Skip to content

How I met the genius

You know that feeling, when you look at something really beautiful and everything inside you starts vibrating as thousands of fluttering butterflies? It becomes hard to breathe, but there is nothing you can do to get out of that condition.

You know that feeling, when you look at something really beautiful and everything inside you starts vibrating as thousands of fluttering butterflies?

It becomes hard to breathe, but there is nothing you can do to get out of that condition. All you can is enjoy what you see and spill whatever emotions it causes.

When I see something that is beyond me, I tend to freeze and unless somebody gets me out of there I just sit and stare. And butterflies inside slowly form into the sense of total happiness. I want to hug what I’m observing. I want to somehow become a part of it. I want to see it, hear it, smell it. Sometimes I just want to fall down and roll on the ground to get a little bit closer (this part I usually skip not to freak people out).

Maybe that’s why we take pictures – as another attempt to preserve a part of something that impressed us. Unfortunately, I noticed that the photo rush often takes the place of the real connection, making you postpone this moment (in most cases forever, like when you mark something important in the book you are reading to come back and think about it later but never do).

Last week I hardly could breathe at all, and if not for my husband, who managed to keep me somewhat on track and made me move, I would probably never have made it back to Estevan.

As you can guess, we went for a little holiday. Our path was running through North and South Dakotas and then into Wyoming.

As we were getting further into our trip, the world around us was turning more and more stunning.

Mount Rushmore was our first stop. Impressive, this monument not only spoke to the human’s genius, but it also was a memorial to humanity’s ambitions. Huge calm, serious and wise faces of the founding fathers were overlooking mountains and forests around. Looking at them I felt as if the rushing tourists’ world at the foot of the mountain all of a sudden slowed down.

Along with the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is an even more ambitious project, that hopefully one day will be completed, Mount Rushmore carvings reminded that nothing is impossible and even the sky doesn’t have to be the limit.

Despite the strong feelings these monuments woke in me, the further adventure proved that these human-made creations were almost toy-like in comparison to the real genius. 

The first wake up call happened in Badlands, one of the numerous American National Parks. Looking like a dessert of stripy dramatic dunes, this place stole my breath for a long time. It seemed unreal, dead and at the same time more than alive, just existing in its own dimension. This demonstration of nature’s talents told me the well-known story of the fluidity of our existence. Once inhabited with ancient rhinos, horses and saber-toothed cats, now it froze in silence occasionally irritated by some goat or bison. 

The trip was moving forward, so was my exploration of the abilities of my body to survive without oxygen. When we made it to the Grand Teton National Park, I quit believing that the world around me was real. Mountains, whose tips were topped with snow and decorated with cloud necklaces, powerful, menacing and absolutely hypnotizing, dominated above the never-ending flower meadows and reflected in pure and clear mountain lakes.

Harmony and beauty were in every inch.  Everything was thought through. Glaciers were preserving excess water for hot and dry years, curvy rivers were feeding fields, animals and birds inhabiting forests also found coexisting balance. The only extras on this picture were endless visitors rushing down the driving loops.

The beauty of the Grand Teton was paralyzing, but at least it was understandable and somewhat real.

Mountains, lakes, rivers, fields, something you know of since childhood. When we moved to Yellowstone National Park, I completely lost connection with reality. Filled with geysers and ultimately gorgeous hot springs, this park was impossible for me to understand, believe in and simply take in. It was beyond the limit. Cold, haughty, grey northern cliffs preserved detailed and gentle geyser basins, where microorganisms living in hot thermal water built their own colorful cosmic world. Deep green forests populated with bison, grizzly and black bears and wolves, framed the active geysers erupting water and steam from the Earth’s deep interiors. Everything there was infinite fascinating, and all details were a part of one.   

At that point, I had no doubts that I connected with the genius of the nature that felt bigger and greater than any human attempts and creations. I also knew that now I’ll do my best to get to know it better.