Contagious Joy
We went on a beautiful hike yesterday in the San Juan National Forest. We are staying in a cabin on County Road 124 near Hesperus, Colorado, which runs through the national forest. It’s absolutely stunning. We had another house reserved up in Ridgway, but it fell through at the last minute and Bill was able to find this one quickly. It is a lovely cabin, but it is what they call “off the grid.” It runs on solar and it doesn’t have city water or electricity. Cell phones don’t work here, but they do have satellite internet and TV so we aren’t exactly roughing it. There’s a large generator in the living room just in case we need it. I was very worried when we driving here and CR 124 turned from a paved road to a rocky dirt road. I’m not a camper and I feared this would be close to that. It is not anything like camping. There are weird things like the lights flicker when I shower because the water pump is using energy. When I plug in the hair dryer, there’s a delay before it starts. There was no coffee grinder because appliances use so much energy so we had to get creative with smashing coffee beans. Like I said, we aren’t suffering.
Anyway, back to the hike. We walked up 124 and saw waterfalls and lovely trees and mountains. I’m sure had we gone further, we would have come to some glorious vista, but we got tired after an hour and a half and Grace was done walking so we turned around and came back. It was just an easy stroll for the day. We had gone on more difficult hikes before yesterday so we have certainly gotten our money’s worth this trip.
When we were almost back to the cabin, we planned to stop at a small waterfall and creek that we had passed on the way up. We noticed two vans stopped right next to it and a whole group of parents and kids in their swimsuits enjoying the cold water in the creek. We decided that we would leave them to it and just head to the cabin and that’s when I noticed a ramp extending from the back of one of the vans. As we passed, Grace was her usual social self and ran up to a woman who just thought she was the cutest dog ever. I noticed a wheelchair behind the van and the woman was getting a boy (maybe her son?) ready to get into the wheelchair and I assume to head down to the creek with the rest of the family. The boy seemed to have some sort of severe neurological disorder like cerebral palsy or something. He seemed to require a lot of assistance and as we passed by and Grace went up to greet them. The mother was so joyful. I know I only saw her for a minute and I don’t know anything about their difficulties, but she appeared to be so happy and it struck me that she was going to a lot of trouble to make sure that her son experienced this waterfall. Their license plates were from Utah so they had hopefully had many experiences like this one. I looked over and there were several other children playing in the water and I don’t know how many adults. They were all having a ball.
Seeing this woman reminded me of an experience I had several years ago. I was in a “poor me” state (not that it never happens now, but this was just one occasion) and I was going to meet someone for lunch at Arandas. On my way in, there was a woman holding the arm of a young man who was blind and seemed to have some other developmental disabilities. They had just finished lunch and I heard the young man exclaim, “this is the best day I’ve ever had.” Now if you know Arandas, you know it’s not exactly the best Mexican food in town, but here was this extraordinarily grateful young man that had enjoyed it immensely. Again, I was struck by the joy in this person and of course it pulled me out of thinking about my pitiful problems immediately.
There is a difference between a pity party and actual depression. I would never say to a depressed person (or someone going through a tough time) that they should snap out of it because look at these people at the waterfall and look at this kid that had a great day at Arandas. They could have joy and look what they are going through. We all have our difficulties - - they just look different and no one “wins” anything by having the hardest time. We all deserve love and compassion.
I was just so touched by this family yesterday enjoying such a simple thing and making sure their son got to enjoy it too. They could have said it would be too hard to take him along and gotten him a sitter or something. They could have decided not to go at all. Instead, they had a damn good time at this waterfall and their joy was contagious. Same with the young man at Arandas. Such a simple thing was the best day of his life.
I want to see the world through their eyes and enjoy every moment of this life I have been given. I want to have joy that is contagious. There’s just so much beauty out there that I’d like to open my eyes and see.
