On mountain climbing

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days since I’ve been in Europe. Marcolino, J, Mischa, Guilia, Lucia, and I spent the day hiking in the mountains around Prali. We hiked to the 13 lakes – unfortunately we only made it to the first 5 or 6, but nothing about making it to less than half was disappointing. We stopped at the 2nd lake and ate Panini and fruit. After we stopped for pranzo we climbed around some old building from WWI. I’ve been to Gettysburg, visited war memorials in DC, but this is the first time that I felt connected to anything of the sort. It wasn’t artifice or simulacrum of war, it wasn’t meant to remind you of those who fought and died, it simply was. Left, maybe not forgotten, but no longer there to serve any purpose, just left to the valleys to crumble at will, to have floor that turn to fields, window that were once looked through in fear now serve no purpose other than to let in a view of the border with France. Writings on the walls are now lost to time meaning little to the few who stumble on the buildings other than to remind them that at one point real men huddled together in that place hoping to make it through the day. Now only adventurous hikers set eyes on those ruins and remember the men who once feigned sleep and bravery in that place. After we felt content to leave the memories and barracks to the mountains we climbed further up and spend hours walking along the crest of the mountain. It’s amazing how you can feel so big and so small all in the same moment. You stand on the top of your world at that moment and marvel at the petite existence below you, and in looking out you see the rest of the Alps and recognize your own place in the petite existence. I have conquered the world and shrunk into an insect all in the same moment. On our descent back to the valley we found a great cliff for rock climbing so we all harnessed up and Marcolino gave me my first lesson in rock climbing. How many people can say they learned to rock climb in the Italian Alps?
This moment in my life is so amazing. I’m living in such a strange place – where parties of men dressed in drag and children building hot air balloons all seem part of a normal day, where practicality reigns, and attempting 3 or 4 languages each day is simply par for the course. I think what amazes me most is not the occurrence of such events but the fact that I feel so normal participating in them. That living with people from all over the world, that my dinner table each evening is filled with at least 4 languages, and I live with a Hungarian woman is all so normal…I will never be able to explain this to someone who has yet to experience Agape. Communal living and this strange world I now inhabit. What beauty, what peculiarity, what perfection now surrounds me?