My surroundings in China have a hazy grey filter over
them.
Everything is clothed in dust. Leaves are dull and the sky is murky most days.
The exception to this is usually the day after it
rains. Things come alive, and I
feel like I’ve entered wonderland.
The colors are bursting once again and I remember that this is what life
should look like.
We drove an hour out of Xi'an into the Qinling Mountains
the day after a great downpour.
The further away we get from the city, the less modest the trees
become. They are beginning to shake off
their dust cloaks, and show their real selves. As our van trudges up into the mountains and drops us
off, we are seated in a valley, looking up to the sky at the places we’ll
climb. There are some subtle hints of grey rock but overall a forest paints
these mountains. You can’t
even see all of them, in the distance they begin to get foggy-like. The sky is bright blue once again,
there are pure white clouds stretching their skinny fingers trying to hold
hands with the forest-covered mountains. My eyes are confused because all of
the trees are naked now, allowed to show off their green. The grass
is undone and natural.
In China, they don’t allow these places to remain as they
are, but insist on creating an obvious way of how one should get there. Their best assessment of this is a
ladder of stone. Steps, thousands
and thousands of steps become our leader until we reach a small village where
we’ll spend the night.
After a few minutes of climbing stone upon stone, we all
find out just how much of a city girl Jade really is. We’re in nature now, and of course there are spiders and
mosquitoes and bees. None of
them go unnoticed from her shrieks.
But I am simply in a trance, listening to the predictable patterned
sound of my team’s steps in conjunction with the beauty that my eyes have been
suppressed from.
When it comes to finding beauty, I am pacified fairly
easily. I can find beauty in most
places, most things. When it’s
just there for me without having to try or work at it, it’s a sort of
gratuity. Being in nature feels
like God coming down and lending me his sight.
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Cui Hua Shan |
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The village we stayed in |
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Ready to hike |
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A vendor selling beans & dried fruit |
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Anna |
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Made it to the top! |
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These guys were just hanging out on the dam. |