Monday, November 28, 2005

The Nature of Things

This weekend I travelled down to Southern California sort of on a whim. But not really. I'd been thinking about how to do it when, there was a slight opening in the window of opportunity, so I jumped through. And I am SO glad I did!

From start to finish I (and my brother, at times) logged 2700-ish miles down and back the left coast in a total of 45 actual driving hours. That may seem crazy, but we feel like we dawdled. In my opinion, it's some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. There are the snow capped Cascades, the Siskiyous in Oregon and Northern California and...okay so Central California doesn't even deserve the word 'boring', but then there's that Southern California. When you slide down the south side of the Grapevine and the sun is beaming through the palm trees....aaahhhh!!I grew up...okay....I got taller (since I'm still refusing to grow up) down there and I must admit, I LOVE it!

While I love beautiful scenery and the sunshine and palm trees and the beaches and the grandeur of the the rocky cragged mountains, those were not the favorite part of my trip. My favorite moments happened when I noticed the nature of God in the people he's blessed me with. Sharing coffee with my brother and his girlfriend. Watching movies, listening to loud laughter, talking about nothing in particular, seeing true joy in the eyes of my friend, having my cheeks hurt from smiling at her daughter, that's the nature I enjoyed this weekend.

It was hard to leave. Harder than walking away from the Grand Canyon, or the ocean's edge, because I was in the presence of real beauty. Thank you my friends for letting me enjoy you.

2 comments:

Steph said...

It was so great to have you here, and such a surprise!
And I gotta tell you...Julianne makes my cheeks hurt every day! :)

Anonymous said...

sounds like a episode of Seinfeld, which like "Martha" says, "that's a good thing!"