Hills that beg you to keep seeking the other side. A sky that calls you to fly up and above to the mountains of your dreams. My Grandfather, who I never met, grew among the grasses and hills, the deer and moose and grizzly, and under that sky who called. 

In the vast open space, I understood — I knew him — at last. I understood why he escaped his crib and ran down the dirt road again and again. And why, even though his parents put him in a boarding school to tame his wandering adventurer, they never could. Why he enlisted in the front lines in the Pacific. And why the monotony of a 9-5 in suburbia destroyed him. 

I felt him there within my heart, within my bones. I knew why and how his soul could be crushed — a wild bird locked in a cage.  He died of a broken spirit long before he left his body. 

On this trip, I couldn’t make it to the mountains of my dreams, the road to the sun blocked by Oregon’s smoke; yet, I gained more than my intentions. A feeling of wholeness, of integration, of knowing this man, this mystery — feeling his DNA come alive within mine. 

I’ll return in Spring. To let his essence bloom within my consciousness, to let him live on. For just like him, the hills and sky call to my Spirit.