Live From The Wang: Go Chasing Waterfalls

Sunday, March 06, 2016

Go Chasing Waterfalls

I personally never listen to advice from people with names like Left Eye so we decided to go chasing waterfalls today. Luckily, Georgia has lots.

We set out today without an agenda except for our breakfast spot, and wandered north toward Tennessee. I still can't get used to the idea that Tennessee is north. It's hard wired into me that it's south. But no, north we went and into the Georgia mountains, past the Rabun Gap and into the land of magical scenery. It's just so beautiful here, I am so glad the warmer weather has returned.

Why are waterfalls so amazing? I'm not really sure. Maybe it's the huge rush of water, and the invigorating spray of the icy cold mist coming off of it. Maybe it's just the whole "majesty of nature" sort of thing. BEHOLD! NATURE! Something like that.

But there is something about them. The allure is so strong that a 13 year old boy who can't stop talking about video games will climb out on the furthest rock he can and sit enraptured, just watching the fall happen. It was probably the quietest he was all day. He sat up on that rock and just gazed, watching everything happen as more and more water fell over the cliff. "Look Mom! A rainbow!" he called back to me. I got lucky and got it on film. I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to tell his friends how much he liked that.

I can admit it though, I really liked it a lot. It's the sort of place that makes me feel recharged, renewed. The air is fresh, made crisp even by the cold mist coming off those falls. You can feel the power of the falls even from a distance. The noise is beautiful and deafening at the same time.

It's the kind of place where my children photobomb me as my husband takes my picture, and I'm pretty amused by it. Pretty sure there are no other humans in the world I would rather be photobombed by.

So random "it's in the DNA" fact, my son can be a lot like my brother in his mannerisms. This stance by my oldest son, is exactly the stance of my brother Matt when he is considering something. He shifts his weight exactly like this, when he's thinking about doing something etc. My son is considering climbing out on those rocks at this moment. He hadn't committed to it, but he was definitely thinking about it. He was eyeing them, and the water and if he could get that far out without getting wet.

Many people keep their autistic kids on a tight schedule, but we've always found that didn't work for us as a family. What works better is being aware of their needs, and their wants. Today we had no schedule and no plans. We didn't eat lunch, we had a late breakfast and an early dinner.

There weren't any complaints, there rarely are. We wandered the mountains in search of adventure and we found some. This waterfall was just one stop we made.