What We See Depends On What We Look For

Thank God we humans were created with two eyes.

I needed wide-angle, sweeping vision today. As I climbed and winded my way on Route 30 through Vermont earlier, I couldn't take my eyes (a.) off the road, and (b.) off the breathtaking scenery, villages, residences.  Pristine.  Green. Both words came to mind. And holy. Today's journey north felt different than previous trips. I've traveled Route 30 many times in the past: 35 years ago on my first honeymoon en route to Nova Scotia, but that's another story. Again, during my graduate school years in the northern kingdom of the state.  Once on the back of a Harley. Towing a horse trailer with cargo so precious (both human and equine).  Today I come back to East Dorset and the Vermont Summer Horse Show Festival with a different agenda.  No agenda.  No mission other than a refreshingly free weekend for the first time all summer.  And I find what I lost somewhere along the way: deeply buried memories of a headier time when this world of horse showing was my world, my daughter's world. I remember (the in-gate, the wash stall, the ribbons lined up marking each show barn's successes this summer, a young rider's agony going off course, the frustrated trainer, the announcer's voice, the golf carts), and I allow myself to go back in time. As those images play, I touch a wound I've taken great care to exorcise, but it has its way with me anyway.  The tears come, but so does the smile and the gratitude. Today, my only responsibility is to myself, to the rich past I've been blessed to live and survive, to honoring the memories and the grief.

I pick up my camera and pick up where I left off.