Anthony's Literary Lens

Tag: hills

  • Where Silence Sleeps: Reflections from a Weathered Soul

    Where Silence Sleeps: Reflections from a Weathered Soul

    Not every summit must be reached to find meaning in the climb.

    The Long Green Path

    Imagine a place where time forgets to tick, where each breath feels like the first one ever drawn by the earth itself. This isn’t a fantasy—this is a glimpse into the sacred silence of an uncharted nature.

    I’ve come to this valley often, though not always with my feet. Sometimes in dreams, sometimes in memory. Today, I sit with it in person—bones stiff, breath slow, heart quieter than it once was. Before me: hills that rise and fall like the decades behind me, green waves rolling into the mist. Beyond them, the snowcapped peaks—the place I always imagined I’d reach.

    When I was a boy, those mountains were destiny. Pure, white, untouched. They looked like truth. I thought if I climbed far enough, lived right enough, worked hard enough—I’d stand on those peaks and see everything clearly. But life isn’t a straight climb. It’s a winding trail over hill after hill. Some were gentle. Others I barely crawled over. A few I never expected to survive.

    Each hill behind me now carries a story. Some proud, others painful. Many I climbed with companions who are long gone. And still I moved forward, always believing the peak was just beyond the next rise.

    But today, sitting here with knees too worn to carry me further, I understand something I didn’t before: those snow-covered heights weren’t a destination. They were a guide. A northern star to pull me onward. And maybe, just maybe, the journey was always the point.

    The hills ahead are fewer now. Softer. Not less meaningful, just more peaceful. And I realize—though I may never stand atop the highest peak, I’ve walked far enough to see it clearly. Sometimes clarity doesn’t come from reaching the summit, but from understanding why you climbed in the first place.

    The silence here is deep, but not empty. It speaks without words. And if you listen closely, it tells you: even the longest life is not about conquering, but about becoming.

    I sit with the hills, and I sit with myself. Both of us older, weathered, beautiful in ways we never expected. The peak glows in the distance—not with regret, but with grace.

    And that, perhaps, is enough.

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  • Beyond the White Veil

    Beyond the White Veil

    The author tapped their pen against the worn notebook, frowning at the blank page. Outside, the hills of west Wales slumbered in an afternoon lull. They were supposed to be writing about wild hills, about the way the mist rolled in, swallowing everything whole. But the words wouldn’t come. Was it because the real hills outside looked so tame, bathed in a weak spring sunshine? Or was it because the very idea of writing about the wildness, the untamed nature of the world, felt utterly inauthentic?

    Preseli Hills, Pembrokeshire, Wales

    Pen searches for truth,
    Wild landscape in the mind blooms,
    More real than the mist.

    Anthony

    In the fictional world they were trying to build, the mist rolled in with a purpose, a living entity driven by some unknown force. It wasn’t the kind of mist that rolled in most afternoons, shrouding the valleys in a milky haze. This mist was hungry, it devoured the landscape whole, leaving only the skeletal outlines of trees and the ghosts of forgotten ruins.

    But here, in the real world, the mist ambled in, a lazy afterthought of a sea breeze. It did little more than dampen the enthusiasm of the ramblers, forcing them to pull on their waterproofs a little earlier. The author sighed. How could they write about a mist that devoured the world when the most dangerous thing the real mist devoured was a tourist’s picnic plans?

    An idea flickered. What if the wildness wasn’t in the mist itself, but in the way it exposed the wildness within the characters it touched? The author started to write. The first line came easily: “The mist rolled in, uninvited, as it always did.”  This time, the mist wasn’t a malevolent force, but a catalyst. It seeped into the cracks of their lives, revealing the buried anxieties, the unspoken desires. The characters, a young couple on a weekend retreat, found themselves arguing over neglected chores and unspoken resentments, their petty squabbles echoing in the muffled landscape.

    The author smiled. The wildness wasn’t in the mist, but in the way it held up a mirror to the human heart. And perhaps, that was a wilder thing after all.

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