Healing in the Himalayas

“One breath at a time.” “One breath at a time,” I repeated. The exposed strip of skin beneath my sunglasses and above my scarf burning in the acidic, sub zero Himalayan winds. “One breath at a, my foot skidded on a pane of ice, shielding the rocky path beneath it, time”, The internal mantra, which 12 months and 28 days earlier I’d been using under very different circumstances.

Then, those words were supporting me, full of pain and fear out of a difficult seven year marriage. Now, just 386 days later these same words were carrying me, exhausted but jubilant, strong but humble to the moonscape of my childhood dreams, Everest Base Camp, Nepal.

It had been eight days since my guide Prem and I had hurtled into Lukla airport, a mere ribbon of concrete enveloped dramatically by the world’s highest, most arresting peaks, at an altitude of 2800m. The freshness of the air had excited my skin which had grown used to the dust and humidity of Kathmandu in the days prior.

It had been six days since I had been able to wash, under an arctic shower in the spirited, panoramic Sherpa town of Namche Bazaar, at an altitude of 3440m. A popular acclimatization spot with eager hikers. It was here the air became thinner and breaths had become more calculated.

It had been 3 days since I’d had access to running water outside the warmth of the comforting, wooden Tea House kitchens. All other sources had succumbed to December’s glacial charm. Sinks had formed pyramids of ice under their tap heads, built drip by frosty drip, as we had ascended upwards from the bleak hamlet of Dingboche, at an altitude of 4360m. Here the air had become unable to ease the onset of heavy, thudding, altitude headaches and currents of nausea.

Now, three hours after my last ginger tea, (a Himalayan staple) past the barren landscape of Gorak Shep, the majestic Khumbu ice fall to my right, I scrambled, adrenaline flowing the last hundred meters of my crusade.

Finally, there at 5364m, in the strength of world’s highest mountain, Sagarmatha, Chomolungma, Everest, call her what you will, in a vastness of austere rock and ice, it happened.

Battered by minus 17 degree winds, as I removed my gloves to reach out and feel the frozen pile of vividly dressed stones, proudly labelled ‘Everest Base Camp 2017’, my heart began to thaw.

Suddenly, I wanted to share this moment with ‘him’, whoever he was and whenever I would meet him. The mountains had healed my hurt with hope, my fears with courage and I felt ready to fall in love again.

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