appreciation

A friend of mine hiked the Appalacian trail after college, and when he recently went hiking in the woods with his mom, he said she stopped at every tree to gaze in awe. "Look at this one! This one is pretty!" That kind of thing, I imagine. And he said he couldn't get into it the same way, not that he thought the tree was ugly or that it was overweight and couldn't compete with those impossibly high standards the anorexic looking trees in Better Homes and Gardens set.

It was a tree like the thousands of others he'd seen during the however many months he spent walking that trail. Even beautiful things get old. So too with biking these last few weeks. Everyone talks about how amazing it must be, what an experience it is, all the things I get to see firsthand. It's true; the country is beautiful and there is no way I could absorb it all.

But because we do it every day for hours, I guess I just don't appreciate it as much as I think people expect me to. Same thing when my family vacationed in Yellowstone. We were so excited to see our first buffalo, but by the twentieth one or so, they all sort of look the same: brown lumps of bovine.

Sometimes I feel guilty that I'm not enjoying it more. That maybe I have the wrong attitude and that's why each moment on the bike isn't a communion with God. But then again, I don't think anyone in the normal world starts his car and takes a moment to marvel at the brilliant engineering and physics occurring under the hood. Or gapes in wonder at the sheer number of humans populating the streets, as people might with a herd of buffalo.

There's wonder in everything, but conversely, I guess that means everything wonderful can become pedestrian, common, and forgettable as well.