Read the original in German. Visit her website here. Genia Blum is a Swiss Ukrainian Canadian writer, translator, and dancer. Her essays and short stories have been anthologized, published widely in literary journals, and received numerous Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. Mountains are incredibly self-absorbed and domineering.
In winter of snow, and in summer of mud and rubble. It loathes all others. The mountain streams have managed slowly over millennia to swindle a modicum of affection from the mountain.
They were simply there and stayed on without dissenting, not even once. They went along with its game for so long that they became outright lackeys of the mountain. The mountain streams do everything that the mountain commands them to do. On the mountain, you realize who you are. Some say you forget yourself up on the mountain. Those who say that, have also surrendered to the mountain.
They accept, even pay homage to, the dominance of the mountain. Fear causes them to do this. Humans cower before the mountain, even though the mountain is much taller than humans. It should be the one cowering. Others, who spend their adolescence directly on the mountain, strap slats to their feet and build ski jumps.
Adolescents who know nothing of mountains, only wide-open plains and oceans and big cities where they can thrive and evolve. The fact that young people on the mountain regard their youthβwith slats, ski jumps, and skate punkβas blissful has to do with the manipulative nature of the mountain.
