Robbie and I had randomly hopped aboard this crew of campers on my whim. Sometimes my whims are not so reliable. This was not one of those times. We spent the weekend in lovely company, settled into the folds of God's great creation: Shenandoah National Park.
Oh how nature soothes my soul.
Shenandoah is gorgeous. The water sits in the air here, misting the mountains and creating this ethereal haze. You could so easily forget the world in this place. You could so easily sit and ponder the expanse of hills and trees for eternity.
I try really hard to find glimmers of peace in the city. I walk along the waterfront, I visit the 300-year-old buildings at Georgetown University, I slip between the gravestones at Arlington Cemetery. But in Shenandoah, the peace is complete. I didn't have to look for it, it was just there.
In the morning we scrambled up the mountain—over boulders and through crevices and under tree branches. We hefted climbing gear onto our backs and when we needed a break, we rested on slabs of stone that overlooked the valley. We lent helping hands and took pictures and rationed trail mix. We sang Sound of Music and swatted away gnats and pointed out mushrooms. And finally, we perched at the very top of Old Rag and every which way we turned, we beheld miles and miles of pure land.
And as we walked back down the other side of the mountain, my friend Kate turned to me and said, "You have such a calm personality. You just exude . . . peace."
I laughed, hearing that. It validated me. Mother Nature had done her job. I had been filled.
This is why I am the middle child—the peace-maker. This is why my personality color is white—the peace-seeker. This is why I have such a strange obsession with sunsets, with silence, with serenity. This is why I listen to piano music on the bus, why I take walks by myself, why I do yoga.
For peace. For these mountain moments of quiet and calm—hard to catch but easy to embrace.
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