My Home

Maybe it is strange, but I think even these dead things are beautiful, I thought, glancing around at the dead trees, dead bushes, dead grasses, and dry-looking creek-bed.

I opened my mouth to say it out loud, but I thought better of it. My sister and I were taking a walk along a path by our house. She would understand, I knew, but we were talking about something else, and I didn't want to interrupt.

Instead I continued our conversation and looked out at the scene before me with pleasure and wonder. The sky was blue--not the deep blue of summer, but the light, faded blue of the first days of winter. There were no clouds, and it was only a little chilly. The green pines stood out against the bare, brown trees and the tannish golden, long grasses. At one particular point in our walk, the mountains near our home were visible in all their deep blue, snow-capped glory.

I love the landscape of my home. I love the rolling grasses and the vast, stretching plains on one side of us, and the majestic, peaked mountains on the other. I love the dry, dry air and the chill of every morning--even in summer. I love the way you can see the horizon almost everywhere you go outside of the urban places. I love how big and magnificent the sky is--how visible it is here. I love the seasons--snow in the winter, flowers in the spring, hot days in the summer, and the gorgeous turning of the leaves in the fall. I love the open spaces, where you can sit and watch the sunrise and the sunset, and where the sky envelopes you at night in a blanket of stars.

My sister asked me a question and jolted me from my thoughts.

I answered her and we walked on.

I looked around me again. If everything remained dead, I do not think I would find it so beautiful, as I have never found the beetle-infested, scorched forests in the mountains to be beautiful.

I wondered whether I would find the night beautiful if the day never came, and thought of how it is easier to appreciate health when I have known sickness. And don't I find the genuine smiles of my friend to be so incredibly sweet because I have often seen her face shadowed in grief and pain?

Maybe then, I thought, this death surrounding me seemed so beautiful for more than the plain and striking color-scheme and the fittingness of it all for the winter months--though I could not deny their role in my bias.

But just maybe, I thought, looking at all the death surrounding me again, I also find this landscape beautiful even in death because I know it will one day come back to life.