ALWAYS THE MOUNTAIN
By Phyllis Barber
Photography: VisitUtah.com
Looking out the window, I see Mount Olympus, differently colored at sunrise and sunset, shadows of blue and brilliant orange, white snow, green trees. Its majesty keeps me in place, knowing that strength lies in those hills rather than in my arms that hold only what they can.
Those mountains stop the continual sprawl of people coming and coming. They offer a place at the edge of civility. Some of us venture into their folds to wander along streams but always return home, sometimes with budding blisters, always with joy at being able to lie down and dream of spiraling trails leading to the tops of those mountains that pull us up and up and then down again. Our teachers. The mountains. Our constant guardians.
Phyllis Barber is the author of 10 books, including the novel, “The Desert Between Us.” Her essay collection "The Precarious Walk: Essays from Sand and Sky" is published by Torrey House Press, and her work is included in the anthology “Blossom as the Cliffrose: Mormon Legacies and the Beckoning Wild.”