A song that has been resonating in my head this whole trip, and solidly ignored, has been 3 x 5 by John Mayer. It says, today I finally overcame, trying to put the world inside a picture frame; maybe I will tell you all about it in my own way when I’m in the mood to lose my way with words. And boy am I in the mood to lose my way with words.
Photos cannot do this place justice and not just because I’m an inadequate photographer or for the limits of technology. It is the whole thing, the smell, the cold air, the other tourists hanging out their cars with camera… and words echoing John Muir in my head. We are in the midst of gods. We are in the true heart of the earth, the place where clean air is made. This is my home, our home, our true home.
This is my environment. I am a part of this. These trees, these far away creatures and fantasms of another world, they are of my world, they are the hidden heart and blood of the planet I inhabit. They are the hidden truth of the country I love, the ancestry of the ground beneath all of our feet. This is America, this is Earth.
This is home.
I’m going to stay. Not maybe, not thinking about it. This is home now.
