EASY DOES IT

By Fran Dayan

        This morning she felt her life was passing her by, that she couldn’t do this rigorous gambit into the wild anymore. It was really not all that wild in this gem of an ancient hot springs in the heart of Carmel Valley. It was breathtakingly achingly beautiful.                                                                            

            The sunlight playing on the intensely green leaves of the forest of old sycamores, birches and pines, leaves rustling in the wind, looking up sheer mountain cliffs reveling in the pristine rugged beauty of Tassajara.  Granite rocks taking you down to the ice cold stream that runs through the valley. Once reaching it, you immerse yourself deeply, feeling part of the beginning of the knowledge of beauty.

            The stage ride down was a hot, one and one-half hour, fourteen mile bumpy, gravely extremely curvy road where a few who drove it themselves had died driving off the road and down the mountain. At the end of the road stretches a pristine wilderness with hot springs and a cold stream running through it. It took her breath away every time, it made her ache with happiness. She had been coming most of every year for 40 years, it kept calling her back.

            This morning her body hurt so badly after sleeping on a hard tatami  in a cold cabin and the night before sitting on chilly rocks looking up at the vast brilliant sky. It was getting harder to walk to the hot tubs from their cabin, her back ached, her leg had shooting pain and spasms. She was feeling too old and achy to be here. She thought to herself. This is the last time you should come, you must say goodbye”. Like leaving a lover you can’t make love to anymore. But it was so beautiful how could she leave it forever?

            This back and forth dialogue continued all day and into the night. It was too strenuous. It was too beautiful to leave forever. 

            Finally she settled into a calmed state with the realization that she in fact was older now and had to accept the changes in her body, make love to this exquisite wilderness differently, love her body differently. No long hikes, no walking in Berkinstocks,  a more comfortable more expensive, warmer cabin closer to the hot tubs. No scrambling over rocks to the Narrows. Maybe not come every year. She’d work it out. She had to. She couldn’t leave it for good. Life was too precious to give up on the beautiful things you love. “Just easy does it” she thought.

Fran Dayan