Above Loch Quoich

I am I have accepted, an obsessive by nature; there must be an element of obsession in anything I do that I care about. Or perhaps it is the other way around. Regardless, even if this causes life to be more difficult, less comfortable, more tumultuous, it is to me far better than the passionless emotional plateau that would exist in its stead. Perhaps, as when I have been closest to death I have felt the most alive, a juxtaposition of emotions gives them perspective.

It does mean however that if I cannot give everything that a particular obsession demands I would often rather not engage with it at all. To do something by halves only leads to angst for me. 

Life has kept me from the mountains for the past couple of years. Not totally, and I have found different ways to experience them, but in the way I used to loose myself among them, just myself and a camera. Being busy with other obsessions has kept my mind from this. However, this day the ascent of two Munros  - Gleouraich and Spidean Mialach - reawoke something I'd not dared to miss before.
A day of darting sunlight, blue-sky warmth, freezing winds, wild surroundings, perfect neve, rocky wildness and the teeth of a blizzard to add enough fight at the end. 
A blazing sunset over Loch Quoich to Ben Aden and Sgurr na Ciche brought a realisation. That if one was to want to know anything about me (though heaven knows why they would) then it was all encapsulated in the culmination of the day in that moment. The difficult, irreconcilable thoughts of every day life, the knowledge that the road ahead will be hard, the courage to do what might be done, all found their place in that moment. 

Perhaps remembering a little of what I am is not a bad thing.