This blog is for you my friends, participants and staff members. In the last few capsules I wrote, I strived to maintain some sort of neutrality. In this one, I’d like to open my heart to you. This morning, I left in a hurry and I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia, and my heart stayed behind at the Youth Hostel. As I was driving home, I was disappointed at not being able to ride with you to Montreal before returning to Chicoutimi, just to be there with you, hugging you as you left and enjoying the last few laughs with you. I keep reviewing the last eight days in your company, realizing how fortunate I was to be part of a group of such beautiful people. Deep down in my heart, I have the precious memory of the twinkle in your eye, your curiosity, and your desire to live life at its fullest. How true you were, no kidding. Every time I committed a landscape a sunrise or a particularly funny moment to memory, it was through your eyes that I did it, that I found beauty.
The most difficult part of an expedition for me is usually the end, although, this time around, the cold nights in the arctic tents were rather difficult! As we return home, our heart is still beating hard after our adventure, as if we had fallen in love again with something great. And we’re looking for ways of expressing it, and share with our loved ones what have just lived. No words, no pictures can express the immensity that just grew in our heart. And we feel isolated; as we get up in the morning we’d like to hear Ding and Dong and their nonsensical jokes, hear Marjorie laughing hysterically again. We try to imagine what Simon, ever distracted, would misplace, and how Naïla would miraculously find it. What a team! We try to imagine what Everest Marika would like to conquer today, still under the emotional high of her last triumph. We’d like to go outside and wake up Ludovic asleep in a hole he dug in the snow bank. We’d like to debate with Pierre-Luc and his passion for things ecological, German and rock climbing. And Jeff, in his long johns, would add a bit of philosophy and his absurd sense of humour to the discussion. We’d like to have breakfast with Joanie because breakfast with Joanie is very Zen. We’d love to see Ariane leave her comfort zone and do things she never dreamed of doing, for she does them so well; and Ariane knows how to make us laugh. Or share with Marie-Jo, so bubbly, filled with love for life – and her dog – inviting us to love even more. Finally, we’d like for Mama Bear to be there and build us a mountain of love.
So it is with our bodies numb with fatigue – more so Ariane and her new biceps – we head home after touching goodbyes. We’re all surfing this wave, this high. Our minds are full of a new energy, enough to climb all the mountains ahead, to make those crazy plans, to love even more and see things differently. Surf that wave, feed on this surplus of energy to live more fully.
I’m writing this blog in the comfort of my living room. Through the window, I can see the Monts-Valin. Never again will I seen them as I used to; from now on, they will remind me of your love for life.