The Mountain That Grounds Me

Every once in a while, I find myself back in California.

Home.

It is the place that grounds me in a way no other place quite can. The air feels familiar. The light feels softer. Even the quiet feels different here.

This trip has been filled with visits to people who have held me up through some of the hardest chapters of my life. Friends who have never stopped believing in me. Family who remind me where I came from and who I have always been.

And my cousin, who long ago became much more like a sister.

She is the one who picked me up off her kitchen floor during a moment when I truly believed I could not go on. I remember sitting there, feeling completely broken, and she looked at me and simply said, “Keep going. Don’t give up.”

And somehow, I believed her.

Sometimes the people who love us see strength in us long before we can see it ourselves.

Whenever I come back to California, there is one place I always go.

Mt. Diablo.

It was the mountain my dad shared with me when I was young. Long before life became complicated. Before marriage, before children, before divorce, before loss and grief found their way into my story.

Back then it was simply a place we went together. A place where the world felt wide and full of possibility.

Now, when I go there, it feels like something more.

Standing there, looking out across the hills and the valleys, I feel him. I feel the steadiness he carried and the quiet strength he gave to everyone around him. It is as if the mountain still holds pieces of him.

My dad was a high school football coach. People often said he was a maker of men. He believed in discipline, character, and showing up for others. He taught young men how to work hard and stand tall, but he also taught them how to care for the people beside them.

To me, he was simply my hero.

When I stand on that mountain now, I think of him and I think about how life continues to unfold in ways we never expect. The road has not been straight. There have been seasons that felt impossibly heavy.

But somehow, standing there, it feels like pulling into a gas station and filling the tank again.

The love.
The strength.
The encouragement to keep going.

I leave that mountain feeling refueled in a way that is hard to explain but easy to recognize. It is the same feeling my cousin gave me on her kitchen floor three years ago. The quiet reassurance that I am still moving forward and that the path I am on still matters.

And then I carry that feeling back with me into my life.

Back into my kitchen.
Back into my bread.
Back into the small, meaningful work of nourishing people.

Because sometimes all we need is a place that reminds us who we are.

For me, that place will always be Mt. Diablo.

Warmly,

Kathy

Art of The Crumb