shapeofthings (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shapeofthings) wrote2010-07-14 11:18 pm
shapeofthings) wrote2010-07-14 11:18 pm
Entry tags:
The girl and the mountain
Once upon a time there lived a girl who’d been sick for such a long time. The girl used to sit by her window, looking out to the Mountain beyond, remembering better times past and dreaming of better times to come. She’d look up at the mountain, raising it’s stony face to the endless sky and think to herself “one day I’ll be well again, and when I am, I’m going to climb that mountain!”.
The girl watched and waited, as patiently as the least patient thing in the universe; on a coffee binge. The Mountain was hers, just as soon as she could claim it.
Then one day, the long-awaited news finally came: the doctors declared her mostly well, more or less. It was Time, the Mountain was calling.
The next morning the girl clambered out of bed, packed her bag, pulled on her boots, stepped out of the front door and stopped, exhausted. Her bag slid off her shoulders as her legs slid away from under her and she crashed down onto cold, hard reality with a serious thump. After a few seconds that stretched on so long that the universe needed to loosen its trousers, she pulled herself half-upright, dropped her chin into her hands and contemplated the suddenly-impossible Mountain.
Of course, she knew she wouldn’t be able to get all the up the first time. Really, even a quarter of the way up would have been a touch ambitious, but the girl had thought that maybe a tenth of the Mountain would have been reasonable, at least on the first go. But nothing worked the way she remembered it. This wasn’t the familiar old world she’d been waiting so long to rejoin. The rules were clearly different. Problem was, she didn’t really know what the new rules were. The only way to find out was to try, and see what happened: action and reaction, sense and consequence, and a lot of falling over.
Fortunately, the girl was as stubborn as she was impatient, and wasn’t afraid of a few extra bruises, so she set about finding out how this strange new world, and her strange new body, worked. Every day she pulled on her boots and turned to face the Mountain, and by the end of the week she’d made it to the end of the driveway.
As her understanding of the world she found herself in grew, so too did her frustration at each new limitation and restriction. The Mountain still beckoned, as distant and insurmountable as ever, with only her obstinate nature driving her onwards. By the end of the first month she’d got as far as the end of the street, and she realised that this would never do.
The girl returned home, and once she had finished chastising the universe for refusing to bend to her will, she got to thinking. So much bigger and far, far further away than she’d realised, the Mountain was going to have to wait. It had turned out that you have to master molehills before you can start climbing mountains, so master them she would. Every day she’d leave the house and aim to make it to the end of the road until she was hitting that intersection easily and consistently. Once the street was mastered, she’d turn right and aim for the next intersection, and once the intersection was hers she’d push on to the traffic lights until eventually she could get to the highway without stumbling, and then she’d have conquered the suburb.
That was how you did it. You started with the street, then you took the suburb, the city, and then finally the Mountain.
Day after day the girl turned away from the Mountain and instead worked on mastering the street, pulling on her boots knowing that one day she’d best the suburb, and maybe the Mountain too, eventually. Some days she still stared wistfully at that impassive peak, and some days she let its granite bulk slide out of her mind entirely and dreamt of the beach instead.
The girl watched and waited, as patiently as the least patient thing in the universe; on a coffee binge. The Mountain was hers, just as soon as she could claim it.
Then one day, the long-awaited news finally came: the doctors declared her mostly well, more or less. It was Time, the Mountain was calling.
The next morning the girl clambered out of bed, packed her bag, pulled on her boots, stepped out of the front door and stopped, exhausted. Her bag slid off her shoulders as her legs slid away from under her and she crashed down onto cold, hard reality with a serious thump. After a few seconds that stretched on so long that the universe needed to loosen its trousers, she pulled herself half-upright, dropped her chin into her hands and contemplated the suddenly-impossible Mountain.
Of course, she knew she wouldn’t be able to get all the up the first time. Really, even a quarter of the way up would have been a touch ambitious, but the girl had thought that maybe a tenth of the Mountain would have been reasonable, at least on the first go. But nothing worked the way she remembered it. This wasn’t the familiar old world she’d been waiting so long to rejoin. The rules were clearly different. Problem was, she didn’t really know what the new rules were. The only way to find out was to try, and see what happened: action and reaction, sense and consequence, and a lot of falling over.
Fortunately, the girl was as stubborn as she was impatient, and wasn’t afraid of a few extra bruises, so she set about finding out how this strange new world, and her strange new body, worked. Every day she pulled on her boots and turned to face the Mountain, and by the end of the week she’d made it to the end of the driveway.
As her understanding of the world she found herself in grew, so too did her frustration at each new limitation and restriction. The Mountain still beckoned, as distant and insurmountable as ever, with only her obstinate nature driving her onwards. By the end of the first month she’d got as far as the end of the street, and she realised that this would never do.
The girl returned home, and once she had finished chastising the universe for refusing to bend to her will, she got to thinking. So much bigger and far, far further away than she’d realised, the Mountain was going to have to wait. It had turned out that you have to master molehills before you can start climbing mountains, so master them she would. Every day she’d leave the house and aim to make it to the end of the road until she was hitting that intersection easily and consistently. Once the street was mastered, she’d turn right and aim for the next intersection, and once the intersection was hers she’d push on to the traffic lights until eventually she could get to the highway without stumbling, and then she’d have conquered the suburb.
That was how you did it. You started with the street, then you took the suburb, the city, and then finally the Mountain.
Day after day the girl turned away from the Mountain and instead worked on mastering the street, pulling on her boots knowing that one day she’d best the suburb, and maybe the Mountain too, eventually. Some days she still stared wistfully at that impassive peak, and some days she let its granite bulk slide out of her mind entirely and dreamt of the beach instead.