I Want To Be A Mountain

I Want to be a Mountain
Michael Smith

The year drew to a close. What would I accomplish in next?

I looked up at the mountains in the distance. They were white now. Not long ago,
they were brown. In the eighteen months I've lived in Idaho, I've had the opportunity
watch the cycle of seasons make their changes on these mountains that I never tire of
seeing.

My first sight of them came in September of 2008. The sides of the mountains
were painted green with the leaves of sage brush. The days moved on. The weather
cooled and the rain didn't fall. The leaves browned. The mountain changed.

Fall gave way to winter. I stood in the rain and watched the top of the
mountains turn a dazzling white. Each week the snow crept further down the slopes
and long before the first snows fell in the valley, the mountains were covered with fresh
powder. When the sun set, the lights on the ski slopes lit the side of the mountains a
dazzling white at night. I'm not a skier, but I imagined the excitement of speeding down
the side of those mountains - free, fast, and thrilled.

Winter turned to spring. The snow in the valley disappeared and made its
retreat up the slopes until it was gone once again. As the weeks passed, the green in
the valley flowed steadily up the slopes like a reversed waterfall. The mountains
were as I first saw them, green and lush.

On this New Years Eve, the mountains are white again. On New Years Day
they will be peppered with the dark dots of the distance skiers as they daringly
fall down it's slopes.

I saw so many changes, but were they changes? The mountains are never
changing. Like people, they only changed coats to fit the weather. They didn't
allow outside influences to alter what lie beneath their coats of changing colors.
They were always the same. You could have faith in them.

I'm in my third season of life. A little snow is gathering at my peak. Some of the
sage brush is gone all together. My clothing changed to fit my season. Next year and all
my years to follow, I want to be as constant as a mountain. Although my looks change,
I want to be reliable. My body will change coats many times, but when my day is
done, I want people to say, "No matter what the seasons of life brought, he never changed
inside. He never allowed the pressures of the seasons or the weathers of life to change
what he was underneath. He was a mountain you could rely on to watch over those
who looked up to him."

For this New Year and all the New Years that I have left, whether it is at my job,
at home, or with friends, I want to be a mountain.