and photography, only borrowing his dad’s camera to randomly take shots…  I am not sure if it is interest on his part, or if he is just killing boredom when he plays with the camera.

From the car in the parking lot, Whistler does not look to be such a sandy color.  It is darker, and the lighter coloring can almost look like snow.  We are enjoying our climb and since the ascent is quite quick, we begin to feel light-headed and out of breath if we try to rush.  I have to call my eight-year-old back a few times just to keep up and to make sure he isn’t rushing straight into a visit to the hospital.  Nonetheless, he arrives at the top a good ten minutes before we get there.  He is safely at the top, relieving me of my anxiety when I see him there.

It is absolutely stunning.  Being surrounded by mountains and also to have the ability to look down and see the depth of the valley from the height, makes being alive at the top thrilling.  I still savour that emotion of being the smallest biggest thing.  It could’ve been the altitude, but no one took pictures of the event or of the sturdy “flag-planting” and that last “out-of-breath” breath.  We stood there gazing.  My children were also more quiet, choosing to walk around the whole plateau.  If I can, one, day, I will paint a picture of it.

It was not that long ago, and being in the city today, I feel as if I am living in the smallest place on earth.  It is comfortable here.  The openness in a green space is not really that gigantic in comparison to the plateau on Whistler.  Surprisingly, probably because it was summer, there were no gales of wind and sleet…  It was calm and sunny.

I am waiting for the buds on the trees to come out.  I am waiting for the grass to turn green, and I am waiting for the crickets to start to chirp.  This is the everyday minutia.  It is here, and not on the path up the mountain, not on the plateau that allows for sight into infinity, and not in waking my children every morning or tucking them into bed every night.  In those quiet moments of living, I feel singly, and am an amoeba, surrounded.

If you can…  find some vacation time to go and climb Whistler Mountain.  They might have created some gear to help you up the mountain now, but I am sure the experience is just as worth having.