Nature's Example
It rained. The day we were scheduled to see the most spectacular scenery in New Zealand the other week, clouds obscured the vistas. I've experienced this many times before. The most memorable was the 8 weeks I spent trekking, mostly in very damp conditions, in Alaska when I was 14. Any glimpse of blue sky and sun during that trip was a revelation. I don't know why unobstructed views of majestic peaks are so idealized, except they are easy to photograph. Other, more dynamic states of shifting clouds, light, and moments of precipitation are more interesting, if less comfortable. As a student, I was taught to receive what was conveyed growing up. At some point that script needs to be flipped, and the responsibility for acquiring insight and knowledge, if any inherent curiosity remains, must become mine. In college, I took a writing class with a notoriously curmudgeonly and reportedly harsh professor. I humbled myself to the task and learned that when you truly embrace a pursuit, it is not about what an instructor can bestow, but rather what I can glean from what they share. While I valued the many sunny days of the last two weeks of travel, I wasn't crestfallen to roam the Milford Sound surrounded by wet, moody, partial vistas. At times, the sheer walls of slick rock that plunged so steeply into the sea emerged from clouds that made them seem as if they rose infinitely. Hundreds of impromptu streams and waterfalls covered their vast faces, looking like veins and holding me in a deeper embrace than if I could clearly see their peaks.
