However as the wheels skidded onto the runway, I gave my cursory lift to the window covering to peek outside. Instantly I was blinded (as was my unfortunate seat neighbor) by the streaming sunlight coming from just above the horizon. This would not be my typical Seattle visit.
For someone who comes from the desert, driving from Seattle over to Tacoma is therapy treatment for the eyes. Tall strands of deep green forests give way to our intrusive highway, and like ants on a mission, we all make our way in one direction or the other...busy on our business to support the colony.
This particular morning I rounded the bend heading into Tacoma where the trees thin to make way for the Puyallup river cutting through the valley. Glancing off to my left at the Ansel Adams scene, I was startled by the view of a massive volcanic shaped mountain I had never seen before on my travels through this spot. Something that big I certainly would have seen before......wouldn't I have?
My focus on driving along the freeway took a back seat to gawking out the window. I was trying to let my eyes convince my mind that what I was looking at was real. The rush hour traffic soon brought me back to the task at hand, and I received more than a few looks from locals who were trying to figure out what was wrong with the idiot in the black rental car weaving and slowing down to stare out his window.
For a few minutes I considered the growing urge to forget about work for the day and drive over to experience this bulwark. I wonder if this feeling is what makes so many climbers risk life and limb to spend time exploring and conquering these massive monuments. Unfortunately, my work rarely allows for my inner explorer to be fulfilled, and my approaching exit reminded me that my life's adventure is more often performed in suits and ties, rather than comfort fitting REI outdoor gear and boots.
When did my life take this left turn into chasing the corporate dream? Isn't there supposed to be some golden goal ahead that the corporate road leads me to so that I can jump off and pull on my Levi's, tee shirt, and spend the remainder of my life being John Muir?
As I went through my work day sitting in meeting rooms with large windows that bring the outside inside, I couldn't help but talk about my morning mountain experience to those I met. Now clearly they all know the corporate purpose of my visit is to cut costs and expenses. Yet my constant babbling about the scenery, and that mountain, were making them a bit restless and uneasy. In their head they know the knife is out there somewhere waiting to do it's evil deed, but the crazy man is acting more like a Jack Nicholson character who rambles on in a bizarre rage about nature. 
As the drone of meetings finally came to an end, I turned the car back towards Seattle to catch my flight out. Driving past that little spot heading out of town, I gave my new mountain friend a final glance goodbye. I thought about those few rugged and fit human specimans who spend so much of their individual lives training, conditioning, and preparing to make an assault on it's glaciers and peaks. In some small way I think I felt a yearning of what drives them to put in such great efforts toward reaching their goals. As our plane lifted off, heading back homeward to the real life I too often leave behind, I was caught up thinking about the effort I put in at reaching my own goals. The airline had graciously upgraded my seat, but gave me a window instead of my coveted isle. Gazing out, I was silently surprised to see my new friend approaching again from just ahead of us. The relatively smooth and gently rolling landscape of the lowlands suddenly slopes upward into the sky and Mount Rainier's massive formation fills your vision. It is the King of this territory, and even planes skirt around it as they make their way. As we passed by at such a close distance you could make out individual features across it's face. Making their way up one of the west facing glaciers was a team of climbers headed toward their long planned for goal.
As I watched the scene drift by outside my window, I was taken by the irony of the moment. The climbers and I, at this exact moment, each had a quite similar view of the landscape around us. Perhaps years of training and conditioning had purchased them this reward and satisfaction in their life. What I thought was perhaps a shared experience of the expansive vistas around us, really wasn't a shared experience at all. I knew nothing of what they knew other than what my own vision could take in.
Life is unique and interesting to say the least. Instead of climbing mountains, I have microwave moments. I don't have the time, energy, or ability to devote to something that I might really want to do, so instead I resort to microwaving my experiences into something less than a complete and full encounter. I convince myself that it gives me a quick and short enough engagement to make me think I know what it would be like, without putting in the effort. From twenty thousand feet, and the comfort of a deep leather chair I see what others see, but only by hiking in their boots will I ever know what they know and feel what they feel.
