When thinking of how I would crack into this subject I came to a bit of a cliff. Fortunately as I began writing, my sense of direction became boulder. Not to quarry, I found that excavating a train of thought from this particular subject led to quite the pun-tastic fodder for this pebble-cation. 

Why the mineral-based mechanics for my writing structure? Well as it happens, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine this past week that prompted the theme. They had been out with a family member of theirs who resides in a far more urban area than our glorious rural community. However, said family member had been to visit them and take a hike through the woods. Prior to departing, however, they began to fill their pockets with rocks from the driveway and along the road. It perplexed my friend—what could they be doing?—and so she asked what the cause of the accumulation of baggage was. 

As it turns out, they were so taken with the casual presence of rocks that they felt they had to take souvenirs. So covered in a landscape of cement and steel was their home that the idea of a natural rock just lying about was all but foreign to them. 

Can you imagine, not being familiar with something so simple as a rock? Something so common? It gave me a moment of pause. I spend a lot of time trying to make sure I appreciate what I have because I know on a very superficial level I would not be as fulfilled living in a city. But I grew up knowing rocks and trees and animals, etc. How different would I be if I hadn’t known those things even a little bit, or at all? Would I like myself? Without falling down the proverbial rabbit hole of existential argument, nature versus nurture, I can only stop to once again appreciate that which I have had the privilege to always know. To put it simply, my life rocks! 

I can’t recall how well I tested in geology in college, but I remember enjoying the topic and the labwork that took us outside. At that time, I had a small rock collection of my own in a metal box, and I was keen to bring samples to class to pick my professor’s brain. Most interestingly, there was a piece that turned out to potentially not be a rock at all, but was some sort of naturally formed or aged ceramic. 

I never did get a clear-cut answer as to what it was, but I keep it in my collection just for the mystery of it. After all, who among us truly fathoms a rock? Sure, they are simple things that yet have varying degrees of complexity, but if you really dig into what they are, you have to acknowledge the time and the power that it takes to form them. They are both the cornerstones of modern architecture and construction, as well as that of nature itself. At the lowest reach of every landmass is a shelf of rock sitting atop molten rock, cradled between other shelves of rock, to make up what is largely this vast ball of rock amongst a galaxy of other balls of rock floating in coordinated design. We simply have the luxury of enjoying the perfect placement of ours, which makes life possible. 

Even now I am thinking of how much I don’t know about the rocks I have grown up around. How much more to them there might be, and how their very design by God is but a part of what makes our world what it is, and me who I am. 

All this to say that I am reinvigorated to take a hike of my own, add to my humble rock collection, and remember and appreciate all that it means to have rocks.

The way out here, we live surrounded by the most common of natural, inanimate objects, yet we, like them, all serve a purpose in our place among the rocks and stars that fill the universe.