I have discovered much, much of the same. Something happened out in the Northwest corner of Wyoming that completely jolted me out of the timeline of my life. I don't know whether to put "Yellowstone" on a dusty shelf marked "?", a photo album marked "!", or in some stash under my pillow marked "XXX." Wherever and however we learn to classify this past summer, it all serves to remind us: there is never a limit to the amount of experience you can have in life. As we predicted, we're all now back in wooden desks listening to lectures and waiting for bells. I check my emails 6 - 8 times a day. I have not been able to find a moment to appreciate anything outside of fluorescent-lit rooms with 1907's clocks. I have not been able to completely "leave" when I play the piano as I did in some soon-to-catch-fire wooden rec room 2,000 miles away. I go to Sonic everyday. TV remotes are easy to come by. Those moments this summer of craving the Southern Groove and Humidity, I am in them now and feel nothing but lazy and sweaty. Gross mostly. Surrounded by thousands of people wearing clean Lacoste shirts (collars popped) and the whitest teeth I've ever seen. But did they drive for hours past nothing but mountains and hold postcards of the Avalanche Peak in their eyes? Did they ever wonder on their way to buying those Costa Del Mar sunglasses if they would ever use to them to stare at the sun reflecting off mountain snow, or to judge a rapid on some Snake River, or a joke by some Jack Daniel inspiration... or a Bison that may or may not charge?
I know it is natural to romanticize every "checkpoint" in life. Every point where before it and after it look completely different. But somehow, this summer seems even more complicated than that. Like Yellowstone is buried as some time-capsule within my mind. At times like this (2:50 on Thursday 8/30), I am for some reason aware of it. But at other times, I completely forget this summer. The capsule may prove to be something that surfaces 30 years from now--maybe when my kid wants to go to Yellowstone, or I hear Yellowstone exploded on the news, or I hear that Luke is finally getting married. But wherever I am in life when I FINALLY understand the truths that were shown to me this summer, I will undoubtedly smile and think about all those small things that for a small time seemed to be all that life was (and should be) about.
