Elemental beginnings

by Saya Naruse (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Nepal

'Giant steps are what you take…' Dust. Rocks. Scree. 'Walking on the moon.' All around us lie the sleeping giants of the Annapurna Massif. 'We could walk forever…' We sing to make our tired feet light. 'Walking on the moon.' Finally, at the top; Thorung La, the roof of the world. Lungs battering against thin air; we catch our breath. The song continues in our heads and then vibrates its way out through the blue sky as we look up and out. All is silent. All is mountain and all is sky. Rock. Scree. Dust. I am here In the Nepalese Himalayas; Thorung La, 5,416 meters high. We are standing at the precipice, with the valley of the Kali Gandaki and the upper Mustang stretched out before us. Frothy milk clouds sit above the mountains, pouring themselves into the distant valleys. I never knew there to be so many colours and shades of stone; the landscape before us looks almost Jurassic. I met them just yesterday- a couple from Germany- and today we are already a tribe. We stand soaking in the vastness as our muscles shake. We soak in the stillness. 'I am here', I whisper so quietly that only the wind can hear. 'Sayuri. Jon. I’m here, I’m seeing it.' I’m speaking to my parents. I use their real names, for I’m talking to them, not as my parents who I know now, but as the young boy and girl up here in the mountains. The young girl and boy who are yet to meet, yet to know of their future together. My parents grew up worlds apart; my dad from England and mum from Japan, they’d lived contrasting lives. When I was growing up, my rituals and traditions -drinking tea or throwing beans and salt - were all taught through different languages and with a different physicality until it was about nature, until it was about travel. Travel was a thing that was familiar in their Japanese-Christian, English-Atheist relationship. It was their commonality and their understanding; their escape. I had come here, at last, after all their stories and all the retellings. I had come here to learn that part of my history. The next day we visit the pilgrimage site of Muktinath, under a beautiful clear blue sky. All the silver trees gleam in the mid-morning light; it feels like an autumn day fresh out of a poem. We walk up the pavement streaked with stripes of shadows from the slumbering trees, which lead the way to sacred sites. We visit the wall of 108 stone cow heads each spouting holy water, which we splash 108 times over our heads for purification. We visit the eternal fire and place where all 4 elements naturally meet; air, holy water, fire and earth. A small dark temple has been constructed over a flame which has been naturally burning for over 2,000 years, you can hear the light trickle of water that flows beneath. As I look, I imagine the small blue flicker reflected in the eyes of my father. I feel something close to sadness all wrapped up in a love for them. What were they like in their younger years before so many names were to define them? Mother, Father, Wife, Husband, Writer, Doctor, Teacher, Mindfulness Therapist. I wonder what they had thought of when they thought of the future, and if the dreams they held so close and tight have become something solid in their lives or have blown away further out of reach, like the birds that surf the wind. The wind is something magical here – from a shattering, howling beast to a soft cool cloak of comfort - and whatever form it chooses, it follows you. I see mum with arms outstretched embracing the wind, then she spreads her hands even wider like a happy child. She named me after the sound of the wind. I understand it now as I spread my arms and feel it too. Maybe it was here that her love for the wind blossomed to its fullness and led to my name? I would like to think so.