Trust the Path

I've been taking a hodgepodge of yoga classes pretty regularly for the last year. I presume I am absorbing bits of wisdom while I twist and balance and stretch, because as we work, the teachers often say things I know are worth remembering. But there's something about the mental state I fall into during class that I leave the room with only the memory of an impression. Like the imprint of a step on wet grass, the teachings seem to disappear moments after they land. (It's a bit disconcerting, I must admit.)

But this past week, one phrase made it through my mental fugue to stick in mind. "Trust the path", she said.

I'm guessing it stuck because that's exactly what I haven't been doing much of in recent years.

When I started writing this blog, I was in the middle of a trust fall. Having reached the end of my rope, unable to hang on any longer, I'd let go. I trusted the Universe to catch me, but have to admit, I didn't really think it would. I really thought I'd crash and burn.

But I didn't.

Not on my camper van journey. Not on my cancer journey, which was a total detour from the path I wanted to be on. Not while I recovered, walked with Kate on her journey, said goodbye to two of my sisters. Not while I hopped from job to job.

Each time I stumbled, each time I came to a seemingly impassable patch of ground, Something was there to show me the way forward.

Then came retirement and Covid, and for the first time since I'd first let go, I had no sense of the path forward. I didn't want to go back to where I had branched off my known road (and couldn't have gone back even if I did want to), but could see no way ahead, so I stopped, bewildered, in my liminal space. 

Rather than blunder blindly in the mist, I sat down in my last known safe place, tucked myself into a ball, and stayed put. I didn't trust myself to move. There I stayed, neither here nor there, for what felt like an eternity. After a while, I quit even looking for the way forward; it was an exercise in futility. 

Even after I was jolted back into movement by joining Woodside (my gym), and started taking steps, I had no sense of direction. To be honest, I still don't. I can't see where the path is going, and it's scary. But I'm taking steps anyways. I am choosing to try to Trust the Path, anyways.

One step at a time.

In a Heartbeat

As we were finishing up our plans to visit Bryce Canyon, I was forcibly reminded of how life can change course in a heartbeat.

One moment, I was getting ready to make our hotel reservation in Las Vegas, the next, I was sprawled on the living room floor, having caught my foot wrong on the step into the sunken area. My bad, I was looking down at the reservation page open on my phone instead of watching where I was putting my feet. *sigh*

I got lucky. A few ginger movements of my right foot told me I'd strained some ligaments, but hadn't seriously injured my ankle. But. In two days, I'd planned to be hiking the trails in the canyon, and such trails are not possible to walk with a messed up foot. *another sigh*

It was my own stupid fault, but I didn't give up hope. Perhaps, if I was an adult and followed the prescription for maximum healing (which hasn't changed since I took health class in seventh grade), I'd be able to salvage something from the trip.

Rest - check - Good thing I wasn't planning on driving, given that it was my right foot I'd injured.
Ice - check - Kate keeps a good supply of cold packs in her freezer.
Compression - check - a quick trip to CVS bought me a good ankle wrap
Elevation - this one was a bit trickier, given the confines of the back seat of a car, but I did my best.

To my surprise, adulting and following the above guidelines worked. I limited my excursions, and stayed on the canyon's rim the first evening we arrived and for the next morning's walk. I knew I had just one shot to take the hike into the depths of the canyon, and wanted to heal up as best I could before making the attempt. 

The Force was with me, and by that fourth day, I was well enough, with the help of my hiking poles, to head down the trail. *whew!*

As I walked through the impossible beauty of the canyon, my thoughts wandered to those I know whose stories didn't end so neatly. Whose lives have been upended by similar missteps, who were tossed into a maze of pain, surgeries, pins, and limited movement for months and years (not days).

Life is fragile.

I don't think I needed the reminder that my current (mostly) carefree and healthy state will come to an end; awareness I have crested age's hill is my near-constant companion. But I got smacked with it anyways. 

Today is the only day I have. At its end, I will sleep better if I have honored its fleeting beauty. I'll try to remember that.

Bryce Canyon, Redux

 

Last winter, Kate and I were reminiscing about the family vacations we'd taken when she was a child, and decided we wanted to create more travel memories together. Things that aren't in the book never happen for me (or her) these days, so we picked a momentarily free date on the summer calendar and penciled in a week together. We weren't set on any one place to visit, and after factoring in assorted trip constraints, we decided we'd use our time to visit Bryce Canyon. She'd never been there, and I was more than happy with the idea of making a return trip.

Despite the odds, our penciled-in date worked with all the other summer stuff in our lives, and I flew out last week to Los Angeles, so we (we = Kate, her partner Edwin, Lexi, and me) could drive up to Utah.

Given the traffic givens, the drive from here to there is a bit too long to make in one day, and we broke the drive into two days, stopping in Las Vegas. I'd never been to the city before, and was curious to see what it was all about.

My curiosity now satisfied, I'll probably never go back. It was HOT there, the temperature was 106 when we pulled into town last Sunday evening. Despite the lights and glitter, I was unable to ignore an underlying feeling of decay and sadness. I guess I'd always figured that adding gambling to a high concentration of alcohol and drugs could not make for a happy mix; my assumption has now been validated. I will say the people-watching was beyond intriguing. Just watching the mix of clothing - high fashion on some of the hotel guests juxtaposed with the shorts and saggy t-shirts many of the tourists were sporting - could have kept me fascinated for hours.

And, I must say, after leaving there, the cool beauty of Bryce Canyon was all the more stunning. We'd made reservations in the campground just off the rim of the canyon and our site was on the edge of the loop. When I stepped out of the tent in the middle of the night (gotta go pee!), the sight of the stars in the moonless sky took my breath away. I could see depth in the sky not visible from lower altitudes. Some of the stars were hung just beyond my reach; others faded into the distance to form the band of the Milky Way. *aaahhhh* *happy sigh*

I woke to early morning coolness, unzipped the tent flap to see hoodoos peeping over the trees, stood up, and felt a tightness around my heart easing. It's been long and too long since I have spent any time far from city lights; I was glad to be back where I could sense the rhythms of nature. (And more than a bit impressed to find I am still able to sleep on the ground, albeit on a camp pad, and wake up on more-or-less speaking terms with my hips. Who knew???)

We stayed on the rim for our hike that first day; I was nursing a sore ankle, and wanted to give it one more day to heal before going down into the canyon. My very adult and sensible decision to not push things turned out to be the right one, because the following morning, we got up and at-'em before it got too hot, and I was able to once again hike the trail I followed back in my camper van days.

Sometimes, when you visit a place you haven't seen in a long time, the beauty you remember has faded and shrunk. Such was not the case here - the vistas from the trail were even more stunning than I remembered. Some part of my mind kept insisting that such wild, magical, and inhospitable beauty couldn't possibly be real, even as my eyes were drinking it all in, trying (and failing) to memorize the intricacies of the landscape. 

As I reluctantly stepped into the car to return to real life, I was SO glad we'd come. I'd spent precious one-on-one time with the growing-by-the-day, delightful, Ms. Lexi. (Kate and Edwin had a bit more stamina for hiking than the two of us, and went off on their own after our first hike of the day.) I'd reinforced my initial good impression of Edwin and gotten to know him a little better. I'd treasured a few moments alone with Kate, enough to know she is doing well.

And, I'd reinforced one of the key lessons from my camper van days:

Beauty Is.
Amen.

Balancing Act

I've noticed, as I become a bit more comfortable with my retired state, I've begun to rebel against some of the strictures I've put on myself as a way to keep all the balls in the air through the years.

Not that I've abandoned my to-do list - it's the best way I know to keep track of the things I'm avoiding doing. But I'm working on using more carrots and fewer sticks when it comes to crossing off the items on the list. I do want to get the things done, but it's also OK to stop and let them go. Some balance between work and rest is becoming a reality.

I'm hearing echoes from a lesson my teenage self once learned. I'd started babysitting at the extremely mature age of twelve, and so in seventh grade, for the first time in my life, I had a little money in my pocket. Back in those days, there was a late bus from school, and no one checked too closely to see if you had actually been involved in an authorized after-school activity before letting you on the bus. (Seems a bit mind-boggling in the context of today's world, but that's how it was!)

So, every so often after school, instead of getting on the first bus and going home, I'd head to downtown Osseo, and explore all the wonders to be found. (My adult self wonders what my parents thought of this, but I guess they were a lot more trusting than parents can be today. My part of the world was a pretty safe place back then, and since I wasn't getting into trouble, and sometimes even went to the library, it was all good???) 

In those days, downtown Osseo boasted any number of wonderful purveyors of magnificent goods. Among them was a grocery store with a candy aisle, and, AND, a Fanny Farmer chocolate shop. It didn't take me very long to discover the chocolate shop would happily sell me a whole pound of chocolates any time I wanted, no questions asked. 

I'd walk in with my loot, and walk out with my treasure. I'd eat the entire box of goodness over the next couple of days and never have to share a one. Life was good.

But even then, even given my enviable metabolism, it didn't take me too awfully long to discover that, while I did - and do - love chocolate, it didn't sit well with my system when I overdosed on it.

Recently, I've been back in the learn-to-moderate-my-chocolate-consumption phase of retirement. Yes, I've learned this lesson already in the last few years. No, it clearly hasn't stuck. Yes, I can spend hours playing stupid games on my phone, and no one will care. No, I don't have to do the things. No one will make me, I won't get in trouble if they don't get done. 

Except. I'm learning (again), that I feel better at the end of the day if I've moderated my chocolate consumption, and eaten some vegetables along the way. It's OK to waste time playing stupid phone games, but there is such a thing as enough.

Balance. I'm working on it.