It is often easy get wrapped up in the day to day of life and forget just how lucky we are to live amid such natural beauty.  I was recently asked by a visiting tourist if we took our home for granted, and I had to admit that yes, I think it does happen to all of us at some point.  Not necessarily in a permanent way, but I think it’s safe to say that we all have periods where we forget to truly see the grandeur of our surroundings.  A simple daily drive to work, while filled with grand splendor, becomes just another part of the mundane of our daily routine, and is easily overlooked over time.  From work life, to technology, to navigating the “ins and outs” of living in general, there are many factors that can keep our eyes, and subsequently our minds away from the treasure that is our literal back yard.

As a bar tender here in Nederland for over 20 years, I have met visiting people from all over the world, and it is always heartening to see and hear their awe at our home.  Even the immediate area of town itself brings visitors wonder, and it brings this lack of mindfulness on my own part to light in a more significant way.  I now work with a sort of “picture window” overlooking the creek and across to the southern hillside of the beginning of Big Springs.  Being my own “day-to-day”, I easily admit that it is a “meh” sort of experience anymore, as I tend to simply see the back of the hotel, the shopping center, the bank, you know, town.  I recently had a customer who sat for the duration of his lunch in awe of the hillside across the valley and remarked at least a half a dozen times how stunned he was by the beauty of the trees on the hillside.  Simply, the trees.  Initially, I thought to myself, “yup…  that’s Big Springs…  Kind of boring…”, but the more I thought about it, the more it sunk in just how many people don’t ever have anything even close to such beauty.  Where I just see town, they see a beautiful forest with an idyllic stream running through the valley, and there just happen to be buildings amid the wonder.

Modern life is an incredibly complex, and all too often stressful existence, and it is easy to understand how one can lose sight of this gift with relative ease.  Even for myself, someone who strives to spend much of my life in nature, have found myself at times losing this sight even when I am out “in the thick of it”.  I have come home from an evening walk in the woods only to realize that while I might have just been out in nature, my mind was simply not there with me, and spent its time attempting to work out whatever stress or issue that occupied it at the time.  Such is the way of the human brain. 

As I sat in this very scene a few evenings ago, it really hit me hard just how easy it is to forget.  After following some folks who were not from the area and overhearing their near-constant awe at everything about the hike, it really put things into perspective for me.  I’d done the walk countless times, in every season of the year, even in pitch dark without a flashlight.  Knowing it so well, it was easy for my mind to not “be” on the hike.  I had begun the walk ruminating on my own day, my photo work to-do list, and all other manner of “distractions”, and initially found myself with a bit of disdain as I rounded a corner and encountered them, the typical thought of “Oh great, more people…” that is all too common for me these days in our forests.  After a short while they let me pass them, and I happily did, but their words and emotion stuck with me.  I chose my destination (as seen in the accompanying image), knowing that while close to the trail it is hidden from most views and not often visited by other people, and thus would not see these people again.  As I sat and soaked in the beauty of the relative seclusion, their words and emotion sank into my heart.  Take time to give thanks for such a wondrous and even healing gift that we have in nature.  Regardless of what life is bringing to us at any given moment, we are so very incredibly blessed to have such a wondrous gift so readily at our fingertips, or should I say, footsteps. 

Originally published in The Mountain-Ear