Landscapes tell their history

The Grand Canyon is a beautiful place today.  But it has a history that goes way back to the time when the Earth had only one land mass.  Of course, everything has a history.  The land that was the canyon was underwater at one time.  The Pacific Ocean used to cover the land that is now the canyon area.  Shells give that away.  As Pangea broke apart the tectonic activity was prolific.  The ocean receded, and the grinding of the Pacific plate against the North American plate caused huge mountains, taller than the Himalayans today.  But time and nature's forces wore down the mountains.  Ice ages  took their toll as well.  So did earthquakes because there was a huge lake bigger than any of the great lakes located close by in lower Utah and Nevada that had one side of it lowered by an earthquake.  The water emptied out of the lake and poured down through the canyon to carve it out deeper.  After that huge lake dried up, temperatures increased so much that a desert ensued.  Now, we see it as it is.  The history ahead of the canyon will be about like it has been in the past.

The beauty of the lives around us have their histories all right.  I had a text from a friend earlier this evening.  This person lives in pain but refuses to let the pain get in the way of ambitions to be realized.  This person's history is littered with events that cause different landscapes to appear.  But for the moment life is beautiful.  I have another friend whose story reads like a book written as a result of many interruptions.  Each interruption produced a different landscape until what shows today is a beautiful place to look at.  Another friend of mine has had a number of upheavals with children, the desert of experience with his late wife, the pinnacle experience in education between wives, and tremendous climate change with a second wife.  But, to talk to him is to talk to someone beautiful.  I need their experiences.  It helps me to put my own life in perspective, and not to be discouraged, for it has its own share of changing landscapes.