Joy is a Practice

A single sunbeam is enough to dispel many shadows.
—Francis of Assisi

The day is rough. After enduring nearly a solid week of rain, remnants of a powerful Cyclone, the weather shifts to warm sunshine and impossibly blue skies.

But that is so yesterday. On this final the day before reaching our goal, it rains hard.

My tent sits atop a muddy pool of water. Wet weather gear goes on over many layers and I step outside for the last real day of climbing on this long journey from Kanchenjunga to Makalu, a section of the Great Himalaya Trail.

Altitude churns my stomach and my body feels weak. Each step is leaden and deliberate, each breath demands effort and I begin to believe I won’t make it. I even wonder if it’s worth moving forward when the mountain could be obscured by cloud.

As I climb steeply, moving above tree-line into a jumbled rocky wilderness, one of the hikers hangs back and urges me on. She is perhaps the strongest of our group, but the least patient. In former life the was a coach and it shows.

“You’ve got this!” she says. “Just put one foot in front of the other! It’s only walking!”

They’re simple words, familiar platitudes, almost cliché. But in the moment, they land like a steadying force, her voice a rhythm I can follow as my own strength falters.

Over and over she repeats these mantras, pulling me up the incline — and straight into a white-out. On and on we go with seemingly no end, and her words become a little stale. So she stops speaking and pulls out something stronger. A song.

The ants go marching one by one. Hurrah! Hurrah!
The ants go marching one by one. Hurrah! Hurrah!
The ants go marching one by one, the little one stops to suck her thumb
and they all go marching up the hill to reach the camp!

I’m not sure if it’s the ridiculous words or the manner in which she sings so boldly off key, but I start laughing. It’s a kind of breathless guffaw but it lifts me straight up the hill just like those marching ants, and into camp.

Saint Francis of Assisi wrote, “A single sunbeam is enough to dispel many shadows.”

I yearned for a literal sunbeam to clear the mist. What I received instead was a simple act of kindness. She chose to walk beside me and encourage me when it would have been way easier not to.

It got me moving but also to focus on my larger goal for tomorrow: getting to Makalu Basecamp, the final prize of this long hike. Ultimately, it dawns on me just how incredibly privileged I am to be here, right now, in the Himalayas. I may be moving slowly, but it’s exactly the right tempo through this vast landscape to allow it to penetrate my being.

Joy is not about the absence of difficulties. It’s about being anchored in abundance and the belief that all will unfold as it should. It’s a practice and a discipline to not be conditioned by circumstances that can’t be controlled, but rather to choose to move through the world with our eyes open to the many small miracles that happen all around us, all the time.

That small miracle pushed me up to Langmale Kharka where we seek shelter in a wee “teahouse”, a rustic family-owned lodge nestled into small valley. A yak-dung fueled fire warms us and dries our wet clothes, and we sip restorative tea. Tonight, we’ll double and triple up in tiny ice-box rooms rather than camp in the damp, then rise before dawn for the final push to Makalu.

I am relieved I made it here, but doubt still lingers. Will we see anything at all as the snow keeps falling? Just then, one of the hikers steps outside for a pee break. When he returns, he’s smiling.

“Guess what? The moon’s out.”

And just like that, the sky clears.