I’m Not the Mountain I Thought I Would Be

After spending much of the day in the car, the drive across western Kansas and eastern Colorado becomes tedious as we make our nearly annual trip to the Rockies. The monotony of the trip disappears once someone announces that he sees the mountains. The rest of us strain forward, looking low on the horizon, but soon realizing that the mountains already reach well into the sky. We have driven close enough to penetrate the concealing haze. And within myself awakens dreams from long ago. For a week I can be the next Ansel Adams.

The mountains impress me in the way that I always wanted to impress others through my career: striking, imposing, grandiose. Once I envisioned traveling the world to photograph fascinating subjects in exotic lands. But life has taken me in a different direction. Instead, I live on a prairie island, years and miles away from the dreams I once held for myself.

Father, husband, teacher, part-time photographer. Somehow, as adulthood ensnared me, my dream of being an extraordinary photographer dissipated. Pulitzer Prizes gave way to soccer games, faculty meetings, and week-long family vacations. Nobody ever told me I couldn’t have it all.

And so during the long drive to the east at the end of yet another Colorado vacation, the mountains fade, and for another year so does the vision I once held for myself.

At home in Kansas, the most spectacular scenery is found in the flint hills. There the beauty rests a bit more subtle than that of the Rocky Mountains. Given this is the only terrain I can photograph 51 weeks of the year, I’ve learned to look upon the Kansas prairie with a more discerning eye. Beauty can be found there, but it isn’t as striking and obvious as it is in the Rockies. To see the full beauty of the flint hills, one has to look deeper.

The awards and honors I once envisioned have been replaced by refereeing arguments about which child touched which, by being the designated family member that gets the heels from the loaf of bread, by trying keep the lawn mower running, and never knowing for sure if somebody is going to barrel through the bathroom door at an inopportune time.

But once in a while the beauty is celebrated in arenas I never imagined. Theatrical productions in the front yard, listening from the van as my daughter successfully navigates her piano lesson, and in another anniversary with my wife.

My life mirrors that of the flint hills. I’m blessed in ways that I’ve only begun to appreciate, but in truth, I’m not the mountain I thought I would be. But once in a while, if I look deeper, I can penetrate the haze that surrounds all working parents. It is then I see the beauty that I once only saw in the mountains.

It is then that I can see the unmatched beauty found in the Flint Hills.