My last post was about taking a step back and looking at what is in my "backyard" so to speak, reminding myself that while I may want to run away to distant shores, I have some pretty damn awesome shores all around me.
You saw some of the beauty in waterfalls, now it's the lakes' turn.
Before I get into it, I have a question- does anyone else here ever put together long photo posts? I'm wondering if there's a better way to do it, because as it stands if I want them in order I have to upload one by one. Otherwise they arrange themselves willy nilly and I have to go back through, cutting and pasting- anddd this one took me at least an hour and a half. So if someone has a better way, let me know :)
Back to the lakes.
I live pretty much smack in the center of the finger lakes region of NY. Sandwiched between Seneca and Cayuga, the largest of the lakes (which comprise the bulk of these photos) and within forty miles of the other other nine.
And when I say the largest, they are nearly 40 miles long, around 4 miles wide, with a depth of over 600 feet.
It's funny, I spent the first 10 years of my childhood on Long Island, just an hour from the Big Apple, and my idea of a lake at that time was something I now see as a pond. Actually, in comparison to the Great Lake Ontario, which is also within 40 miles of my home, the "lakes" of my youth were...well, are more like mud puddles.
In case you don't know much about the Great Lakes- Ontario is almost 200 miles long and over 50 miles wide...so, Huge. Not ocean huge maybe, but still ginormous.
My point beyond a geography lesson is the lakes around me are impressive, and also gorgeous.
It's crazy how we have a tendency to take things for granted. If I were to live elsewhere and visit here, I know I would be overflowing with praise. And I also know if I were gone for long enough, I would see it all with fresh eyes again.
So I'm trying to look at it that way right now, especially as the long, very cold and mostly dreary winter months make it harder to recall why anyone would be here. Particularly as NY is one of the more expensive states to live in terms of taxes and many other hidden fees.
And that was true always, just as fuel oil for heating has always been a pricey deal. But this year? Way worse than it ever has been, and for some reason electric has also shot through the roof.
When you couple those things with the swiftly escalating prices of everything else, like food and gas...
...oh FFS, I am defeating my purpose here by focusing on the cons of my current location hah!
Getting back on track. Well, a track anyway XD
In my last post I talked a bit about being grateful for this earthly experience, and how I'm no longer among those who only feel that way about the good parts, but All of the parts.
It's actually something I've understood intellectually since I was young, but in that way our brain has of filing the big concepts like billions and trillions, or infinity.
The first time I grasped it in a more conscious and real way was after experiencing the sudden death of my sister when I was 22. I had not known true sorrow until that time, and as if it was a lesson that wasn't enough on its own, three short years later was the tragic loss of my husband's closest friend who was like a brother to me.
These things solidified the temporal nature of this place for me. That there are no guarantees in terms of the time we get, for ourselves and with others. No longer just an intellectual concept, it was now an emotional and spiritual understanding of the preciousness that is life on earth.
Perspective is truly everything.
My lessons in sorrow are what begun my journey to that conclusion, though it was my lessons in pain, of the physical variety, that set it all into concrete.
And that's a discussion for another post.
(The irony of that statement on top of this last picture is not lost on me :0D)
Perhaps next I will do a tree edition and wander through the annals of agony.
Sounds super fun right? Haha! Don't worry, I'm all about positivity, cup half full happy endings!
