About ninety minutes out of Flagstaff, they arrived at Little Painted Desert County Park, so marked by a sign that had definitely seen better days. They turned onto a barren road and passed a few picnic tables and a building with graffiti on it.
“What are we here for?” she asked.
“Just about the best view you can imagine.”
They drove a short distance, and then the rim became visible. It overlooked rolling, barren hills that looked like they’d been hand-colored by an artist’s brush. Dramatic, bold strokes of red, ochre and faded purples. He put the car in Park, and she got out, moving over to the edge and just standing there. Letting the vastness make her small.
This beautiful, brilliant thing she’d never even imagined she might see.
The world was so big, and she was so small in it.
She’d seen little tiny slices of the grandeur of it.
She’d seen little tiny slices of what living could be.
She’d lived one life. One experience.
She felt so hungry then. For all the great and wonderful things she would never see. It was an ache in her soul. An admiration for the immeasurable complexity of it all. Both grief-stricken and heartened that one person couldn’t see it all, do it all.
It made it all feel so big.
It made her and her problems feel smaller. More manageable.
Because what was her little tiny marital issue compared to mountains that had stood for untold amounts of time? Beautiful whether she was there to look at them or not.
Maybe this was what Will felt. This crushing awe for everything he couldn’t be or see or do.
Except of course that meant when he’d stared into this void, he’d thought the mysteries were contained between a stranger’s legs.
She thought maybe it was a little more spiritual than that.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Logan hadn’t said anything. She hadn’t looked to see if he was standing near her, though she knew that he was.
“I knew you’d like it. It’s not crowded like a lot of the other viewpoints and national parks. It’s a good place to just sit with yourself.”
“Yeah. I love it.”
It wasn’t enough, but she didn’t want to explain to him that she’d just had a whole existential crisis in the space of a breath.
Or maybe it wasn’t a crisis. Maybe it was a calling.
To see more.
To be more.
Maybe that was why she’d danced with Jonathan last night. Not that he was comparable to the grandeur before her, but it was something she’d never done. A slice of a life she’d never lived.
Going out, saying yes to sitting and sharing a drink with a stranger.
Maybe that was the value in all of this. She could live different lives for a moment, imagine what it was like to live in the desert instead of the lush, green Pacific Northwest.
Imagine what it would be like if she was the sort of woman who went out dancing.
Or didn’t take her morning shower, but just loaded up the car and ate breakfast burritos on her way to stunning natural vistas.
They left, and she realized she hadn’t taken a picture. But she knew a photo could never capture that. The colors, the scale.
