There are lovely views aplenty, of course. Of a sort.
Fall on campus gives you foliage and charming neo-gothic architecture Views. But you can't make out the Blue Ridge Mountains from many places on campus.
I remember a college professor of mine making an elaborate metaphor between sheet music and life. He said that if you're learning a new piece of music you can lose the perspective of the whole. You don't hear the patterns and the returning themes if you're stuck within each measure; focusing too hard on those specific notes makes you miss the pattern of the whole.
He said sometimes we're able to momentarily transcend the narrow measure of our days and see, for a time, patterns and motifs, and to anticipate the return of the major theme of the piece.
But most of the time we go about with our noses pressed to that specific measure, those context-less meaningless notes. But you don't need to have a major beatific vision to just look up and see once and a while.
Notice what other people are doing, you know, how they might be fitting in to it all.
Trouble with Blacksburg is the buildings, which make such beautiful views, obscure the surroundings.
You have to climb to get any kind of perspective.
Climb higher to see the context.
You forget the mountains are still out there.
But to really see them, you have to wait for a clear day. And probably, you should just get a little bit out of town.
Alas, we don't have the energy to leave the house this weekend. But sometimes we have clear days, and sometimes we end up driving outside town just a little ways. It's good for us to be reminded that the mountains are still there, even if, on a daily basis, I don't see them.
On a different note: Snow in October! A disturbance in the Force is sensed by children and animals alike.
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