Seeing the Mountains at Forty-Two

I grew up in Florida and spent my whole adult life somewhere flat. This spring, at forty-two, I finally saw real mountains, on a trip to Colorado with my wife.

I didn't expect to cry. But when we came around a bend on the highway west of Denver and the Rockies rose up in front of us, enormous and blue and capped with snow in May, I pulled over and just stood there with tears running down my face.

My wife held my hand. She'd grown up near mountains in Montana, and she said watching me see them for the first time was like seeing them for the first time herself.

The next day we hiked to a lake above the tree line. The air was thin and cold, and I didn't care. I picked up a smooth pink granite stone and put it in my pocket. It's on my nightstand now. I hold it some nights before bed and can almost see those peaks.