all mountains are small. we are smaller.

All mountains are small. In the grand expanse that stretches from universe to universe, every ridge must seem like a speck of dust, and every mountain a grain of rice. For every star that spackles the canvas that is our night sky, an infinite amount more sit just beyond what we can see. And doesn’t that make every mountain just as small as the one that sits a few thousand feet higher? 

We are smaller. We are infinitely smaller than the expanse of tundra and rock that explodes from this hurtling ball of rock we call home. We somehow have braved winters and summers hot enough to kill life itself all in an effort to say we are meant to be here. Yes, we are meant to be here. Even as we are small. 

Sometimes it feels like every decision I make is small. Small in the fact that perhaps it won’t mark any significant change in my life, or small in the idea that I don’t matter in everything. This idea of “sonder” has touched by heart in such a way recently that it’s hard to not focus upon every little thing now just a bit more. Every person’s life is just as complex and meaningful as the meaning I should ascribe to my own. That’s an odd idea in some way for me. Sometimes we live our lives as if we are the largest being in the world, every conversation is done from a place of understanding reality through our eyes, and not the eyes of someone who knows truly how lucky we are to be here. That it’s you. And no some other version of you. That’s an odd idea in some way to me. But it points me to something real. 

The act of noticing, of sitting in silence, and of allowing your eyes to stretch from mountain to star for just a moment more. I think I started doing this as I would drive back into my hometown, in seeing these hills I used to utter as just ridges we should laugh at, I noticed something a bit different. 

It seemed the city was nestled softly among the Ozark Mountains, a soul of which understands the divine creation we sit upon. A city nestled in small mountains that does something quite beautiful. It keeps itself hidden. Or at least tries to in some real manner. A decorative drapery of imagination that sings with the voice of an old man in his 90s who still goes out and stargazes with the love of his life. I think we should notice a bit more the small things. 

And sometimes it seems the small things are us, but truly as well, so are the mountains we become accustomed to as we sit outside with the one we wish to dance with.