That is one of my mom’s favorite sayings. She trots it out whenever I am upset, and then she smiles. For some reason, it almost always makes me smile too. It is like another thing she says: The best thing to do when your troubles get really big is to relax and not worry about them, because they are way beyond your control. Somebody who doesn’t know my mom might think that her saying things like that means she is telling me to give up and be a quitter. But that’s not it at all. What she is talking about is a kind of mental jujitsu, a reminder that you shouldn’t wear yourself out with worry and self-pity when things are tough. Let me put it this way: If you fall into a flooded river and you are being swept downstream, you can’t escape from drowning by struggling against the current. Instead, you should put the current at your back, let it carry you along, and try to angle your way toward the shore downstream. Go with the flow. Like I’m doing now. We’re driving up Base Road, the approach to the slopes of Mount Washington, which leads to the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail that ascends to Lake of the Clouds Hut and is the shortest route up Mount Washington from the west.
