I had the awesome opportunity to meet up with one of my very best friends of all time the first weekend in August. It had been a year since we saw each other last - that is too long. Not too long to reconnect or too long to try and catch up, just too long to let the busyness of our lives get in the way of spending time together. We didn't do anything extravagant, but I thoroughly enjoyed just being together. We left, with tears and vowed not to let another year pass before seeing each other again.
The highlight of the weekend for me was hiking together in the Colorado mountains. Although it wasn't part of our relationship in the beginning, over the years we have discovered a shared love for all things mountains.
I've hiked a good amount of trails, some stand out for the challenge, others for the scenery and then I have an entire list of trails that stand out because I got lost on them. This trail, and this particular hike will be memorable for a few different reasons: it was beautiful, it was challenging (hiking at 9000 -10000 feet presents its own challenge when you aren't fully acclimated to altitude) and the most memorable thing about it was the way we hiked it.
I often hike alone so I just power through the hike. I'll stop when I need a break or when I see a view that I want to take in for a minute or two, but for the most part I'm on the move. On this hike we took our time, we lingered at the river to chat, to took in the beauty of the meadows and gazed at the peeks that towered above us. We chatted, we laughed, and we took the trail at a pace that kept our heart rates up but allowed us to really appreciate where we were and who we were with. For all the hikes I've ticked off on my list - this one was really a treasure.
The one awful thing about this hike was that somewhere along the trail someone stepped in poop. It was this lingering stench that we couldn't escape. It smelled so bad that I checked my shoes at least 10 times and once or twice wondered if I pooped myself. We were surrounded by all this beauty and this funky smell was kind of trying to ruin it for us!
About an hour in to our hike, after everyone checked their shoes repeatedly, someone mentioned that the poop smell may actually be the wildflowers. Suddenly, a memory flashed before my eyes. A few weeks earlier my cousins and Matt and I were sitting outside of a restaurant and I was complaining about the poop smell. My cousin told me it wasn't poop it was the daisies. I was shocked, so I leaned over and smelled them. Yep they smelled like crap. So now here I was in a wide open field of wildflowers, a ton of them stinky daisies, and the whole time I thought I was tracking poop around through the mountains.
I feel like there is a life lesson in the daisies.
Sometimes the thing that stinks isn't actually poop, it is beautiful flowers.
Maybe it is a situation that is uncomfortable but something beautiful comes out of it.
Maybe its that in order to get those beautiful moments you have to endure the stench as well.
Maybe something are beautiful and are meant to be enjoyed for a few moments but not to linger.
I'm not sure. I'm still waiting for an epiphany, but for now I am just going to take away the fact that daisies stink and it doesn't do you any good to keep checking for poop when walking through a field of wildflowers.
The highlight of the weekend for me was hiking together in the Colorado mountains. Although it wasn't part of our relationship in the beginning, over the years we have discovered a shared love for all things mountains.
I often hike alone so I just power through the hike. I'll stop when I need a break or when I see a view that I want to take in for a minute or two, but for the most part I'm on the move. On this hike we took our time, we lingered at the river to chat, to took in the beauty of the meadows and gazed at the peeks that towered above us. We chatted, we laughed, and we took the trail at a pace that kept our heart rates up but allowed us to really appreciate where we were and who we were with. For all the hikes I've ticked off on my list - this one was really a treasure.
The one awful thing about this hike was that somewhere along the trail someone stepped in poop. It was this lingering stench that we couldn't escape. It smelled so bad that I checked my shoes at least 10 times and once or twice wondered if I pooped myself. We were surrounded by all this beauty and this funky smell was kind of trying to ruin it for us!
About an hour in to our hike, after everyone checked their shoes repeatedly, someone mentioned that the poop smell may actually be the wildflowers. Suddenly, a memory flashed before my eyes. A few weeks earlier my cousins and Matt and I were sitting outside of a restaurant and I was complaining about the poop smell. My cousin told me it wasn't poop it was the daisies. I was shocked, so I leaned over and smelled them. Yep they smelled like crap. So now here I was in a wide open field of wildflowers, a ton of them stinky daisies, and the whole time I thought I was tracking poop around through the mountains.
I feel like there is a life lesson in the daisies.
Sometimes the thing that stinks isn't actually poop, it is beautiful flowers.
Maybe it is a situation that is uncomfortable but something beautiful comes out of it.
Maybe its that in order to get those beautiful moments you have to endure the stench as well.
Maybe something are beautiful and are meant to be enjoyed for a few moments but not to linger.
I'm not sure. I'm still waiting for an epiphany, but for now I am just going to take away the fact that daisies stink and it doesn't do you any good to keep checking for poop when walking through a field of wildflowers.
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