A rainy day on Mont-Blanc
When I woke up this morning it was raining. I opened the curtains to the balcony and saw water pouring out of the roof rain spout, dripping off the eaves, and clouding the sky gray. A red hen in the garden below shook water off her feathers and then continued pecking around in the grass for inundated insects. I put my wrecked body back into bed, somehow relieved that it wasn’t a sun shiny day that I needed to run out and live. I was bruised, cut up, bug bitten, covered in black grease that wouldn’t wash off, acutely sore, and wonderfully happy. When I woke up an hour later, I went downstairs and saw the mountaineering crew along with the Swedish guy lying all over each other on the red couches in the living room, reading.
“I thought you guys were going out,” I said.
“Yeah,” Adam answered, “then it rained.” They turned back to their books, pleased to be lounging.
No one seemed to care at all that it was raining on their vacation. This must be the treasure that is Chamonix. All that really matters is that you’re here, and not anywhere else. I sat at the dining room table to write my postcards. By noon the clouds had started to clear up, so I took the bus into town to mail the postcards.
There’s a cafe in town that makes a “baguette poulet frites,” a sort of sandwich containing chicken, a mysterious sauce, and embedded French fries. When I first saw this I thought for sure that there had been some kind of copyright infringement against the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which I thought must own all the rights to putting French fries in anything, especially sandwiches and salads. Either way, it was as awesome as any lunch could be that’s imbued with French fries, especially when you’re sitting on a sun-warmed bench in the middle of town by the river, watching the tourists taking photos and inspecting the souvenirs, surrounded by snowy mountains and blue sky.
I had mighty plans to hike the mountains opposite Mont-Blanc today, but after missing the bus back to Les Bossons to get my backpack, I decided to take a lie down on my fleece on a bench in a tree-lined square. I clearly fell asleep, as when I woke up and looked at my watch an hour had passed and I was almost due to miss the second bus. I’m actually surprised I was able to fall asleep in a public place, as I’m sort of a closet insomniac, even in my own bed. My insomnia is typically worse in unfamiliar places like hotel rooms and public park benches, but I guess after all that riding and hiking and stressing about my life my body simply gave in.
I did catch the bus, and came back to town with my backpack. By 4 p.m. when I actually set out to hike, it was blazing out. Oddly, it wasn’t hot the way it is in California (dry, relentless, beating sun) or in Louisiana (stifling, dead, wet air). It didn’t even feel hot, until I started to walk uphill, and became drenched in sweat. I couldn’t even figure out why I was overheating. It wasn’t until I climbed high up in to the woods that everything finally cooled off and I was able to enjoy my hike.
There aren’t many tourists in the lower trails across from Mont-Blanc, because the gondolas don’t go there. The trails also aren’t advertised the way every other point in Chamonix is, for awesome views and highest peak and best fondue and so forth. This means you can have a nice contemplative walk without screaming kids or someone asking you to take a picture of them while they take ten minutes to set up their camera or having to stand in a long queue to get back down the mountain like you’re at a theme park. These things don’t really bug me most of the time. I was more than happy to take that French family’s photo yesterday, and to ride the gondola, and to hike amongst throngs of people. Just today, today I wanted some quiet.
These are woodsy trails on this side of the mountain. Once in a while there’s an opening in the trees where you can see Mont-Blanc and the town below, but mostly you’re deep in the forest, climbing over fallen trees and hollowed out logs. My best discovery were these miniature wild strawberries hidden among the grasses on the side of the trail. Most of them were no bigger than the nail on my little finger, but the reddest ones were candy sweet and melted away when I put them on my tongue. They were hard to get to, which of course made them all that more delectable; many were entangled in spiny weeds and prickly bushes, or were guarded by evil looking spiders.
The hike wasn’t far, and I’d forgotten my tripod, so mostly I just walked, inspecting the trail and the view and my life. It’s funny, because sometimes I actually feel a bit of anger at having to do this introspection, that somehow I believe that everyone else who’s been involved in shaping my life and making me who I am isn’t pontificating about anything right now. I imagine them all just having fun and being with the people they love and contemplating only what they might have for lunch today. So while they’re all partying I’m having to walk through the woods and evaluate who I am and where I want to go. This obviously isn’t all true — everyone has to make that evaluation about themselves at some point, and throughout their lives. I just felt a twinge of jealousy that at this moment, my life had the potential to be relatively carefree, if not for various choices I’d made in the past year. At the same time, it’s a Friday, and I’m walking down a mountain trail in Chamonix, France, and everyone else is sitting in their offices in front of computers, stressing about deadlines and spreadsheets and emails. We all take our turns. My turn to love and think about what I’m going to have for lunch tomorrow will come another day.
I was lugging my bags and souvenirs to the train station when Brox called me. He wouldn’t be able to have that party for his wife tonight since he was very late returning from Zurich and still had to pick her up at the airport in Geneva. No problem, I told him. I was planning to catch the last train of the evening out of Chamonix anyway. I asked him about Maxx.
“He’s in a coma,” Brox said.
“A medically induced coma?” I asked.
“No,” he replied, “just a coma.”
And now they had to wait, to see if he ever woke up, and to see if he’d ever be Maxx again if and when he did awaken.
It rained as I rode the train home to Zurich. Fat drops pelted the car and streamed down over the panoramic windows. Lightning briefly lit up the dark mountains as the train cruised through woods and tunnels. It was six hours before I got home, and I crashed as soon as I walked into the bedroom of my third floor apartment.
At 11 a.m. the next day, my phone beeped with a text message.
Kiwi: are you a mountain biking pro now? back in zurich? just wanted to see if you’re alive
I texted back.
Jess: of course i’m a pro, depends who you ask. and yeah, i’m really really alive.
