View from the Summit

It is the time for introspection, there are many routes to understanding the nature of our being. I seek to look within and climb to the mountain top, a place I first found walking in the footprints of my father, and upon the summit would slowly turn around in awe of the hawks and eagles, their wings built for graceful circles in the sky below.

I have spent not all but good portions of my life anxious or in despair, time wasted if I’d only known how precious each tick of the clock was. I sit surprised that I am at the other side of a long life more or less intact while my family and friends have crossed into the mist.

Time has softened my regret into the warmth of melancholy. Equal parts cherishing those wondrous moments and suffering that they were not recognized or celebrated at the time we lived them.

I climb the trail that once heard the tall tales that my father would share, that began with our gasps and ended with our laughter, my sister, my brother and me at the punch line or the sweetness of his puns it sometimes took me a minute to understand.

Now I am the elder alone on the hilltop, looking down upon the Lilliputian world where I had lived unconsciously. I think back to those days before the swift current swirled around me and dashed me against its rocky shores.

The clarity the summit provides is its own awakening, and I sit in gratitude for all that came before and the gift each moment brings in the present.