Once upon a time I was a little boy on a road trip across West Texas with my family. We were headed probably to California or Wyoming or New Mexico. We were a traveling family; always off to some cool place. My folks would have made great pioneers; unafraid to pack up the kids (there were six), an erroneous grandparent and the dog and head out west. On this particular leg of the trip, I was sitting in the seat behind my father who was at the wheel of our family’s station wagon. West Texas can be quite desolate. “Pretty” is not a word that you would use to describe it. Vast sections of West Texas are flat offering, over massive stretches of distance, no discernable changes in the landscape. As a child in the back seat of our car, already a day and a half into the journey, West Texas challenged me. In that moment, it seemed to be endless and grim. There was nothing to look at, it seemed. Nothing. I was from Houston you see, so I looking for drama. I wanted craggy peaks and cacti the size of skyscrapers, tumbleweeds, ghost towns. Then breaking the silence and the monotony of the landscape, my father spoke five short words; “There is beauty in everything.” It was one of those moments. And though I was one of many in the car that day, his words were intended for my ears I am certain. His words were truth. His words changed my life. A perfectly synchronized moment. Me, lost in the landscape and in my observation of what seemed to be so bleak; my father, in his own moment, the same landscape – a different experience and his wisdom to speak of it. “There is beauty in everything.” His words fell inside of me instantly changing the way I saw and experienced that moment. Transformation in an instant. Any moment can be the moment.

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