At the traffic light, down the street from home. 

Sometimes, a commute home (albeit only 10-15 minutes) offers an opportunity for mindfulness & reflection. You’re given those minutes guilt-free, to think, listen to music, or hear a podcast or audio book. Mostly, I tend to think, getting lost in my head.

Admittedly, my evening commute home in Utah is a particularly pretty one, with the Wasatch Mountains wrapped around the edge of the basin. As noted in yesterday’s post, the blues of twilight leave me in awe, like those Romantic poets who toured the Alps & tried to capture the sublime in their verse. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, & because you really can’t write while driving, I rely on pictures to freeze those moments so I can revisit them. These are a few.

The snowy mantel draped across the Wasatch Mountains. 

In my opinion, there really is strange kind of magic when the sublime & the beautiful combine, where the sublime taps into grandness on such a scale that it inspires awe, even fear. When majestic peaks tower above you, it’s difficult to ignore a primal instinct of warning felt deep inside, deep in your gut. Heights scare me, not to the point that I won’t overcome it, but it’s there lurking under the surface, creating physical discomfort. Climates of extreme cold trigger that pronounced flight or fight response in me.

Maybe that’s why stories of the Endurance, climbing Everest, & the Titanic have always fascinated me? As a child, I’d pull leather-bound volumes from our family encyclopedia set to look at the glossy pictures of tall ships trapped in ice pack.

Mountains in the early evening. 

Now, when I look at the Wasatch Range as an adult & remember how the Donner Party cut their way through this very winter landscape, I’m humbled by Nature’s power over human life. When you remember that the world is so much bigger than you, that you only have an illusion of control over things around you, you can feel liberated. You put things into perspective, & relax your death grip on life & unclench your teeth. Visual reminders of my human frailty help me to understand the bigger metaphysical question, help me to place things into perspective.

For me, the most profound landscapes that provide me with that reminder are impressive mountain ranges & the wild, wild sea. And I make it a point to have both in my life for this very reason.

Late afternoon in my office, heading out to go home.