Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Yesterday evening I hiked the Watchman Trail alone. It was stunning and felt really nice to experience it solo – there was a kind of meditative effect that progressed with each quiet, repetitive step. The path was mostly sandy and rocky and held the footprints of those who came before me. But on the way back down I found myself constantly searching for my own footprints, which I never found. This bothered me. Didn’t I just traverse this very trail? Did I dream that? Was it real? Do I even exist?? Where is the evidence? There are no footprints! As I kept searching for that external validation of my existence, I could see footprints from a parade of other hikers, but never my own.
I decided to stop looking. Sometimes there are no obvious traces of our contributions or experiences. Sometimes we don’t recognize them. Maybe we aren’t meant to. Sometimes we may be looking in the wrong place or at the wrong time or maybe we aren’t really looking at all. Or maybe we’re looking too closely. Sometimes, they may be an invisible part of a visible whole. All I know is that my experience was real and it was mine. Maybe you don’t have to see the footprints to know they exist. You don’t have to see something to feel its effects. Besides, if I kept at it I wouldn’t have been able to bask in the beauty surrounding me. I may have missed something. Like the mineral deposits that color and stripe the stone throughout the park. With each striation a different deposit, another moment in time, a glorious rendering of countless contributions.
