I had asked my friend, Linda, to find me a bench when I took an extra day this week in Denver to visit her and her family.
She did more than that. She took me to Red Rocks, where a famous amphitheater is dramatically nestled into the foothills of the Rockies. It had benches in bunches.
We climbed to the top and chose a dry row, sat and talked. More athletically minded people around us used the stadium for workouts, while a team of shovelers methodically tossed snow to lower levels. I was thankful that my original concept for this series hadn’t been “Steps.”
After a bit, we went for a walk among the boulder and scrub brushes, dappled with white.
I was struck by the dramatic simplicity of the surroundings. With its strong shapes and lines and varying textures, it’s a designer’s delight.
But it’s also an austere landscape, brought home to me by the small herd of mule deer scraping for bits of grass in among the roots of bare bushes. “Having lived in Pennsylvania where everything grows, this can look like scrubby barrenness,” Linda said. “But I see the beauty in it now.”
That led our conversation into a more philosophical vein. Linda told me about how a tour guide in the Middle East once explained to her about how the desert is far from the lifeless world it seems at first glance. It can indeed sustain a person, if one knows what to look for. She likened challenging times in life to such a desert – daunting at first, but potentially full of wisdom to be learned, if one could learn to notice.
We debated this analogy for some time. Are those desert lessons to be taken with you as you pass through to greener fields? Or are they instructions on how to stay and survive?
To put it another way, when is restlessness a useful catalyst and when is it simply a lack of contentedness? Thomas Edison once said that restlessness is the starting point for progress. My impetus for this blog has been and continues to be an internal itching for something more significant to do with the time that’s left to me. What is that something? The answer may involve large-scale changes. But, then, it may be to live more acceptingly.
I’m sure there’s not one answer to that question. Our conversation certainly didn’t provide any clear Aha! moments. But it did remind me of a most valuable lesson.
A good friend can make even a bare landscape more welcoming.
She did more than that. She took me to Red Rocks, where a famous amphitheater is dramatically nestled into the foothills of the Rockies. It had benches in bunches.
We climbed to the top and chose a dry row, sat and talked. More athletically minded people around us used the stadium for workouts, while a team of shovelers methodically tossed snow to lower levels. I was thankful that my original concept for this series hadn’t been “Steps.”
After a bit, we went for a walk among the boulder and scrub brushes, dappled with white.
I was struck by the dramatic simplicity of the surroundings. With its strong shapes and lines and varying textures, it’s a designer’s delight.
But it’s also an austere landscape, brought home to me by the small herd of mule deer scraping for bits of grass in among the roots of bare bushes. “Having lived in Pennsylvania where everything grows, this can look like scrubby barrenness,” Linda said. “But I see the beauty in it now.”
That led our conversation into a more philosophical vein. Linda told me about how a tour guide in the Middle East once explained to her about how the desert is far from the lifeless world it seems at first glance. It can indeed sustain a person, if one knows what to look for. She likened challenging times in life to such a desert – daunting at first, but potentially full of wisdom to be learned, if one could learn to notice.
We debated this analogy for some time. Are those desert lessons to be taken with you as you pass through to greener fields? Or are they instructions on how to stay and survive?
To put it another way, when is restlessness a useful catalyst and when is it simply a lack of contentedness? Thomas Edison once said that restlessness is the starting point for progress. My impetus for this blog has been and continues to be an internal itching for something more significant to do with the time that’s left to me. What is that something? The answer may involve large-scale changes. But, then, it may be to live more acceptingly.
I’m sure there’s not one answer to that question. Our conversation certainly didn’t provide any clear Aha! moments. But it did remind me of a most valuable lesson.
A good friend can make even a bare landscape more welcoming.
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