The Unlikely and Unimaginable

In my last post, I shared Rebecca Solnit's uplifting words: "The grounds for hope are simply that we don't know what will happen next, and that the unlikely and the unimaginable transpire quite regularly." I turned to this wisdom repeatedly last week, clinging to it like a lifeline amidst the relentless churn of tragic headlines—more shooting deaths, violent rhetoric both spawning tragedies and erupting in their wake. How do we hold onto hope and light when companies profit from an "engage to enrage" model that fractures us as a people, turning neighbor against neighbor for the sake of clicks and quarterly earnings?

I found my answer in retreat. Shutting off news feeds and email notifications, I fled to the mountains with friends and family, seeking sanctuary on a clear mountain lake and nearby trails. We surrendered ourselves to the symphony of water threading alongside the path, our steady footsteps on damp, leaf-littered earth, and the kaleidoscope of early fall foliage—leaves glistening pale yellow, peachy orange, and bold crimson against large boulders.

Over two days, we hiked twenty-six miles and climbed over 3,500 feet, sometimes filling the trail with stories and laughter, other times letting the profound quiet wrap around us like a benediction. And there, in that sacred space between effort and grace, we discovered Solnit's "unlikely and unimaginable" manifesting with startling frequency.

A rare, heavy fog descended to the meadows, bifurcating the massive peaks so they appeared to float like ancient ships above a silver sea. Countless spiderwebs, heavy with morning dew, materialized against dead branches—intricate mandalas outlined in crystalline perfection. A pair of plump gray ptarmigan materialized on a rocky slope, camouflaged and confident, regarding us with steady gaze.

The season's first snowstorm blessed us with fat flakes that kissed our gloves and dusted the high country beyond Winter Park with delicate tracings of white. Aspen groves revealed their autumn metamorphosis in waves—first glowing buttery yellow, then deepening to pale orange, finally blazing crimson on various altitudes and rock faces, each grove responding to its unique microclimate with painterly precision. Rain drummed against the cabin roof as we gathered around a worn wooden table, savoring warm soup and losing ourselves in card games punctuated by laughter.

The catalog of small miracles grew with each passing hour, and I began wielding it as counterweight to the crushing headlines from the world below. Each dewdrop, each bird call, each moment of shared laughter became evidence of a different truth—that beauty persists, that wonder endures, that connection transcends the manufactured divisions designed to keep us scrolling and seething.

Now, settled back into my familiar desk chair with the glow of the computer screen replacing mountain vistas, I clutch these memories like smooth worry stones worn gentle by countless hands. The unlikely and unimaginable didn't abandon us when we descended from those heights—it simply awaits our attention, ready to unfold in ways we cannot predict or orchestrate. Hope isn't about knowing what comes next, but about remaining radically open to the glowing miracles that surround us, even in—especially in—our darkest hours.