outdoors

This afternoon I dragged both kids up a mountain trail on the outskirts of Chongqing. The four-year-old complained for the first 15 minutes. Then she found a stick. The stick became a sword. The sword defeated every bush and rock on the trail, and suddenly hiking was the best activity ever invented. Chongqing is surrounded by hills that most tourists never see. A 30-minute drive from the city center and you're on trails that cut through bamboo forests, past small temples, with views of the Yangtze winding through the valleys below. We stopped at a little pavilion halfway up. An elderly couple was there with a thermos of tea and a bag of sunflower seeds. The wife offered some to my kids, who accepted with sticky hands and huge grins. We sat together in comfortable silence, looking out at the city far below. My oldest asked me on the way down: 'Mama, why do the old people in China always go to the mountains?' I told her: because they know that a mountain doesn't ask anything of you. You just walk, breathe, and remember what matters. She didn't fully get it. But one day she will.