Endless

Endless. Horizon stretching unbearable, blues shading into greens, teals, purples--white snow sharp against misty prospect.

How did we get here, to the eagle-sight of Oregon, to the clean air that fills us like wine and sweeps through us like water? Do invisible ties bind us to the sultry heat of Missouri, where crops wither and folks take shelter? As we stand on the snow and our feet sink into the icy crystals, as we clutch each other for balance and laugh in startled delight, do our souls ascend to the heavens, since we're so much closer now?

The faces we've basked in--those behind us engaging in post-wedding revelry, those of family familiar to us in their sorrow and their joy, those of new companions of the road--fill our hearts now, papering the walls of our internal rooms with mystery. We are the product of all that has come before--we are ancient, we are infants. We dance in the freedom of life and we bend under the weight of experience.

At the summit of Mt. Hood, we pause for a family picture. Sublimity and prosaic reality intersect. Life eddies and swirls around us. We breath. We exist.

We are endless.