When I left Vegas after my best friend’s wedding, I headed north to a place three different people had suggested: Zion Canyon National Park. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I had a vague notion of a Grand-Canyon-like sort of thing. I wasn’t disappointed. In fact, I was totally, completely enthralled by the red variegated cliffs and the blue sky as it dipped and soared at the whim of the near horizon.
I camped while I was at Zion (yes, sleeping in the back of my Jeep, for those of you who wonder). When I woke up in the mornings—three of them—my first sight was of gigantic rocks so tall, they seem to suck air out of your lungs and draw it up like a sprite borrowing your breath. It’s a great way to wake up. All of that upward focus pulled me out of my Jeep bed to a standing position, with a big smile on my face.
During the days, I drove and wrote. The word that most often came out of my mouth was “Wow.” Actually, not many other words came out of my mouth, because I was on my own and rarely talked with anyone, which at this stage of my life I love. I navigated the switchbacks, vertigo curves and tunnels as if I was dancing. Every now and then I dipped myself into a pullout to exit the Jeep and take in a particularly amazing sight, almost reverently, and silently except for the wows.
When I found a particularly peaceful or grand spot on the road, I’d stop and work. I have a small table that fits in front of the passenger seat of the Jeep. It’s just right for my laptop, and I use my phone as a hotspot to connect to the Web. I can also place my iPad on the console to pull up websites for research or emails with project instructions. I have an Apple charge cord that works on both my iPhone and the iPad, and I bought an inverter so I can plug in my laptop. I researched to make sure it doesn’t hurt the Jeep to idle it while the inverter is in use. I was in heaven, and my fingers flew on the keyboard.
All of this, all of this grandeur and happiness and smoothness of logistics, was going on in spite of. My hip hurt (an old car wreck injury), I had forgotten to take my thyroid pills for three days so I was dragging, my skin was so dry it hurt and it took forever (so it seemed) to get the Jeep situated so I could work and sleep in it at the campground. I discovered there were no showers, unless you pay for them in the nearby town of Springdale. I was worried about one of my tires that has had a little less pressure than the others. I wanted to play, and for the first time in a long time resented my work—just a bit. I discovered a lot of the places I wanted to work were out of range for the hotspot.
But I was still happy. I still got a lot done.
The point is that the grand outweighed the bad. Is that a principle we could use in business? If we are doing what is really meaningful to us, whether or not it directly relates to our work, it helps us slide over the challenges like they are covered with a layer of silicone. I almost didn’t notice those bad things down there. All I could see was the magnificence of the canyon, the blue sky, the freedom and the need of my clients to say what they mean.
I arrived at the Grand Canyon today after a drive along the Arizona Strip, a long ridge of impossibly tall cliffs of impossible red rock. When I got to the park, it had fallen dark, but the moon was almost full, and everything I looked at was saturated with milky moonlight. I decided to pull into one of the observation points and see how far the moonlight dipped into the canyon. All the way. It was another exceptional sight in a trip full of exceptional sights. The terrain was so bright with moonlight both below and above, I could drive slowly along the edge of some parking lot rails without my headlamps on and see everything. It was light enough I could feel a gentle, pleasing vertigo. I felt like I was flying above the earth, a ghostly bird above a spirit earth.
Tomorrow, I know I’ll feel more grandeur when I see the canyon in daylight. I’ve seen it before, and not that long ago. But I believe I’ll feel like I’ve never seen it before. It’s that big and that deep. Big enough to bury my type-weary, achy hands and arms. Deep and beautiful enough to blur the fact that I don’t have enough money for a burro ride to the bottom.