A Way to Live
My trips to Big Bend are always humbling and rewarding. First, it’s a big, relatively empty place, with lots of space between its mountains, and there are mountains galore. Humanity, despite its best efforts, has managed only the tiniest of footprints, and even those feel slightly tenuous, and are nothing compared to the memory of the dinosaurs that once roamed the landscape.
Secondly, Big Bend is old, and you can see it, and you know it, since most of what’s visible are the remnants of volcanoes, dating back 50 million years or so. Then there are the ancient seafloors you can walk on if you have the nerve and can endure the summer heat. And in all of this, there I am, thinking it would be nice to make 80, while, to the mountains, 80 is yesterday, and not much happened yesterday. In fact, if the entire history of Big Bend were condensed into a time-lapse movie, I wouldn’t even get a frame.
Nope. I’m nothing compared to Big Bend. But I enjoy this awareness of my nothingness, because it means I’m alive and thinking, and that feels good. It slows me down and gives me perspective. It helps me see that while I might be a short-lived beast in the midst of this wild land, it makes me want to live with the land rather than on it, to be a good part of its story. And that feels purposeful and worthwhile, and a nice way to live, softly.