In A Word

Sitting in the dark, lit only by a few candles and the lights on our tree, the voice leading me through an end-of-the-year reflection asked me to come up with a word that was representative of the year about to end. A word instantly came to mind, but I didn’t like it, In fact, I hated it and tried mightily to land on another one that felt less painful. Less hard. Less awful. Words like surrender, submit, give in (I know, that’s two words, but I was desperate). But try as I might, I couldn’t. The only word that rang true was loss.

Who wants a year best described by the word loss? Not this girl.

Last Thursday I went to the audiologist for my annual hearing test. She is thorough, funny, and kind, and I was having a good time with her, until I wasn’t. After coming out of the booth where I’d been sitting repeating back the words coming through my headphones, she informed me that I’d lost more hearing than she likes to see in the two years since my last test. She referred me to an ENT to make sure there wasn’t something “more nefarious” causing it than the passing of the years. (Probably not given that the loss is equal on both sides, but we’ll see.) After adjusting my hearing aids to compensate for the loss, all of which falls within the range where most speech occurs, I left her office with her words ringing in my ears that are slowly losing their hearing.

Stopping in the rest room before heading to my car, I tucked my new, favorite, been looking for them for years, fleece lined, fingerless, New Zealand wool gloves that I’d purchased in Iceland under my arm as there was no place to set them in the stall. Standing up, I turned around and reached out to flush what turned out to be an auto-flusher, and came out of the stall with only one glove. I can only guess where it is now.

Getting into my car in the parking lot, all I could do was cry. At that point, I’m not sure which I was grieving the loss of more, my hearing or those damn gloves that I’ve been looking for my whole life

My hearing is just the latest in what feels like a series of losses. Things that I might not ever be able to get back, and most of them related to the number of years I’ve been on the planet. It’s been a hard pill to swallow, and yet I’m beginning to understand that loss can be good medicine for what ails me. Loss asks the hard questions. Can I show up with love and joy even when I don’t have as much of myself to show up with? Can I be grateful for what I still have rather than angry about what I don’t? Am I able to live into the truth that giving in to something is not the same as giving up on it? Is it possible for me to shine a light on what it looks like to age with grace even when things I’ve come to count on fall away? I hope so. No, I know so.

Loss is a part of life. It begins on the day we arrive on the planet, and doesn’t stop until we find ourselves on the other side.We are meant to lose our lives by giving them away.

Who wants a year best described by the word loss? I guess I do. That’s my word and I’m sticking to it.

All Is Well

Someone I love gifted me The Quiet Collection by Emily P. Freeman. An advent offering, it is ten short reflective messages narrated by Emily, a self-described writer and listener. Each is accompanied by beautiful, soulful piano music, and every one has been breathtakingly beautiful, and both soul provoking and soul soothing, which is exactly what my soul seems to need right now. To be provoked, not to set goals or resolutions or even intentions as this year fades into the next, but rather to wake up and be reminded that at the deepest of all levels, all is well.

All is well?

Hard to imagine given the shit-show on display on our global stage. But that’s where the soothing part comes in. My soul needs to wrap itself around the truth that underneath everything, out of sight and out of reach of our intellectual minds that attempt to make logical sense of things, there is a Love greater than any we can imagine holding us up, surrounding us, and flowing through us. The only work we have to do is to decide to participate in that great Love. To offer our hands and our hearts and our lives to help, heal, and love the world that is within our reach. It’s as easy as that, and on most days, as hard as it gets.

But as Gandalf told Frodo as he was headed to Mordor and the fires of Mt. Doom, “The only thing we have to decide is what to do with the time we’ve been given.”

What is true for a small, scared hobbit is true for us small, scared humans as well.

(Advent is over, but for now it looks like The Quiet Collection is still available on Emily’s website. See link at top of post.)

Rural Lessons

There’s so much to learn from our rural neighbors.

Driving through our beautiful valley at the base of Mt. Adams, when passing another car heading the opposite direction, you wave. Not a big wave. Not a royal wave. Not a political candidate wave. Not a red carpet wave. Just a subtle wave. Hands on the steering wheel, one or two fingers lift in greeting in a small gesture that says whether I know you or not, I see you, and you see me.

We need more of that in this country.

The snow is here. There’s a least three feet on the ground and it’s not showing any signs of letting up soon. Because we live on a private road the county doesn’t plow us out. Nor should they. They have more than enough work on too small a budget just keeping the roads we all depend on clear so that people can get to work, kids can get to school, and life can keep going. That means that we are dependent on the help of others to take care of our road. And they do. Whenever it snows we can count on our neighbor George. He just shows up and plows for as long as the snow lasts, and then we settle up at the end of the season. But today, after giving it a valiant effort, he told us that the snow was just too much for his equipment. As it turns out, shortly thereafter he was at our little General Store to warm up with a cup of coffee where he ran into Casey, another neighbor. George asked Casey if he could take care of our road today. Fifteen minutes later Casey showed up on his commercial grader and got er done.

We need more of that in this country.

Driving into town the other day we passed Keith. A local rancher, he and his family raise cattle, grow alfalfa and sell timber. On this particular day as we drove through their ranch, the sun hadn’t come up yet. It was cold and dark and the cattle needed feeding. And there he was, unloading bales of hay onto the ground for the waiting cattle, steam rising from their breath in the cold morning air. Staying inside for another cup of coffee or waiting till tomorrow when the weather might be a little better wasn’t an option. When you’re a rancher, it’s up to you. And because it’s up to you, you just do it, and then get up the next day, and do it again.

We need more of that in this country.

We moved here from the big city fifteen years ago, and it’s safe to say that we cast our votes differently than the majority of our rural neighbors. The lens we look through is probably quite different than theirs. After the 2016 presidential election we were heartbroken and scared for reasons that made sense to us. After the 2020 one, my guess is that many of our neighbors experienced those same feelings for reasons that made sense to them. And yet. We all find ways to come together. We help each other out, cheer for our high school basketball team, lay side-by-side on cots in the school auditorium as we give blood at the annual Red Cross blood drive, show up with our families at the annual Father’s Day Rodeo, and fly our flags for a country we all love, and are all worried about.

We need more of that in this country.

What It Can Look Like

Raise your hand if your Thanksgiving turned out just as you planned.

If your hand is raised, I’m seriously so happy for you.

Ours did not.

Family would arrive from near and far, everyone showing up and departing on their own schedules. At least that was the plan. But then shit started to happen. A plane was delayed. A toilet overflowed. A toddler took a tumble out of her crib and landed on her noggin. And then, on Friday morning, one of our gang woke up with a fever and a nasty cough.

We moved him into the back bedroom so that he could rest, and donned our masks in an attempt for the rest of us to dodge whichever viral bullet had hit him squarely in the chest.

In the end, because being sick at home is so much better than being sick anywhere else, everybody packed up their bags and headed down the road before any potential symptoms might begin showing up.

As life would have it, as of this writing, two more are down for the count.

Oops, another text just arrived. Make that three.

We were all disappointed, because the best part of getting together is, well, getting together. We’d had a different plan than the one that unfolded: Walks in the wild life refuge, hide-and-seek, an epic Charcuterie Board and Old Fashioned cocktails, time curled up on the couches in front of the fire, swapping stories, and sharing a few more days of the magic and the mess that is family.

But here’s the thing. While it may not have turned out as we’d planned, it turned into something else. It was an invitation to figure out, together, what to do with what we’d been handed. And we did.

This is what that can look like…

Climbing A Mountain Part 6: Leave No Trace

Leave No Trace

A wilderness mantra, it means pack out what you pack in. Including your own waste.

Fun stuff.

The Forest Service provides human waste pack-out bags. One large ziplock bag contains a paper target (think X marks the spot), a brown paper lunch bag containing a small scoop of kitty litter, another brown paper bag, and two (seriously?) squares of toilet paper. The directions are pretty straight forward. Find as much privacy as you can, lay the target on the ground, take aim, and hope you are a good shot. Drop your business into kitty litter bag. Insert kitty litter bag into paper bag. Tuck everything inside the zip lock bag. Take it with you.

Like I said. Fun stuff.

Now multiply that by 8 people and 2 1/2 days.

Everyone’s used bags went into a kitchen size garbage bag. If we’d thought better of it, we would have stowed our own stash somewhere and schlepped it out ourselves. But we didn’t, and digging into that ripening garbage bag to separate out a few for everyone to carry seemed like a very, very, very bad idea. One of our gang offered to take one for the team and carry the bag out.

He deserves a special place in heaven.

We tied the very heavy garbage bag to the outside of his pack, and prayed to the mountain gods that the bag wouldn’t split. A few steps down the trail I remembered the cotton pillow case in my pack. We put the garbage bag inside the pillow case, increasing the chances of the contents staying put.

There was an additional bag of garbage containing the rest of the trash accumulated over the course of our time on the mountain to be dealt with. Someone else volunteered to carry that bag out.

He deserves an almost-as-special place in heaven too.

Heading down the hill, every step the two guys who deserve special places in heaven took was made harder because of the additional weight. Because they were carrying what was not really theirs to carry. It was a visual reminder of something I already think about a lot. We are responsible for dealing with our own shit. For taking care of our own garbage. When we don’t, other people have to deal with it, like it or not.

We are born into the families and circumstances we are, shaping us into the humans we become. No one is exempt from the impacts—good, bad, and sometimes ugly—of those who raise us. We may not be responsible for all that happened to us. However, as we grow up and mature, we are accountable for what we do with what we’ve experienced and who we have become as a result.

This work of becoming healthy, whole-hearted humans isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s hard work, but it’s also good work. Some of the most important we will ever do. I know that because I’m still at it, and hopefully will be until I take my leave. The more work I do, the less I leave behind for others to have to carry.

It wasn’t lost on me that the pillow case carrying that garbage bag wasn’t just any pillow case. It was a gift from my daughters when they were little, with pictures of them on both sides. Whatever we leave unaddressed has a lasting impact. It becomes a burden carried by those around us. Usually those we love the most.

Leave No Trace

Climbing A Mountain Part 5: It All Adds Up

My pack weighed over 40 pounds. That’s a lot to muscle up a mountain, and every pound made every step harder. It slowed me down, which meant that it had the potential to slow everyone else down too. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one with a heavy pack, and we all worked together to find a pace that was sustainable for our long haul.

But every pound mattered. Even one or two less would have eased my burden, and that of my fellow hikers.

Back home unloading my pack, I weighed every single item. I wanted to know how much that which was essential weighed, all in service of lightening my load for the next adventure. I began to understand why backpackers cut the handles off of their toothbrushes. It all adds up.

When we moved from our last house over 15 years ago, we didn’t do much sorting and sifting and shucking. We just stuffed everything into boxes, shoved them into two rented storage units, and shut the door. We didn’t think about them again until a couple of years later when we were ready to move into our new home. In the interim, as our house was being built, we housesat. Living like nomads, we brought only what was absolutely essential. At each new house I would set our two favorite coffee mugs on the kitchen counter, along with our French Press, and a photo of our family. And with that, while the house may not have been ours, we were home.

When it finally came time to unload the storage units so that we could load everything into moving trucks so that we could unload everything at our new home so that we could load everything back into our new garage, I took mental stock of the process. As the storage unit doors opened up I was tempted to simply hold an epic estate sale and leave it all behind.

Thankfully, we didn’t, as there were many things worth keeping. And truthfully, there were many things that weren’t. What we hang onto can all too easily become a burden. Be it possessions, wounds, habits, old stories, beliefs, or ways of being, it all adds up.

We all carry an invisible pack on our back. What is essential to an authentic and wholehearted life, and what is not. That which served us in the past may not serve us now, or perhaps never has. Every day is an opportunity to lighten our load, readying us for the adventures still to come, and equipping us to climb the mountains that will inevitably appear on our horizon.

The longer I live the more I am inspired to travel light. Maybe I’ll start by cutting the handle off of that toothbrush.

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.

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.