The Long View

long view

It's official: I am an erratic, unreliable blogger. My weather seems to be scattered word-storms, intermittent inspiration, and long silent droughts. But one of the things I've learned as I've gotten older is to step back sometimes and look at the big picture rather than getting buffeted about by spurts of mood and circumstance. For at least five years (and more than a decade if you include my Zacate Canyon site) this website/blog has been pretty good ground for poking around. No one said I had to be consistent.  I'm going to take the long view here.

I guess the word is perspective. And it is what getting older teaches us, in life as well as blogging. When I am miserable, I sort of know that sooner or later I'll snap out of it. When I am happy, I might as well enjoy the feeling because I know very well it will pass. The piper will make me pay, the other shoe will drop, and if anything can go awry, it will.  I'll have a lot of failure and a little success and I  better not alter my assessment of myself too radically each time. Things will never be completely settled and resolved; I may as well accept the ambiguity.

And time, oh, time will fly.

The picture above was taken during a hike with Carey and Badger Wednesday morning. We did a bit of cross-country, having to climb a few of those hills to get back to our canyon, now and then getting a little disoriented in the process. It wasn't until we reached a high point and could look out that we knew exactly where we were and the best path home.

It takes some effort and some faith, but at last you stand at the top and see far...the long view. I know I'm stretching the metaphor--I do that a lot--but I'm thinking that the long view is the real perk of getting older, too. You've come some distance, you have a sense of what that means. Perspective.

I'm feeling especially reflective because I have a birthday coming up in a few days, and it's just an odd-number kind of birthday, but a number substantial enough to make me do a double-take. I hope to return with more thoughts soon...no guarantees, but I might.