One day three years ago, at half past five in the morning, Qi Jinnian opened her eyes in bed and couldn't sleep anymore, when the familiar panic hit her again: today is another day when she can't write a word.
Unlike in the past, this morning she had to flee before the panic materialized. She packed all the belongings of the "day out" in ten minutes: an aluminum pot, a stove, and a methane gas tank. A pack of instant noodles, a can of luncheon meat, two oranges, two hanging ear coffee, a folding chair, and a pot of hot water in a thermos......
Driving his own car, Qi Jinnian drove against the roaring city traffic and headed towards the west of Sichuan.
When I first saw the name of Hengduan Mountain and Qi Jin Nian associated with it, I was both surprised and curious, and then I opened "Heng Duan Wave", and saw that Qi Jin Nian's works began to appear climbing, rushing to the top, patrolling the mountains, and the names of the peaks, I felt a little "unreasonable", and in the early years, I saw her write about the snowy plateau in "The Lamp of the Earth", but I didn't expect that she had really become a mountaineer and walker many years later.
Three years ago, after more than 20 years of writing and 10 years of full-time writing, she fell into a crisis of meaning, and coupled with the disruption of the normal order of life due to the epidemic, she became vulnerable, powerless, depleted, and even felt out of place with real life.
In the past three years, she has disappeared from the reader's field of vision, walked 30,000 miles, and returned with "Hengduan Waves", writing about her observations and experiences close to the mountains.
black hole
In the year of the Seven Pansies, before the sun rises, about 5 o'clock in the morning, I bake a slice of bread, drink two cups of coffee, sit down in front of the computer and start writing.
Two hours later, the honking of cars climbed the floors, the sound of the street gradually rang out, and she was still sitting there with students and office workers hurrying away, still stuck at 500 words on the word page of her computer.
Sometimes she procrastinated, didn't want to open Word, repeatedly wiped the dust from the keyboard, bit her nails, and fought a battle in her heart.
At some point, we all suddenly get caught up in the dilemma of meaning. It may be a student in the college entrance examination army, a mid-life crisis for a breadwinner, or a woman who has won a 30-year-old "package". For Qi Jinnian, the crisis came slowly but deadly, and she fell into doubt about the meaning of writing, which is almost two-thirds of her life.
Qi Jin began writing at the age of 16, and rose to prominence in the literary world through a new concept essay contest in high school, and was recruited by Guo Jingming to his command, and was once named the "post-80s best-selling queen", and published works such as "The Quilt is the Grave of Youth" and "The Lamp of the Earth" when he was in college, which can be said to be famous when he debuted.
After graduating from university, Qi Jinnian stayed in a public institution for a few years, and later gave up this stable job and chose a more liberal professional identity such as a freelance writer. But, as she said, when a person chooses to write for a living and chooses freelancing, she chooses a narrower, harder path. When her inspiration ran dry, the forests of Norway, the snow of Kilimanjaro, and the wilderness of Alaska were her antidotes.
In 2018, cave exploration first opened up the outdoor world of Qi Jiannian, at the edge of the "first-line sky" scenic spot in the Shennongjia Forest Area, Qi Jinnian walked along a crack about several kilometers long, where there were many hidden caves, and she couldn't hold back her curiosity, she turned on the flashlight of her mobile phone, and the cat explored it with a faint light. Such dark, mysterious caves, in the depths of the collective human unconscious, can always evoke fear and curiosity. After returning home, Qi Jinnian inquired about the Chongqing cave exploration team, and became one of them after interviews and training.
In 2018, Qi Jin followed the Chongqing cave exploration team into the Baojia Water Cave, and the first time she entered the cave, she seemed to have stepped into an alien planet. If you turn off your headlamp, you will be surrounded by absolute darkness and silence, countless underground rivers, countless corners, some of which have never even been set foot by humans. He entered through a "door" of about 1 meter, and through a very narrow passage, suddenly, a huge cave hall appeared, and suddenly opened up in front of him, and an underground waterfall poured down. As a writer, Qi Jiannian is extremely poor in word formation at this moment.
For more than two years, Qi Jiannian followed the Chongqing cave exploration team to go deep underground again and again, completing many surveying tasks, and these experiences were pure and fulfilling.
But writing is different from outdoor sports, and every step of the way pays off with a definite return, and years of writing have made Qi Jin feel less and less accomplished. And writing is a lonely thing, and just sitting there lacks a large part of the experience. Qi Jinnian, who is in her 20s, feels lucky enough to be able to rely on her hobby to become financially independent and gain fame, but at the age of 35, she doesn't know how to face her own works and expectations.
At the same time, round after round of epidemics have completely blocked her close connection with the outdoors, and she can't go abroad, she can't go out of the province, so she can't even go to caving activities, "In a silent or isolated state, the sky is bright and dark, dark and bright, and I shuttle between the refrigerator, desk and bed like a ghost, and I have completely become a person without a shadow." ”
Fog
met Xiao Yi in the fall of 2019, and the two hit it off at first sight. Xiao Yi is an artist, and Qi Jinnian is very fond of one of her works, which are a huge glacial boulder photographed by Xiao Yi in the woods during a mountain climb during his stay in Switzerland, sleeping peacefully in a dark forest. Xiao Yi deliberately chose to climb the mountain again and again in the morning light or twilight and photograph it again and again.
When gazing at it, Qi Jin Nian will think of cosmic time, the end of civilization. It was also in the moment of gazing at it that she felt that she and her creator would become good travel companions. And so it turned out.
A year after they met, when the epidemic control eased a little in April 2020, the two couldn't wait to set off. In "Hengduan Waves", the two drove the car again and again from the city to the plateau of western Sichuan and the mountains of Tibet, with surprises and situations along the way.
Qi Jinnian said that when she was 19 years old when she wrote "The Lamp of the Earth", she had never been to the description of the plot in Tibetan areas at that time. At that time, she described a romantic imagination that fits her and most people's snowy plateaus. Nowadays, when you really approach the plateau mountains, you find that they are not so romantic, and the smell, temperature, wind speed, and even the color of the microscopic ice crystals in the mountains are different. It can be said that the real snowy plateau is more chilling and real, and sometimes more cruel.
This cruelty becomes more obvious the closer you get to it, like going to climb a mountain.
In June 2022, Qi Jin climbed the first snow-capped mountain in his life, Nama Peak. At first, she was attracted by a photo of Nama Peak, from which she looked at the Gongga mountains, which was really beautiful. As a mere enthusiast rather than a professional mountaineer, Qi Jinnian doesn't have the idea of how many mountains she has to complete at an altitude of several kilometers, and for her, mountaineering is sometimes an aesthetic experience.
As early as April 2020, at the Jiaoding Mountain camp, she was shocked by the beauty of Gongga Mountain. It was the day after the camp, and she woke up very early, with only faint traces of light, and in the dim, quiet room where she could only hear her companion's breathing, she got up and tiptoed through the crack in the door to look out, "For a moment I almost covered my mouth, for fear of exclamation—a thousand mountains were dawning, and snow was covered with snow, like a sawtooth sprinkled with gold dust, shining across the sky." And in front of her, "the tallest, sharpest one" is the main peak of Gongga.
However, two years later, the ascent of Nama Peak was far from so lucky, it was drizzling and misty for several days, the road up the mountain was foggy, and the visibility was only two or three meters. At half past two in the morning on the day of the summit, Qi Jinnian set off with the team in the "white deep snow, thick darkness", Qi Jinnian endured violent physical reactions, and every step was painful: colic, nausea, nausea, and diarrhea.
"The fog cruelly refused to disperse, and we could see nothing but snow and rocks in front of us. One step at a time, the breathing is chaotic. ”
"When I got to a resting spot under the ice sheet, I finally got unbearable, and I had a violent nausea, vomiting incessantly, and almost tasting the bitterness of bile. ”
"All the pain stacked into a chaotic fog that peeled me alive layer upon layer. I felt like my brain was on strike, my stomach was revolting, my heart was running away, and only a pair of lungs were still struggling to hold on to my skin. ”
Before departure, the team leader said in the technical explanation that the reason why people love mountaineering is because during the hiking process, there is only "a dialogue with themselves". But at a certain limit, Qi Jinnian felt that there was no such dialogue at all. The brain is a complete blank slate, and even the occasional bits and pieces of words are nothing more than broken questions: who are you, where are you from, where are you going, what are you doing.
In the last twenty meters before reaching the summit, Qi Jinnian looked at the "terrifying" steep slope in front of him, and suddenly sat in the snow, never wanting to go again, "Fuck you, go to your summit, it's foggy anyway, and you can't see anything." Everything seemed endless: the fog was endless, the pain was endless. ”
She was almost in Xiao Yi's encouragement and "order", like "going home after a hangover and fragments, I don't know why, I still went up." ”
There is no scenery at all, because of the fog, she was unable to look at Gongga from the top of Nama Peak, and laughed that the effect of the summit photo was like tearing a white cloth in the living room at home.
Partner Xiao Yi once said at the sharing session of "Heng Breaking the Waves" that climbing is really a futile art. Qi Jinnian felt that this was indeed the case, "It's ridiculous, it's hard to go up, stay for 10 minutes at most and take a photo, to prove that you have to retreat quickly after reaching the top, why?" And every time before preparing to enter the mountain, it is very miraculous that her body begins to appear, as if the parts of the body know that the master is going to suffer, and they strike one after another: cold, hamstring pain, emotional tension...
Qi Jinnian said that the mountains are like enchantments, a world outside of time, in which people are expanding their lives with physical torture.
The experience of the limit can awaken the animal side of man, give people the experience that is lacking in daily life, always remind our minds, our eyes, our boundaries should not be trapped by comfort, and always remember that there is a wider nature beyond the city - that world, without mercy.
Life is an ocean
When I was young, I longed for poetry and distance, the corners of the world, and I went a lot in the year of Qi Jin. These journeys may have been hidden in the inspiration for one of her works, or in a single line, but they have never been a stand-alone work by Qi Jinnian.
For example, in the mountains of Alaska, in a wild and remote place, they stayed for a month, went to the city supermarket every week to buy food, and also experienced cycling and hiking, but Qi Jinnian felt that such days seemed to be not much different from her stay in Chengdu.
On the contrary, it was only 300 kilometers away from his hometown of Chengdu, when he went deep into the Hengduan Mountains in the past few years, that Qi Jiannian felt that the lifestyle or values of the herdsmen or monks living in the mountains were really very different from them.
In the book "Heng Duan Wave" and in interviews, Qi Jinnian repeatedly mentioned the story of a young monk at Katuo Monastery. Gatuo Monastery is located on the mountainside of Duonian Mountain in Bailonggou Hepo District, Baiyu County, Jinsha River Basin in western Sichuan Province, with an altitude of 4,800 meters above sea level, and only one mountain away from Tibet. Baima Dorjee is a Xi student at Katuo Monastery Buddhist College and has three years to graduate.
On the long way to the main hall, Qi Jinnian and Xiao Yi kept asking Bai Ma Duoji "like two worried parents":
"Where do you go after you graduate?"
"Which temple are you going to?"
"Would you like to go to India for further study?"
The young Baima Dorjee had obviously never faced such a question, and seemed confused, so he could only keep answering, "I don't know." "I don't know. ”
At that moment, Qi Jinnian had an epiphany and a ridiculous fact, "Our way of life and way of thinking have been magnetized by the very trajectory of artificial construction, everyone is like squeezing on a canal or a narrow road to grab the road, very tired, and you don't think that the diversity of life is completely there, just like this young monk, he just lives the present." "At the turn of the four seasons, Baima Dorjee lit a lamp and copied scriptures by the window lattice where he could see the snow-capped mountains and the moon, spending the time of a young monk from the age of fifteen to twenty-two.
▲ Photography / Chen Xiaoyi
"That's why I think that the trip to Hengduan Mountain, although very close in terms of distance, not as far away as Alaska, has inspired me in the way I look at things. ”
"The possibilities of life are supposed to be an ocean. "When you feel like you can't move, you might as well open up your horizons. No matter what profession it is, you must know that life itself has its breadth and joy.
Similar to this story, travel blogger Fang Qi also shared a story recently. In a deserted, golden crop field in the northeast, there was a scarecrow, the scarecrow was very cute, wearing flower clothes, Fang Qi wanted to shoot a video, she walked into a very inconspicuous position next to the crop field, there was an uncle leaning on a tricycle and sitting alone.
During Fang Qi's nearly an hour of shooting, no one passed by during the period, but there was always a voice in her ears, and every once in a while, "pop" - "pop" sounded. Fang Qi took a closer look, and it turned out to be the cannon thrown out of the uncle's hand - in the empty and quiet crop field, this sound became extremely harsh. When I asked, it turned out that it was the season of crop harvesting, and the uncle was scaring the birds.
Fang Qi sighed that in this long day, from early in the morning to evening, the uncle had only one thing - sitting in a deserted wilderness and scaring birds.
▲ Songmani Stone City. Photo by Chen Xiaoyi
And Qi Jinnian said that in the past three years, 30,000 miles, if writing "Hengduan Wave" has inspired her, it is that she has seen the "diversity of life" - you don't have to only do the job in front of you, not only choose to live a life expected by your parents or relatives like a canal, which is the most legitimate life. A person follows what he loves, whether it is climbing, parasailing, swimming, or being a monk on the mountain – he may not have left his village in his life, but he can find his heaven and earth and sustenance in the world of Buddhism in peace and tranquility, and that is enough.
"Life is so short, only come to the earth once, how you spend it is your right to choose, and this diversity of life is there, never forget that there is a bigger world waiting for you, and I feel that every time I go into the mountains, I can give me this relief. ”
A shrinking desire to explore
In 2018, Alaska, it was rainy.
Qi Jin Nian had never traveled with his mother, and this time because his mother wanted to go to the United States and find a quiet place, Qi Jin Nian naturally thought of distant Alaska. At the end of the trip, one day the hotel owner took a shotgun and said that he would take Qi Jin Nian to hunt, it was rainy and rainy that day, but Qi Jin Nian did not hesitate at all, happily followed the boss and his two daughters, jumped on the all-terrain off-road vehicle and set off. She spent a month in Alaska waiting for this opportunity.
But the mother is afraid of the rain, as long as it rains, she will never go out, in the residence did not find the mother of Qi Jinnian, rushed to the front desk to the boss lady "ask for someone", because of the language barrier, the mother with the translation software confused and panicked as if asking, "Where did my daughter go?" There was no signal in the hunting place, and the boss lady made more than 20 phone calls and did not contact his husband. The landlady was so nervous by her mother's emotions that she almost called the police.
▲ Photography / Chen Xiaoyi
Qi Jinnian, who finally came back from hunting outside, felt very embarrassed in the face of his mother's scolding of the boss's family. The mother and daughter, who had been together in a rare peace for a month, started a stormy quarrel at this moment. Qi Jinnian said that her mother seemed completely unable to understand her love of the outdoors.
But she recalls that once upon a time, her mother was also a woman who liked to go out very much, and she used to drive a car and say go. In the 80s, the outskirts of the city were a wilderness, and there were fields, rivers, and mountains when she went out for a walk.
Qi Jiannian found that when people grow old, the desire to explore will really shrink, and people will become quieter and more able to endure loneliness. Qi Jiannian knew that this was a normal life course, so she couldn't let herself stop when she was still young.
In fact, now she has a lot less adventure than her 20-year-old self. Just as we were in contact with Seven Sumire, she was about to leave for Patagonia, South America, and she said to me: I really can't imagine how I could travel all over Europe at the age of 20 with a backpack on my back, with a crumpled map, sleep on a green train and stay in a hostel, or go to England by myself, driving and finding my way, everywhere I went was extremely desolate.
"My desire to explore has shrunk a lot. Thankfully, at every stage of her life, she did the adventures she wanted to do.
▲The heart of the Dagu Glacier. Photo by Chen Xiaoyi
In the past few years, sometimes Qi Jin began to "torture" himself: With so much freedom, so much time, such a young and healthy body, why not create something? Whenever he asked himself, Qi Jin Nian wanted to "turn back into an animal, go home and see the mountains and their families—the woods, the streams, the mist, the birdsong." ”
In the eyes of the world, Qi Jin Nian is almost still a person who has not stabilized, has no stable unit, and has not married and started a family. Previously, she would also be anxious about age, once climbing in Liupanshui, she saw that the pioneer on the rock wall was a rock friend with dyed golden hair, two braids, and a rock friend in his 20s, but when she turned around, she found that it was an old rock friend who was old and in a very good mental state. At that moment, the worldly concepts of age anxiety disintegrated in her mind.
There are many people who can still climb mountains at the age of 70, and many old mountaineers will have to face the day when they may only be able to spend a lot of time at home, but before this happens, Qi Jinnian thinks, "I have to go out and expand the boundaries of my ability, to find that you actually have so many possibilities." ”
Qi Jinnian remembers that many years ago, she went to the coast of the Twelve Apostles in Australia alone, and walked a long way by the beach, and there was a moment when the purple sunset reflected the entire strait, which was extremely beautiful, and she was the only one on the beach at that time, and the others were all with friends or partners. She thought to herself lonely: "I am alone at this moment, I am so beautiful, and I will never come to such a beautiful place alone in the future." ”
However, after leaving there, Qi Jinnian looked back and thought about that moment, she posted one of the few moments, writing down her heart towards the sea - the world is so big, your heart should be like this.
▲Haizi in Bangor County. Photo by Chen Xiaoyi
During the three years of Hengduanlang, once she drove through the Meihan Highway in western Sichuan, which was a very niche but very beautiful highway, crossing the mountains of Dawa Liangzi, and passing by there she saw a road sign graffiti that said - Bashugonia, she thought it was wonderful!
In an instant, I realized that the land of my hometown has always been so rich and free, and in the deeper Hengduan Mountains, it will never be able to explore.
Keep walking, keep writing
If there was another version of life, what would you want to be? Seven Susy Years might want to be a beast that lives in nature.
When flying in the air, when flying to an altitude of 2,000 meters, the eagle hovers at her feet two meters away, the feathers on the eagle's back are clearly visible, and she is like a bird. Such a sense of freedom, even if it is only a short half hour, Qi Jinnian feels that he is almost alive for a month or a year.
As the writer Pasternak said: people do not live for a lifetime, but for a few moments.
On the eve of the climb to Nama, their guide showed them the documentary "The Mountaineer," about the Canadian climber Marc-André Leclerc. He was an absolute liberal, and in his short life he loved to climb, walking alone to high mountains, and in 2016 he completed his first winter solo ascent of Torre in Patagonia.
Qi Jinnian was moved for a long time after watching the film, "The concentration of life he spent and those moments, I think are incomparable." In December, she also set off for South America, where she headed for the Patagonian Plateau, a place she had wanted to visit a decade ago, and now she wanted to see the same mountain that Marc had climbed.
Now Qi Jin Nian devotes 80% of her time and energy to the outdoor world, and now she is writing more and more slowly, she is no longer worried, maybe life is inherently true: 30 years of reading, 30 years of grand travel, 30 years of writing.
"I'm the kind of guy who can only write well with a skin-to-skin experience, and the only way to get out of the predicament is to keep walking and keep writing. She said.
Want to hear more about
The story of Qi Jin Nian on the journey
The wall crack recommends everyone to read "Heng Breaking the Waves"
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