Mountains Calm Me

I spent a few days visiting my son and daughter in-law in Ft. Worth, Texas a few months ago when I captured this amazing picture of Mt. Rainier.

My son recently had had an emergency procedure for a spinal tumor. He is doing great now, walking all over and will make a full recovery. It was emotional for me to leave him once again. I cried a bit on the plane but as we descended towards Seattle the beautiful Mt. Rainier completely overtook me.

As photographer, I grabbed my camera, futzed with the setting and readied myself for the perfect opportunity to get a clean shot at that lovely mountain sitting proudly in the solitude of the setting sun.

As I sat perched and contorted in a seat behind the wing with the haze of a dirty and frozen window, the mountain seemed to look back at me as if saying sorry I’m not much of an opportunity or comfort right now but I am here for you.

My point in all this is, today as I look at my camera sitting on my desk and process photos, I realize there are many people we know that live like the mountain. As we become older, we begin to spend less time with family and friends and our world seems to shrink.

Because of this, a lot of self talk that occurs. We contemplate, rewind the past, and perhaps think if we had the past to do over again how we would do it differently.

Most importantly, I’ve experienced more loneliness and was a bit scared I wouldn’t feel valued for the first time. This fear of being isolated can get in the way of connections to others, the ability to be patient and thankful towards one another, and to be a comfort when others need comforting.

I saw a quote this morning,

Choose Kindness

“Today you could be standing next to someone who is trying their best not to fall apart. So whatever you do today, do it with kindness in your heart.”