Crumbling mountains, fading eyesight

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      I like to make connections. It's just who I am...I can't help myself. And it's a game I play to keep my perspective on life interesting and inspiring. Something about associating the shape of a leaf to the sound of a musical phrase, or a scab and subsequent scar on my arm to some fading bad habit—odd things like that—intrigues me.

      The mountains I've been spending time in are crumbling. You can't see this from down in the valley, from down in the town, but they are. When you walk over them, they simply give beneath you. Sometimes in just the smallest way, like the sand and gravel underfoot sliding downward under the weight of your stepping forward; other times in more pronounced, even troubling ways, when you step on a large rock or boulder and it gives [way] when you expect it to take [your weight]. The mountains are falling apart. All my life I've watched them from a distance and thought they were "rock solid." Nope, it ain't so. The pinnacle of "falling down," like the game of Ring-a-round a rosie, is most pronounced on the crags of the Galenas, the easternmost section of the Yucaipa range, but I see the lure of gravity throughout the 24n24 course.

      My eyesight is failing. Well, not failing, as in boulders giving way; more like the soft side of the hill slowly sliding down over time. Especially reading, when my eyes are not yet awake, or are end-of-day tired, is more challenging. I've some 1.0 reading glasses, but I've not yet figured out how to keep them clean, which may be my way of denying the crumbling mountain. I'm 55, turning 56 on the 24th (yes, inflicting hardship on myself is my way of celebrating the occasion, ha). I'm trying in various ways to keep my body, my mountain, from undue crumbling.

 Here's another paradox (a most treasured connection): my body crumbles faster when I'm not climbing the mountains. The more sedentary life I lead, the more I get sick, the faster the mountain crumbles. By remaining in the valley I might not see the effect of my absence, but the mountain falls nonetheless. Why is it that climbing the steep trail, even feeling the dirt and rock give underfoot, keeps the mountain more...mountainous?