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Remembering Dalhouise

We have had a great season of hiking so far and tried some trails that were really hard for me. Most recently it took us down a waterfall in the mountains down to the stream at the bottom. We were there on a bright fall morning and it there were a few others out there too. One of them was a fit, elderly couple. The woman was petite and reminded me of my mother for some reason though there was no physical resemblance. She took her time to climb the rocks on her way up the waterfall, but she held her own and needed no help. If I had to guess, she would be in her late sixties or maybe even older but just in great physical shape. It brought back memories to a trip to Dalhousie in India many years ago. My mother was dressed the most absurdly she could be to climb rocks around a waterfall, but she soldiered on in her sari and walking shoes and at some point it became evident any further would be fool-hardy and we all stopped. 

There is a picture of me with my parents sitting on some rocks at that place - my mother does not look happy. For someone who dreamed of traveling in the mountains, she always had a remarkable low appetite for getting close to the real stuff - the streams, rocks, earth, leaves and twigs. She wished for a some "sanitized" version of the mountain experience to be delivered in the form of a sunrise in Tiger Hills from the balcony of her hotel that she could enjoy alongside her second flush Darjeeling tea. I am exactly not that person and never was. I love the close contact with mountain and ocean. A sunrise is wonderful to watch but drinking from the mountain stream after a four hour hike is heavenly. It seems like the things that separate us from our parents diverge as the years go by and we each settle in our corner far apart from the other. 

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