Monthly Archives: February 2021

Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Hiking and outdoor beauty, Mountains, Spiritual Well Being

Dating the Wilderness

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Have you ever vacationed in a cute little quaint town and thought I could live here? Perhaps you idly checked real estate listings. You looked at job postings for your profession. And then you realized that half the charm of the place is that you are on vacation. The novelty is that you don’t live there. You don’t have to rise with your alarm every morning and go to work. 

She found that often, when she put down roots and lived in a location, she overlooked its beauty. Why? Because she was so busy working and being dependable and trying to fix things and well, just engaging in basic survival, she didn’t have time to enjoy the place, to explore, to seek out the beauty and revel in it. Happy are those people who can live and love and recreate-daily- in the town they call home.

She loved to go to the wilderness, to climb every mountain, to see beautiful places and feel the sheer power of Nature. She loved the solitude, the being alone. She loved jagged, sheer cliffs and sandstone monoliths, and columbine and evening primrose and penstemon. She loved to feel the health and vitality that came from spending every day and quantities of minutes outside, breathing deep, testing her mettle, shedding her worries, actually enjoying herself. But did she want to live here in the wilderness permanently?  To settle down, build a brick and mortar structure and try to make a home and scratch a garden out of grey granite? Maybe what she really wanted was to go steady, to see the rocks and trees and red sandstone and river and night sky and 360 degree views every day. She didn’t want to become fixed in one place. She wanted to be in the great outdoors every day. Yes, she loved the wilderness and the wilderness loved her back, with wildflowers and solid, dependable rock. The wilderness expected nothing of her, and she took nothing but fresh air and inspiration and beauty and memories. She took a few chances. She explored with inquisitive caution.

Mostly, she just wanted to date the wilderness – and she wanted the dating phase to last forever.

Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Leadership, Relationships, Spiritual Well Being

Glory!

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“Make it a great day!” I said as she headed out the door to a construction gig job – her way to bridge the gap until her wilderness seasonal job commences again. “Get all the glory!” she called back. “glory” there is a movie by that title-and it wasn’t just about winning. “Glory!” it’s what the little old ladies used to shout in the Pentecostal leaning church I grew up in. Glory – somewhere between joy and the spiritual feeling of being lifted right into the seventh heaven. Glory – the emotional reward that comes from pursuing a righteous cause, from living life with excellence and integrity, giving your all!

I love the recent story circulating of the two world class runners, the one where Kenya is leading by several yards, but quits, thinking he has crossed the finish line. Spain follows, but, instead of shouting, “Yes! I am the victor!” and charging toward the finish line, the second-place runner grabs the leader and ushers him across the finish line.

Because. Because. What glory is there in finishing first only because your rival stumbles? What glory was there in injuring Nancy Kerrigan in order to clear the field and advance Tonya Harding?

“If you compare yourself to others you will become both vain and bitter.”  What happens when you become bitter? Destruction is what happens. So, if you annihilate everyone better than you, does that mean you are the best? What glory is there in winning if it is only because the better man didn’t show up?

I have never forgotten the story of two swimmers as recorded in a high school literature unit. The first was a steady-eddy, meat and potatoes, diver the coach could always count on to finish strong; the other an amazingly talented athlete-the sort of shooting star that delivers a spectacular win. While the two boys were rivals with regard to placement on the home team, they were teammates at district competitions.  The Talent would almost always finish first; and Steady Eddy would bring home a second or third.

The inevitable day came when Talent met his Waterloo at a big regional competition.  Steady Eddy took one look in the face of his teammate and saw that Talent was frozen in fear. Now! Now, was Steady Eddy’s chance to grab the first-place medal. He was prepared. He was relaxed and confident. His homeboy rival was petrified. Yet, instead of giving Talent a “tough luck bro,” look and striding ahead to the diving board, Steady Eddy commenced a game that had spurred them on to excellence in practice rounds at school. It was ridiculous. It was childish. It was Narnian in both genius and innocence, but they forgot their fears and made joyous fools of themselves – and they won again. Gold and Silver. Only this time our steady-eddy homeboy got the gold. He was so intent on pushing his teammate higher and better than ever before that he himself excelled. 

When you build a gymnastics pyramid, you gotta stand on someone’s shoulders or someone has got to stand on yours – maybe both. We are all circus performers, we are all gymnasts, we are all swimmers and divers and runners. Let’s get each other across the finish line, shall we? 

We all need a worthy opponent – a worthy rival – what none of us need is a cheater or someone who cheers when we fall – let us not weaken ourselves by gloating over an enemy. 

What glory is there in that kind of win? When you win only because someone else stumbled?

No, we spur each other on to greater and greater victories.

Break a leg!

Make it a great day!

Do your best!

Give it your all!

Get all the Glory!

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A Toast to Love!

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In honor of Saint Valentine, the patron of couples and epileptics and honey – I raise a toast to all the star-crossed lovers who faced the impossible and loved anyway. Here’s to you, Lysander and Hermia, Helena and Demetrius. A toast to you who dreamed a mid-summer’s dream of being together and were ready to pay the cost; to brave the wiles of despots in power and fairies in action and the asinine side effects of potion in motion. 

Let’s hear it for those in marriages of convenience or abject necessity that succeeded and loved anyway! Sixteen-year-old young women who people my family tree; women who married homesteaders and prospectors and widowers with children; ancestors who loved and conquered a new world and won the west. Let’s hear it for mail order brides who walked a plank ONTO a ship and into the unknown and bravely chased a new life.

Here’s a toast to all those couples of arranged marriages who learned to love anyway. Good job Mary and Joseph, Issac and Rebecca, and Bollywood actors – the world will never be the same. 

Now let’s pause a moment for those who loved and lost. For Romeo and Juliet who gave up too quickly. And especially let’s remember those who loved, really loved – no matter how short lived – no matter how soon the loss, no matter whether bereft through death, displacement or unfaithfulness.

Let’s hear it for enduring love, for couples who stay together or reunite despite the ravages of mental illness. For the wife who stays though there would be no shame in leaving; she loves the incurable alcoholic. For the husband who tenderly cares for the woman who no longer knows his name; yet he gently reminds her of the operas and symphonies and travels and grandchildren they have shared.  For those who stay steady in the face of battle scars and diabetic amputations; this one’s for you! 

And here’s a special bouquet to those singled out and shot down by Cupid again and again who keep getting up, smiling, and putting themselves out there to love one more time.

And now, one for the aunts – those women for whom the clock ticks. They have played the gambit of a queen; are ladies in birth, bearing, and education. They are full of wisdom and grace. All these single ladies know how to cook with love and fight for love. Even so, the knight on a white horse has not yet come riding by; nevertheless, they continue to love and spread that love lavishly in service to everyone they meet. 

Last, but not least, a toast to the real-life lovers, the love at first sighters, the life-long committers whose relationships have lasted not only a decade or two, but five and six decades – an entire lifetime – until they ceased to breathe. I know at least 10 of them and I hope you do too.

A toast! A toast! to couples and lovers wherever you are! What have you got that’s worth living for? Like as not, it is true love, just like Wesley and Buttercup.

Did you raise a cup for each of these lovers down through the ages? Are you now drunk on love? ‘Tis better mead than a grapevine has to offer.

A toast! To true love!

Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Holidays and Traditions, Relationships, Spiritual Well Being

Valentine’s Day Approaches

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Love makes the world go round. Love is all you need. Love conquers all.

Love is a basic need as surely as food and shelter. But what of the wall flower who has never had the chance to dance? What of the woman or man who has tirelessly put others first, giving and giving and giving love with no reciprocation until his or her well is empty and dry? What then? Does their world cease to go round? If all she needs is love, yet her emotional wallet is flat, and no one is handing out alms, how broke is she? Maybe he fought valiantly, believing love conquers all, but he lies slain by the lack of it, no reinforcements in sight. What then?

Valentine’s Day approaches. Some of you are going to have to learn to love yourself. For me, this has been a hard concept to grasp, but here is what I have concluded: Good religion teaches me to love my neighbor as I love myself.  If I honestly endeavor to love my neighbor as myself; which scenario results in more love to my neighbor; loving myself less? Or loving myself more? Further, I must learn to love myself unconditionally; to understand that I am not perfect, that I make mistakes. Once I understand and love myself unconditionally, I am able to extend that love to others.

Is it possible to declare, “I will love myself (and therefore others) unconditionally,” and just do it? Maybe it is different for different people. In any case, I find that the decision to engage in selflove has to be made over and over each day. Consider the main character in my work in progress:

She had to remind herself to engage in selfcare. To do it consistently until it became a habit. In the same way, she had to remember to love herself – unconditionally, lavishly, until it became a habit – until she became so loving that she was besotted – a soggy, full sponge – so that anytime she was squeezed, or pressured, or pushed, a little bit of love dripped out. 

Valentine’s Day approaches, are you feeling wrung out? May the only thing that comes from you be love.

May you love yourself lavishly and may you love your neighbor as you love yourself.