Overcrowding? No means of escape? I think not!
Last night, I spoke with a gentleman, one of those negative-minded individuals, who was bemoaning just how horrible it is to have to live as we do now…in this day and age…with overcrowding…and no means for escape. I listened to him share how he thought it was a crying shame that “we,” in southern California, “all have to live in overcrowded conditions with nowhere to go to recalibrate our centeredness.” He went on to say that things were so much better in the nineteen-fifties, since, back then, everyone had available to them places to go to get away from it all.
Really?
When he was done issuing his doom and gloom outlook, I smiled and told him that I didn’t agree with his take on things. Smiling even more sweetly, I reminded him that here in southern California, we’re never more than an hour away from the desert, mountains, and ocean and are even closer to many other wonderful getaways. Stubbornly, he shook his head and insisted that the places one could go to get away were far easier to get to back in the fifties.
Hmmm….
Once again, I listened to his depressing take on things and then shared how I was fairly certain that those landmarks: the ocean, desert and mountains were still where they’d always been. Several people around us joined in the conversation, agreeing with me that all it took was a willing heart to find a getaway for one to decompress.
Though the man never did see things quite our way, preferring to believe that everything is bleak and getter bleaker by the second, the rest of us know better, having initiated those steps ourselves to find restful spots. And today, I found myself drawn to one of them.
Heading out to run one of my favorite mountain trails, I enjoyed the scent of dirt, moistened by recent rainfalls, shrubbery, lush and green, casting off its sweet aroma, and an awe-inspiring view that made it difficult to keep running, as I wanted to stop and look at it…forever. Though I felt like an owl with an overly active rotating neck, trying to take in all the sights, I did make it through my run. At the very end, I got the most amazing treat. Pictured here, you see what I found as I rounded the final corner—four deer, not the least bit afraid of me as I stood there less than twelve feet away.
Overcrowding? Possibly. No means of escape? Absolutely not!
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