On the third day
On Wednesday I slept through the morning yoga sessions and took an easy walk on my own so that I could stop for as long as I wanted in order to take some pictures.
On the second day
We hiked from the Praetschli at 1908 meters to the summit of the Weisshorn at 2653 meters through alpine meadows holding on to the latest blooms of summer, bees search for every last golden dusting of pollen.
Butterflies, two dragonflies dancing over a grassy alpine pond. Weather out of a post card, unbelievable summer weather even though autumn is making her entrance through the reddening leaves of the Alpenrosen, the dried thistle starbursts.
The last hundred meters – in altitude, not distance – is a blasted granite landscape, the aftermath of a rock slide or simple geology. At 2600 meters I am suddenly walking on a dried out riverbed, the rocks sliding and rolling under my feet, not a plant to be seen. This is what it looks like when a glacier recedes, the wasted ground-up trail I do not, cannot, stop to get the camera out of my backpack.
I am at my end these last 30 minutes winding up around the summit, the rocks shifting beneath my each foot fall. Regina, 62 year-old Regina two years out from a hip operation, shames me with her steady methodical pace. She finds her rhythm and never needs a break, never stops to put her hands on the small of her back to widen her ribcage and so expand her lungs and take in deep gulps of fresh cool delicious air. Her friend Isabelle, too, marches on. At the top we slump into the restaurant, order big bowls of hearty Bündnergerstesuppe and glasses of Rivella Rot and take in the view from the picture windows, this view that we earned today. I have been here before, at the peak of the Weisshorn. I have come up with the gondola and skied back down. Today I climbed up on foot, through alpine meadows with tiny treasures and across a wasted moonscape.
And the view, it was more beautiful than I remembered.
On the first day
Certain places speak to me. Over years, over decades, a small handful of places continue to lay claim to my heart. The list of places I want to see is as long as the atlas itself, but for all my wanderlust I find myself returning, like a salmon to its spawning grounds, to the places that speak to my heart.
I am in Arosa for the week, my favorite place – mein Lieblingsort - in Switzerland. I have been coming to Arosa since 1996 and I never tire of it. My heart has put down roots here. This place has become part of the story of my life. My husband wrote his first letter to me – a scant days after we met – sitting at a hotel bar in Arosa. I have come here as his girlfriend, his lover, his fiancé, his wife. I have come here as the mother of a son, as the mother of two. There are so many places in the world to see, but my heart calls me here. Here, where I spent my first Swiss New Year. Here, where I can walk past the restaurant where my older son tasted his first black olive. Here, where I can sit in my favorite café and in the moment before my cup of cappuccino with whipped cream reaches my lips the taste of it comes flooding back to me.
Here, where I’ve been coming since 1996 and yet today hiked to this waterfall for the first time.
We passed cairns at whose existence I never guessed
and ate lunch in a village I’ve passed through scores of times without stopping. I could come here the rest of my life and never reach the end of it. I hope to. Come here the rest of my life. And never be full of it.
Vacation!
I’m headed off today for a week in my favorite part of Switzerland, the Graubünden (also called the Grissons). We’ll be staying here. Pictures and stories when I’m back. Have a good week!
Filed under Arosa, Matters mundane, Switzerland, Yoga retreat 08 | Comment (0)