I probably should have stopped, taken off my heavy pack, and then my boots and socks, rolled up my pants and waded in this beautiful stream.
Though weary, hot, and breathing heavily from the just completed three miles of switchbacks up the mountain, and knowing I had only a mile to go with more of the same, I just knew how difficult it would be to get started again.
But I should have taken the time to splash about, catch my breath, and listen longer to the laughing, chortling, bubbling water as it meandered by.
I should have.
I did take this picture though as it was such a pleasant reprieve if only to watch and listen for a moment or two, so in contrast as it was to the arduous, tortuous trek up the mountain.
Here, turning this way and that as it found its way through the forest of trees – now and then a small waterfall, weaving down and around and under a tangle of logs – was sheer happiness in the form of this little stream.
No wonder someone wrote of the mystical and magical sound of “the rhythmic flow of vibrant emerald green waters.”
Before our business was destroyed by fire, my office featured a 10-inch band of wallpaper bordered in cedar that circumscribed the wall around me at eye level. The scene is set in some remote valley, wispy clouds obscuring but a few of the many mountainous peaks that tower above a log cabin – smoke curling from the rock chimney – nestled among the Evergreens.
I picture there a couple seated close together on the steps, enjoying one another’s early morning company, a cup of coffee for him, cocoa for her, cradled in their hands, the scene so tranquil, their love for who they’re with and where they are so beautiful, so peaceful.
And a bubbling brook – the sound of which you could almost hear – curving round a short distance away.
She’s gone now.
And I think that’s why I walk the forest trails, remembering, needing to take off my boots and socks, roll up my pants and go wading in the happy bubbling brook that meanders nearby.
