Traveling Up

Today we went up, up, and up. We took a bus from Sion and drove around several mountains until we were up at the Simplon Pass. This is the passage that Wordsworth took when he traveled across the Alps and into Italy. In his poem "The Prelude," Wordsworth discussed the idea of awareness of the moment that we are experiencing. As he points out we are rarely aware of the importance of an instant when we are in it. Much like this crossing of the Alps, there are rarely signs to tell us that this is a significant time.
After walking in this pass there seems to be more to this loss of focus than just human inattention. In a place with so much bare stone it would seem that change would be a small part of the landscape, but that is not the case here. The whole landscape seems to change from minute to minute with the movement of the clouds and the changing light. Through the camera lens it felt like a hundred different pictures could be taken of the same mountain side.
This constant change does not excuse the lack of attention for the moment, but the light in the mountains seems to create an alternative world in which to lose one's self.