From my hotel window in Darjeeling I watched the fog come up through the valley and quickly overtake the town and eventually flow through my open window. I hadn’t seen any mountains, not even Kanchenjunga which should be right out my window, but this was a glorious sight in itself.
The next day I finally picked up The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai because a second person told me to read it, this time because it’s set where I am.
The very opening of the book goes:
“All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths. Briefly visible above the vapor, Kanchenjunga was a far peak whittled out of ice, gathering the last of the light, a plume of snow blown high by the storms at its summit.”
A page later:
“Up through the chimney and out, the smoke mingled with the mist that was gathering speed, sweeping in thicker and thicker, obscuring things in parts - half a hill, the the other half. The trees turned into silhouettes, loomed forth, were submerged again. Gradually the vapor replaced everything with itself, solid objects with shadow, and nothing remained that did not seem molded from or inspired by it.”
This is that mist.
I remember watching another mist appear on the other side of the valley on a hike in Britain’s Lake District. Bits of it flowed first through the low points of the mountain tops, then the whole side of the valley was engulfed. It stormed down the mountain like an army, filling the valley, then working it’s way up our side until we could not see each other. For all we new, the tiny ridges we scrambled over were existing in nothing, floating in space.
I love this mist.
