An Evening Up High

Weekdays have a marked difference from our weekends, not just in the simple fact that it's just the children and me.  They are quieter, more structured, more focused, and have more predictability.  All the same, life has enough variables that I do get overwhelmed.  While Willow would prefer to never leave home, I have to.  I don't go shopping or anything like that, but we find out-of-the-way spots where we can just breathe in the evening air.  It makes a world of difference.

Last week, we went up to the Snail Place one night after supper.  I wanted to bring home some litter (antique litter) and just be some place else.  It was so lovely, in the last golden light of the day, but it was also busy.  People often come up their to look out over Rich Valley, and it was a happening spot.  A good evening for it, as much as I enjoy my solitude.  I took a picture of a father and son, as they stood in front of a beautiful expanse.  A man had an easel set up, painting the scene before him.  He was not from here, of course, and meandering home on smaller roads.

It was interesting to talk to him, to try to capture our feelings for this place in a nutshell.  He asked if there were other good views in the area, and I confirmed that Rich Valley was the best one.  Our state's highest peak is often shrouded in trees and mist.  He had found The Place to See Things.  We told him about the rime ice that often forms there, and Willow told him about Cloudland.  She wanted to fly out into the valley that morning the fog was so thick.  It's where the fairies make the snow, after all.  I got the feeling he could understand her way of seeing things.

We often meet folks who aren't from around here.  I know our poverty can be shocking, at times, and that it's easy to think we're just a strange collection of people who are still uneducated hillbillies.  I once met a man with a good number of years behind him, and he remarked how surprised he was that a little boy he met was playing so creatively.  Here, in this place.  That thought hasn't left me.  If only people knew how much creativity these mountains require and draw out of you.

That thought aside, it was a lovely evening last week, just golden.  The last moments of the day made us all so happy and calm, like magic.  Such meetings are ones to be remembered.  And it is also important to remember that we are ambassadors of this place, these mountains.  This Cloudland.