My dad pointed at mountains like these from the back seat and said, those are the ones we'll climb when you're bigger. We never climbed them. Life did what life does. But I still think of him every time I see three peaks standing shoulder to shoulder, all rusty rock and stubborn bones. The middle one stands tallest, like the older brother who never admits he's cold. Snow patches hold on in the shade, faint and tired. The scree at the base is loose gray gravel that shifts when you step. He'd have hated the hike and loved the view. That was the whole man, honestly. The sky is doing its evening thing, blue melting into gold, clouds stacking up like cotton on a shelf. If you've got someone you meant to call, call them. The peaks will wait. They've got nowhere better to be. The rock faces are striated, layer on layer, like the pages of a book he kept re-reading. Warm light grazes the tallest tower while the valley below goes blue. I sit with it a while. The good kind of sad. The kind that's mostly love. #mountains #dolomites #family #nostalgia
