Wild Horses & Other Beauties

8/23/2022 

I first saw this photograph on Twitter in April. I don’t know the photographer, but the photo stopped me in my tracks. 

The Twitter handle of this person is Chris Byrne @ChrisByrnePhoto. He has a website; I think he leads photography workshops. His website is: chrisbyrnephotography.com.

Meanwhile, here I am, awestruck by a beautiful and wild place I will likely never go. It’s called Torres de Pain and it’s a national park in Chile. https://national-parks.org/chile/torres-del-paine

What do you do when you see a spectacular landscape like this? What do you do with a yearning to go more places, see more sights, be a bigger and more adventurous person than you have the time or resources to actually become?

I think about this pretty often these days. I am fine (thanks to all of you who wished me good health, I am much better). I am not staring down my own mortality at the moment. I’m just wistful as many of us are when confronted with a magnificence that’s beyond us.

What do we do with all the things we couldn’t or didn’t get around to doing? What do we do with our melancholy?

Well, one of the things I do is laugh at myself.  I mean seriously, pals, I have a hard time motivating myself to go outside after supper.

But then today there are those mountains climbing to whatever heaven hangs over Chile. I wish I could stand there and feel that wind and hear those galloping horses and sleep in a tent with two sleeping bags because I bet it gets pretty cold at night.

I think of visions and images like this plus so many beautiful places I have seen in my life – and I wonder why people crave power and wealth. All us ordinary folks watch them tricking, stealing, conniving, manipulating each other for more stock returns or more votes in congress to stay in an elected office they have done just about nothing with their past years and terms. 

What the hell?  What motivates them to live such boring, nasty lives – when there is all this out there and we have so few years in which to wander and see?

When people decide what they want and what they are going to pursue, why do they spend so much time wanting high numbers on a balance sheet? I’m not talking about needing enough money to be secure, I’m just astonished at folks who pursue numbers for the numbers’ sake.

Here is one more spectacular photo.

Our newest granddaughter just turned 4, she and her brother have been in our family almost a year now. Monday our kids and grandkids met at Milwaukee’s Betty Brinn Children’s Museum. These still new-to-each-other cousins reveled in all the things there were to do – and in each other.  There are four kids now, the youngest was walking with his mom.

But I am here to see this.

What have you seen lately that inspired and satisfied your heart?