Too Quick to Judge

While waiting for Adolfo to take yet another beautiful shot of the Tetons, I decided to rest my feet and sit at a nearby picnic table. The table’s paint was chipped, leaving a very rough surface, and the wood was split and broken so that only half the bench remained. As I looked around, the entire area seemed to match the picnic table’s condition. Dead and rotting branches covered the ground. As the wind blew, I could hear the cracking sound of other branches breaking off the tree. One branch above me was broken off but hanging by a knot in the wood. It seemed as if the abundance of cobwebs were the only thing linking branches together. For such a beautiful park, I couldn’t have picked an uglier place to sit, I thought.

Within a few minutes I heard scampering and saw a tiny chipmunk with elegant stripes looking at me apprehensively. We eyed each other for a few seconds before it ran away. Another chipmunk ran after the first. Soon I was seeing chipmunks all around me. They chased each other from limb to limb and across the branches on the ground. As I watched the dance of the chipmunks, the sun caught the cobwebs and they began to glow.

Here among the rotting wood was an abundance of life and beauty.