Wenatchee's Mountains

    Photo by Josh Tarr 

A visitor once commented to me that she didn’t like the brown hills around Wenatchee.  She was from Oregon where she was use to very lovely and green surroundings and she had only ever visited Wenatchee in summer.  I was taken aback because I’d never really thought of our mountains as just brown, although they are brown, at times.   I think of them as brown and white and green and purple and yellow and orange.  I think of them dazzling in the sunshine, and subdued by shadow, of painted by wildflowers and scorched by fire.  The mountains are only brown because once they were green.  They are only green because once they were white.  They are only purple because what was once brilliant sunshine is fading into night. 

There are days I don’t notice the mountains at all.  I get busy and so caught up in running around that I forget to notice them.  On those days the mountains wait patiently for my return.  Mountains know about patience.  It amazes me that I do it.  It amazes me that the sheer volume of beauty surrounding me daily can somehow slip my notice - but it does. 
                                                                     

I think we are a lot like the mountains.   We are now, because of what we once were.   We are chiseled by time, eroded by fear, adorned in beauty, timeless in memory.  Sometimes we are vibrant.  Sometimes we are brown.  Sometimes you must wait to be noticed, but noticed or not - you are beautiful.