I got out of the car in slow motion, I was asleep for more than half of the two hour trip to Rila monastery from Sofia.I was dehydrated, but it felt like I was home somehow. I get those few adults moments, mostly when I go running,when I would feel some sort of nostalgia which abruptly brings back old childhood memories. This was one of those, getting out of a a car from a very long nap. It felt so much like home, it was painful.
I forced myself to walk and inhale the cold air, the sun was shining on my face.The mountains were breathtaking.There were tourists looking at me as I walked under the arch that was the entrance to a monastery.I must’ve looked like I was in a daze. There it was,just like the opening scene into a disney movie, the dark archway lead into a picture of a beautiful old serene structure of a monastery seemingly painted in hues of black and white and red stripes against a backdrop of green and brown mountains pasted on clear blue skies.It was a work of art, my sadness has arrived home.
I walked into a tiny spring flowing with c
old water, I drank it and it cooled me and I lingered and waited whether it could wash away all my bad decisions.I got inside the chapel, lighted some candles and listened into the silence. It was only after I had finished my hearty lunch in one of those restaurants at the back of the monastery, that I heard the mountains began to talk.
They told me of days when I was younger and carefree, days when I could laugh hysterically,days when I was so sure of who I was and what I would become,days when the sun did actually shine.
There I realised what the mountains do.The mountains ring me when I tell them I’m not ok, they give me surprise hugs when I meet them on hallways.They send me messages when I tell them I would like to sleep for days.The mountains ask me to visit because I will always have a home.
The mountains are the people who actually care.In the silence,I could hear it, like the slow humming of a ventilator.. I have been breathing through them everyday.
