Looking out into the horizon; not really knowing what awaits in the unknown. The allure of wonder fascinated me as a child; whether it was looking to the skies and into the stars or below the sea beyond the reach of any man. My eyes fled the existence of the familiar around me and instead searched for the unknown.
In the past I often looked back to the days of exploration and imagined myself a doughty explorer who feared nothing. No land too wild to be tamed. No person mighty or brawny enough to halt my journey. Nothing could stop me in my tracks. I clad with a musket and loyal crew of men explore the lands unbeknownst to even the mightiest sailors and explorer. Heading westward before any even conceived the thought of the manifest destiny.
I find it funny, now that I have grown much older and have long abandoned the thought of exploration and adventure, that the only image to emerge when reminiscing of my youth is A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie. A quite dramatic piece that brought forth this idea of a large untamed expanse that lay in wait for a heroic young voyager, like myself, to claim it’s ripe treasure. I was exposed to this piece at a young age due to its home being the nearest museum to me. I did not know what initially caught my eye but I knew instantly that I was enamored of it. Perhaps it was the sunlight th
at illuminated valley. I always recall it being brighter than it really is. Maybe it was the shambolic way the trees were depicted. Actually, I do think it was the sunlight. It adds that dramatic flair to the piece and induces a sensation of grandeur. And as time went by my interpretation of it changed from land waiting for me, to Gandalf and Erkenbrand’s band flanking the vastly superior Urak-hai army at the Battle of Hornburg, to what I see now: a gateway to a memory.
Of course this was before I learned of the cruelty of these explorers and lamented the suffering of the indigenous people. My attitudes shifted from exploration to repair. I have not abandoned the unexplored frontiers but I do not look to them with same fascination that I had when I was a child. Now I am a man of politics and philanthropy. I still am a staunch advocate for the study and exploration of our seas and of space but no longer do I wish to do the exploration. Instead I would rather push progress from the ground with policy and grassroots organizing. I would rather develop our society and fix the issues that have been and are becoming prominent. So while a tempest may be brewing just beyond the skyline the sun will be there to remind me of dreams; the dreams I once had and what they mean to me now. For now the discovery that awaits me is no unruly strand of distant land but instead remedies for our concurrent affairs. My dream is now of an idyll nation and hopefully that could extend to the world. And knowing just how unlikely it is to come true I still seek solace in the idea that I can move mankind up the stairway of progress; even it be one step of thousands. Hope still stands by my side and when I think of hope I see Bierstadt’s sun from A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie shining through the mountain range as a tempest brew just over the skyline. And so, that sunlight that I was enamored of as a child still infatuates me. Then there’s a little part of me that still thinks of Gandalf.
