So, this is the crux. This is the undeniable hard part. This is goodbye.
Seasonal life is so fluid and real and all of the beautiful things and then it's time to say goodbye to a place. Everyday for the next seven days I have to soak in the scenery and feast with my eyes on the faces that are here. My ears have to be so, so sensitive to the voices of loved ones, of birds, of quiet so I can keep them with me.
How is it that I can leave the desert with so many hikes left undone or leave a new friendship with so many little silly questions left to ask? What do I even say about the fact I really have no guaranteed return ticket? Do we ever? It's just really hard.
Your job, if you choose to accept it:
Move to an absolutely gorgeous place and immerse yourself in the ecology, the culture, the history, the river, the mountains, the desert, the wind, the community.
Picture yourself here. BE PRESENT. Enjoy it.
Learn about it as much as possible, teach others about it. Share your joys and inspiration with them.
Don't OWN this place too much but just enough to give it your heart a bit so you care enough to protect it.
Make a little community, surround yourself with love and friendship because these people are just like SO MANY others on the planet, they are wise and wonderful and you are lucky to know them.
Make incredible memories with your people, and take lots of physical and mental photos.
Treasure it all.
Remember how lucky you are. Help others remember how lucky WE ALL are.
Be proud of yourself, you have succeeded here. People love you, you love them. You fit here.
OK, now leave. Fly off, little migrant bird, and do it all again in another place with other people and MAKE IT COUNT. This is your story.
Constantly seeking the joy, even when its sure to bang up my heart. Yours, A.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Saturday, April 19, 2014
realism
Working (and sweating) on my yoga mat this evening I could hear the storm outside beginning to build. Far away rumbles turned into drama and action and rain. There is little on this planet as deeply desired and cherished as a desert rain. It had been at least 4 months. Finding myself in an ever so painfully slow chaturanga on the moment of cloud burst, I happily leaped from the calm green of my mat out into the crash-bang of the storm. It was good to dance, bare feet slapping, face greeting pelting raindrops, my nose inhaling the rich fragrance of smoky, earthy wetness. It was a religious experience.
How do we find ourselves in these incredibly mysterious spaces? Is it our mind that muddles a reality that is so painfully simplistic we create these hidden places and meanings? Is the world so infinitely complex that the reality of every single experience IS actually that mysterious, that awe-inspiring that we cannot even begin to explain it to ourselves? Spending as much time in nature as I am so achingly blessed to do I am beginning to understand those idealistic crazies - the "mad ones" as Kerouac would say. The "good ones" as we said today. I am really finding it hard to imagine any other life being considered "reality" than the one found outside. Those feelings started long ago but this life is living in every sense of the word. After the storm, I headed up to Sotol Vista to get a glimpse of the sunset and hear the water churning through the arroyos on its way to the river. Surprisingly, I was instead greeted with a magnificent light show as another huge storm rolled across the Caballo Muerto and Chisos ranges. Being alone up there looking out into Mexico and back into the majestic face of another thundercloud, there was no other thing. Nature is both deeply complex and shockingly black and white- the floodwaters give life and yet wipe anything in the path away. It is everything.
Don't get me wrong, I am not out here pulling a Muir yet. Far from it. The joys of creature comforts are many. I love the company of other people more than anything else in the world (depending on the company), my heart races in the presence of beautiful art and music, my face burns at the word sunshine, a warm shower and a soft bed are heaven but I just can't fathom a life spent with so much control. Living feels best and worst at the whim of nature - being in flux, in change, and immersing yourself up to the neck in the wild flow is becoming a non-negotiable for me. Living feels a lot like letting go... like dancing in the rain on a quiet Tuesday evening.
How do we find ourselves in these incredibly mysterious spaces? Is it our mind that muddles a reality that is so painfully simplistic we create these hidden places and meanings? Is the world so infinitely complex that the reality of every single experience IS actually that mysterious, that awe-inspiring that we cannot even begin to explain it to ourselves? Spending as much time in nature as I am so achingly blessed to do I am beginning to understand those idealistic crazies - the "mad ones" as Kerouac would say. The "good ones" as we said today. I am really finding it hard to imagine any other life being considered "reality" than the one found outside. Those feelings started long ago but this life is living in every sense of the word. After the storm, I headed up to Sotol Vista to get a glimpse of the sunset and hear the water churning through the arroyos on its way to the river. Surprisingly, I was instead greeted with a magnificent light show as another huge storm rolled across the Caballo Muerto and Chisos ranges. Being alone up there looking out into Mexico and back into the majestic face of another thundercloud, there was no other thing. Nature is both deeply complex and shockingly black and white- the floodwaters give life and yet wipe anything in the path away. It is everything.
Don't get me wrong, I am not out here pulling a Muir yet. Far from it. The joys of creature comforts are many. I love the company of other people more than anything else in the world (depending on the company), my heart races in the presence of beautiful art and music, my face burns at the word sunshine, a warm shower and a soft bed are heaven but I just can't fathom a life spent with so much control. Living feels best and worst at the whim of nature - being in flux, in change, and immersing yourself up to the neck in the wild flow is becoming a non-negotiable for me. Living feels a lot like letting go... like dancing in the rain on a quiet Tuesday evening.
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