Recalibration

Fresh air. Pines delicately baking. Aroma meets my nose. Aspens' jingling leaves. Highway 158 hums in front at a pace of a car every twenty seconds.  My surroundings are 100-fold improved from day to day city inhabitants. Still, I have not yet found complete solace in this indulgent dwelling with home-like comforts.  True, complete solace comes when I let go of the couch, the stove, the queen-sized bed, the television, the coffee maker, the hair mousse and the road. I need to walk far away from all of the buzzes to find the real thing I have been seeking in this majestic mountain. I need to climb up and away from this settling  that gives me false security and breathe in the baking Sugar and Jeffery Pines. Only they can insulate the buzzing from my ears. Buzzing becomes rushing as I pass a trailhead and enter the forest. Water ripples across a lake shaped like a jewel. Water rushes and shushes across a river and down a jagged slope. Buzzing becomes jingling. Aspen leaves adhere so tenuously on their stems. It is their tolerance and joy of twisting that allows them to cling onto their long white branches. Not two Aspen leaves jingle at the same time but together they create a lattice that softens the steps I make when I climb up the trail. Their jingling keeps me camouflaged to unsuspecting chipmunks and lizards that scamper in a wide-open sage-infested landscape. Glaciers hang tucked into shelves on the razor peaks to my back. Expanse colored green, yellow, orange and blue. White tufa peer at me from a desert seashore to the east. A dirt road hardly disrupts my jingling spirit. Buzzing cars are not inclined to the dust that I readily seek. Sitting cross-legged on the earthen blanket I notice things about me I have not seen for months, years. Veins, lines, scars, stubble. I pull and pet them. I accept new with old layers. My mind goes to myself, my husband, my sons, my brother, sister, parents, nieces, friends, grand parents, pets. They are all still here to savor. It amazes me that on the other side of this great expanse lies another range far-less visited. White mountains nestle ancient Bristlecone pines and resilient juniper trees into their crevasses. I can see them if I focus on the blurred peaks that compete with their western allies for the best view of Nevada. With my little son and husband's return from the Parker Lake trail my gaze on these mountains is broken. Finny is so proud of making it back to the symbol of civilization. We jump into a dust-kissed vehicle and bump our way back to pressed asphalt. Jingling becomes humming, humming then buzzing. We are so adaptable, that makes us human. I guess.