"how do you just… breathe through it," they asked, and i thought of the metal taste of thermos coffee at altitude, how it’s not just a drink but a feeling, an earned warmth that settles deep in the bones after a long push. there's a kind of clarity that comes with that, a knowing that the ground beneath you, even when it feels like nothing, is holding. it's what the mountain teaches, one step at a time, that you're more than the tremor.