What the San Gabriel Mountains Taught Me

Blow away the smog of repetitive thoughts

A flattering sketch of me by Rob, showing the smog of my old thoughts blocking a clear view of the moment I am experiencing.

Once upon a time I was an Australian college student at a campus in Pasadena, California.

I arrived for the first semester in late August, when it was autumn (what Americans call the fall).

I attended classes and worked as a janitor to pay my way. In the evening, I did laps of the track to keep fit. The air during the day was too heavy with smog for running and the cooler night air made breathing deeply a little less difficult. I was told by locals that the smog, which had settled over the campus like a heavy blanket before I arrived, was blown from nearby Los Angeles and trapped overhead by the San Gabriel Mountains.

Although the college was virtually at the base of the mountains, I never saw those mountains. The smog hid them from view. It was as if they weren’t there.

One late November morning, strong winds blew all the smog away. When I went outside, the blinding sun shone out of clear sky. As I walked to class, the paths and steps of the sunken Italian Garden glowed pristine, bright, new. Tree trunks looked freshly washed. Bushes gleamed. The air had a magical sparkle to it, making blues bluer, greens greener, whites whiter.

Absorbing all the delight around me, I turned my eyes to the north and suddenly stopped in my tracks, unable to take another step.

Majestic snow-topped peaks and a huge expanse of grey-blue granite filled the view. I was momentarily petrified, mouth agape, almost not believing what I saw. Their unexpected appearance was frightening. It was as if they’d been plonked there overnight. A shocking alien presence.

Then I recalled hearing about the San Gabriel Mountains. This is what I was looking at. They had been there all the time. I just hadn’t seen them. They were hidden from me by smog.

For several minutes I stood there in awe of what I saw.

Fifty years later I can still recall that view, the shocked feeling, and then the sudden awe – and joy – that swept over me.

San Gabriel Mountains by Dalal on Unsplash 

Blow the Smog of Repetitive Thoughts Away

These days, whenever I relive that memory, I ask myself this:

What smog am I creating that is hiding the incredible magnificence of life from my view?

I doubt that what I’m about to write is anatomically correct, but it seems to me that when I look out at the world, I can choose two ways of viewing.

I can either let the images, held in the light, stream through my iris into my optic nerve and then into my brain for a pristine, bright, new interpretation; or else I can hold my old thoughts,  beliefs and emotions, like a thick smog, in front of my iris, so that by the time the images held in the light streaming through my iris into my optic nerve reach my brain, they’re already interpreted.

So I see what I expect to see. I see nothing pristine, bright, new.

If I were to illustrate this, I’d draw my face, then use a stick of charcoal to create a fuzzy, shaded area across my eyes. This dark area represents my old, stale, repetitive thoughts, beliefs and emotions. And it’s this shaded area that hides the incredible magnificence of the moment I'm experiencing from me.

I am hiding life from myself.

I am keeping awe and joy at bay.

The Canadian singer, songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen wrote:

There’s no one else There’s nothing else can move the dust but you

I’ll paraphrase it:

There’s no one else, there’s nothing else,

can move my personal smog but me.

Just like the strong Santa Ana winds blew the smog away from Los Angeles and Pasadena, I’ll blow away the smog I’ve created so I can see the incredible magnificence of each moment.

With love, Marlane