Peace At Last

There’s this little place nestled between the mountains; a small community cradled in a lovely green valley which seemed to be lost to time and tedium. It’s the kind of place that is so wonderful that you want to keep it all too yourself, but it’s also so incredible that you just can’t keep the secret. I know; I’ve lived the struggle. It even entered my writing by giving me the starting place for a novel.

When a friend introduced me to the place, I immediately felt like it was my soul’s home. It was quiet and peaceful. Just being there seemed to recharge that place inside which holds the essence of life. While the soul absorbed the energy of nature, the eyes took in the beauty; the nose took in the fresh scents; the ears took in the calming sounds; the mind marveled at creation. And relatively few people seemed to know of its existence. Full disclosure: My friend’s family was introduced to the place by someone else who had discovered it, and so its presence was slowly passed on.

We, my friend and I, went back several times together over the years. We hiked and fished. We explored and took in nature. We marveled at scattered pieces of history tucked in the crevasses surrounding the area — mines, camps, ghost towns, and aged log cabins. We climbed to rocky peaks which allowed an expansive and nearly uncomprehending view of the the world around us. We backpacked and camped. We swam in the serenity which seemed so thick you could float on it.

Later, when I got married, I introduced my bride to that heavenly spot on earth. It became our retreat. When summer came, breaking the gray and stress of winter, it called to us beckoning us to return. We could both sense the deep need to travel back into the mountains and immerse ourselves in the tranquility which could be found among pines, aspen, and flowing creeks. We longed for the daily rain which seemed to release the smell of the pine and refresh the fertile earth. We rushed with glee into the mountains, car windows open, sucking in the freshness and renewing ourselves on old life.

When it became time to go home, we felt it tug at our hearts asking us to stay. Back at home on the plains, with the mountains far from view, we felt the longing for the shadows of the valley. As our family began to grow, we introduced our children to this little slice of pleasure. They each got to savor its flavor for just a brief moment.

Then life entered and does what it does. We had school activities, summer baseball and softball, work, and a near constant demand to stay there on the plains. The call remained. The longing still pulled, but we were forced to push it aside to focus on the here and now. So often the heaviest demands of my work fell during the little time we might have visited, cancelling out our chances for getting away. Family needs took us in other directions, and we found that that little place in the mountains stayed nestled in our minds and our hearts with visions of how it was when we’d last visited.

Ten years later… no job… kids grown… the longing growing as strong as it ever had… we returned. It was just as beautiful as we remembered. I had been away for ten long years, and I wanted to savor every piece of it. We drove slowly up the valley, our eyes searching for all those familiar places. My heart was reaching out for the rock formations and structures which had been captured in my memory to see how they fared and what had changed. I looked in the rear view mirror. There was a car ridding my tail as I traveled the curves of the valley. When the road straightened, it zoomed by.

I resumed my sponge-like absorption of the world around me. There was another car on my butt. I pulled off to the side of the creek. It zoomed by. My eyes searched to mountainsides for what I considered to be a landmark and an old friend, an old wooden mill that hung off the side of the mountain. My eyes caught the Subaru in the side mirror as it headed around me. I looked at the dash. The speed limit in the valley is 45mph; I was slightly under. As I drove the ten miles up the valley, I continued to be frustrated by these people who were speeding by what I had longed to visit for the last ten years. “If they’re in such a hurry, then why are they here?” I expressed out loud.

We drove into the small town. It was packed. Cars, Jeeps, Subarus, pickups, UTVs, ATVs, trailers, RVs, mountain bikes, and pedestrians moved back and forth over the gravel streets. There is one general store, and it couldn’t be seen for the vehicles surrounding it. The camping areas were filled side by side with tent campers and RV trailers. The secret was out and obviously had been for quiet some time. It seemed all possibility of finding that serenity which had once so easily found me, was gone.

We left the valley and went into the nearby city for our motel reservation. Whatever frustration I found in the valley was multiplied when we pulled into the city. The highway into town was lined with vehicles and trailers hauling large UTVs or RV trailers. The city park was overflowing with people. Additional crosswalks had been added so that we had to stop for pedestrians every fifty feet. The four lane highway was backed up at each light. The line entering McDonald’s snaked out into the main road. My frustration built. Why was I here?

We got our motel and we stayed three days in the area. Everywhere we went we were in a crowd. It was like being at the mall in a major city. Small hideaways were no longer hidden. Quaint restaurants and stores were no longer quaint. Gone were the places which served hearty plates of comfort food, replaced by guacamole burgers and vegan fare. Bookshops and antique stores were replaced by smoothie bars, chic clothing and eclectic furniture stores. Fly fishing businesses had been replaced by bicycle shops. And the sidewalks were filled by people who looked like they’d been formed by the same cookie cutter right down to the last thin bicycle body, fanny pack, ponytail and man-bun.

My wife marveled at my displeasure. Keep in mind, she loved the place and felt the change, but she was also completely comfortable in the city at a mall full of people. I had experienced enough people in my previous work, I longed for solitude. Still, she didn’t understand how I could get that far from home, drive into the mountains, and not feel the joy of being ‘away.’

When I’d had enough, I suggested we take one last drive up the valley and move on. By then the valley had calmed some. The crowd had settled down, still too many people, but not as bad. We took our time going up the valley. I got out of the car and walked along the creek, taking pictures, absorbing the scenery, and listening to the rush of the creek. My mood, though still not where it should be, seemed to right just a little. Then we headed down the road.

Our plan was to stay in the next city down the road, but when we got there, there were no rooms. Every place we checked was full of people. We moved on. Each town we reached, it was the same story. We started calling ahead, our scramble for finding a room taking us closer and closer to home. Before long we would be out of the mountains completely. We finally found a room in a rundown little town on the edge of the mountains. The room was clean and comfortable. Restaurants were non-existent, so we settled for a convenience store.

I couldn’t believe we were already headed home, and that the mountains for which I’d so longed would soon be far behind me. I felt empty from the experience. Happy, of course, to have had the opportunity to spend time with my wife and to get away from what had been normal for a while, but unsatisfied with my expectations. The next morning, on a whim, I decided to backtrack about fifteen miles and take a different route home.

The road twisted and turned back and forth through a mountain valley, the slopes rising steeply on either side. We moved in and out of shadows. The paved ribbon curved around bends. Water rushed alongside and under bridges in creeks and rivers. The grass was tall, the rocks rugged, the pine and aspen thick. We climbed up over mountains, and geared back down the far slope. Our travel took us through little picturesque towns, thick forests, and past small lakes. Traffic was light and we took the road at ease.

The car windows were down letting in the cool seventy degree fresh air. The wind blew against my arm as it rested on the open window frame. I could feel the smile plastered on my face. Light flashed between trees, the world bouncing in and out of their shadows. We took tight turns and switchbacks over paved two-lane mountain passes. I pulled over and took pictures at a perfectly blue, still lake. It was wonderful. It felt as if we were all alone, and I could have driven for hours just taking it all in. I even threatened to turn around and drive back through when we coasted down the decline of the last mountain pass. Peace at last filled my soul.

I’m not telling you where I found it. I won’t map it out. It was only about forty-five miles of solitude, but it was amazing, and I’m just going to keep it to myself. If you guess, that’s on you. If you want to keep it that way, you better be careful who you tell. When the secret gets out, then it just isn’t a secret again. And the other place? The place that is no longer a secret… well… I’m going to keep quiet about that too. Because if I do… if other people feel the same way as me… then maybe one day it will be a secret again.