Perspective is one of the greatest gifts I receive from Yosemite.
That middle picture, of Yosemite valley, is one I've wanted to take for a long time. From north to south, approximately the tree line at the top of the pic to the trees at the bottom, you're looking at about a mile. A mile! Yosemite is such a good teacher for me. Things seem to be right around the corner; they seem to be right there. But no. There's no way to rush and Yosemite will humble you fast if you try. It's best to take a lesson from the speed of granite and pines and redwoods. We don't endure in their way, but we can learn something from their way of enduring.
These are from Derek's and my anniversary weekend. Celebrating together in Yosemite felt right. When you spend your life with someone who studies the universe, but on an atomic scale, one of the gifts you get is an expanded sense of scale. The unimaginably tiny, the unimaginably vast. Except someone has the imagination for it! I love listening to Derek talk about the nature of nature. And at some point, even language fails to describe the scale, and then math is the language to use. At some point, even language fails to describe how connected we feel, and then love is language to use.