Maybe this is what I should have written when I took my best picture.
“These mountains, which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise but stand reverent, silent so that man’s weak praise should be given God’s attention.”
I was standing in the same spot Kalanithi is describing here.
(I was on the north side near the Hyatt Regency @ Incline Village).
It was cold and perfect and we were there for an entire week.
The very idea of feeling “specklike” is profoundly human and eternal – and I like that.
The morning commuters began to animate the distant South Lake Tahoe roads. But craning your head back, you could see the day’s blue darken halfway across the sky, and to the west, the night remained yet unconquered—pitch-black, stars in full glimmer, the full moon still pinned in the sky. To the east, the full light of day beamed toward you; to the west, night reigned with no hint of surrender. No philosopher can explain the sublime better than this, standing between day and night. It was as if this were the moment God said, “Let there be light!” You could not help but feel your specklike existence against the immensity of the mountain, the earth, the universe, and yet still feel your own two feet on the talus, reaffirming your presence amid the grandeur.
-Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air (Amazon)
