Oh, there's the Range!

A long number of years ago, after a very difficult and traumatic passage in my life, I mounted a plane in Brownsville, Texas.  My parents had bought my ticket, and I learned as the day went by that it included nine stops before the eventual arrival in Denver, Colorado.

It was a beautiful Texas June day, sunny and clear, and as we journeyed northward, and went down in every possible stop we could take in Texas, and a few more, it became afternoon and we were flying I guess over Kansas, and I was becoming more and more frazzled from the unfamiliarity of travel and so many landings and take-offs. I felt nervous and fatigued, and wondered if we'd ever arrive in Denver, Colorado.

In midafternoon an older lady boarded the plane and sat next to me by the window. I'd been looking out all day at oil reservoirs, square planes of fields in greens and yellow and browns, so wasn't interested in the window seat.  She was pleasant and chatty, and it turned out that she was the mother of the rector of the Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs, our next to the last stop. She was so nice that I positively began to enjoy my trip, and as we talked I began to unwind a bit, distracted.  After a time, she looked up from her knitting and remarked with pleasure, "Oh, there's the Range!"

I looked out the window and had the surprise of my life.  Up from the flat terrain  that we'd been flying over all day, sprang--the Rocky Mountains! All of a sudden, just like that!  Vistas that I'd never imagined!  Huge, spiky, rocky, jutting up into the sky in blues and greys and whites, for the afternoon had turned cloudy now...They sprang up out of nowhere, for me. I didn't know what I'd expected of Colorado, but the reality of the huge prospect was truly overwhelming.

The lady got off the plane in Colorado Springs, her family with son in clerical collar and straw hat, looking just like Robert Morley in The African Queen, teenagers standing by too...for airports were very different things in those days and greeters would wait outside by the fenced gate for the arrivers...and I never saw her again.  Off she went, leaving me with one immortal phrase of pleasure and discovery: "Oh, there's the Range!"

When I left Denver 3 days ago, I had the great pleasure of flying over the snow-covered peaks of the  Range again on a clear bright midday. And I remembered the past and the old lady.  Lesson learned: we never know what's going to turn up for us to know, to learn, to love, to wonder at. 

That was the great gift of my trip this month.  You never know.  There's a range I have not even imagined before me. There are choices to be made, but nobody is hurrying me.  I came home calm, ready to make the decisions when I have to. YAZZYBEL