ABOUT AWE

Hoodoos, Bryce National Park, Utah (Inspiration Point)

Written October 5, 2019

Do you live in Utah in the US?  I know readers are all over, some in places I've been and many not.  I haven't been to Portugal or Australia or Ukraine or Malaysia.  But this week we're in Utah and I am filled with awe. 

I don't especially like the term "bucket list."  Probably because it comes from "kick the bucket," slang for "drop dead."  Not a happy thought.  But the famous National Parks in Utah were on mine, let's say . . . on my Longing List.  Doesn't it feel great to reach a life-time goal? It's taken an effort to get from North Carolina to this remote place of Nature's wonders 2,188 miles from my home. 

Awe is not a feeling that happens often, but it's been happening here so frequently that I'm becoming well-acquainted with it.  It's almost like anxiety:  the stopping of breath, the opening of the chest, the widening of the heart, the flood of emotion.  The deep pulls of air.  The pureness of it.

What a change this is from my everyday.  As beautiful as the woods are where I live and the ocean's variety where I visit, this place is MORE.  It enfolds and lifts at once.  I felt this at the Grand Canyon and in seeing Old Faithful erupt. Certainly in the Alps.  And I have sometimes sat spellbound in the great cathedrals of Europe and England.  Closer to home with my babies and grand-babies.  You too?  
 

Natural Bridge, Bryce Canyon, Utah

You know the famous scene in the movie Titanic where Jack and Rose stand at the prow of the great ship, arms stretched out as if flying? The music swelling as they lean into the wind soaring with the waves?  Out here I keep seeing things that feel like that.  Walking the rim of Bryce Canyon on this windy day with all the hoodoos below, carved out of the rock like statues.  Then hiking down and and looking up at them.

Tonight at 9 pm when the darkness is absolute except for the quarter moon, there's a ranger with a telescope at Sunset Point.  Whoever shows up gets to look.  We'll be there.  Tomorrow, Zion National Park, a mere 90 minute drive, for hiking to the Narrows where the canyon walls rise a thousand feet a mere twenty feet apart.  I'm excited!

If you have a longing list you may want to put Utah on it.  It would be a trek from Portugal or Australia, that's sure.  But there are AWE SPOTS everywhere over the whole earth aren't there?  What are yours so far? Such blessings, 
                                                                       Nina Naomi