What has become tiresome lately, is the limitation which is set on movement during daytime. In addition to curfew at 7 pm every evening, we are not allowed to move more than10 km from home… The longing for the mountains, and for a hike somewhere not too crowded with people, is getting stronger every day. Hopefully we have only one week left now, and then…..
Mercantour, Alpes-Maritimes, France
In the meantime, while waiting for this to come true, I do my best to take pleasure from our nearby surroundings.
When walking the same paths every day, I try to pay attention to the details, as a way to “change the scenery”. And now in spring, there’s always new things to see 🙂
I would like to write a few words about women that inspires me. Actually, it’s quite a few of them, so I won’t write about all of them at the same time. They represent everything from politicians to actresses, from intellectuals to explorers. They are young, or not so young. They are my contemporaries, or long deceased. But they all stand out, in their own way. Some of them you might know already, others perhaps not. They represent a great variety of women, because we are all different, and we chose different paths in life.
Today, I want to present Cecilie Skog, who has climbed Mount Everest and K2, and a lot of other mountains. If that wasn’t enough, she has reach the South Pole, the North Pole and crossed Greenland several times on skis.
The more I read about Cecilie, the more I like her philosophy. It has never been important to her to be the first, or the fastest or the toughest. The important thing is to enjoy doing it! It’s about the value you put in doing it. She puts it this way: “I don’t go out there (on an expedition) to hurry home”.
Cecilie Skog. Picture from Pinterest
Cecilie Skog inspires me, not because I dream about climbing summits more than 8000 meters high, or put my skis for a trip across Antarctica. She inspires me because she had the courage to follow her dreams.
After getting her degree as a nurse, she worked six months in a hospital, before she felt an urge “to get fresh air”. She took some weeks leave, went to the mountains, and decided it was outdoor she preferred to be. I admire her courage to change plans. To leave a safe job and to find a new path.
Now as a mother, she has kind of changed path again. The need to climb the highest mountains is gone, the urge to cross the ice is gone. It’s replaced by a drive to introduce her children to all the pleasures nature can give you. It’s the quality of time spent outdoors that count, not how many kilometres you walked or how high you climbed.
I think it is important to be reminded from time to time, that it’s quality, not quantity that counts. Especially when it comes to everyday life.
Cogito ergo sum 