Looking back down on the way I had come I knew the return would be tough. What got me here was going to be repeated. What goes up must come down. But for now, I rested. The view stretched forever. A snow-covered mountain glistened. The sky was eternally blue. A range of steep, forested hills […]
Letter: Side By Side
She knows I love to hike, though saunter is more the word that describes our pace. Because I am irresistibly drawn to places where beauty, wonder, and awe abound, to be inspired as with Descartes’s portrayal of wonder as ‘that sudden surprise of the soul,’ (“Wonderstruck – How Wonder and Awe Shape the Way We […]
Letter: The Best Treasure of All
“Would you like your hand back?” Everywhere we go, to the car, to the store, hiking a trail, or sitting on a park bench, my hand is in hers and thus hers in mine. And once every week we go treasure hunting, to the mountains, to the sea, and near waterfalls we find tiny flowers, […]
Letter: The ‘Periwinkle Girls’
The lesser periwinkle is so called “because it is smaller than its close relative, the greater periwinkle.” Like the little lavender-blue flower we found at our feet below the locks attached to the fence that proclaimed forever love, she is the shortest of the three girls – her “close relatives” – her daughter and granddaughter. […]
Letter: O Love That Will Not Let Me Go
There were many of them, hundreds perhaps. Several were etched with messages of endearing love, a never-letting-go love, a number of them symbolizing their forever love by two matching locks being intertwined and locked together. Presumably, the keys to all were tossed to be forever lost in the loud and raging waters cascading to the […]
Letter: From Sunrise to Sunset
From sunrise to sunset, from start to finish, from beginning to end, from east to west, from Washington to Tennessee, grandeur, and beauty, and majesty, and glory, and royalty, and dignity are on display. Encompassing all, the whole earth with respect to all its inhabitants and creatures are witnesses and are given pause and cause […]
Letter: Treasure Hunting
The filtered sunlight through the fog-enshrouded trees drew us irresistibly upward along the split-rail fence that initially bordered the trail and served as a safeguard from the rocks below. This protection, perched at the edge of the cliff, soon gave way to a sign warning of slippery trails and ever-increasing heights, and yet the hope […]
Letter: Celebrating Love and Life
The weathered limbs, sparsely adorned with greenery, attached to spindly trunks, hung motionless atop the bluff, overlooking, as if contemplating, the wide expanse of sea. A lone seagull appeared between heaven and earth, wings seeming never to move, soaring, as if celebrating, effortless and free. Far-distant snow-capped peaks rose above the haze that had settled […]
Letter: Had We Been in a Hurry
We could have hurried home, as that was initially the plan, even though the distance yet to travel was not insignificant. After all, we had work to do. But we didn’t. We lingered, watched, mesmerized. Had we been in a hurry, we would have missed standing arm-in-arm as the sun slowly settled into the sea. […]