"Have you ever..."

[Ever (Zombiepreparation)]

Oh, I donno. A little thread, a place to post an experience you one had that was exceptional? With replies and maybe a little conversation about it?

(oh yeah, and everyone who posts one gets a Chrysler Cordova!  (When I win the lottery  )

I'll start........

[Ever (Zombiepreparation)]

Have you ever been on the south rim of the Grande Canyon facing east at dawn waiting for the sunrise? 


It's quiet, a little chill. You look northward in and across the Canyon where you are. Majestic. 

Then you notice the rim you're on is lined with people like you, hushed, all looking at the same point down Canyon to the east. Waiting. Waiting for the tip of the sun to peek above the skyline.

Time seems still. You take another look around the rim. Every place that can see that point has a person. Looking to the east, quietly waiting.

You turn back, look with them.

50, a 100 people you don't know and probably will never meet, and you've all come to the same place and the same time from all over this country, and likely from other countries... to look at the same point. To experience the that same moment in time.



I have... gratefully. It's imprint on me is strong, and when I think of it my 'self' still quiets just for the briefest moment, and I experience again what I experienced then.

[NT2C]

Have you ever been on the south rim of the Grande Canyon facing east at dawn waiting for the sunrise? 


It's quiet, a little chill. You look northward in and across the Canyon where you are. Majestic. 

Then you notice the rim you're on is lined with people like you, hushed, all looking at the same point down Canyon to the east. Waiting. Waiting for the tip of the sun to peek above the skyline.

Time seems still. You take another look around the rim. Every place that can see that point has a person. Looking to the east, quietly waiting.

You turn back, look with them.

50, a 100 people you don't know and probably will never meet, and you've all come to the same place and the same time from all over this country, and likely from other countries... to look at the same point. To experience the that same moment in time.



I have... gratefully. It's imprint on me is strong, and when I think of it my 'self' still quiets just for the briefest moment, and I experience again what I experienced then.

Did that this past summer.   

[NT2C]

Have you ever driven through a National Forest, alongside a semi-frozen stream, with snowflakes that seem the size of dinner plates floating down through bare trees illuminated by the light of the setting sun?  Not another vehicle in sight, just you in your 4x4 slowly driving, following the road through the totally white-covered landscape by the markers along the edges.  No sound except the occasional crunch of snow under your wheels and the low purr of your engine.

That was me, sunset of New Year's Eve 2007 passing through Idaho's Nez-Perce-Clearwater National Forest on US12, heading towards Montana's Lolo Pass, and eventually back home to Maryland after 2 months remodeling my mother-in-law's kitchen as a Christmas gift.

[Uomo Senza Nome]

Thinking I really should have kissed that girl in the dark by the stairs and regretting not doing it for the rest of my life. The birth of my children. My mother's last gasp and her cane. My son, all of five years old swimming bravely all the way across the pool for a false start, and then swimming it again. My son, 16 years old defeating his team's nemesis. Saying goodbye to my son as I dropped him off for the bus to take him to basic training.

Losing everything I thought and felt ever mattered to me and still being alive. Hoisting the main in a stiff breeze and making for dusk. Being involuntarily dismounted from motorcycle at 40MPH and walking away without a scratch. The Million Dollar Highway on my cruiser. Jumping out of a plane and watching it fly away without me. Hang Gliding on the OBX.


Liberating a city. Ice cream, puppy dogs and hugs from strangers. A woman becoming pink mist. Being inside the blast radius of a bomb when it went off and going home without a scratch. Losing people. Always trying to do more but never doing enough. God Forgiving me. Being pushed a half mile out to sea in a rip tide.

A woman walking slowly in the rain, beckoning me from my window. The taste of the rain on her lips as we made love on top of a mountain, in the open, under the clouds with thunder and lightening crashing around us. A peanut M&M. Kissing her goodbye forever on a dark and rainy night 28 years later.

Snow white horses emerging from a bank of fog next to a rolling brook in grass greener than you ever thought existed. Scaling a a sunny ridge line in the Rockies to find snow pummeling down on the other side.  Another woman, perhaps the most beautiful I have ever seen, asking for 30 pfennigs for a phone call. A rabbit, four feet tall on his haunches, regarding me as a curiosity. Easter Sunrise at Red Rocks.

Taking risks. Getting that kiss I regretting not getting 40 years earlier and it changing my life, yet again.

[Raptor]

Being truly humbled...I was delivering a sail boat from NOLA to Tampa pre-GPS and Loran C.

The weather had been shit and heavy overcast for 2 days and 1 night. We were making poor progress and had no clue where in the GoM we were.

We got one noon site but no night time fixes with the sextent due to cloud cover. I was really missed off over the delay and  inability to get a fix from the stars.

Fast forward to a lesson in humility....I was awakened at 2am ish by the watch to get a fix...I grumbled and mumbled and went on deck and was pissed off .... when I saw all of the damn stars...."dang! look at all of those stars! where are the 2 stars I needed? ...rotten stars! so many of them I cannot find the 2 I need"...the penny dropped... on me... by the amazing number of stars, the bioluminesence of the boat's wake. The sky in a dark GoM is amazing.

Hit by the realization in that moment of how exactly unimportant and insignificant I was.

I just stood there and felt like an insignificant single cell of algae looking at the world. Truly humbled and in awe of our existence.

[Uomo Senza Nome]

It's all a matter of scale. There are about 10^27 atoms in your body and about 10^24 Stars in the universe. However there are only 10^82 atoms in the universe. 

The interesting thing is that given an infinite amount of time, every individual atom in the universe could potentially be represented uniquely on a GO board, as there are 10^360 variations possible. Even on a chess board it is possible as there are 10^111 possible chess board variations possible (Shannon Number).

When you think of it that way, that insignificant little twinkle of existence that is our lives, that isn't even noted by anything in our universe, doesn't seem so bad.

[NT2C]

Being at sea, aboard a cargo ship coming up the East Coast in a hurricane.  Being out on main deck, watching a wave crash through the flag bridge of one of the other ships with you and cracking it down one side to the keel.  The flag bridge wave was over 100' tall.  Making it through the storm to your home port of Norfolk, the only ship of 8, the rest turned back out to sea to wait for the storm to pass, to a brass band welcome home, most of your rigging and antennas simply gone.  That was an unforgettable ride.

[Ever (Zombiepreparation)]

Chrysler Cordovas for EveryOne!


But seriously fellow Members, these postings are stunning.

[12_Gauge_Chimp]

Reading these posts makes me realize just how tame and kind of boring my life has been.

Only thing that really stands out is the time I stood in my apartment dining room with my mother, protecting her as an obsessed acquaintance of hers pounded on the door demanding she open it and talk to him.

I stood in front of my mother with a .45 ACP Glock in my hand, pointed at the door and ready to do what I hoped I wouldn't need to do if the door was breached.

Thankfully I didn't have to do that as the guy left after what seemed like an eternity (in actuality it was only a few minutes and also because my sister and her then fiancee came out of their apartment two doors down to chase him away).

Nothing more ever came of it and the man has since passed away, but he came very, very close to dying that day because I'd have done whatever was necessary to protect my mother. Even if it meant pulling the trigger on my .45 and ending the threat that man posed to her.

Growing up, my mother was my protector, so it's only fair that I became her protector now that I'm older.

ETA: I forgot to mention that I was 29 years old when this happened. Reading over my post again, I realized I forgot that info and may have made it sound as if I was a lot younger.

[Ever (Zombiepreparation)]

Growing up, my mother was my protector, so it's only fair that I became her protector now that I'm older.

 

[Z.O.R.G.]

...Danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?  

Sorry I couldn't resist that.

[Z.O.R.G.]

Sat in a deer stand at o-dark thirty in 15 degree weather and watched the sun rise and the woods come to life.  

[NT2C]

Poached a deer to survive?  When your belly is rumbling and you're not finding any small game worth the effort and a young buck just about walks into your camp, well, hunger wins.

[Uomo Senza Nome]

Sat in a deer stand at o-dark thirty in 15 degree weather and watched the sun rise and the woods come to life. 

The first time I shared that with a good friend he had mixed feelings. His father subsistence hunted to put food on the table when he was growing up on a farm. His dad never took him hunting so he always wondered what it was like. Finding things like that a chore and a beauty gave him new appreciation for his (passed) father.

[echo83]

...taken your girlfriend surfing in hurricane waves just so you can propose to her?

I had it all planned out. The ring was in a pouch, in a velcro pocket in my board shorts, under my wetsuit. I had planned an afternoon surfing session, and arranged for my parents to set up a picnic dinner afterwards on the beach. We'd surf for an hour or so, walk back towards the table, and I'd propose before we got there.

What I hadn't planned for was the waves. 

A recent hurricane offshore meant that what should have been 3 foot waves in glassy, waist-high water were...substantially larger. The waves were closer to 6 feet, with occasional 8 foot walls of green Atlantic rolling in. Paddling a 9' 6" longboard out past the break required a substantial amount of effort, and in between the fast-breaking tubes of water was soupy layers of churned up foam and mounds of seaweed. We'd paddle forward, then dive under a wave, hold the leashes to our boards, and surface, just to get hit by another wave and get pushed back almost to where we started.

My girlfriend didn't hesitate to go in, and we spent the next 30 minutes or so getting absolutely pummelled. Sand in the ears, water up the nose, undertow ripping at our boards, pummelled. We decided to head back in, and I had to dig handfuls of seaweed out of my suit as I frantically half-peeled off my wetsuit and dug around for the ring, letting her walk ahead of me while trying to propose before she saw the table of food in the middle of the beach.

She said yes, though. It was worth it, and it still is. 

[Ever (Zombiepreparation)]

...taken your girlfriend surfing in hurricane waves just so you can propose to her?

LOL.

Though I can tell it wasn't amusing in any way at all while it was happening.

Memorable. ABSOLUTELY! The attempt to create a Moment for her, well both of you and your family... like you envisioned it. Then.. weather. She's good people. Just kept on keeping on with ya, let the pummeling begin.

 

[NT2C]

Have you ever... been utterly gobsmacked to note that a picture you took of the dairy aisle of your local supermarket has had almost 400,000 views?  And one of the seating in a restaurant in Knoxville, TN is about to top 1,000,000 views?

It always astonishes me when things that I create, such as photos, stories, programs, reviews, are well-received.  There's always a slight sense of unreality to it for me.

[Ever (Zombiepreparation)]

.."things that I create, such as photos, stories, programs, reviews"..

ooo... do speak on this a bit more.


   

[Lambykins]

Have you ever.....
Woke up in your tent, the moonlight filtering through the trees, a soft southern breeze with the scent of wild honeysuckle wafting  around you as you quietly exit your tent. The sound of the nearby stream tinkling past as you settle on a nearby stump to watch the wildlife. A pair of raccoons quarreling over the apple slices you left beside the stream for them. You hear sparse traffic passing on nearby roads that are out of sight. It is a moment of grace....even quiet joy.
At that moment you forget you are homeless. You just feel grateful that you are alive, that you have the chance to see such things and enjoy them.