Bold tracks and Bagpacks

  Just the other night, I lay awake staring at the ceiling, silently wishing it was Friday. Not because I had big weekend plans - no, because I wanted to cancel them and just sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come. And when it doesn’t, at least for me, it usually means one of two things: either I’m anxious about something, or I’m paying the painful price of skipping the gym for too long. This time, it was the latter. My arms, legs, back, and even the small muscles I didn’t know existed were staging a full-blown protest after this week’s workouts. Lesson learned: comfort has consequences. Still, I had a hike planned with my team, and there was no way I was going to bail. So I made a deal with my body - pain and I would have to coexist. We’d negotiate our way to the summit, spend the day in the wilderness, and hopefully come down not just alive, but renewed. That’s the paradox of movement. It hurts sometimes. It demands sacrifice. But in the same breath, it heals. Movement is medicine. ...

  It’s been a while since I last wrote here. Writing had quietly become a rhythm in my life, almost like breathing, something I owe not only to myself, but to the world that listens back when I share. For the last three months, books, myths, and poems have been my companions, grounding me in unexpected ways. The turning point was @Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves . To call it a book feels too small. It is a portal, into the psyche of women, into the wisdom of ancestors, into the wildness we often silence. Clarissa weaves stories like threads, reminding us that fairy tales and myths were never just “children’s tales.” They were maps, coded with symbols, showing us how to navigate love, loss, struggle, and rebirth. At first, the weight of the book almost overwhelmed me. Its stories ,  The Handless Maiden, The Skeleton Woman, The Crescent Moon Bear, La Llorona, Sealskin/Soulskin  etc, each echoed through different corners of my life. They whispered tr...

  This Sunday afternoon, under the strange glow of the September 7th red moon, my mind decided to open its floodgates. Thoughts came streaming in like uninvited guests at a house party—loud, messy, but oddly revealing. I found myself asking: what really is the game of life? Because if you look at it too closely, it feels like a rigged board. Play it well, eat your greens, run your miles, chase careers, build families, and still, the clock runs out, and you die. Play it carelessly, burn through the midnight oil of recklessness, and you still die. Either way, the exit door is the same. So what exactly are we here for? And worse—imagine spending a lifetime chasing someone who doesn’t love you, or running after jobs, relationships, or “destinies” that were never yours in the first place. You turn your back on people and places that genuinely welcome you, and instead sprint head-first into rejection, chaos, and heartbreak. You wake up one day and realize you’ve been auditioning for ...

 I climbed a mountain, but the higher I went, the more I realized— the real ascent was inside me. Between Arusha’s blur and Moshi’s song, I shed politeness like an old skin. Strangers became philosophers, altitude turned us into children of honesty. At Gilman’s Point, my body staged a rebellion. Not defeat— but wisdom, whispering: Sometimes, you conquer by turning back. Now, off the trail, I feel the same altitude rising in my mind. Detachment, visions ahead of their time, synchronicities dancing like hidden guides. I ask: Am I rewired, or simply awake? Books speak through me— Jung’s shadows, Marcus’s stillness, Gibran’s fire. Each word a river, each page a mirror. I crave solitude— mountains, hills, silence— because only in aloneness do the voices in me sing instead of scream. And I want it all— joy and grief, birth and death, music and silence, truth so raw it cuts through pretense. For life is a construct, a stream of passing waters, and I...

  The Journey Begins: A Bus, A Book, and a Breath of Relief Before I even set foot on the mountain, a man on our bus to Tanzania summed it up perfectly: “For once, I feel a sigh of relief — no pressure of work, no pressure of family, no pressure of hiking… just me, existing.” He spoke for me too. Because Kilimanjaro isn’t just a mountain. It’s a pilgrimage. Armed with Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet (which I devoured faster than I expected), I watched Arusha blur past the window, Moshi welcome us warmly, and the first communal songs of the mountain melt away the awkwardness of strangers. That night, we weren’t just hikers. We were family-in-the-making. Day One & Two: Pole Pole (Slowly, Slowly) They say pole pole in Tanzania. Slowly, slowly. And they mean it. Our first day was a test of patience more than endurance. We napped in the sun, swapped stories, laughed, and waited until nearly 4PM to actually start hiking. But stepping into camp after that first 8 kil...

  Two months ago, I picked up a book whose very cover felt like a secret invitation — Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Not the kind of book you read curled up neatly with a cup of tea, but the kind you carry into the wind, the kind that stains your fingers with soil and your heart with truth. It’s a wild book. Humbling, arousing, reclaiming. It shakes you until the dust of everyone else’s expectations falls away, until you can see the shape of yourself again — woman, wife, sister, daughter, friend, dreamer, doer. I didn’t just read it; I trekked through it. And fittingly, I ended its final chapters on a trail — Mt.Kinangop, North Mutarakwa Trail. The Trail Begins The morning air was sharp, like it had been poured straight from a glacier. Clouds hung low, brushing the tops of the ridges. My boots sank slightly into the wet earth, releasing the smell of moss and memory. Twenty-eight kilometres stretched ahead — a long brown ribbon winding between hil...

  They said it was a half marathon. Just 21 kilometers . Just. I signed up like a confident trail queen, barely out of a month-long slump that had me running nothing but thought loops and reruns of “Do I still got this?” The last time I ran 21 kilometers? Pre-COVID . You know, another lifetime ago . A whole pandemic, career change, and mental evolution had happened since then. So why now? Because the tagline whispered to me: “Miles for Education.” I whispered back: “Let’s make it personal.” 🌪️ The First Five: Motivation on Steroids I hit the ground flying—well, jogging with flair. The first 5K was pure TED Talk energy. I was sprinting on every motivational podcast I’d ever absorbed. Mel Robbins was in my ear. David Goggins was in my veins. Oprah was narrating my life. Then came kilometer 7. 🧠 Kilometer 7 to 15: Autopilot & Existential Crises This is where the race turned into therapy . Kilometer 7 didn’t just hit me—it threw a philosophical brick to my face. S...