Story Time
It has come to me that I can see. And not because I look out and see mountains, but simply because I look, and the mountains come to me. They rise into the sky and the sun beats down on their slopes and ricochets into the day, shooting through the air at unimaginable speeds toward me. If I happen to be looking, the light they’ve shed will be gathered in, put together and assembled into a picture, to which my brain will supply a word—mountain. Snap. It happens just like that.
Then my brain, because I’ve spent a lifetime reading stories, will know the mountains will have a story, and I will want to know what it is. Because everything has a story, and I like stories. And soon I will come to discover the Chisos mountains were born of volcanoes while the Ouchita rose up as plates collided. And knowing the stories will make me want to look again, to open my eyes and gather in the light. To stand even closer to see more detail, to know more of the story.
And as it is with mountains, so it is with people. I look around at my friends and the light reflects off them as they go about their business, hugging, kissing, laughing, smiling, singing songs. The light comes to me and is processed into pictures and then to stories, and sometimes I see sadness and sometimes I see love. And always, I want to know the stories, how did you come to this place, this time, are you rising up or sinking down? For we are all like mountains, we rise up to stand tall in the sun during our days before being weathered away in time only to sink back into the earth, telling our story as we go.