I had been educated in the rhythms of the mountain, rhythms in

Host: The morning mist hung low over the mountain ridge, its silver veil moving like a slow, ancient breath. A small cabin perched at the edge of a valley, where the earth was still damp from last night’s rain. The sky was the color of milk, with the first rays of sunlight spilling over the pine trees, catching on the dew like tiny shards of glass.

Inside, a fireplace crackled. Jack sat near it, his hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, his grey eyes fixed on the window where the mountain loomed, silent, eternal. Jeeny stood by the door, her hair still damp from the morning fog, her breath a visible thread in the cold air.

The mountain was still, but alive—and so was the tension between them.

Jeeny: “Tara Westover wrote that she learned the rhythms of the mountain—the kind where change was never fundamental, only cyclical. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The idea that nature never really changes, only returns.”

Jack: (without looking away from the window) “Beautiful, maybe. But also delusional. The mountain erodes, Jeeny. The valley floods. Trees burn. We just don’t notice because we live too short to see the difference.”

Host: The wind moved through the trees, a low, haunting sound, like a voice remembering something ancient. Jeeny turned, her eyes reflecting the firelight, soft but burning with quiet conviction.

Jeeny: “But that’s exactly what she meant, Jack. The rhythm is the constant. Change happens, yes—but it’s part of the cycle. Snow melts, rivers rise, forests regrow. It’s not about permanence. It’s about renewal.”

Jack: (smirking) “Renewal’s just destruction with better PR. Every spring’s beauty depends on something dying in winter. We romanticize the cycle because it makes loss easier to swallow.”

Jeeny: “Or because it teaches us that loss isn’t the end. That it’s only part of something larger.”

Host: The fire snapped, sending a spark into the air, where it flickered briefly and vanished. The room smelled of pine and smoke, of wood that had been cut and burned countless times. Jack leaned back, the light from the flames painting lines of amber across his face.

Jack: “You sound like my grandfather. He used to say, ‘Everything returns to the soil.’ But he died in a mining accident, Jeeny. Buried under rock. There was no cycle in that. Just an end.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “But the soil still took him back, didn’t it? That’s the point. The cycle doesn’t stop for tragedy. It absorbs it.”

Jack: “You really believe that makes it easier?”

Jeeny: “No. But it makes it meaningful.”

Host: Her voice was steady, but her hands trembled slightly as she lifted a log onto the fire. The flames caught, flaring for a moment, and in that light, Jack watched her—something like sadness flickering behind his skepticism.

Jeeny: “You ever think about how she grew up, Jack? Isolated in the Idaho mountains, learning from the land instead of schools? Those rhythms shaped her. When she wrote that the mountain’s sun and snow repeated, she was talking about something deeper. About how stability can be its own kind of education.”

Jack: “And yet she left it. She had to. She went out and learned the world. That’s what people do—they escape cycles. They break them.”

Jeeny: “Did she really? She may have left the mountain, but she never stopped carrying it. You can’t break something that defines you.”

Jack: “So what—everything we are is just repetition? That sounds like prison to me.”

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) “Maybe it’s not a prison. Maybe it’s a heartbeat.”

Host: The light from the window shifted, the sun rising higher, pouring gold across the wooden floorboards. A bird called from the trees, its cry clear, sharp, and lonely. The world seemed to pause, as if listening to their words.

Jack: “You think that’s comforting? To know that nothing you do ever really changes the pattern? We build cities, write books, fall in love, fight wars—and it all gets erased by time. Nature wins. Always.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the comfort. That it’s not about winning. It’s about continuing. We’re not meant to escape the rhythm—we’re meant to find our place in it.”

Jack: “You sound like a mystic.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like a man afraid of peace.”

Host: Jack stood, crossing to the window, where the view of the valley stretched wide and endless. The snow from the previous week had melted into streams that glimmered in the morning light. Below, the forest was alive with movement—small birds, branches, wind.

Jack: “You know, I used to come up to places like this with my father. He’d make me wake up before sunrise, just to ‘watch the mountain breathe,’ he said. I never understood it. I just saw rock and snow.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I guess I see... time. Layers of it. Like the mountain’s been alive longer than memory.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s the rhythm Tara meant. The mountain doesn’t change, it just keeps being.”

Jack: “Maybe people should learn that trick.”

Host: The fire had burned low now, the flames soft, amber, like a pulse slowing after exertion. The room smelled of coffee, ash, and earth. Jeeny moved closer, her voice barely above a whisper.

Jeeny: “Maybe we already do, Jack. Maybe we think we’re changing, but really we’re just returning to ourselves in new forms—like the snow, like the spring.”

Jack: “And what happens when the rhythm breaks? When something changes that can’t go back?”

Jeeny: “Then the cycle starts a new pattern. That’s evolution.”

Jack: “So... even chaos has rhythm.”

Jeeny: “Always.”

Host: A long silence settled between them. Outside, the sun broke free of the clouds, and for a moment, the valley glowed—the mountain, the trees, the streams—all bathed in a light so pure it looked almost holy. Jack watched, his expression softening, the lines of tension in his face easing.

Jack: “You know... maybe that’s what she meant, after all. That we mistake repetition for stagnation. But maybe it’s... life keeping its promise.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Yes. The same sun, the same snow, the same melting spring—reminders that nothing is ever truly lost. Only renewed.”

Host: The fire crackled, and a single ember rose, glowing like a tiny sun before fading into ash. Outside, a hawk swept across the sky, circling above the peak, its shadow gliding across the valley.

And as the day warmed, the mountain breathed again—steady, ancient, eternal—while inside the cabin, two voices had found a kind of peace, each carrying the same truth in a different key:

That what feels like change is only the world remembering how to begin again.