ruins

i always look down whenever i hike. i don’t know why…maybe it’s my incessant fear of well, ...everything, but especially of falling. maybe it’s because i always hike in open toe Chacos. i’m always looking at my feet. until i hear Nick say, “look up.” and everytime i do, i’m floored (in the safe way) by all the beauty that surrounds me here in the Pacific Northwest. the cedars looming large, the lichen trapezing all around, the true mountains that scoff at Appalachian hills. fresh meadow air dancing thru cool alpine against God’s blue sky. rainier remains forever in the back drop, bright white with snow.

and it’s for us.

grandeur waits to show herself like a virgin to her lover. we just have to stop our journey for a moment, all our getting to the destination, our constant one foot in front of the other, our progressing turning to forgetting until we’re found at our ‘destination’ unrecognizable to ourselves.

i did this a bit tonight. i stopped. i sat outside. i got the bugbites. i was with the evening as it faded, as the sky settled from blue to lavender and every shade of pink. the soft glow of colors funneled together toward the mountains like the day was calling them home. the sun streaked one last, bright hurrah. an otter floated by lazily. the day was done. and so was i.

it forces me to wonder who i might be if i had done this, been this, last year, last month or even just last week. in all the ‘getting’ i got nothing desired. in all the ‘becoming’ i became my own memory.

regrets are never answered.

but life, like God, proves gracious. each day offering a re-do for the shot you thought you had, but missed terribly.

and we all awake humbled.


Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.
~Rumi