I took all of these pictures on my various walks.
Taken while hiking on Huron Peak July 2011
After countless walks, hikes, hill climbs and strolls in the thin air of Colorado…I’m finally back to taking my regular walks in and around the paths of the lakes here in Minnesota.
Nearing the summit of Huron Peak
Beauty in Colorado is massive. The scenery leaves me literally breathless at the majesty of it all.
I completely understand the compelling inspiration that takes hold while standing at the top of something I’ve scaled. With every step…both up and down…I am changed.
I worried, at the beginning of the summer, about the direction of our lives. I wrote about feeling like we had not yet achieved where we want to be as a couple, and as a family, and I was standing on the precipice of a new beginning.
I am grateful for perspective.
This summer has been an evaluative reflection about our life goals, our ambitions, our assessment of where we’ve been and where we’d like to go. We had the amazing opportunity to do this searching from the various living rooms we were encouraged to call home, and it was an unexpected blessing in perspective.
It was that change in vantage point, a shift in expectation that brought something to light for me.
We don’t have to reach a pinnacle…or achieve a life we think we desire. Summitting is not the point.
Perspective is.
It’s how we’re changed by the smallest of things. The smile from a stranger, the overheard laughter of a child, or the tears of a grieving mother.
People talk all the time about how the experiences they have “puts things in perspective” for them. Perspective is not a static state of being, it is a living, breathing thing that offers us opportunity for growth every second of every day.
The kicker is, perspective takes intention.
It is all there for us to see, to embrace, to smell, to feel, but we have to be willing to let it in.
When our family leaves our Minnesota home at the start of every summer, the flowers have started to bloom and the leaves are slowly unfurling. It is upon our return that we are greeted by the green cocoon of the never-ending foliage. It is an intimate and all-encompassing beauty of its own. I notice it because I’ve been absent, but I hope to notice the subtle beauty when I am surrounded by it every day.
taken early springSame lake August 2011
Perspective comes in so many different packages. We gain perspective with aging, with contemplation and acceptance of our own mortality. When we live out of our means either with lavish spoiling or depleted resources, we gain new perspective. Traveling, and especially international traveling, opens doors and windows in our souls that let in that fresh perspective.
Those are some of the ways I plan to implement the perspective growth into my life.
I contend, however, that I should challenge myself daily to see the world through new and growing eyes. Every walk is different, every scene unique, and it is energizing to be on the lookout for how to change my point of view.
Same lake August 2011
I walk the same path, a lot, but it is not the same path from day to day. On today’s walk, I saw a cardinal and a frog. I caught a cottonwood seed floating to the ground, and I stopped to feel the petals of a strikingly beautiful flower.
Yesterday I saw a man sitting at a bench working on his laptop and he and I agreed he had a pretty cool office.
The landscape changes through the seasons and so too should my perspective .
I am not giving up on goals and hopes and dreams, but I am going to intentionally find perspective. No matter if I am running my hand in the water as we troll in the boat, or I am gazing out at a mountain range from a lofty perch.
Each person I meet is an opportunity for gaining more insight, but I have to be willing to open myself up to their perspective.
In the next few weeks, I plan to start a weekly blogpost (hopefully to be published on Wednesdays) unveiling a Wednesday Walk Perspective. I invite you all to join me, and in your comments you can post how your walks have changed you through the week. I will hopefully be able to post some of your pictures too, so take your phone or your camera with you when you go. Stay tuned!
As much as it may sound like work to live intentionally, I have found more joy and peace since I adopted this way of living. Choosing to Grow is a choice worth making…
Meagan Frank 
Dear, dear Meagan, I just read your post and the energy of your discoveries hit me too. I’m smiling and feel peaceful and I’m still in my pj’s inside! You expressed this so beautifully and profoundly. I’m so happy for you that you’re finding contentment and joy in the majesty and simplicity of what is.
The pictures are fabulous too and I love the idea of a walking blog and I’ll take my camera for sure. I’ve never been to Colorado or Minnesota
so I enjoyed the glimpses. Thank you. Lots of love and fondness. Joyce
So that’s where you’ve been, wandering about in Colorado and Minnesota! How are you?
After vacationing in the mountains, I am always glad to return to the Midwest. Wide open spaces cause my mind to soar.