Glacier-melt

The day started well, a coffee date with an enthusiastic young woman who has joined the Peace Corps and will be posted to Lesotho. It was a joy to talk about that country I know so well, a topography of gold sandstone and basalt, a culture that values kindness and laughter, an economics of need. But after that morning coffee date, the tide turned. The photo I took for a blip had a heartbreaking ending, too sad to post; and a vicious turn in American electoral politics left me in tears. 

As I was sobbing and raging, I got a text from Sue with this photograph made by her nephew, Louis Cashatt. 

She is with siblings and nephews in Glacier National Park, and they had just hiked from 5200 feet, uphill for about five miles to 6570 feet. It was a bright thin-air hot summer day with glare off snow patches, and when they reached their destination, she threw her strong body down on a slab of rock and plunged her head in a stream of snow-melt for an instant cool-down. Later, they took a boat ride and in the very spot on a stone beach where she and Louis built stone cairns yesterday, they saw a grizzly bear rooting around and then diving into the river for a bath. If that grizzly had gone there yesterday instead of today.... 

We laugh, texting each other, glad of her stories with happy endings. I don't tell her my sad stories of today; she will have time to learn about it all when she comes down from the mountains. I love this picture. It is so like her, the abandon. This image transforms my heavy heart and gives me gratitude, ease, and joy. Louis gave me his permission to blip it.