First Times

MOUNTAINS
I remember the first time I ever saw mountains: Our oldest was four, the second son was one. I left Dick in Mexico City trying to rescue our stuff from Customs, and I took the boys on a bus and headed for Morelia, Michoacan, speaking no Spanish at the time. When I felt my ears popping, I glanced out the window and in the dusk saw GIANTS rising, row on row. That area is called Mil Cumbres (A Thousand Peaks) and is well named. The valleys fell so sharply from the side of the road, all you could see looking down was air. How we survived that eight hour trip, I don't know. I was afraid to get off the bus, didn't know how to ask for the bathrooms, and we all HELD ON until 10:00 pm when we finally arrived and our mission team met us. Never mind hugs and greetings, SHOW ME THE BATHROOM!(This was 1960)

NIGHTENGALES
Have you ever heard a nightengale sing? As I was chasing three little boys around our house in a tree filled park in Morelia, I heard the most heavenly sound, like little celestial chimes in a descending pattern. It was not possible to do anything but listen, entranced. When I asked our neighbor across the alley, Elda's mother, "What is that beautiful sound?" She told me it was her nightengale. I have never heard it again, since leaving Morelia, and have never forgotten the sound. That was 1965)

THE SCENT OF JASMINE
One dark night, at a remote retreat site in Queretaro, as I strolled around among the large stone buildings, several hundred years old, someone told me "Sniff this". In that time and place it was an innocent suggestion. So I sniffed the little white flower someone held out to me. I can't remember who it was, I only remember the incredible, sweet smell. The most expensive perfume doesn't come close to that scent of jasmine, picked fresh as dusk turns to darkness. Once again I carried that memory with me, ever hoping to revisit the wonder of it.(That was 1974) Yesterday, someone brought me a little white flower picked in her backyard: it was Jasmine!