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December, 2004
Ann Anderson
Cumbria
CUMBRIA- There are things you expect when you visit
a place like the Lake District. I’d never been
there before, nor did I know anything about the area,
but I expected the beautiful scenery, the glittering
lake, the rich tourist village, and of course, the mandatory
tour to William Wordsworth’s cottage. The visit
I took was part of the itinerary that our group was
scheduled to take and I had the understanding that it
would be a nice break, with a little academia thrown
in for good measure.
When
we arrived at our lakeside hostel, I came to understand
a little more of why people flock to the Lake District.
As soon as I stepped off of the coach, I felt a great
calm come upon me. I left the busyness and frenzy of
a big city like London behind me and just stood and
watched the clouds float over the mountains. The Lake
District is not just a pretty little vacation spot,
it is a place where anyone can simply put up their feet
and appreciate the world in its most basic and natural
form.
We
took a boat across the lake, walked nearly four miles
on a country road, fed swans from a pier, walked with
sheep and watched fish congregate under a boat.
But
sometimes you have to experience something you would
not expect if you really want to see how beautiful the
Lake District is.
We
planned to walk up the mountain and catch the sunrise
on our last day, an appropriately poetic end to our
tranquil and paradisiacal visit.
The
weather was cold and gray, I had no good clothes to
combat it with, and a pair of my beloved shoes paid
a heavy price for that little trek. It was way too early
for me, I hadn’t slept well, and I had this sinking
feeling that the forecasted rain would make our hopes
of a sunrise impossible. I don’t think I would
have gone if I had been by myself. That’s the worst
part of it, really.
We
got up around six. My cough had just started to develop,
and the last thing I wanted to do was get up at all.
Somehow, I did manage to pull myself out of bed and
my roommates and I made our way downstairs, where we
met with the rest of the group. Nobody looked like they
wanted to go, but we were all there, every single one
of us. All together, we departed and went on our way.
Walking
down the streets late at night and walking down them
early in the morning are two completely different things.
They shouldn’t be, they don’t seem to be,
but they are. At night, you really feel like the day
is over, that events have ended, and that you should
return to your home and go to bed. Early in the morning
though, that time is so pregnant. You feel as though
you are seeing the world before it starts, which in
a way, you are. It’s a strange place to be at;
most are asleep, but you are awake, and the sky really
is darkest before dawn.
We
split up when we got to the gate that signified the
start of our ascent. A few members of the group waited,
smoking cigarettes or catching their breath or just
resting before the climb. The rest of us started, walking
directly into darkness.
There’s
something about walking in the darkness when you are
in the wilderness that is so very apart from being there
in the light. You can smell the vegetation opening for
the rain, and the smell of the cold, but you can see
nothing. I heard raindrops falling through phantom trees
and water running between the rocks I was carefully
treading on, but I had no idea where I was really putting
my feet. I was following voices in the dark, and I didn’t
know how far we’d come or how far we had to go.
I loved it, even through my soaked shoes and jacket.
At
midway, we stop and try to find the sunrise, which we
know is not going to be what we wanted at this point,
and while we wait for the sky to at least brighten,
we get our first chance to look.
We
don’t seem to be too far up, and a few houses have
their lights on out there. Every so often a car’s
headlights can be seen in the distance. They really
don’t look so far away; in the dark, it looks as
though they could be driving right towards us. It was
like we were suspended in the air, just watching as
the world started to wake up.
The
sky does lighten, without any glorious rising colors,
and we continue, because we’re all together again,
and going down is not an option, just like sleeping
in was not an option. Something unknown is driving us
to keep going and I do not look down as I go up.
It’s
much steeper and now every part of me is wet and quite
cold, my shoes are squelching with every step I take,
and I thank God for the dry clothes back in my room.
We
reach the top and the fog and the gray cover everything.
I am still wet, and I am still cold, and even though
it’s light now, I still can’t see anything!
But
almost immediately, as though it was anticipating our
arrival, the fog is pulling away and I can finally look
down.
I
see the mist creeping down the ridges in the rock, revealing
moss and grass and vegetation that are all so real and
complete.
I
see the vast expanse of the Lake District beneath me
and I get it. I understand now.
I
didn’t come for a sunrise. This experience is beyond
anything I’d think to think of. I am standing at
the top of a mountain, tired, sick, cold, wet, with
sleet dripping off of my face, and yet, I am not sure
even a poet could describe just how overwhelmingly beautiful
it was to find this place as I did.
There
aren’t many times in someone’s life where
they can live in the day before it wakes up, or walk
through a forest without seeing it, or to stand on a
mountain and really feel as though they are above everything.
These
opportunities are rare, but somehow we find them, mostly
when we are least likely to.
I
went on that trip looking for a lake and a sunrise,
but I found a lot more just wandering through the dark..
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