Climbing A Mountain Part 4: Courage Under Fire

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

Back at the trailhead we had each shared our biggest fear about the climb. His was a fear of heights. Not an insignificant thing on or off a mountain. A few hours into it, he hadn’t had to stare that fear in the face. Now he did, as our next steps would include a short but steep climb, a traverse across a narrow trail with steep slopes on either side, and finally, another steep pitch bordered by a crevasse.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

We had stopped at an outcrop to put on our crampons. He turned his face away from the slope and gripped the sides of a boulder. We all silently went about gearing up, sensing that for the moment, all we could do was give him a safe space in which to be afraid. Not try to talk him out of it, or tell him what to do or how to do it. Fear doesn’t need fixing.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

Looking up from my boots, he was sitting on a rock, his wife kneeling at his feet, carefully attaching his crampons to his boots. It was like watching Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, showing them what love does in the face of fear.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

And then he did. He stepped out onto the slope and headed straight up. Like climbing a ladder that is leaning up against the side of a house, but with nothing to hold on to. One step ahead of him, his cousin told him to fix his focus on her feet rather than the steep slope on either side. Behind him another cousin told him to simply take five more steps. The one in front was terrified too, but by focusing on him she momentarily forgot that she was afraid too. The one behind him called upon her experience as a Cross-fit coach to help him simply take the next right step. Step-by-terrifying-step, he made his way to the other side of the thing he thought he couldn’t do. He did it himself, but he didn’t have to do it alone.

When did we decide that being vulnerable is an act of weakness? From what I saw up on that mountain, it is one of the most courageous things we can ever do.

Two days later, we passed that same steep stretch on our way back down.

“I can do that,” he said.

Climbing A Mountain Part 3: Asking For Help

Getting up off the ground isn’t as easy as it was 10 years ago. Add a heavy pack to my back and soft snow under my feet, and the only way I’m getting up is with some help. But it was so hard to ask for it. My pride wanted to get in the way. I never want our kids to think I’m getting older. Well, I am. Spoiler alert: We all are.

Asking for help suggested that I didn’t have what took to do what I had to do without help. Which I didn’t, as anyone watching me flail away on my own could see. But when I took the helping hands offered I was back on my feet and ready to keep going.

Self-reliance is a gift and a curse. It tells us to equip ourselves for what life will ask of us, which we should. And, it tricks us into believing that it is all up to us, which it isn’t.

Asking for help can feel like admitting defeat. Which is true if winning is our end game. But how often is winning really the thing? And if it is, maybe we should give that some thought. In the end, we are all here to help one another along the trail, each of us lending a hand and taking a hand.

I help you.

You help me.

And on we go.

Climbing A Mountain

Do you think you two have another climb up Mt. Adams in you?

Because if you do, we want to do it with you.

Translation: We want to get up there with you while you still can.

That conversation last year with our niece and her husband started it all. Tom and I had to think about it, given that we’re not spring chickens anymore. On our morning walk the next day we decided that while we might not have multiple more climbs in us, we probably had at least one. With that in mind we opened the idea up to the rest of the generation behind us, and in the end, three couples threw their hats and hiking boots into the Mt. Adams 2022 ring.

We’ve been training for it for a year, readying ourselves to be strong enough to make the 12.2 mile trek to the 12,281’ summit. Over the course of that climb we would gain 6600 ft of elevation.

However.

You can train all you want and still not make it to the top.

Different obstacles got in the way for different people. Some of the hardest work we did was internal. Can I do this? What if I can’t. How can it be this hard? What if I slow everyone else down? Will I be able to overcome my fear of heights? What if I get altitude sickness? What if my old injury flairs up? What if I’m the weakest link?

In the end we had to come up against those fears, which is what happens in life on and off the mountain. Eventually we have to face them in order to be free of them.

The first day we hiked for eight hours, most of it on soft snow, with 40+ pound packs on our backs. It was a harder, longer day than any of us had anticipated, and as the sun dropped lower in the sky we began to give out. The altitude was having its way with some of us, and it was clear we needed to make camp soon. Apparently my speech was getting very slow, nausea and serious dehydration arrived on our scene, and I knew we were in trouble when Tom couldn’t seem to figure out how to put up our tent.

We found ourselves on a rocky outcrop with just enough room for four tents. Except for the ground beneath our tents, we had to maneuver over uneven boulders and rocks that were just a sprained ankle, broken leg, or worse waiting to happen. The temperature dropped, the light grew dim, and the wind came up. I was reminded, in the way that only nature can illuminate, that we are always hovering between life and death. We are so much smaller than we like to think in the big scheme of things. It’s good to be reminded of that now and then, lest I take myself and my brief presence on the planet too seriously.

At times like these, the best of who we are shows up. Those of us who could, took over for those of us who couldn’t, because that is what love does. While we had worked to get our bodies strong, in the end it was our hearts and our love and commitment to one another that got us up there.

The summit awaited us in the morning.

For the last year we have imagined ourselves at the top, each of us believing that we could do this hard thing. Together, eight of us were going to summit Mt. Adams on Friday, July 15th, 2022.

In the end four did.

I wasn’t one of them.

Stay tuned.

I’m dedicating the next few posts to what I learned by not summiting a mountain.

What A Difference A Day Makes

Yesterday was rough. It was one of those days where I went from grumpy to angry to sad to flat to worried to afraid to lonely to resentful to frustrated to annoyed to hopeless to melancholy to…

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I couldn’t put my finger on it. I couldn’t snap myself out of it. I simply had to live with it and let it pass. It was one of those days that I simply wanted to be over. End of story.

Thankfully, I am recognizing days like yesterday for what they are. A transition day of sorts, and as we all know, transitions can be tough as we move from one state or condition to another.

Transition days usually come on the heels of something big. A big event. An emotional upheaval. A long anticipated adventure coming to an end.

Transition days are when I need to practice not acting on what I think or feel.

Transition days are when I need to practice not taking things out on those around me.

Transition days are when I need to not take myself or my dark thoughts too seriously.

Transition days are when I need to hold my heavy emotions lightly.

This morning I woke up on the right side of the bed. Whatever it was had slipped out during the night, and my heart was at peace.

What a difference a day makes.

Let There Be Light

This morning as I settled into one of the Adirondack chairs out in front of our house, the sun hadn’t crested the horizon.

Cup of coffee in hand, I waited.

The meadow stretching out in front of me waited too.

Restless, I reached for my phone, and then thought better of it.

The meadow wasn’t restless. It just waited.

And then it happened, as it does every morning. The sun rose above the pine trees behind the house flooding the air with light and spilling across the meadow grasses and wildflowers. And, me.

In dark times we are called to be light in our little corners of the world. To rise above the horizon of another night and spill light across whomever and whatever crosses our path.

A New Start To The Day

The news ain’t great these days.

Most mornings as I wait the recommended four minutes before I can press the coffee, I scan my email inbox. Along with the tantalizing smell of freshly ground coffee brewing, my senses are assaulted with the latest New York Times Breaking News Headlines. While there is the very occasional headline that to my heart constitutes good news—the swearing in of Judge Katanji Brown Jackson—most of the time what I read breaks my heart a little more—the past two weeks have almost put me under—and hope is hard to find.

It’s not a great way to start the day.

So, I changed it.

I unsubscribed to The NY Times newsletter.

I subscribed to Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s A Hundred Falling Veils: there’s a poem in every day

This morning I was greeted with my first poem from Rosemerry, about, of all things, hope. (You can find her poem, Longing to Be Seen here)

How we start the day matters. Along with coffee and time with my husband and our dog as the sunlight first hits the meadow, I’m choosing to start my day with poetry, and a little hope.

Maybe you will too.

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(Now before you go jumping to any conclusions, it’s not that I don’t want to be informed about the goings on in the world. I am simply choosing not to start my day there. Being part of a well informed citizenry matters to me, and it should matter to you too. Our democracy depends on it. There are good sources of news, as in real information as opposed to opinion and rhetoric out there, and, spoiler alert, they are not found on social media.)

The House I Hate

I hate my house.

Don’t get me wrong. I love our home and all the life that happens here. We couldn’t live in a more spectacular spot. Mt. Adams looms directly in front of us, offering a staggeringly breathtaking view that is just there for the looking. Our home is a place of hope and healing, a space to grieve and give thanks, and a dwelling where imperfect love, grace, and welcome reside in abundance. This rustic home is a shelter in the storm and a sanctuary in a world that seems to be crumbling before our eyes, threatening to taking us all down with it.

But I still hate my house.

We built it 14 years ago, and it is in need of freshening up. It’s true that most of the furnishings have a fun story behind them. There’s the fantastic $25 couch from the Goodwill Outlet (yes, that’s a thing), a dining room table and chairs from the consignment store next door to Sleepy Monk (our favorite coffee shop in the whole entire world), the matching Woolrich blinds that were still in their original boxes when I found them at another Goodwill, and the coffee table that used to display men’s ties from my days working for Nordstrom. There is a serious lack of floor and table lamps, as those seem to be what little grand boys love to bring crashing to the floor. Nothing goes with anything else, and if I hung sale tags on everything, you would think you’d wandered into a secondhand store with a first-class view. The house is a decorating hodgepodge that has gotten under my skin. And not in a good way.

Given the current economy, this isn’t necessarily the time to invest in a large-scale makeover. Two things are helping me navigate my current aesthetic crisis, and neither one costs me a dime.

The first is a comment from my sister several months ago. She suggested that every time I walk through the house, I should remember something good that happened here. Remember all of the gatherings and conversations and decisions and stories and apologies and connections and celebrations that have happened in this house that I hate that sits under the shadow of that glorious mountain. Recall the tears and hugs and laughter and prayers and meals and toasts and naps that have taken place in front of that beautiful rock fireplace.

So much good has happened here, and it’s had nothing to do with finding the right fabric or purchasing the perfect rug. It’s happened because of the intention with which we built this home, the vision we had for it to be a safe place for all who walk through the door, and our ongoing work to learn how to better love, help, and heal the world that is within our reach. Starting right here. In this house that I hate.

The second source of help came today in the midst of what is always a fruitful monthly conversation with my spiritual director. As he quietly listened to me express my need to get back to writing but not finding my way to my desk to actually write, and my failed commitment to spend regular time in contemplative prayer and meditation, it hit me. I recently took an inventory of the spaces that I actually love in this house that I hate. There are two to be exact. One is my tiny office on the stair landing, the other my meditation space tucked under the eves upstairs. I love everything about these two spaces: their location, the furnishings, the colors, and the way they are arranged. The two places I love the most are also the ones where I need to show up the most.

So many things can get in the way of doing what we most need to do to so that we can be who we most want to be. The fear that stops us in our tracks. The lie that things are so bad that what we each do doesn’t matter. The pain, blame, shame, finger pointing, screaming matches that find their way into our news feeds, email inboxes, and social accounts. The too-muchness of it all can cause us to do too little, and then everyone loses.

Writing is the way I make sense of the world and my place in it. Quiet time in the presence of the Holy grounds me in a world that is spinning out of control. If there are two things that I need to do, these are them. And I haven’t been doing them. And it shows.

My desk and meditation space that I love are waiting for me, right here, in this house that I hate. All I have to do is show up, and the rest will take care of itself.

Of Our Own Making

We all do it.

In one way, shape, or form, at one time or another, we get in our own way, are our own worst enemy, and step on our own hose. Life is hard enough as it is without adding unnecessary anguish and pain. The world is in enough trouble as it is with without adding avoidable difficulty and distress. And yet, that’s just what we do. We live in misery of our own making.

These were my thoughts as I drove into town. The idea had merit and seemed worth writing about. And then it happened. Going around a curve, my very-cool-looking-but-not-very-practical travel mug filled with bulletproof coffee tipped over, spilling the contents into another cupholder where my cell phone rested. After a short guttural scream of a word starting with the letter ‘F’, I burst out laughing.

Talk about a silly case in point.

I knew that the travel mug had a lid that didn’t close, was perched precariously in a cup holder that was too small, and could easily tip over. And yet I did it anyway. Created a little misery of my own making, which of course would require extra time, attention and energy to clean up.

Spilled coffee is one thing. Making choices that keep us stuck in old patterns, stories, and ways of thinking and being is quite another. The inconvenient truth is that whatever we ignore, leave untended, or are unwilling to face spills over onto others. Starting with those that we care about the most, and then splashing out from there. Whatever hardship we create for ourselves requires extra time, attention, and energy to clean up. All things that for most of us are in short supply these days.

So it seems like a question worth asking:

What is misery of my own making?

And.

Most importantly.

What am I willing to do about it?

The Weight Vest

I’ve started working out with a weighted vest, a training tool that is pretty much like it sounds. A vest with individual pockets into which weights can be added, 3 pounds at a time. A way to incrementally add effort to any activity, with each additional weight block my workout is initially harder. But after some time at that increased weight, I’m ready to add more.

The weight vest strikes me as a particularly practical metaphor. Just as my vest adds effort to my physical body in order to strengthen it, life seems to have a way of adding weight to help me develop greater inner strength too.

Every courageous conversation strengthens us for the next one.

Every difficult decision readies us for the ones still to come.

Every obstacle overcome prepares us to take on new ones.

Every time we take on the hard work of mending what’s broken in our hearts, we increase our capacity to love wholeheartedly.

Every courageous step emboldens us to take the next one.

Maybe what is true of a weight vest is true of the rest of life too. Added effort today strengthens us for what life brings our way tomorrow.

No Strings Attached

The other morning I woke up decidedly on the wrong side of the bed, and it went downhill from there. My feelings became the filter through which I saw, heard, and interpreted everything and everyone, and it wasn’t pretty. I felt like a marionette. You know. One of those puppets with strings attached to different parts of the body, including, at least in my case, my mouth. Like The Lonely Goatherd in The Sound of Music, I was at the mercy of the circumstances and emotions pulling on my strings.

Control, it seemed, was out of my hands. Or was it?

What if instead of a marionette I could be more like a hand puppet? Like Daniel Tiger, X the Owl, or Lady Elaine Fairchilde in Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, it could be my hand in charge. A hand puppet isn’t pulled about by external forces. Guidance comes from within.

As a 4 on the Enneagram, emotions are my thing. There isn’t an emotion I haven’t experienced, and the ones that a lot of people work hard to avoid come easily to me. Because big emotions don’t scare me, I can be the calm in the midst of your storm. A quiet, safe place to show up with your grief and sadness, anger and fear, I won’t try to talk you out of how you feel.

As it turns out, being a feeling kind of girl is my gift.

It’s also my curse

Because I tend to lead with my heart, I can easily turn over the controls to my feelings and react accordingly. With, as you might imagine, very mixed results. I’ve been practicing not letting my feelings run the show. Catching myself before losing myself to the emotions of the moment, and that practice is paying off. But this puppet metaphor feels next level. There are no strings attached to those emotions, other than the ones I attach myself.