I was walking today in the woods and doing some Thoureauvian musings on life and other mundane things. It’s been a really crappy year, and one whose strifes I’m growing tired of rehashing. So, I hijacked my brain long enough to think about the loveliest images of the year. They were:
The three weeks of real fall I got to see here at my new home after an 18-year suspension of real seasons in SoCal.
Skiing with my brother along the top of a 9,500ft peak in softly falling snow.
Seeing a cow and calf moose up close on the same day as above.
And, the grand prize: Waking up early Christmas morning at my parent’s home to see the peaks of the Grand Tetons backlit by a fiery pink and red sunrise.
I had a complicated year, too. In chronological order:
The end side of Coeur d’Alene lake late in the afternoon in July on a nice bike ride with the sun coming through the clouds.
Content capybaras munching on kibble at the Santa Barbara zoo.
The color of the water in Crater Lake-- this amazing intense dark lapis-indigo that, if you saw it in a photo instead of with your own eyes, you would know was faked up.
The trees above me-- green against bright blue, as I lay in a hammock in the warm summer with a gin and tonic.
The cover page of my dissertation.
The mountains around Vancouver on a clear winter day.