It was a warm spring day and I was driving through a townhouse complex near a freeway. Townhouses are homes build side-by-side-by-side in a row. These were in rows of eight in each building and surrounded by a beautiful, green lawn. There were big cottonwood trees throughout the complex and a nice, paved road that ran between the buildings. Through the middle of the complex ran a creek. The creek was about twenty-feet-wide and was framed by trees on both sides. In the creek were medium sized boulders and smaller rocks - all polished smooth from years of water running over them. What was unique on this day was small stacks of rocks distributed around a section of the stream. When mountain climbing, there are times when there is no "real" trail to follow. Hikers stack rocks on top of each other to create a marker called a "cairn." Someone or someones had taken a lot of time to build many cairns atop the larger rocks in the stream. The combinations of shadows of the trees, the sunlight breaking through the small openings in the leaves and then glimmering on the water was already beautiful. But these small stacks of rocks (none more than one-foot-tall) were unique. I thought I should take a picture but that would require getting out of the truck and walking down an embankment. Who has time for all of that? I promised I would go back soon and I was back there within a week. Unfortunately the cairns were gone. At first I was disappointed in myself for not capturing the image with my camera but was more depressed when thinking that someone would knock down the work of another. Maybe their destruction was accidental - knocked over by small wildlife in the area. Maybe they were picked apart wistfully by a young heart using the stones instead of a flower pedals while determining whether he loved her or loved her not. Quite possibly they were used as target practice by the people who built them. Who could deny them that right since, after all, they built them. No matter the reason, I vowed to not take those opportunities for granted again. I am pleased to say that I have kept my promise.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Things I've Seen #1
It was a warm spring day and I was driving through a townhouse complex near a freeway. Townhouses are homes build side-by-side-by-side in a row. These were in rows of eight in each building and surrounded by a beautiful, green lawn. There were big cottonwood trees throughout the complex and a nice, paved road that ran between the buildings. Through the middle of the complex ran a creek. The creek was about twenty-feet-wide and was framed by trees on both sides. In the creek were medium sized boulders and smaller rocks - all polished smooth from years of water running over them. What was unique on this day was small stacks of rocks distributed around a section of the stream. When mountain climbing, there are times when there is no "real" trail to follow. Hikers stack rocks on top of each other to create a marker called a "cairn." Someone or someones had taken a lot of time to build many cairns atop the larger rocks in the stream. The combinations of shadows of the trees, the sunlight breaking through the small openings in the leaves and then glimmering on the water was already beautiful. But these small stacks of rocks (none more than one-foot-tall) were unique. I thought I should take a picture but that would require getting out of the truck and walking down an embankment. Who has time for all of that? I promised I would go back soon and I was back there within a week. Unfortunately the cairns were gone. At first I was disappointed in myself for not capturing the image with my camera but was more depressed when thinking that someone would knock down the work of another. Maybe their destruction was accidental - knocked over by small wildlife in the area. Maybe they were picked apart wistfully by a young heart using the stones instead of a flower pedals while determining whether he loved her or loved her not. Quite possibly they were used as target practice by the people who built them. Who could deny them that right since, after all, they built them. No matter the reason, I vowed to not take those opportunities for granted again. I am pleased to say that I have kept my promise.
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