Leo Kottke. On a mountain. Reading a book.

On a mountain. Reading a book.

"I think you should learn, of course, and some days you should learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you."
--e.l. konigsburg

I hiked up to the shade. My skin can't handle a sunburn; my mind can't handle isolation in an apartment, in a building, in a parking lot, in a city--

I wanted to read. But I wanted to read on a mountain in the shade.

I climbed to the spot I'd sighted 50 feet below and noticed at the top--a cave. I couldn't look in. A new found fear, I suppose. I said a little prayer that no lions, tigers, bears--or snakes--would bother me. I promised not to bother them. A habit I've had since I read Mr. Card's Seventh Son.

I laid out on the rocky ledge and lived.

I've never lived and read. But as I read, the story sat inside me as the cinematic majesty enveloped me--and for once, I knew that I was doing both.

I've never painted landscapes. I'm always disappointed when the image cannot share what being in the actual place and seeing what I've actually seen has given me.

Experience, is living. The kind that soaks inside and fills you up and makes you smile, even if at first it broke your heart. Experience is learning. When you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you.

Experience is living is learning is living is experience.

On a mountain. Reading a book.