While at Crested Butte, Colorado a couple weeks ago (one of the prettiest places on earth), a thought like a streak of lightning jolted through my mind:
"Verweile doch! Du bist so schoen!" That is the old utterance from the mouth of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust. It means something like, "Please stay . . .you are so beautiful!" And in Goethe's play it was the signal for the Devil to come and try to collect Faust's soul. Faust thought that if he ever felt totally happpy and satisfied that his life would no longer be worth living, that his soul would be dead. So he agreed with the Devil that expressing that kind of satisfaction would be the signal to collect his soul and hurl it into hell.
For a moment in Crested Butte, I felt that way. There with Linda and my daughter Carolan and friends Jan and Dick. High up in the Rocky Mountains. Wildflowers in full spectacular bloom. High peaks still covered by snow fields. Emerald Lake, Cottonwood Lake, Lake Irwin--spectacular alpine lakes. Faust's seductive thought entered my mind.
Top photo, Linda and Carolan in Salida, Colorado. Bottom, Bob at Emerald Lake, near Schofield Pass, north of Crested Butte.
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