Column Judith Witte: Moving mountains

I’m walking up the mountain slowly. Step by step. Just keep going; eventually, I’ll reach the top. Insects buzz around me, drawn to the scent of sweat. It’s warm. No, it’s scorching.

I scramble over rocks, the path climbs steeply, but I push on. The higher I go, the cooler the breeze that touches my face. Finally, the landscape opens up! Trees give way to grass and flowers, and I’m walking through a field of lavender. Butterflies flutter all around me. Then, not far from me, two enormous vultures, soaring on the thermals. These birds of prey, so free in the sky, take my breath away. From the top, the view is spectacular. The mountains stretch out endlessly. I feel both tiny and immense at the same time: a small cog, but also part of this vast whole.

Holidays are the time for "doing nothing" and relaxation. Time to reflect on life and gain new perspectives, to make plans for the future. We all promise ourselves to hold on to that holiday feeling when we get back home. I must admit, I haven’t always been very successful at that. But this year, somehow, it worked. Especially that feeling of joy I had while climbing the mountain—it’s easy to recall.

“Wow, you’ve got such a fun job!” one of the people I interviewed for this magazine told me when I mentioned what else was on my to-do list for the week. My technically-minded kids have a very different opinion: to them, writing and working with language is absolute torture. But I enjoy it—portraying people, playing with words, soaking up knowledge.

The best part is that during interviews, I get a brief glimpse into someone else’s life, catching sight of their goals and dreams (sometimes deemed completely unreachable by those around them or their backers). They share their setbacks with me, and how they’ve overcome them. How they didn’t give up but kept going because they believed in their dream. The path they took to reach the top, the steps involved, the mountains they had to move. In that sense, this (late summer) edition is a moment of pure joy, full of stories about entrepreneurs with big dreams and goals achieved. No trouble at all to relive that mountain hike again and again.

Judith Witte

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