Mid-afternoon and I’m literally in the clouds. I tack my way up the trail, steady but careful, the rubber soles of my Nike running shoes occasionally slipping on loose stone. I stop. The straps of my backpack dig into the flesh of my shoulders. I unsling it, wipe sweat from my forehead. Below, Innsbruck lines along the serpentine banks of the Inn River. Long s-curve. Colorful buildings on either side. The Inn Valley has been inhabited continuously since the height of the Roman Empire. The United States is young.

I re-sling my backpack and continue up the trail. Birds chirp and sing. At times the wind whispers the trees. But mostly I hear my own steady breathing. A few days later, near the top of the mountain, I would note lightheadedly the power altitude lords over the blood-oxygen levels of human beings.

I hadn’t planned to do this hike. Only a few hours ago, it had been raining, torrentially. I had walked 5 kilometers umbrella in hand to an outpost overlooking Innsbruck known as Alpenzoo. Sipping an espresso, I attempted to plan the next week of my journey. I had spent the beginning of the week in Vienna, sick, tired, and as a result, overwhelmed by the largess of Austria’s cultural heart. The cafes were excellent and the architecture palatial, but the fanciest coffee and most beautiful buildings do little to boost your mood if you’re physically unwell. If anything, they result in a sort of cognitive dissonance: “Shouldn’t I be enjoying this more than I am?”

After a few days in Vienna spent recovering, I took the recommendation of a friend and left for Tyrol, a culturally-unique region in the West of Austria renowned for its ski resorts and folk-traditions. Its capital, Innsbruck, lays in the shadow of the Nordkette (Northern Chain of the Alps). I was lucky enough to find an Airbnb at a good price a mile from the center of town. My host, Jea, had recently finished her masters in Sweden, taken a new job in Switzerland, and stayed up later chatting with me on my first night in town. What I had expected to be a cursory conversation quickly morphed into a discussion on travel, work-life balance, cultural differences, and cultural similarities.

After a good first night, Jea and her Husband Andrea, a friendly, stylish Italian man, were kind enough to take me out for a beer. It dawned on me as we drove back to their flat after a fun night out that the reliable thrill of solo travel, of meeting strangers and switching cities every few days, had begun to wane sometime between the second and third week of perpetual hellos and goodbyes. Travelers are, by their nature, always moving on. This makes hostels exciting, depressing social spaces, depending on your needs. I knew that I’d say bye to Jea and Andrea too — at the time of writing this, I have — but spending time with them in a more familiar way made me recall something Sarah Dessen once wrote: “home is not a place but a moment.”

For the most part, I’ve begun to realize, it is people who make those moments. Jea and Andrea’s flat didn’t feel like home. Getting drinks with them, having a meaningful conversation, returning to a shared apartment, as I had done so many times with my best friends at Dartmouth — that was home.

For the past three days, I’ve been at peace hiking in the Alps, intrigued by topographical changes; how the trees shrink at higher elevations until only moss grows (and grows prolifically). I’ve been challenged on my runs by the sheer vertical fortitude of the landscape and humbled by nature’s intractability. At the same time, I’ve been inspired by the simultaneous efforts of other hikers, runners, and mountain bikers to engage in the seemingly straightforward but utterly exhausting challenge of moving their bodies upwards in space and then, with slightly less effort, back down. I’ve been satiated in the most surprising and delicious way by Tiroler Speckknödel (local bacon and bread dumplings) from an Alm (Austria mountain lodge) that I stumbled upon during one of my hikes.

But for the most part, I’ve been lucky. Lucky to still have a functioning Nikon camera despite sporadic thunderstorms, omnipresent fog, and fumbling my camera more than once. Lucky to recover from whatever viral pathogen plagued me earlier in the week (thank you Speckknödel). But also lucky in ways that feel more existential. I only met Jea and Andrea because I decided, after reading a few Airbnb reviews, to apply to stay with them. I only went to Tyrol in the first place at the recommendation of a friend (who, as luck would have it, I will see in a few hours once I arrive in Zurich). I only went on that first fabulous hike up Hafelekarspitze because of a break in the rain. So much of life, I’ve begun to think, isn’t what we plan, but what we choose to embrace.

So, the Jam Study. It's famous. Consumer psychology and whatnot. Basically, two psychologists sold jam at a Bay Area supermarket. For a time, they displayed six jams, and then for another equal period of time, twenty-four. It turned out people were more likely to stop and sample the jam when there were 24 jars on display, but they were ten times more likely to buy jam from the 6-jar display. Why? Because of “decision fatigue.” Every decision takes energy. We like to feel like we’ve thought things through. Completely. But energy is finite. Most things are.

finitude of my own energy made apparent on this climb

While traveling by myself, I’ve experienced decision fatigue. Where to go? When? Where to stay? What to eat? How to get there? Side-note, but figuring out public transport in a new place where I don’t speak the language is currently the bane of my existence and weirdly, inexplicably empowering. But choices. Yes. I’m limited by budget, but beyond that and not getting seriously injured, I'm beholden only to myself. I'm more or less free to pursue whatever I believe will make me happy. So I should go here or do "X" because that will make me happy, right? But what about place Y and thing Z? The problem with happiness is you can't really prescribe it, not with a high degree of certainty anyway. Happiness, I've come to believe, is about letting go of what you can't control and embracing what you have. Happiness is going for a hike when the rain stops. Happiness is choosing a jam and loving the hell out of it while it lasts.