Ok Georgia

Ok Georgia you've just revealed to me some of your hidden beauty and simultaneously reveal my own blinders.  Perhaps it's because I was so accustom to the wildly overt grandeur of the southwestern landscape that captures your heart unfolding like an epic painting in front of you on the most mundane of errand to the supermarket.  Everyday engulfing you and not once letting you forget that you are very tiny in the scheme of things.  Or perhaps it was the fact that I grew up along the northeastern shores of the Atlantic. Even in winter it would beckon me down to it's edge to look out on the vast pallet of grey blues.  Endless expansive emptiness as far as the eye could see.  In these moments I felt more alive.  Here in Atlanta I have found small moments like this.  Often in my garden.  A microcosm.  I would get lost in the pedals of an Iris in full bloom or the intricate folds of a rose.  I've often felt trapped here.  The deciduous trees heavy with kudzu looming overhead, the horizon full with buildings and people everywhere.  I gave up.  I thought that there couldn't possibly be anything here or within a short drive that could compare to the sensation of those aforementioned places.  It turns out I wasn't trying hard enough.

     When I found a little wild wren that had gotten into the house.  Injured it had been hiding behind a pile of books all night.  I place the small bird into a box and drove to a rehabilitation center.  By the time I had reached the center the bird had died.  I was upset and drove home to bury the bird in the yard.  As I was leaving I noticed the signs for trails.  So today I decided to try and explore the trails.  I put zoe in the car and we somehow found our way back to that same dirt parking lot.  I really didn't know what to expect.  I guess I was expecting some dirt trails in a forest.  That would have been nice, but would not have stirred my heart the way this has.  As we came around the first grouping of trees there was this expanse of granite.  Smooth, rolling, worn the way large slabs are along the ocean.  With pits full of water like tidal pools.  I was so surprised and intrigued.  As we kept walking the landscape was climbing higher.  All of the sudden we were on this bare rock above the trees.  From that vantage I could see the forest unfolding for miles.  It felt so good to stretch my eyes to the horizon.  I have been blind to the hidden beauty in my own backyard.