Once a week, my friend Nancy and I walk four miles up and down East Rock. This traprock ridge is part of a geological formation that bookends the city of New Haven along with its sibling, West Rock. Its sheer cliffs are a sight to behold at day's end, when the setting sun catches the oxidized iron on the face of East Rock's basalt formations and lights them up like a campfire. But we're often atop East Rock early in the morning, when shreds of mist lie between the coastal ridges and skim the surface of Long Island Sound.
From the overlook, our city looks different every day. When the air is clear and bright, we can see 20 miles across the Sound to the sand-spotted coast of Long Island's North Shore. When the sky is low and colorless, our gaze is drawn closer to our own harbor--to the finger of Sandy Point and the high, wooded shoulder of Fair Haven Heights and the confluence of the Mill and Quinnipiac Rivers.
I always point out what I see. One morning, Nancy exclaimed, "You notice so much!"
I notice because I write. This is how I experience the natural world. I receive it through my senses, but always my next instinct is to find the words to express that experience. Searching for language to share it sharpens my sense of awe.
Inevitably, whether I'm contemplating a tiny woodland flower or a hundred-mile vista, there is awe.
photos by Kathy Leonard Czepiel