Farellones in Chile.
In my previous blog, I wrote about an adventure sport… Gliding in the air was not enough, so I hit the snow-capped Andes to glide on their descent. It’s winter in Chile right now, the roads were icy and the clouds descended upon the way up to the little ski resort of Farellones which made the experience akin to cruising on cloud number nine!
As I stepped out of the car and into the resort, the first thing I noticed were trails of the people who left their footprints on the snows of time, which made my hike to the peak that much easier. Indeed, we receive guidance on every path in life we choose to tread, from the example set by the brave men who chose to tread it before. But after following those trails for miles, you arrive at a point where they seem to fade away. You’re on your own now.
That was the most challening part for me in the resort and I’m sure it is, for a lot of us, on the path of life too. The guides though, teach us how to make our way. Finally, you have to do the balancing act independently. Balancing between your interests and intuitions within with available fields and universal truths without. Our mastery over the balancing act will determine, more than our climb, the grace with which we plummet from the summit! All we need to do is to survive while plummeting, because that’s what gives us another chance to reach for the top. And that’s exactly how skiing worked for me – I slid down with the help of the sticks, only to be ‘up’ for round two!
So I ticked off yet another adventure sport. And while doing so, I was reminded of the movie Up, especially the scene when Carl goes through the stills in Ellie’s adventure diary, and discovers, to his surprise, the photographs of their marriage in the latter pages which he believed were empty due to her unfulfilled expedition desires. This made me wonder what an adventure is all about. I’ve been learning a couple of languages during my vacation – while grasping the American sign language in the past few weeks, I learned that ‘adventure’ and ‘ambitious’ had similar signs – that of rubbing your palms against each other. Indeed, adventuring is all about venturing! Considering that, I had ticked off many more adventures than I thought I did – that of working with a magazine and getting promoted to a daily newsblast writer, learning new languages and setting up a website which contains all my poems penned to date (for the sake of proof and self promotion, it’s hemathakur.weebly.com !)
There was a note towards the end in Ellie’s diary which said, “Thank you for the adventure, now have a new one!” Carl thereafter sets off to rescue Russel, by letting go of all the things that were weighing his house down, including Ellie’s picture. The alleviated house began to elevate! This brought to my mind the importance of changes. We need to let go of old concepts and belief systems before we rise to newer realms… That’s not the only change we have to face though – in my case, this year (being my final year) is definitely going to fling some snowballs of surprises towards me! I do not know where I’m heading post my degree, nor do I know when will I be meeting my family in Chile again. All I know is that we all will finally settle where we ought to be, just as Ellie’s house did, beside the Paradise falls…
Hema is studying the BSc Banking and Finance with the University of London International Programmes in India.
