One day, I was driving the narrow country road that is a part of my daily commute to work. It was terrifically windy and raining so hard that I was having a hard time seeing more than a car’s length ahead of me. As I came up on one of the final turns, I saw a jeep pulled off to the side of the lane and a young woman standing behind it, looking up into the forest. Thinking that she was having car troubles, I pulled over and jogged over to her through the torrent. To my surprise, she was not working on her automobile, but rather holding a very expensive camera and was taking pictures of the hillside.
Not paying any attention to the subject of her photography, I asked, “Ma’am, what are you doing? Your camera is getting soaked! It’ll be ruined!” Without making a sound, she calmly pointed straight ahead of her. There, in a place by which I drove daily, was a clear, magnificent stream with several waterfalls flowing down among the bright fall foliage and rock shelves that had accumulated in a crevice in the hill.
I fell silent and watched as countless gallons of water cascaded powerfully through the glowing reds and yellows of the leaves toward an aqueduct under the road.
The woman saw the look of awe on my face and whispered to me over the roar of the rain, “On most days, this is a dry creek bed. The only time that you can see the stream is during a storm. My camera and I may get wet, but unless I take that risk, I’ll miss out on something beautiful.”
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