She enjoyed a little vacation that still lingers in memory. Twenty-four hours in a beautiful place. She took an unprecedented afternoon off work, grabbed her most frequent travelling companion, drove five hours and pitched tents in a beautiful place. Great company. Grown children. Grandchildren. Cousins of grandchildren. In-laws and extended family out-laws. They hiked. They toasted marshmallows, they played campfire games. The young people – meaning those aged 35 to 50 – initiated a game called “There will be signs.” In this game, you imagine yourself a millionaire. You don’t tell anyone, but there are signs. Each time around the circle you share one of the signs. Her first one, of course, was getting the piano tuned four times a year. What luxury!
I tell you this story only to say her daughter – the wilderness ranger – is getting married. They are not going to tell anyone when or where. But there will be signs.
“You are in the house of Elrond. And it is ten o’clock in the morning, on October the twenty-fourth, if you want to know.”
“There is no food on earth,” she said, “to slake the hunger that is longing.”
You cannot eat enough to satiate yearning; that deep hunger and craving that has been with you all your life. How much better had my mother said when I was young and pining for I knew not what, “here, take this bottle of water and go for a long hike in a beautiful place.” How much more productive and fulfilling to chug a glass of agua and spend an hour or two composing music and thereby composing myself at the piano. I did not then know how to comfort myself. But we live and learn and experience and grow old – and hopefully wiser by the seventh decade.
In her opinion (and her opinions seem to have grown stronger in recent years); a decent vacation needs to start or end with a visit to a hot springs. She has been known to lengthen trips – both business and pleasure -just to soak at Glenwood Springs, Ouray or Pagosa. Her favorite detour for the past 10 years has been the Wiesbaden in Ouray. This former hospital, and previous sacred place for Chief Ouray, is her happy place, a place of healing and spiritual renewal.
But happy places have a downside. If one goes there too often, the place may lose its effectiveness -a body may become somewhat immune. If one goes too infrequently, the feelings of nostalgia, the memories of the past may delay and belay you in sadness on the way to recovery from the current stress. One’s memory bank will offer up such tidbits as: Here is the hot springs where I stopped and soaked when my boss was acting as a cantankerous addict. Here is where I came for reenergizing when my mother was in her declining months. Ah, but here is where I first found emotional health after the rending of a marriage.
Perhaps she took a little long floating on her back and gazing at the stars sprinkled sky. Long enough to notice that most of the stars that night were actually fast-moving satellites and not the beloved twinkling stars she had enjoyed the precious visit. Perhaps she indulged the grief and took too many steps down the path of memory lane. In any case the warm waters of the outdoor pool did not feel effective. She was disappointed. This was to be a short stay, only one night. She rose from the pool, shivering as she wrapped herself in a cold towel and padded across the frozen flagstones. Down she went, into the lower depths of the spa, to the vapor caves. And there in the semi-darkness and echoing steam; once again was rung from her lips the hallelujah-the acknowledgement that something greater than herself was coming through Nature, rolling like a gentle tsunami and straight to her soul. Once again she felt royal – like Chief Ouray – cared for, protected, rejuvenated, clear-headed. She felt like every mile she had ever walked, every move forward she had ever made – was worth it.
Pro tips for hot springs:
If you are cool by the time you get back to your room, you didn’t stay in the vapor cave long enough.
Bring two swimsuits. You will want to go in the pool frequently and no one likes pulling on a clammy bathing suit.
Whenever possible, stay at the hotel adjacent to the hot springs. I view this in much the same way as hiking. Who wants to drive several minutes to a hot springs, find a parking space, enjoy the springs and then drive back to their lodging?
Conversely, don’t write off a hot springs just because there is no lodging nearby or because you can’t afford lodging. You can’t afford not to at least dip your toes in every hot springs you can find. So don’t write off the Hippy Dip in Pagosa or the tiny Rico Hot Springs or Penny Hot Springs or that one in Yellowstone flowing into the river just because there is no building or development. You should even stop at Pinkerton, even though you can only touch your toes in the hot water these days.
Carry a beach towel in your car and dip your toes and your entire body (skinny or not) into every hot springs you can find. Once will be enough for some. Others will become your happy place and you will long to return again and again. Just do it! And sing your oms and your hallelujahs!
He stood, stooped and bent, and leaning on a walking stick. A whimsical smile played around the corners of his mouth and a plaid fedora sat jauntily on his head. He chuckled, watching his grandson load six paddleboards atop the roof of a Ford Expedition. He shuffled a few feet toward them as daughter and grandson hefted a kayak to the top of her Rav4. “What a lot of work,” he commented, “for a little bit of fun.”
Had it been fun? Yes! 90 minutes on a sundrenched lake in the waning days of summer. Bliss. Beauty. Invigoration. Was it work? Undeniably, yes. She had driven two and a half hours from Durango and past Telluride just to spend a couple hours with her grown son, her aging father, her four grandkids, her daughter-in-law and the DIL’s parents – a standard, but all too infrequent meet-up in the gorgeous mountains of Colorado. Was it worth it? Isn’t fun always worth it? A day spent on the water is soul nourishing. Yet a spontaneous meet-up is very rare amidst responsibilities and work commitments.
Fun seems so expensive in the day-to-day rush. Fun costs time. Fun costs effort.
If we are not careful, somewhere around the age of 25 we lose our grip on fun. We are too exhausted to go the extra mile for recreation, and we feel duty bound to do the unfun tasks first. Unless of course we have doctor’s orders to run every morning – or hike – or go for a swim – or sit in the sun! Then we can take our recreation like a pill, mark it off the list like a chore and not feel guilty about recreating.,
She remembers fun when she was young and tagging along with her parents. They were youth sponsors in the local church. Having barely grown into adulthood themselves, they remembered how to plan fun activities. Youth get togethers, being church sanctioned, were obviously for the glory of God so copious amounts of time were spent lavishly decorating spook houses, bobbing for apples or taking a moonlit hayride. Likewise, church picnics could rightly be considered obligations. No amount of effort was too great to shlep the ice chest of cold fried chicken and potato salad to the group picnic site or to set up the volleyball net or horseshoe pit. But her understanding, her unspoken training, her unconsciously formed opinion was that personal recreation is selfish, self-centered, and therefore ungodly.
Here’s a newsflash: some people garden for fun. It is true! Also true that some garden to survive and it becomes acknowledged, hard work. But garden hobbyists, they work long hours, bending, stooping, hauling and they exude enjoyment.
Some people fish. For fun! Not for food. They rise before dawn and move silently to the river. They stroke and cast and stroke and cast and sometimes they catch. And then they release. For fun. Just for fun. They are home in time for breakfast – before the sun blazes over the one remaining mountain.
Her perspective throughout early adulthood was that fun was expensive; a luxury, forbidden fruit, pleasure to be quaffed only when every other self-sacrifice had been performed to generate income. Now she knows that fun itself may take a copious amount of effort. She must be content to embrace that work, those duties, and then luxuriate in the fun – reap the benefits of rejuvenation!
She is 67 and she is abundantly aware that the best years of her life, the most enjoyable, the most productive, are now. She has all she ever wanted. She is livin’ the life. She makes music. She is immersed in music. She plays music for money. She has traveled and lived in many beautiful places – beyond what she originally imagined. She has walked and hiked in sunshine, blessed with the wind to her back and a breeze on her face, and crafted essays that describe her feelings, and lived to see a book or two in print. She has floated more than one river and seen the ocean. She has passed through fields of flowers in bloom at the peak of the Continental Divide. She has experienced the solitude of alone and independent in the wild.
She has birthed children and watched them grow and loved them and been loved in return.
She is 67. She knows what she wants. All she ever wanted is right now. Yet she does not sit on the couch waiting for the bell to toll. No. She wants more. More travel. More music. More beautiful places. More love. More JOY. For the remaining years of her life. Because the two final things on her bucket list are:
Sail into port grandly
Die in a beautiful place
She wants the last thing to leave her body to be music – along with her soul. Or is music her soul? Or is her soul music? She is not quite sure. But she knows they are inextricably twined. And she wants more. Why? Not because she is greedy. But because the cup of life at its fullest evaporates. One must constantly replenish.
To be clear, she feels a little more like The Cranberries and much better treated than Oliver.
What a wonderful morning. The air, though wintery, was alive with portent. Her sleep the night before had been complete, restful, scattered with positive dreams rather than riddled with anxiety. The morning cup of tea was just the right temperature juxtaposed with the frosty air from the open front door. The morning was like a bordered jigsaw puzzle waiting for a choice piece, the piece that had been held to the light, examined from all sides, compared with each preceding piece and each potential piece until, yes! Even from 18 inches away one could tell it was a perfect match. The piece, that one choice piece, was falling into place. Home. She was singing a new song. She had purchased a feeling, a feeling of home and happiness and success for yet another two months. She was alive. She was grateful. She savored this moment, enjoyed it fully, all the while knowing that once you finish a puzzle and breathe that sigh of satisfaction, soon enough there will be another challenge waiting in the wings.
There’s been a noticeable uptick in creative output at her house. A flurry of lyric writing. Sheets of ragged edged parchment stacked against the music shelf. It is contagious. The rise in rehearsal and songwriting is not limited to one person and one wooden piano bench. Voices sing spontaneously again. A mandolin is pulled from a gig bag and strummed. The electric piano and headphones are in use before dawn, the acoustic and authentic strings at midday, the electric bass at high noon. Collaboration happens. All this. All this because a rule was broken and she had to ask for help.
She has a life-long rule of independence. It stems partially from an inherent abhorrence of asking for help. She chokes on the words. She would rather do it herself than outright ask for helpers. When one recruits helpers there is risk. Risk of rejection. The potential helpers may say no. The potential helpers may be balky and grumble the entire time they are assisting. The helpers may resist instruction and insist on doing it their way. After all, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself! For the most part, independence is a good thing. One needs to self-actuate, to take responsibility for one’s own future, not to expect others to make all decisions and take care of you. Independence can be the opposite of unhealthy co-dependence. So yes, let’s hear it for independence. But what of community? What of interdependence? Fiercely, fiercely, because she is not perfect and she has scars, she insists on independence.
She is 5’4”and she is 67 years old and she has rules. She must be able to move all her possessions by herself. That way she is not beholden to anyone. The bed frames fold up. The table folds down. The chairs fold up. The bookshelves look classy, but they are compact, collapsible. No matter how many trips or steps she has to take, she can move them herself. She has been successful at keeping this rule for 14 years – with one exception. Her beloved piano. It has wheels. It is of moderate size. She can move it all around the living room and all around the house by herself, but she cannot move it across the threshold and into a transport vehicle without help. So last weekend, she had to capitulate. In order to bring that one final treasure into her house, she had to ask for help – nay, beg for help. Some helpers are more willing than others. Some parts of the project are easier than others. Loading the piano was a challenge. Driving the truck was normal. Unloading the piano at destination was carried out with ease. You see? That’s the trouble with asking for help. One never knows how the thing is going to turn out. Everyone who asks has to weigh the risks. Everyone who agrees to participate has to weigh the risks. Even when moving a piano, the risks are not always physical. The first emotional risk is rejection, the second is that of not being in control, and the big one for her is loss of her prized feeling of independence. But do the risks outweigh the positive outcome? You be the judge. The piano makes the house a home. Guests and residents linger in the warmth of the living room. Solitary rehearsals are long and satisfying. Once again the confining, inhibiting, restricting rule-laden lid has been pried from the roof of creativity.
The rooster began before dawn at 5:19. She had not yet fallen back to sleep after the second trip to the bathhouse was completed at 4:29 am, but it didn’t really matter. Seven hours of restorative sleep had already fortified her. She was only lying awake to contemplate her blessings. Lodging in a tiny house, 288 square feet of authentic repurposed 100 -year -old farm furnishings, every square inch meticulously decorated with cotton doilies, linens and hand-sewn quilts. No sign that says, “do not touch.” Every indication that she is to wrap up in the quilt, pull out the exposed springs on the crib-sized trundle daybed and luxuriate for as long as she likes in her 650 down sleeping bag purchased for her birthday last year and brought along on this road trip for such a necessity.
Any moment now her daughter will pop in from the farmhand bunk and make use of the hand-crank coffee grinder and organic coffee beans. Once the coffee is perking, they will gather eggs from the hens and have a fine omelette. Rain gently taps on the roof intermittently. Dad still snores softly from the quilted queen-sized bed nestled under an eastern stained glass quatrefoil window and concealed by an antique secretary bookcase now commissioned as china hutch. The bookcase is identical to a pair from her father’s childhood home, one of which graces her brother’s well – appointed professorial study while the other has use at the home of a cousin. It is 7:14 am and still Dad sleeps – an amazing feat for a man used to rising early on a farm, used to getting up before dawn to feed the horses and break the ice in the watering trough. But then, he has been up twice in the night for trips to the bathhouse. Trips on which she accompanied him because the path is unfamiliar and very uneven. Trips on which she, at the age of 66 and allegedly in her prime, reaches out to him and steadies him like she would a toddling child. When your parents age, it helps to have been a mother. The bathhouse has every luxury from clawfoot tub to heated toilet seat. The only thing resembling the old farm outhouse is the aged barnwood paneling the walls and floor. It takes time to enjoy these amenities when you are 88. It also takes time to wash your hands and get back into your coat. While he washes his hands and gets back into his coat, she slips behind the partition and makes use of the heated toilet seat for herself. A wise woman goes at every opportunity. She, too, might want to sleep until the sun is up!
Last night when Silvergirl pulled into the driveway about 7:00 pm the three travelers were greeted by a cacophony of bleating goats, honking white geese and clucking hens. By the time she and her daughter enjoyed a pit campfire and headed for bed the hens were cozily perched in their custom aviary and the frogs and toads in the pond were loudly singing an evening serenade. The amphibians were at it again briefly this morning once the rooster alarmed them.
What a beautiful morning! Such is the life in Christopher Robin’s Writer’s Cabin, next to the 100-acre-wood, on Whidbey Island, on a working farm – when she is not the one working!
Today is March 16, 2021. Happy Quarantinaversary to me! On this day in 2020, I rose before dawn as is my habit, wrote a little, ate my oatmeal, showered, dressed, made my bed and prepared to sally forth and land a job in music, art, or history – just a little something fun to supplement my retirement, make new friends and get me involved in a new community. First stop on my list was the library where I would print off résumés and network. Before going out the door, I googled the library to confirm hours of operation and found the library; CLOSED. Shut down. The library, for heaven sakes. The sanctuary of writers, researchers, the homeless and the itinerate. I have not been in a library for over a year now. I turned instead to electronics and music, solitary hikes and writing.
In the 17 days immediately preceding March 16, I had completed my move to Durango, settled in a Victorian apartment new to me, made two trips to Grand Junction to visit my parents, purchase a vehicle and coordinate details with my daughter. As of March 16, all commerce came to a halt. I dug out my wardrobe of bandanas – currently known as face masks. I commenced making chalk marks on my front porch; eleven days, twenty-one days, thirty-days. And then the lawn sprinklers washed away my record of confinement. The streets of bustling, resort town Durango were deserted and quiet, fit for walking and window-shopping. My only retail therapy was food. I found the grocery stores more crowded during senior hours than at other times. We are, after all, the baby-boomers. I shopped only when absolutely necessary.
I chose to receive the quarantine as a gift and a blessing. I savored the solitude, the uninterrupted time to write and sing and play music. True, I re-read every paperback book in the house – and all the books I had been purchasing and storing on my phone. I re-watched old DVDs. More importantly, I attended to my physical health by hiking every trail I could find.
I did what I had always wanted to do but never had time. I finished and published two books- rereleased a children’s book long gathering dust. I learned to play the electric bass. I sang with a virtual choir. I built a website for my online bookstore. I did more than survive. I am content more days than not.
Though it has been a year in which I lost my job and my mother – neither to COVID – I have found a new normal; a more stress-free way of being. I want to keep it that way. Nevertheless, today, on this anniversary of my quarantine, I have an appointment for a vaccination. Do I think the vaccination is some kind of magic potion that will fix everything? I hang my hope no more on receiving a vaccination than on wearing of a face mask, yet I participate willingly in both – because they are a comfort and encouragement for those around me; a symbol of hope to all who long for freedom; that we are doing our best. Tomorrow, may we do even better. I will live – and live well – as long as I am supposed to. And then, may I die in a beautiful place!
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.
Putting One Foot in Front of the Other, Hiking for Life!
