halfway through our travels...

yesterday, my good friend and i became the first two people ever to evoke the words of nick andopolis while paddle-boating alongside the french alps. "what is this, and what is this?" he was confused about the chemical makeup of salisbury steak, while we were wide-eyed in the face of whatever this was looking back at us. what's there now has been for a long time, longer than i've been alive to imagine it, longer than it ever took for my mother to piece together a jigsaw puzzle of jagged rock and blue waters. but this wasn't what i'd dreamed of, because this wasn't what had ever seemed conceivable. mere days ago, we had been lying in the charlottesville grass, full of wine and indifferent to passers-by, feeling as if we'd only just begun to catch a glimpse of things to come. (the peacock which would soon be a swan, the sturdy tree with high hopes of glory- a crown of white, white snow.) now we were here, without a life vest, without a watch, giggling about our stolen minutes. maybe it was finally okay to sit back and soak it all in, to believe the myth of peace and tiny dogs. i am simple, young, weak, and tired, but i am still more powerful than these mountains, which can not answer for me like i can for myself. in this welcome moment, i recall that dearest caveh once went on a trip of his own and asked the prince what to do with our finite time. you may find that lennon and mccartney knew back in 1970, but my own response echoed only yesterday through the town of annecy.