"The Mountain And I Were Comparing Ages..."

Oh, I have been realizing these later years, the relative nature of it all.
One more of those clear yet subtle messages, those of us who long wander always revel in.
I was feeling my age, if you will, antiquated that adventure day, right down through my legs and especially my knees. Easy to do also at times if sensing a bit of wistfulness, when we allow such self-ageisms to seep in - and then to possibly limit ourselves within all of that.
These were very old mountains I was wandering among. Not quite as fresh and newly stark as the usual Northern Rockies we have endlessly journeyed in.
During a few particularly sore moments, feeling not as energetic as I would have wished, I pondered to myself how at times it feels as if the mountain and I were comparing ages.
Then with a laugh out loud, I kept going, as we adventurers naturally do, sensing the generations and chronology of rock & stone around and above us - to be an elder second to none...
We simply pass the time out there.
While the mountains exist and endure through ever longer passages of timelessness.
We feel and may lament our age, yet these venerable seniors comparatively have more maturity and experience than we ever could really understand.
Their greater age of the eons support us in putting things into perpetual perspective.
It's not about age these mountains say, as it is so much more about what we do with the time we have. It's not at all about being older, it is very much about why we still wander...
No relativism was then needed. As I further journeyed farther out among my real elders. For truly these mountains and the wild places they are embraced within are wonderful ageless guiding symbols for us all..... DSD