Serenity, Stillness, Solitude

In the Fall of 2010, I had just come out of a period of a very challenging year in my life - many things happened in my personal life that tested the limits of my emotional capacity. To get a break from everything, I took a short trip on my own to go backpacking in Yellowstone National Park. During that trip, I took a nine-mile hike in the back country to Heart Lake, where I camped overnight on the shore. During that overnight, I took the photograph that’s on the front cover of this score. I did not realize at the time that I was about to enter into a long period of depression - a long stretch of emotional tumult. During that period of my life, I often reflected back to my trip to Yellowstone and the visit to Heart Lake. While I was camping by the lake, I took a long period at sunset to sit and reflect. I was miles away from any other people, and the animal life around the area was settled in for their night, too. Sitting by the lake, I allowed myself to take in all my surroundin