A single photo. 


Stretching itself across the back of my mind into a thousand possibilities. Ways that someone might be able to touch and feel that moment, to hold it in the palm of their hand, to understand a shadow of the feeling of knowing that place.


Time passing. 


News flashing. Evidence that the moment I had experienced might never again be possible for someone like me.


Standing on the Mount of Olives in the rain, alone, so enthralled by the storm clouds in the desert that I never stopped to wonder why (almost) no one else was outside.


Limestone.


Memories of falling as much as walking down the mountainside, wondering how far the trek might be to find an open business, hopefully a restaurant, something.


Nothing.


And yet, not a thing could take that moment, looking out over the cityscape, and somehow make it less incredible, less fleetingly profound. Less once-in-a-lifetime. 


Stretching and pulling at the back of my mind, years passed, and finally I had to admit to myself that I couldn't get that picture out of my head, couldn't leave it unbothered in its long-forgotten digital parking space.


Couldn't.


~


These special moments and places deserve to be seen, held, experienced, and it is a tiny everyday miracle that in the palm of your hand you can hold the moment where I was standing. 


Underrated.


~


So, who am I? Well, I'm no Ansel Adams, but I think sometimes I maybe feel the way he felt, a little.


Let's treasure the world instead of tearing it apart. Let's stop and think about how beautiful it is, for a moment, at least when all the voices are dimmed and for just that one moment, we can peer into the quiet of what exists without questioning it, without judging it, without demanding its profundity to enunciate itself in words and noises and all the busyness of life.


There is nothing in this world quite like a still image, and there never will be.