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.

Books and other Soul Food, Character, co-dependence, Fiction is Truth, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Relationships, Uncategorized, Write

She thinks of it as her debut novel

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She thinks of it as her debut novel, though she has two preceding books in print. The plot is well aged in the whiskey barrel of life. She has been ruminating the twists for more than three decades. This is the book she left the mountains to write 13 years ago, not that she can’t write in the mountains. There is writing inspiration aplenty in such a cozy cabin, but instead of writing, she kept shouldering the duties of others instead of minding her own business – much like the main character in The Right Woman for the Job. In fact, The Right Woman for the Job mirrors many of the experiences of the author – and fictionalizes a reciprocal amount. Like the movie, Groundhog Day, this book has taken many tries to get it right – both in real life experience and in rewriting of the lines. The author herself has changed. The original model characters have changed. Heroes have risen – and fallen. Scenes have been added and deleted, format and metaphor rearranged like the squares on a sliding tile puzzle. The Right Woman for the Job has had many title changes – changes that reflect the character improvement and growth and migration and focus of the protagonist. 

Tuesday, February 2, 2021 is more than just Groundhog Day. The first Tuesday in February is a big book release day in the publishing industry. And this year she will participate – for the first time ever – in the custom of releasing a book on the first Tuesday in February. Chalk one up for the bucket list. Finally, she has done what she said she would do – she never dreamed it would take 13 years and two hundred thousand miles of detours. 

The Right Woman for the Job available softcover from cherryodelbergbooks.com
and as an ebook from Amazon.com

Books and other Soul Food, Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Leadership, Relationships, Spiritual Well Being, Uncategorized, Write

remembering Shirley Bryan-an introspective

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Shirley Bryan is dead, and she didn’t get to read the book. The book in which a very important supporting character is modeled after her. The book in which I put words in her mouth – made her say what I understood her to say. The book that was dedicated to her because she believed in me, mentored me from afar. Just knowing she was there, just knowing what she would say gave me the affirmation to move forward. Shirley Bryan died January 1 of this year. I found out when I googled her address to send a copy of The Cemetery Wives – albeit with fear and trembling because she has a much more particular grasp of the English language than I do. Nevertheless, I thought proper to send her a copy because I dedicated it to her. Would she still be at the same address? A mere three months ago when I penned the dedication line, I searched online and found her husband, Chaplin Bill, had died two years ago. I have not seen Shirley, talked to Shirley, or been in contact for over 25 years. It is I who am totally responsible for the distance and lack of communication. For the first 12 years after leaving seminary, I chose not to burden her with my day-to-day frustrations because she had plenty of new young women to mentor. For the past twelve I have been ashamed to reach out. I am divorced. My life did not go as it ought. It would have grieved Shirley, as it grieved me. My presence at the seminary was due to my marriage to a seminary student and we are no longer married. 

Back in the day when I was married to a seminary student and Shirley mentored young mothers, we had an understanding. Speaking to young wives was her calling, writing was my growing passion. We would travel the ancient biblical lands together. She would gain knowledge and speak. I would be her amanuensis. In both speaking and writing, we would reach the maximum number of people with truth. In addition, we would both luxuriate in seeing the wonders of the world.

It was never a real plan – only a casual conversation – but her participation in the dream was true encouragement. Something that told me I could move forward. I was free to pursue writing. It might even be my calling.

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

Tired of living the life

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Living the life, he writes from a 230-square-foot studio cabin while penning a yearly update to family. Panoramic views stretch expansively into public lands from the windows liberally flanking three sides of the studio. In the center stands a pot-bellied wood stove. Water reaches toward a boiling point for tea. Hardbound classics stand upright on knotty pine shelves. A vintage microscope, typewriter and various state of the art wireless word-processing devices conveniently litter a sweeping 24-foot, built-in desk space. It can be assumed he is clothed in wool that is very smart – in more ways than one – and featherweight down. 

This is the life, she says. And she is eternally grateful. For over 60 years she has longed for the time and solitude to write. And now she is living the life; living in a well-equipped authentic Victorian row house; rising before dawn and writing for a couple hours; bathing in a vintage claw-foot tub with hot running water that she doesn’t have to fetch or heat; hiking for two hours a day,  every day at whatever time of day suits her fancy; keeping fit, keeping well-read, indulging in virtual choirs and virtual bass workshops and adding to her piano repertoire and strumming her pain with her fingers on a handsome acoustic guitar she never had time to caress until this year.  Most of the time, she is vastly content.  She has done what she said she would do 13 years ago – write.  In the space of eleven months, she brought two novels to print, novels begun in the 80s and now historic. She resurrected a children’s book first published in her initial crusade to become a writer.

But they are tired, these siblings, tired of not being able to meet in a cozy coffee shop, tired of not being able to travel by train or plane to exotic places to expand their intellectual horizons. Tired of restraint from family reunions where laughter is shared by people who overlap with common inherencies. 

Sometimes she grows tired of living the life; tired of not being able to go to a ballroom just every once in a while and find herself in the arms of a man who can really lead and who can dance to boot – or dance in boots if the situation is western; tired of singing virtually without the felt energy of leaning in to match the blend; tired of hawking and signing her books electronically – missing the smiles uncovered and the handshakes hearty and the spontaneity of laughter that does not mute the audio of everyone else.

And as for him? He is living the life – in the lap of all that he loves and has earned, but he is tired of talking to colleagues, about bears and nutes and biodiversity and the human genome, via Zoom. He longs to go global once again – lecture and discuss in Zumbian zoos and the Tanzanian tropics and rustic Denalian lodges. 

And so they coexist, these two siblings, closely related by blood yet often differing in opinion, a few hundred miles apart, in virtual solitude and partial isolation.

Yes, they are living the life in so many ways and they acknowledge it with heartfelt gratitude.

 But in some subtle way, they are tired of living the life. Something needs to change.

Books and other Soul Food, Character, co-dependence, Emotional Health, Family, Fiction is Truth, Health and Long Life, Religion, Spiritual Well Being

Please Judge the book by its cover

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Please judge the book by its cover!

It’s the book she never intended to write. You know, the Christian Women’s fiction one. And the audience for this book is probably well over 50 and likes best to read comforting feel-good books by Jan Karon about Father Tim and all the residents of Mitford. 

It’s the book that disappointed her favorite cousin “why doesn’t the main character DO something?” said the cousin when prevailed upon to do a final read through.

It’s the manuscript the author read aloud to her best friend while on a long road trip, so the best friend is not obligated to read the book again – but that friend did volunteer that she loves the cover! The art is mesmerizing.

It’s the book the author’s 32-year-old daughter will probably never read since it’s not Rowling or Tolkien or Austen or Brönte or Frank Herbert. But her daughter, none-the-less, has an eye for style and an opinion about the cover. And that is how the cover came to be washed in shades of brown and looking like a southern gothic adventure set in the 80s.

Artist Courtney Harris did a fabulous job of interpreting the author’s ideas of a cemetery in Texas in 1989. The author is happy with the cover. The author’s daughter is happy with the cover. The artist’s mother is happy with the cover. The author’s best friend is happy with the cover. So please, go ahead and judge the book by its cover!

Because the back cover says “Caution: contains Bible quotes and seminary speak and a very unconventional love story.” 

Unconventional. Yes. In the latest film version of Little Women, Mr. Dashwood (the publisher) tells Jo March, “and if the main character is a woman, make sure she is married by the end of the book – or dead!” The ending would satisfy Mr. Dashwood – and all those who share his point of view. Someone is dead and someone is married.

Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Spiritual Well Being

Farewell 2020 i regret nothing

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Farewell 2020.

I regret nothing.

Hindsight is 2020, everyone is saying, and now 2020 is in our rearview mirror. 

None of us have any desire to cling to the past

Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be? 

We move forward with hope that tomorrow will be better than today.

We turn the leaf to a fresh new page

Farewell, farewell!

There is no going back.

I regret nothing.

Now is the time to harness the energy for greeting the adventures around the corner, not for ruing the past.

Hope springeth eternal

Does it?

Then, let it!

There is no time like the present to continue to do what you have always wanted to do.

The challenges are no greater and no less than they have ever been

Give it your all

Things I do not regret from 2020

I do not regret moving back to Colorado

Not sorry I discovered Durango

Not sorry I spent my savings on a washer and a dryer and two down vests and a pair of

top-flight, waterproof hiking boots.

I do not regret the kayak

Not sorry I found people to sing with virtually so that I must practice every day and thereby increase my oxygen and endorphin intake

Not sorry I busied myself about music during isolation and learned bass and bought a bass amp.

I have no regrets concerning cloistering myself and writing for nine and a half months.

2020 was a year of incredible events, unforeseen depths of loss and amazing opportunity. I regret nothing. Onward 2021.

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She Hikes with grandma’s sunday handkerchief

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She hikes with her grandmother’s Sunday handkerchief. Yes, a vintage handkerchief. 100% cotton with a floral print around the borders. She layers it between the disposable rain poncho-which is 20 years old and not yet ready for the landfill – stuffed into the bottom of a bottle sling with the full water bottle on top. These are the essentials for a daily hike: rain poncho for a sudden downpour; handkerchief for bites the nose winter or spring allergies, and water bottle. It is not a new handkerchief by any means. Nor is it carried as a talisman. Grandma has been gone since 1965 and this is the year 2020. In her memory these are Sunday best handkerchiefs, too pretty for daily use. They are Pentecostal handkerchiefs once used to dab off the tears of joy while murmuring, “glory!” And they are babies in a blanket handkerchiefs, quiet, soft-as down distractions to keep toddlers occupied during long sermons. These handkerchiefs – there are four of them- have been carefully stored for 56 years. They came to her in an old-fashioned cedar chest this year upon the passing of her mother. Mother never thought to use the handkerchiefs for herself because disposable tissues have been the norm since the 1950s. For the last 50 years, Scotties and Kleenex and Puffs made the weekly rounds to church and office, carefully folded and tucked into purses. But these handkerchiefs are practical gold for the leave no trace hiker. Before COVID, on longer hikes, she traveled with two bandanas – one for wiping the face and nose and spills and the other for use as a tablecloth for lunch in a beautiful place. That was how she came to have 15 cotton fashion bandanas to choose from for face coverings. Now every hike requires a jaunty bandana tied around the neck at the ready to lift to the nose – but not to wipe the nose. So, she chooses a bandana carefully to match her mood or outfit and she heads out into Nature to meet and greet strangers by hoisting her bandana into place over her nose, slick as a cow puncher keeping out the dust. Between times, when her nose gets so chilly it drips or when the bridge of her nose has been pressed so often by the bandana it runs, she pulls out the Pentecostal handkerchief to gently dab at her nostrils. Nowhere is the likelihood of her becoming charismatic most strong as out on the trail – in Nature’s beauty, where all creation sings and blesses her and restores her spirit; where the sight of a mountain or a waterfall or a glimmering icicle provokes an exclamation of “hallelujah” or “glory,” – most generally translated “wow!” or “awesome!” and a spontaneous waving of a handkerchief. 

Putting One Foot in Front of the Other, Hiking for Life!