"I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, 'This is what it is to be happy.'" —Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
We rose well before dawn, having walked the dogs quickly in the darkness first, then packed up fly rods, tackle, and net in the car. A brief stop for coffee and a raspberry fritter to split, my wife and I drove East into the Wasatch Range and onto the narrow, winding mountain road up Big Cottonwood Canyon.
We have arrived well before the
crowds, at first all alone with the awakening day, the breeze off the
water, the scent of pine and the tentative chirping and trilling of
birds a peaceful welcome. A short time later, we are joined by my son, Rob, and daughter in law Rachel.
It was twilight, with the coming sunrise a bashful, soft glow over the near two-mile high Brighton Ridge, we arrived at Silver Lake. The lake, which adjoins acres of marshlands, is a popular destination for young and old; the former can frolic in heavily forested picnic areas and run along the shoreline and scale adjacent mountain trails . . . and the latter, a mile of boardwalk meanders through the natural area where waterfowl, trout (of which we caught none, but that's fine) and, on this day, a foraging moose, too, resides.
I smile. How humbling, and beautiful, to just be part of the scenery for such a majestic creature.
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To close, a modern-day parable:
Father Herman recalls a quiet moment when he was with Father Seraphim [Rose] and their animals came up to them: Svir [the monastery dog] looking up devotedly and wagging his tail, and a lovely, white-pawed cat named Kisa standing quietly by.
“From your point of view,” Father Herman asked in a reflective mood, “what are animals all about?”
Father Seraphim replied: “They have something to do with Paradise.”
