New Vistas

It’s late in life to find my way west, but that’s what I’ve done. In the last six years, I’ve spent more time in West Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado than in the previous 74 years combined. I wonder sometimes how I missed it, but there’s no point spending too much time pondering why. It was just a thing that happened, in much the same way that I missed a lot of musicians I’ve come to enjoy late in life. Our paths just never crossed when I was young.

Now that they have, they’ll never come uncrossed, because the west speaks to me. Having spent most of my adult life in the service of others (parents, teachers, bosses, family), my life, like the West, is open ground, there to be explored and examined. It feels a little odd to be unencumbered, but not unpleasant. Having passed from the old ground of one life to the new ground of another, I might as well explore it now that I’m here.

And the west is a great place to explore. The life of the continent upon which I live is laid bare. There are traces of oceans, the leavings of volcanoes, earth raised high into mountains, and earth laid low by rain. It’s the story of the earth and the universe. And it makes me feel good that I’m alive and able to see that story and know that I have a part in something so big and majestic.