Saturday, I returned from a 24-hour trip to Grand Junction in which I had seen my 86-year-old mother finally pain -free and at peace. I was exhausted. I could hear my daughter talking to our neighbors in the back yard. I snuck into my bedroom, closed the door and crawled onto the bed. A couple minutes later came a knock at my door, “Mom? Can I just say hi!” It was my youngest son whom I have not seen for 16 months. Unbeknownst to me, the kids had been planning this surprise before I got the call that Mom was in her final hours. So grateful for the gift of perfect timing. I got to see my oldest son on Saturday and enjoy a hike and brunch with my younger two children on Sunday. And I rest in the knowledge that my mother is not sorry at all to be released from this life.
One of my friends, who knows what it is to lose a parent, called it “bittersweet.” Indeed, that is the essence of life. But the sweet lasts. Hang on to that!
Cherry, Andrea, Philip on Mother’s Day 2020Kevin (Eldest Son) and Cherry, March 2020
Did you ever wish to visit Bourbon Street? Not for the drink, but for the music? Did you ever walk into the music building at a university and stop and listen to the cacophony coming from practice rooms and see the students conducting to tunes in their heads in the lobby and breathe and say, “feels like home?”
The other night, about half an hour before sunset, she took a hike. Right there on Paul Wilbert Memorial Trail, a saxophone bleat caught her attention. She stopped dead in her tracks to listen. Clearly, from 300 feet below in the neighborhood, came squawking sounds of reed music. Someone was practicing outside. She was delighted. Memory took her back to childhood sessions lolling in a hammock with trumpet pressed to her lips. Was it a student? And then, reed properly wetted and adjusted, the musician eased into 60s jazz, bending a few tones, undulating, something familiar. This was no beginner. This was a gift to the neighbors. Mark it on your schedule, 7:00 pm every night.
She has pinpointed, in various forays around the neighborhood, a kit drum house, two guitar houses, the saxophone house and a banjo house. It’s a quaint Victorian neighborhood, four blocks from downtown old town, half degenerating and half up-town restoration. But, musicians live here. Artists thrive. Rich cultures mix. People walk their dogs – and their children – and themselves, every morning and evening. Skateboards trundle by, bicyclists call to one another and stop and chat. The weather is so fine, she opens her door each evening at 5:00 and plays through a piano repertoire for an hour. Folk songs, sixties, seventies, a nod to the eighties and nineties, something fresh; a river set, an Elvis Presley sampling. Good grief, she’s been playing for over 60 years. That’s a lot of music.
Last night as she launched into Danny Boy a particularly loud conversation caught her ear because it stopped right outside the window for the dog to do its business. Business complete, the human came right on up the porch, chattering on a phone all the while, and peered in the screen door. “I am talking to my friend in Buenos Aires,” she explained with thick accent, “She wants to know, do you know your music is heard in Argentina?”
“Hola!” the pianist called, waving to the screen. She continued to play with pride and an increased sense of excellence and performance. After all, she is going international. Her music is heard ‘round the world.
I don’t often read or quote the Bible anymore, but verses learned at a young age, like any other classic recitation, frequently pop into my mind unbidden to inform and motivate.
“Every place where you set your foot will be yours!”(Deuteronomy 12:24)
“I will give you every place where you set your foot.” (Joshua 1:3)
These words have pushed me to get out every day, to hike harder, farther – to persevere and claim.
My name is not Abraham or Moses or Joshua and though I would love to own a little postage stamp of this land (and my own four walls), I am perfectly aware this land has been deeded to someone else for decades.
But the health that rises up to meet me on the trail, the whole health; mind, soul, body? That I claim. And the beauty? All of it is given me-every place I set my foot. All is mine. Each and every gift of the hike. The gifts of putting one foot in front of another are numerous:
Inspiration
Insight into myself, and to others
Perseverance
Peace
Balance
Dopamine, Endorphins, Serotonin
Empathy
Independence
Resolution
Application
Stamina
Perspective
These are gifts the trail gives to me, and I must walk the length and breadth to claim the gifts. The best gifts are to be coveted, not out of greed, but out of wanting well; and if you are going to do to others as you would be done to and love your neighbor as you love yourself, shouldn’t you be about the business of loving yourself – taking care of yourself as much as you possibly can? Go ahead. Raise the bar. Claim your gifts from the trail.
Did you know that an oriole hopping about in bushes and leaves makes about the same amount of noise as three does standing together and fidgeting in the underbrush? Recently, I found this out for myself on two consecutive days. The first day, I slowed my pace and looked about for the rustling, hoping it was not a skulking bobcat or spraying skunk. A relatively small bird was making the most of grubs and caterpillars with gusto ten feet to my right. It ignored me. Next day I heard what I identified as the same noise ten feet to my left. Expecting to see yet another avian variety, instead I spied three deer ladies, posed and staring inquiringly back at me. “Please don’t stampede,” I said under my breath.
Yes, I rely on, and am grateful to retain, my auditory sense. Hearing once kept me from stepping closer to a rattler braided into a yucca bush. Usually I can hear elk or big horn before I see them and avoid collision. A spinning sprocket has its own individual voice and I can frequently tell whether it is fore or aft and find a rock or wide space to cling to before I hear the startled operator croak, “on your left.”
But the wind? The wind changes everything. Are the trees going to fall on me? Or is that creaking and groaning actually a derailleur changing gears? The pines and juniper make me skittish. Yesterday I was out of the woods, and in the gambles oak and sage brush when I heard the fast approach of a cyclist who clearly needed to oil his chain. I jumped into the grass and yucca and turned to see a wizened oak leaf, dried into a gnarled fist shape, driven by the wind – rasping all the way – chasing me down the dirt path.
Some days are becalmed but for my forward tread. Not a breeze. Lizards and snakes soundless, unnoticed unless you see them. On one such day I hiked a familiar trail. Taking a right turn at a fork I thought to myself, “Private property up ahead, I’ll just walk to the sign and then turn back.” Suddenly. Noiseless. There in the willows. As surprised and curious at my silent approach as I was by hers; a doe.
They say, no matter how multilingual one is, in times of stress, we return to our native language. There was much that was lost during COVID-19; but there was also much that was gained. I found freedom of expression in a return to my creative languages. I have learned to share again through music and words via technology. There has been time for reflection on my past – and time to ponder how much of that past I want to take into my future. Welcome to May, 2020! As we begin to come out of our isolation cocoons and venture back into our new normal; this week instead of a piano snippet; I present you an original reading, “I Saw My Hero Fall.”
I SAW MY HERO FALL
I saw my hero fall before my eyes
Gut-wrenched I was because for moment’s pause
I thought utopia had finally come
He was so handsome – understanding – wise
I saw my hero lying on the bed,
his arms entwined; with those of someone else
And though he never ceased to lavish me,
I could not acquiesce – be one of three,
To me, who once treasured his hero heart;
Dead. He is only a man after all.
I found my hero slow to act when back
To back with hardship shared, he shut me out
And I was left in cold and stone, to make
A home for me alone, from sticks and straw
That I myself had faithfully gathered
From the common man, I expect failure,
Not from men to whom I swear my fealty
From the riff raff, I endure rejection
But not from those entrusted with my heart.
I saw my hero fall, beside the desk
A massive falsehood swirling in his head
He had forgotten who he was, who I
Sideswiped by multitude mutinous lies,
Karma of ruthlessness returned to haunt,
And that is why I’m shy of any man,
who trumps my hand at brains, brawn, heart or lust;
She hiked 5.3 miles yesterday. Not that she really intended to go that far, but what is five miles when you have no schedule, no appointments, no reason to be back at a certain time? According to her observations, one felt better when averaging 3 miles per day. Why stop at three miles when five might make you feel glorious? Besides, what is that? Up there. Just around that next bend?
It is becoming habitual; daily pulling on the short wool socks, the hiking sandals, zip off shorts – the sawed off T-shirt and maybe a hoodie depending on the weather. All topped off with a water bottle in a sling stuffed with a rain poncho and cotton handkerchief. The cell phone goes in her pocket – for taking pictures, not messages -keys to the opposing pocket. And lastly, the bandana of the day is tied round the nose and mouth. Ah-the bandana. Aye-yi-yi-yi -she is a bandito, stealing an hour or two of time that in former days had been allocated to economic security.
With bandana securely in place until she reaches a trail with no one in sight, she ventures out on her own feet to engage in forest bathing. Yesterday 5.3 miles. In the days before: 5.6, 4.5, 3.9,1.8 and 4.4. Since anything over three miles is quite possibly indicative of new discovery, it’s been a week of enlightenment. She now knows the trails less traveled, also the delightful little coves for putting in and taking out a kayak and the most likely fishing holes along the river. She figured out early on that the trails laid out for hikers and bicyclists are often labyrinthian, doubling back on themselves endlessly through the trees. But if you were going to cut the corners, take a shortcut, do it the most expedient way; why would you ever leave home in the first place? Route signs carefully coordinated by the City of Durango, BLM, Forest Service, and 2000 Trails are helpful, but not always clear. What does it matter as long as you have a general idea of where you are and no deadline? Explore the trail!
And that’s why, she frequently sets out to hike three miles and ends up hiking five.
Over her hiking years she learned that she can usually gage the distance, without benefit of pedometer, simply by how she feels. Mile one: Ahhhhh, I can breathe again, why didn’t I do this sooner?Mile two, the tension drops away and a new perspective dawns somewhere in the back of her mind. Between mile three and four her appetite for good, healthful food kicks in and she takes another sip from her water bottle. Mile four is for menu planning – usually Chinese. Yesterday was a bit of an aberration. At mile three, deep in a piñon pine forest she said to herself, “When I get home, perhaps I will make some vanilla pudding.” She stopped in her tracks to find the source of this inspiration. There it was. Twelve feet ahead and just to the left of the trail, a ponderosa pine of substantial girth. She sniffed it. She hugged it. She continued happily on down the trail.
We visit people out of love. We party, we hang out, we have a girls (or guys) night out. We socialize out of love – or at least a strong feeling of like. We fall in love and say such things as, “I just can’t live without you!” We experience the drive and magnetism of lust and mistake it for love. But have you ever loved someone enough to stay away out of love? Loved them enough to resist the urge to be with them? Social distancing is nothing new. Many are experiencing it right now because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Coronavirus = isolation, no hugs and kisses – particularly of those you love best; your grandkids; your grandparents. It is not easy. It means people die alone – or with masks between them-unable to see the last lingering smile of a loved one. Some are torn between two loves of equal claim. Do you visit your vulnerable, quarantined loved one at the risk of bringing the virus back home and shedding it on your school-aged kids? Did you put your vulnerable, quarantined elderlies at risk when you visited them after being in the outside world? Grandma, when you said, “Let them hug me, I’m not afraid to get their germs!” Did you stop to think you might be transferring germs to them? Individualists, do you claim it as your right to go anywhere you wish? Or do you stay away out of love? Empathic Souls, do you defy the social distancing laws currently in place in order to see your loved ones so you can feel better?
Did you stop to think that staying away is the ultimate loving thing you can do?
Social distancing is nothing new. Nor is it a new and sinister conspiracy when government issues temporary social distancing protocol. Consider history: The Spanish flu is notable for several parallels to COVID19. In some cities everyone was required to wear masks. Mask-wearing was encouraged as a fashion statement.
Tuberculosis has rules requiring isolation. Drastic measures are taken when one in every seven people dies. So also in the time of Cholera when removing a community pump handle cut off access to the contaminated water supply. Who would ever think cutting off the water supply was a loving thing to do? Now what kind of a violation of our rights is that? Yet it saved lives. Instructions for the Black Plague have been handily reduced to three words in latin: cito, longe, tarde with the intended message being: leave quickly, go far away and come back slowly.
Staying away and distancing even when you love someone deeply is not a new idea. Examples and tropes abound in literature, history, culture. And yes, it hurts – tears at the very heart of you! Sometimes distance is the only thing that keeps us from causing further hurt or entanglement. Here are some situations to consider:
Leprosy: I grew up on a diet of Third World missionary stories. One that always impressed me was the story of a man who got leprosy. Though deeply in love with his young wife, he divorced her to distance her – to keep her well. She, in turn, went away; finished her medical degree and returned to the leper colony. Thank you healthcare workers!
Grown Child Co-dependence: If not the parents, then the child must distance. Otherwise, unhealthy entanglement and stunting occurs. I know you love me, but do you love me enough to let me individuate and be my own person?
My Best Friend’s Wedding: When you are admirably well-matched with a friend but the two of you know it would be disastrous to wed and your presence in the picture makes it impossible for your friend, business partner, office mate, dancing partner, or project partner, to develop a full romantic relationship with anyone else.
Rocketman:in the 2019 movie, Elton John’s co-songwriter says, “I love you Man, but not in that way.” Dating is a fun activity; coffee an important ritual; intelligent conversation a thing to covet. I have known more than one man or woman in just such a fulfilling cerebral relationship who saw the other growing more serious and- with heartfelt honesty-had to say, “I love you, but not in that way.”
The Lady or the Tiger:Do you love your lover enough to let him or her go in order to save their life? Or are you more like Romeo and Juliet? Tragic for the both of you.
Why do we stay away when we love?
Because sometimes staying away is the ultimate loving thing we can do.
The hash marks chalked on the concrete outside my window indicate 30 days since our local public library closed by mandate. I don’t have enough data to stream Netflix. That being the case, I’ve re-watched a lot of DVDs that I own. Turns out living in housing with limited signals these past four years was a good thing – for my movie collection. My daughter and I tag team storage and living space. She took her essential DVDs with her on 90 days temporary. I am left with her castoffs and my 75 top picks that I granted space when I culled and moved in February; Musicals, recents such as Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star is Born, Narnia, LOTR, a couple personal favorite chic flicks, The Hunt for Red October, The Kid, and any thing Jane Austen. I have watched Sense and Sensibility so many times I probably need a new DVD. The acting is superb and the script tight. Emma Thompson is excellence in all she endeavors. I also have two versions of Emma (I prefer Kate Beckinsale over Gwyneth), and would like to own every version of Pride and Prejudice ever made. It is the book I reread most often.
Pride and Prejudice
What young woman wouldn’t want to be Elizabeth Bennett? Even Keira Knightly wanted to be Elizabeth and, as a pirate, she already had her choice of men (I know because I also have a small Johnny Depp collection). Lily James is credit worthy in Pride and Prejudice Zombies. In past, I have greatly enjoyed the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice mini-series – but I think my daughter has both those DVDs with her (yes, both the Zombies and Colin). So I am reduced to watching Pride and Prejudice 2005 or Bride and Prejudice 2004.
I ordered Bride and Prejudice for my daughter several years ago while searching for Pride and Prejudice Latter-Day Comedy. I enjoyed watching it once and that was all I needed. Like so many books, once is good and you move on. I pulled Bride and Prejudice from the stack the other night – the stack my daughter left behind-and watched it again. Again the next day. Again that night. Why? Because Elizabeth Bennett (in this case, a Hindi; Lalita Bakshi)is not afraid to speak out on issues. She speaks humorously and with knowledge and she is beautiful. But my favorite scene is where she tells William Darcy,“You’re the last person I’d ever want to be with.” She walks away. With confidence. Not in anger, but with resolve. We don’t see the end of her path. It may be long. It may be lonely. But she walks away – and she doesn’t look back. She doesn’t throw a glance over her shoulder to see if he got the message. She doesn’t turn to see if he is following her with his eyes. It doesn’t matter. She knows who she is. She moves forward. And that is why we want to be Elizabeth Bennett! She knows who she is.
She had always been fascinated by what makes people tick, the difference between introverts and extroverts, melancholies and cholerics, Myers-Briggs categories and –more recently- Enneagram personality types.
COVID-19 lockdowns, quarantines and isolations reveal a lot about our personalities. She was reveling in people watching; and best of all – from a distance! What a comfort is distance to the introvert! From her solitude she contemplated: Which of us are rule followers? Who is naturally rebellious? Who panics? Who doubts? Who hides? Who are the altruists ready to pitch in for the common good? Which of our acquaintance are conspiracy theorists? Who sees every crisis as opportunity? Who will seize the day?
She encouraged bicycling, as something you can do alone. She didn’t have a bicycle at the moment, but as an avid hiker she was quite used to sharing the trail with cyclists so she knew a bit about them. She was pretty sure bicycling belonged on the list of things you can do whilst thriving solo. What continues to surprise her is the number of bicyclists that persist in riding in groups – gangs even.
I’m not talking about the family groups, the bearded dad and the lithe young mom and the eight-year-old voice that pipes up, “on your left,” while the endearing four-year-old sibling, balancing solo on a 12-inch tries his best to repeat the alert while still maintaining proper balance and social distance. That’s a forever memory – a keeper from the crisis. My surprise, my thinly veiled criticism, is for the pack of five fifteen-year-olds I met on the concrete river path yesterday- obviously quintuplets because they had a mom and a dad with them. But they were far from identical. In fact, a couple of them had to bark at their buddy – I mean, their brother – for not paying attention, for veering into the left lane and nearly pinning me against the railing as I attempted to keep proper social distance. Obviously, he couldn’t see me since I was wearing a facemask. But wait, I don’t wish to throw stones (that would be against the rules). My purpose is to let her speak about the Enneagram Cyclists she meets.
She has been a rule-follower from the get-go. At first she thought it was just the way her parents raised her, but no. No amount of peer pressure has ever dislodged her from her innate fixation on doing things right. Oh, she is nice about it. As loyal as she is to keeping the rules, she is also humble – shy really – and will quickly step out of the way and hide her eyes when others insist on not following the rules. If you are going to keep rules, you must keep abreast of the rules – and she does! She reads the signs, she keeps a lama between you (and a slide trombone fully extended and the length of a mattress and the width of a car). She also knows the trail rules: Hikers yield to horses, bikers yield to hikers. But knowing she has the right-of-way does not stop her from stepping aside to let the cyclists pass. She hears them coming (thank God for good hearing on twisting treed mountain trails), she understands something of the difficulty of losing momentum once you start an incline, and the danger or impossibility even of stopping too fast as you barrel down a plunge. Besides, if you are quick on your feet and see a clear space to step aside, it is just common sense to do so.
Over the past decade, she has met only three Type One Enneagram cyclists. She knows they were type one because they insisted on keeping the rules. One dismounted and insisted on letting her pass – which she found embarrassing as she had already found a good rock to stand on. One simply said with a smile, “bikers yield to hikers, you go first!” The other one, also friendly, called out, “you have the right of way!” Mostly, bicyclists and hikers simply share the trail. As I said, she steps aside whenever she can and the majority of cyclists simply say, “thank you.”
They might be peacemakers, or enthusiasts, Fours, Fives, Sixes, Sevens or Nines. Some Twos consciously move aside for her and she says thank you. And they reassure her that it is no problem.
Some, like the teen girl she met the other day simply don’t know which end is up. They have never been taught. She was hiking at a good pace down a slight decline through pine and oak as she caught sight of a cyclist approaching a trail junction some 30 feet ahead. When she saw the cyclist acknowledge her presence and yet turn to proceed up the trail, she slowed her pace and looked about for a wide space. Oak brush, yucca and small cacti slid downward on her right. Tree trunks and sage ascended steeply to the left. To the rear, 50 feet more of the same narrow trail. It was indeed, very single track. She came to a halt, toes teetering on the edge of the trail and called to the approaching cyclist who was pushing the bike, “It’s very narrow right here.” She looked pointedly over the young woman’s shoulder to the junction not more than 15 feet distant where the trail was broad and wide and turn around space existed. “I’ll just go here,” said the young woman, doggedly pushing past at the narrowest part of the trail and nearly shouldering her off and into the yucca, while missing only by a hairsbreadth treading on her feet and ankles. So much for yielding and common sense. At least the young woman was alone. Not so on Saturday when she met the cycling gang. Three of them. Full speed in spandex. Traveling so fast she had time only to jump between two sagebrush as they sped by, heads down, no face masks. From the sagebrush, she followed their trajectory and noticed a single cyclist, uphill bound, who hastily pulled off the trail to save his neck. She kept her place and waited aside for him to resume and pass, still shaking his head. She shrugged, “some people don’t even take time to wave.” He smiled, “I don’t think they get it.”
A few paces forward and the light dawned. They were eights! All of them. Imagine three eights in the same group!
So you think you can stop me! Nothing can stand in my way! Get out of my way I’m an eight!
