Have you ever stood on the edge of a precipice, and feared it, but also looked about, spinning in all directions like Maria in The Sound of Music, dizzy, joyous, and completely awestruck? The view! The accomplishment!
I believe this is Long’s Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Sometimes I forget to label my photos, but I never forget the wonderment.
Or, maybe you were so tired that all you wanted was to do was teleport through time and space, and find yourself, your old self,
whole and hopeful, somewhere and sometime else. I certainly have. And sometimes we can do that for a time. Close our eyes and
dream it. But we always wake up.
So you stand on the top of this particular mountain, and you don’t know whether to fall, or to fly, or to trudge back down the
same way you came up, erasing the missteps, retreating to safety—but you know you must do something.
Or perhaps, arriving there was the only point. The destination and not the journey. A place to reflect, and perhaps take a
photograph. Plant a flag.
It’s funny that no one ever really knows if what they experience is natural or common to others, but still, some of us wish to
find out. For many of us, it’s reassuring to think that we aren’t alone in our displacement, or instability, or lack of perspective. For
others, it’s the individual experience that matters, the thing that only that person can learn in exactly that way. It’s their chance at
epiphany.
I believe writers seek their epiphanies through their craft, and cherish the selfishness of the pursuit, but also need to believe in
the possibility of finding connections, heart, mind, and soul, whether that be with themselves, their readers, or something much
more ephemeral. For me, there is also an urge to understand the natural world.
So here I am today, in the bright hours between storms, standing on the precipice of an unknown future. Knowing that nothing
is certain, and big changes are ahead. I think I’ll call it Today.
Photo provided by Pexels
LakeArrowheadLadyWriter 