Samay

I stopped beside the lake because I was tired.

There wasn't any deeper reason. I had been walking since morning, my pack felt heavier with every hour, and the road ahead climbed again. I found a place in the grass, put my staff and bag beside me, and decided I would stay only long enough to eat.

Instead, I lay down.

For a while I watched clouds move across the mountains. A condor appeared high above the lake and disappeared again. Wind moved through the grasses beside me, and the water changed every time the light changed. I could hear my own breathing. At first it was heavy from the walk. Eventually it slowed.

I must have stayed there for hours.

Nothing was accomplished. I didn't reach the next village. I didn't learn anything important. I didn't solve the problem I had been thinking about all morning. The mountains did not offer me an answer simply because I stopped beneath them.

But when I finally sat up, I felt different.

The road was still there. So was everything waiting for me farther along it. Rest hadn't removed any of it. It had simply returned something to me that I had been spending all day.

Tonight I keep thinking about how strange it is that I sometimes treat rest as though it were separate from the journey.

Perhaps it is part of how the journey continues.