The Buzz

Last weekend was divided in two parts. One was a hike with people, and because my foot was hurting (old people feet problems), I decided to go back down from the mountains on my own the second day.

So the first part was a walk/hike, but it was annoying weather. I knew perfectly well that it was beautiful all around me, but we were stuck in the fog. The other hikers with me mostly have a different first language among them, so I was often cut out of the conversation (no one was trying to do that or be mean or anything, but it’s hard when you’ve always spoken the same language with someone for, say, forty years, to change to English on the off chance that the fifth wheel, me, might want to add something.) So for a good part of the day, I was left alone with my thoughts, but in a “crowd” of sorts, where I could neither appreciate the nature around me (no view) nor participate in the social circle around me (language problems). All I could do was think about how my foot hurt, which, of course, made it hurt more.

When I decided to go home on my own, it was like this buzz in my head disappeared. I was alone, except for some cows, the clouds had not yet covered the summits and the sky was a lovely, clear blue. There was no noise from the people around me and I could see the pretty views.

I can’t say for sure if the buzz was the conversations I couldn’t understand, or the pressure feeling I get in fogs. I’d like to say that its me over-exaggerating, but when fog lifts or I find myself in a clear patch, I breathe more deeply, like I’ve been holding my breath until the it disappears. My foot also hurt less, also because the hike to go down was much, much, much shorter.

So it was finally peaceful for the hour and a half walk to go down from where we’d spent the night. I met a cow, number 3103, who needed a neck scratch so I did that for a while. Then I felt bad, because she might think that humans are nice and the rest of her life is going to be pretty awful. She’s a milk cow, so she’ll have babies taken away from her, be forced to sleep with some guy she may or may not like, and wind up getting butchered in the end. It was nice to see her happiness when I scratched her neck, though. This time of year the flies have died down, so she didn’t have to deal with a buzz either.