This Way To The Troll.
You know, sometimes, when we live in an incredible place, we miss it. We miss the beauty and wonder. We begin to “not see” what pulled us there in the first place. We start to take things for granted. After time, we just don’t notice.
I think that’s why I love hanging out with my husband and kids so much. Hank is an adventurer at heart and is instantly and constantly inspired by being outdoors. And our boys are still teetering on that precious line of the wonder of seeing things through a child’s eyes but trying on the different masks of what might be cool…and what might not be.
This year, for our older one, the pumpkin patch didn’t feel so cool anymore. I think a part of me died with that one. The traditions that we start with our children when they’re babies, well, sometimes those are met with resistance. This part of parenthood – the letting go part – is really tough for me. It’s a step away from simple innocence and into them trying on new and different hats. I had a really, really hard day because of that yesterday. I know that they are both becoming, they’re moving into their own identities, which means that part of my identity changes, too. Parenting is brutal that way sometimes.
But other times, we see something new and wonderful. Some new expression of where we live, some adventure that calls out and beckons us away from our “normal,” and we jump on that together. It’s in those times where I see a new version of silly coming through our boys (and my husband) and I remember to look better, see deeper, and live more fully. Not in what has been, but what is and will be.
So we went in search of the Troll. :)
Evidently, my family thought all signs pointed to them. Their stink eye fools no one.
If you look in the middle of the photo below, you can just make out Isak Heartstone, our new resident Colorado troll. (You can read more about him and how to find him here.)
And then one more turn in the trail and he was there, building his cairn in the middle of a rock quarry.
It washed over me right then and there that sometimes I just need a little change of scenery to bring me back into all of this beauty around me. A change of perspective, if you will. I get comfortable in being content – complacent even – and need to shake things up a bit to get my eyes open.
Funny how when those things get open…so does my heart.
Thank you for sharing your art, Mr. Danbo.
And also for inspiring Ewan to create more cairns to mark the way. ;)
