First of all, let me highly recommend a trip to Colorado whenever you get a chance. There is so much variety in that state, there are so many things to do, that you will always find something there to enjoy.
My personal favorite is Rocky Mountain National Park. You start with sweeping meadows ringed by pine trees. Then you drive up Trail Ridge Road along switchbacks and past craggy rocks. Finally you emerge above the treeline to another world: the alpine world. Here everything is short and tough, designed to withstand the high winds and cold temperatures. And the views are breath-taking, everywhere you look. "Purple mountains' majesty" starts to make sense.
Throughout the park, there is abundant wildlife to be seen: elk, moose, deer, marmots, chipmunks, ground squirrels, untold species of birds, and much more.
Among all of this, however, I have found one thing that I enjoy more than anything else: the mountain stream.
When I was a child, I loved to throw rocks or sticks into the stream: rocks for the satisfying 'sploosh' and sticks because I could run alongside and track where the current took them.
Now, however, I'm content to sit beside the stream and listen to what it has to tell me.
Then something happens: when I listen to the stream, my head goes silent. All those random thoughts, all those worries, all the planning and plotting that fills my head—it all goes away. I'm left with only the sound of water tumbling over rocks ... and a peace that is rare for me.
I sat beside such streams several times during my trip. Each time, there was only the stream and nothing else mattered. It was the ultimate form of meditation.
Don't get me wrong: I drank in the mountain views, the wildlife and the wildflowers, which were everywhere. I cried when I had to leave ... and I stared at the rearview mirror for as long as the mountains were visible there.
But now I feel a stillness that I couldn't achieve before this trip.
I don't know how long it will last, but for now I'm holding onto it. I like the calmness, the peace, the feeling that things will be all right.
I'm trying to keep the mountain stream in my heart.
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| Stream at Hidden Valley, Rocky Mountain National Park |
