Chapter Four: Love & Hate

Chapter Four
Love & Hate
Posted August 5, 2012

One afternoon, while hiking through the mountains of Blairsville Georgia, I stumbled upon a lonely rock pile in the middle of a riverbed.  It was strong yet vulnerable.  Independent.  Balanced.  Beautiful.  I said a quiet thank you to the unknown hiker that left it there for me to find, and then to Mother Nature for aligning the stars and tides so that it could remain standing until I found it.  I snapped a picture of my rock pile, and it remains my favorite shot to this day.  Several years later I met, and became friends with, an American soldier.  And so began the intimately surreal long-distance relationship that touched my heart and hugged my soul.  I included this photograph in one of my letters to him, not knowing the impact it would have until his return.  I met him in his office one afternoon and there, framed on his desk, was my rock pile photograph.  The edges were as tattered and torn as my soldier had been, for they had both been through hell and back; yet, there they both stood, strong yet vulnerable.  Independent.  Balanced.  Beautiful.  I came to learn that, since the day he received it, the photograph never left his pocket.  Reflecting on it now, the entire experience was an interdisciplinary lesson in love which revealed itself in the subtlest of ways; through the beauty of the mountains, the impeccable balance of the rock pile, the wonder of the unknown hiking predecessor, my soldier, our handwritten letters exchanged, and… The photograph which, to this day, is the only evidence remaining that any of this ever even happened.    
    

K.J. Brubaker
Keiser University
Professor Fischetti