notes from Sokcho

4:40pm, mid-November

I'm sitting atop Seorak Mountain, enjoying the long sun and the view it illuminates: wrinkled and rippled, the valleys below bespeak the history of the world, tectonic shifts, glaciers, a different passage of time. I see the ocean, too, and it fades into the haze but a sharp horizon is not needed to feel humbled by its seeming endlessness. As I wait for the sun to descend below the hill behind me, this valley brings Western Brook Fjord to my mind. My body feels good, useful, appreciated, from quick-paced hops and lifts over these grippy rocks. This air does not hang heavy with industry, and my lungs cannot expand enough to intake the fresh calm oxygen. People around me take pictures, and I do, too, but the essence of this time and place are not so easily captured. The defiance of beauty is part of its charm, its profundity.

I feel a sunburn coming on... freckles well spent.