The Quieter Fire

Come sit with me for a while.

I want to tell you about a quieter kind of passion — one born of music, nature, photography, and the experience of encountering beauty so profound it can leave you trembling with awe.

In my younger years, that passion burned brightly. It was vibrant, restless, and all-consuming. Even as an introvert, I found myself wanting to shout that love to the heavens.

I remember one evening in Glacier National Park, standing behind my camera as the sky erupted with light. The sunset kept shifting, growing more intense, and the emotions surging through me were so strong I could barely contain myself long enough to trip the shutter.

Setting sun, Glacier National Park, Montana

Music, nature, and photography — they all became ways of expressing what I felt so intensely inside.

Now, in my early 70s, the passion is still there, but it has taken a quieter form.

Less urgency, perhaps, but more depth.
Less striving, more noticing.
The same sense of wonder — just carried more gently now.

And it still arrives unexpectedly.

Some spring mornings, lying in bed with the windows open, the cool air feels so alive and restorative that it almost seems newly discovered — a new element entering the room.

The air here carries the scents of trees and damp earth, along with the morning songs of birds. In those half-awake moments, it feels less like simply breathing and more like taking in something deeply vital.

I often linger there, hoping to hold onto that feeling just a little longer before the day begins.

In those quiet waking moments, before the world comes rushing in, there’s a brief sense of being untouched by time.

Those moments remind me that awe has never really left me. It has simply grown quieter. Deeper. More interior.

I sometimes think one of life's great gifts is finding the thing that truly awakens you — music, art, nature, or writing — and letting it carry you through the years.

And it’s worth remembering that the older person you pass by without noticing may still hold that same fire within them. Quieter now, perhaps, but still glowing.

We just don’t always see it.