The Trails of Healing
The German painter Caspar David Friedrich is the author of the famous painting Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (1817). We see a man in a black coat, supported by a wooden cane, standing on a cliff overlooking a landscape covered by a thick layer of fog. But his attire suggests a night at the theatre instead of a demanding hike. The romantic period in the visual arts was full of these scenes of serenity, where one comes at peace with himself and the world, a painting that takes you into a parallel reality that, as kitschy as it is, suggested there were hidden qualities in beauty that could be uncovered only in a setting unspoilt by civilisation and pondered in blissful solitude. Though in its essence it’s the very antithesis of it.
The man in the painting is a part of something bigger than himself. An ecosystem where everything is intertwined and relying on a complex hierarchy on which it depends to survive. In Friedrich’s monumental vision, the man is admiring nature, there is no hint of ambition to exploit or conquer it. A planet still far away from melting ice caps and raging wildfires. Something that would be very hard to imagine nowadays. Who knows what the landscape in the painting would look like if the painter were to rise from his grave and give it another try. Romantics could recognize serenity since you need to be able to see it in order to recreate it.
Because I agree with Tolstoy’s maxima that all hapiness is the same, one might be compelled to say that all beauty is slightly tacky because we have grown immune to it. It’s like the sun: we know it’s there but staring at it for too long isn’t good for your eyes. The curse of beauty is that it takes destruction to recognize we do need it. Friedrich’s hiker might be a member of bourgeoisie that spend their weekends pursuing adventures that would look good even on our modern social media. The painting is not a selfie but if the painter had an Instagram account this is what it would look like. A mysterious, elegant man in a location that suggests adventure with a breathtaking view. More of a fashion editorial than a hiker’s memento.
In 2008, I was hiking in the the Spanish Pyrenees with a friend, a trail leading to the Punto Alto peak. The national park Aigüestortes boasts many lakes, forests and trails, dotted with refuges that look like something from The Sound of Music. We chose to sleep outside and it was one of those memories that, like good wine, grow progressively beautiful as time goes by. There wasn’t a drop of rain and I’ve never seen so many stars in the clear night skies above the mountains, and we were down there, on the plush green grass, wrapped in our sleeping bags like two human sushis. Discreet markers pointed you on various trails and we would wake up with the sun that would beam into out face, we were not done yet. The peak was not yet in our sight.
The tear-shaped lakes and trees slowly gave way to slopes covered with cascades of slippery stone as we climbed higher. One wrong step was enough to twist your ankle or worse. It was a curious mixture of emotions. You made careful, steady steps and tried not to shake the ground underneath too much. It was all about focus, and it took us two days of focus to reach the summit, 3015m of altitude. After so much exercise you lose even the very concept of exhaustion, you’re virtually numb because the wires between your muscles and your brain get spontaneously severed, the pain treshold evaporates and your legs find their own strength to move. You climb up to the top of the pass, hoping that would be the moment you’ve been waiting for. But it’s not, so you keep going, pass after pass, deep down and up again, and down and up, repetitively and almost masochistically. A revelation of just how far I could push myself when I need to but that must be quality most humans share. That hidden stash of endurance that activates as soon as other sources dry up.
You are reduced to the primary purposes of your needs. We cooked a chicken soup in the evening and for the first time ever I actually enjoyed it. It warms a tired hiker’s heart like a hug from a big teddy bear. An experience of profound revelations on many levels. Finding that mysterious core that comforts and boosts your spirit in hours of need. You take it all in with a sense of disbelief, the sheer size and breathtaking beauty of landscape that embraces you. Suddenly you’re as small as a raindrop on the palm of your hand and you’re fine. It’s all fine. A purge reaching deep inside, dragging everything that burdens you out, leaving you an empty vessel. Finally free again to be that blank sheet of paper where the first word has yet to be written.
I had suffered a difficult personal loss before I departed for Spain. All this taught me much more about grief than I ever expected because I wasn’t even looking for it. It wasn’t supposed to be a philosophical journey but that’s what it subconsciously turned into. It taught me how you process grief, how it slowly fills every cell of your soul and you’re unable to breathe the same way as before. The way it changes the very chronology of your life, adding new milestones into your personal narrative. The way you learn to carry and embrace a severed limb that still feels alive. When we started out grief felt like an invisible cathedral that was about to collapse and crush me.
As we progressed up it collapsed indeed but down into the abyss on the other side of which you could see France, spread out in various shades of gray and green. A promise of relief fulfilled. The unexpected last pass behind which lay the summit, a pyramid high above, proud and sturdy. Only a higher power could have built this. There it was. Rather an exciting challenge than a statement of surreal providence. I wondered what I would find there. Maybe Hamingway’s tiger? This is not his literary Kilimanjaro.
When my foot finally reached the rock with the plate that marked the altitude, my cellphone started showing signs of life again. There was one bar on display suggesting there were hints of cellular signal. I turned it on and called home. On the other side of the line I was told of my grandfather’s recent passing. There I was, high up in the mountains of Spain feeling like the joy of accomplishment was diminished because I didn’t say goodbye to him. Death stroke again, close to home. Age changes your relationship to it and its arbitrary nature. Mountains taught me how to deal with my grief.
The trail to healing is difficult and full of perilous passes. But both the strain and the pain of it are rewarded by a sense of supernatural serenity that even the German painter couldn’t have imagined. Mountains reduce you to your true size. It’s both humiliating and humbling. It’s only our audacity that’s as high as a mountain. But it sits on foundations of glass because our fragility is an easy prey to forces of nature. It means we will survive our grief. And nature will most certainly survive us, like a bush growing inside a ruin the roof of which as been replaced by a tree crown.
When we finally returned to Barcelona, we found out that our host, the painter Jordi, had died the very same day like my grandfather. We were allowed to spend a night there. You could still smell the oil paint from his studio. I don’t know if he’s ever been on the top of our mountain but in the modern war of pronouns, it feels good that at least for that one single day, the mountain belonged to us. My hiking boots have been sitting itchy in the closet for far too long. It’s time.
