Taller than your soul

'There is a place like that, you know. A place where mountains just keep going and going and going forever, and before you know it, they're back, crashing into the sea, with no warning at all. The trees stay with them all the while, clinging weakly to the steep sides, until...' He looked at me sideways, 'Water.'

He was so fascinated with things like that. Maybe it was the unmistakable peace of grandeur. The fact that nothing these mountains could do would make them any larger, nothing could make them any more majestic.

I looked up, afraid in myself that I didn't see things like he did. In truth, I saw the beauty in the small things, in the sounds the river makes in the still of the night, in the pattern of veins on the back of a leaf. I found him there. But looking up at this mountain, I wasn't sure. It was as if I had a veil over my eyes, hiding its splendour, and no matter how hard I tried to squint through it to see what he saw, all I wound up with was a sore head.

If you see mountains, you know what he is about. You'll see him in the ones that crash into the sea without hesitation, in the joy of unbelievable heights, in the secrets the clouds whisper to the snow. I was still in the water, trying to catch the drops that fell from greater heights than I could imagine.

I wanted to see mountains. I wanted to see past the small, to get even a glimpse of clarity regarding something so large. I just never knew how to find the way there.

I guess what I've learnt is that when you see him there, you'll see him everywhere. In the paths around your old town. In the new faces that you'll meet.

It's like finding that person you love, the one you knew all along, but took longer that you hoped to find him. You go all your life without realising, and then when you finally meet him, you have no idea how you could have lived so long without.

That's what mountains are like. They go on and on and on forever, and before you know it, they're back, crashing into the sea, just like before.