A Home Beneath the Stars

The “Customs House”, the Glacier and the Calm.

The stillness and rustling wind quietly wakes me up. My wife is still fast asleep. Empty glasses from the night before sit on the small wooden bedside tables.

I step out for a moment. Our footprints pressed into the snow are still visible from the night before. The snowshoes lean on the wall of the cabin. The blankets are also outside, on the bench. We’ve been spending our evenings here - sitting outside, wrapped in the cozy blankets, drinking some wine and gazing at the wide star-studded sky, something that really instilled a sense of awe in us. The feeling still lingers. All this, together with the stillness, slowly but surely found its way into my very core. This is all I ever needed.

While my wife was cozying up in the feather-quilted bed, with just her hair peaking out of the red and white checkered duvet, I grabbed my winter cap, gloves and hiking shoes.

I walked out into the early morning. All my busy thoughts are left down at the foot of the mountain. Everything that doesn’t have its place here has simply evaporated. The quiet winter sun slowly appears and announces itself with red beams across the sky. A breeze blows over the snow, prompting small snow crystals to fly into the air. I feel the cold air on my cheeks, the snow crunches beneath my feet and everything is reduced down to the inhale and exhale. The sun slowly gets bigger and bigger, not yet in its full power, but getting there. It’s gotten lighter and all of a sudden everything around me is bathed light. I stop walking, as if frozen and all I can do is gaze around me, take it all in and breathe.

I turn around and head back to our small “Customs Office” cabin at the side of the mountain. My wife is standing in the doorway, in the sunshine, smiling at me. Hungry? Yes! The Bella Vista refuge is close by, less than a kilometre away. There, breakfast is already waiting for us.