Must I Always Be Reminded?

A mid-hike crisis

EB 

At Interstate State Park the basalt cliffs rise in dark, geometric silence above the St. Croix River. Across the river, a border humanity decided will separate us from Wisconsin. They are remnants of an eruption so ancient it predates continents as we know them—lava that once spread across most of the thick forests cooling into dark, towering pillars that now stand like the ribs of time itself.

The rock feels absolute. It doesn’t meet your gaze; it simply endures it. Standing there, you feel the scale shift—quite literally, as the basalt messes with the gravitational pull. The river moves, the trees rustle, your pulse quickens in the heat after steep hikes. The stillness of the basalt cliffs mocks you for the pace of our lives. Why must nature always remind us of how little we matter? Why does its permanence provoke awe, unease? Every human measure—memory, ambition, love, grief––is too short to register against the timeline of these wonders. 

The cliffs at Interstate hold the imprint of ancient fluidity-—rivers of molten earth frozen mid-motion. During the Ice Ages rivers carved deep peaks. What was once fire, once water, once moved freely just as we do. Our transformations end in disappearance. Their stillness is an obliged survival; ours is surrender.

How do we compare to this? Our bones crumble before their echo fades in air. Even our monuments will erode into the river the basalt has watched for ten thousand years. Yet perhaps that is the point. The stone does not know itself as enduring; it simply is. We, knowing we will vanish, reach for meaning in the brief time between erosion and ash.

The basalt’s indifference is not cruel––it is complete. Against it, we see the truth of what it means to live: to live and love, to appreciate the beauty, if only briefly, in a world that endures in spite of us.