Hiking in the Rain: A Love Story.

 

Northwest Drizzle is the weather of solitude.

On a hike I pulled my red baseball hat down further to shield me from the rain and pulled my black Gore-Tex hood over my head. By the time I left, my jeans would be heavier than when I arrived from the continual drops that soaked into the cotton.  Each step, a splotch and squish of the trail, was littered with puddles that squirted their muddy contents on the calves of my cheap and well-worn Old Navy jeans.  As the trail dipped down, dodging the trees to sneak between them, the familiar heft of my hiking pack skidded slightly against my back.  It held in place by somewhat tight shoulder straps and a snug sternum strap across my chest.  In the Northwest, the earth smelled warm and damp after a rain, a natural baptism.

I never minded the rain.

 

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I fought the Ape Caves and the Ape Caves won…

When Don invited me to go to the Ape Caves, I thought he was joking.

Did you say Ape Caves?

Ape Caves are the “longest continuous lava tube in the continental U.S.” (thank you very much Wikipedia) and are located in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Southwest-ish Washington. They are a balmy 42 degrees year round.   He thought we should hike it.

Hiking in the dark didn’t seem like the smartest idea, but it had been so long since I had hiked anywhere—sans oxygen tank—I was anxious to prove myself. There were times I was constantly trying to prove that I could handle things.

Traveling alone.

Getting a disease.

Carting an oxygen tank around at 36.

Friends getting cancer at an exceptionally high rate and especially young ages.

I wanted others to believe that I could handle it. I wanted to believe it myself, that I have somehow “got this.” I wanted to think that what drops other people to the floor would not drop me. I would be the exception. I wanted to believe that I would not be disarmed by tests, by drugs, by side effects, by the anticipation of massive loss.

So—hiking boots firmly tied, flashlight and headlamp at the ready—we descended into the cave.   Its walls damp and green further and further down until they were bare and almost entirely dark. The floor was uneven and rough. I wanted my stride to be confident, handling each up and down of natural steps with agility and comfort.

Instead I was awkward. My arms stretched to the side at times, ready to catch myself with each unseen crack and drop of the floor beneath me. My headlamp—which seemed just fine when I’d checked it above ground, was less beacon, more tealight down here.

It’s tough to prove yourself when you look as if you might land on your butt at any moment.

About a mile into the cave Don and I waited till we were alone and shut off our lights. No one else was around as we put our hands in front of our faces—totally unable to see them—and marveled at our own blindness.

Further in the tunnel—in a moment we will call Ultimate Graceful Essence—I bought it. A sideways falling with my hands smashing awkwardly onto the rocky floor, my right hip smacked the pumpkin-size rock with all my body weight and my knees scraped along the calloused surface of the lava tube.

I’m not sure which happened first, the bleeding or the swearing.

Bleeding hand with peeled back skin like chipped paint and blood mixed with dirt and stinging. My knees—bleeding—looked like a 8 year old who had fallen off their bike and wanders into the house with dripped blood down the shins. Genius. Could you pick a little less convenient place to bite it? My hip ached. For a moment I was afraid to move out of fear I had really hurt myself and moving would make it worse.

There was something a little embarrassing about having a place called Ape Caves kick my ass. Had they had a more intimidating name it might have been a point of pride for me. I wish I could have impressed people with things like….

Dragon’s Gauntlet showed me who’s boss.

Or

Satan’s Wall really schooled me.

Instead, the truth of it was The Ape Caves—named after a Boy Scout troop by the way—bullied me.

Still, there was something about it. Getting up—battle wounds still bleeding—and continuing on. There was something bold about it for me. If it hadn’t hurt so much I might have sat down on the ground and laughed about it. Those caves were a physical manifestation of the butt kicking I had taken for the last 4 years. But you get up. Why? Because really, what is the alternative?

 

Mother’s Day Casualties

My hands have been typing for 5 hours today.   Solid.  When I was done, I’d written 9380 words for a grand total of 22 glorious pages.  To be totally honest, I didn’t have to think up most of the words, they were already in pen in my notebook. 

But it is Mother’s Day.  And, as much as my own mother gets her day and her shout out, I’ve been thinking a lot more today about all the folks for whom Mother’s Day is a minefield. 

1)   A dear friend who only days ago had her mom’s funeral.   

2)   A mother whose college-age daughter passed less than 2 months ago. 

3)   A new mom who is celebrating her first Mother’s Day without her mom who passed when she was 17. 

4)   All the women who want to be moms but are pounding their fists against the wall of infertility.

So why the words you ask?  Why the explosion of typing bonanza?  Why risk my fingers falling off?  What do these words have to do with the above people?

Simple.  I’d been holding onto the words of #2’s daughter (my friend.)  Hours of conversation, sharing and openness have been tucked away in my writing notebook.    For weeks they have been talking to me (nagging me really, but I’m trying to be nice.) 

“Hey, you need to share us with her mom…this will mean a lot to her.”

And there is nothing like the dead to prompt me into action. 

So I text her mom…

Me:  Would you like to have our early conversations?  See the things she shared?  Her answers to questions?

Her mom:  Oh [insert my name] that would be wonderful!

And when I am tempted to apologize to her for how ridiculously long it is—22 pages? I mean  really would it kill me to revise??  I warn her to get comfy before she sits down to read.  I am tempted to warn her that—even though it is over text—that it is heavy.  That her daughter says things like “I’m not dead yet.”  But I don’t warn her.  There’s nothing I could say that she hasn’t thought, heard or experienced in the last few years of this.   Instead, I give her her daughter’s words—and with it, many of mine, many of my sharings—and hope that she finds it helpful and warming to the soul.  

You’re gonna think I’m nuts, but hear me out.

I believe in signs.

I don’t always know whether they are coincidence, signs from The Universe, or God or what, but I believe in their significance.  If that sounds too woo-woo, tree-hugging, new age whatever to you, I totally get it.  I’ve hugged a tree before and I’ll probably do it again.  But hear me out.

If your body can send signals that you are sick or something is not right, or body language can tell us things without you saying a word, then why not other signs?  Who is to say that we can’t be prompted into noticing things that we would normally blow off?  Who is to say there isn’t a greater message there?

Did that pair of shoes just tell me to buy them online?  Why yes, yes it did.

Who am I to argue?

Recently I had an experience that felt like this.  My dear friend Meagan Jones passed away recently at the ripe old age of 23…wrong in every sense of the word.   She was blunt and honest and loyal as hell.  She had an edge when she was annoyed and was brave when she shared the difficult truths of her life.

It had been about a month when I was sitting in church not paying attention—I’ll own that—and was thinking of her, noticing that even though she had died recently, I hadn’t thought of her for a few days.  I know in my head this is normal.  Still, the guilt arrived at the entrance to my thoughts and started pounding on the door.

“So soon?”   Guilt demanded, “You are forgetting her already?  Did your friendship mean so little to you that you forget a mere month-ish later?  That’s pathetic.”

Shoving Guilt aside, my mind drifted and tried to focus again on what was happening in the class at church.  They were doing introductions of new people.

“Welcome, what’s your name?” The class teacher said.

“Meagan Jones.”  The young woman asked.  I stopped breathing for a moment.

I don’t share this to make it seem extraordinary, just to point it out… The Don’t Miss This Moment of that experience.  “Her name is common,” Doubt countered.  But that’s not the point.  The point is that sometimes the universe, or coincidence, or God or even the incomparable Meagan Jones takes the time to show us something and the importance lies in our noticing.

Open Your Soul and See What Happens

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When I suggested our college-age YMCA cabin group do the activity “I’m from a place” I knew I was suggesting they open their souls to each other and trust that the group would support them.  That was how “I’m from a place” worked.  In this activity, the group stands up and spreads around the room—our room being about 15×15—and the group is quiet.  Then one person steps to the side and says, “I’m from a place….” And fills in the rest of the sentence for them.  It doesn’t have to be detailed, it can even be general, but it should be personal.

Things like…

I’m from a place where my parents don’t understand what is important to me.

Or

I’m from a place where I’m not sure where to go with my life right now.

Or

I’m from a place where it is hard to tell who my real friends are. 

Or

I’m from a place where I feel loved and supported most of the time.

Since these are college-age participants, their comments often are about finding their place in the world, what kind of decisions to make etc.  And, when someone in the group steps to the side and says their statement, then everyone who identifies or connects with that statement comes to stand near them and put their hand on their shoulder (or on the shoulder of someone who already has their hand on that person.)  Then, once everyone who has moved is done and there is a few moments of support, the next person steps to the side and says their “I’m from a place…”

This goes on for maybe 30 minutes with a group of 12.  Usually everyone goes about 2, maybe 3 times.  It is quiet.  It is thoughtful.  It is supportive.  It is intense.

And the feeling in the room as people quietly say something that is true for them, is powerful.

As the facilitator of the activity, I usually go first.  It sets the tone and gives them an idea of how it works.  It also gives the permission so to speak, to go to the place where they share the thing they struggle to say.  I don’t do this with all groups.  Not all groups get to the place where this activity is the right choice for them.  This is also one of those activities where I ask the group if they are interested in doing an something that really puts it out there. I tell them, “This is a beautiful activity and it is powerful, but if you aren’t in the mood and want to keep it light, are feeling distracted etc., it is totally cool to do something different.”

This particular group was on board.

So we started.  Simple.  Deep.  Honest.  Even when their I come from… was vague, it always hinted enough that individuals could interpret it as they wished.

Such as, “I come from a place where I’m really struggling right now.”

We don’t know why or how that person is struggling.  We don’t know if we are struggling in the same way.  But the reality is that it doesn’t matter.  If you are struggling and I am struggling, then we come from the same place.

We got the activity started and before you know it people gathered around, hands on shoulders, a hand or two on backs and other people standing nearby.  In a few moments, the whole group was connected.  Silent, but connected.

After a few moments—which we called “Giving the sharing its time” someone new stepped away.  And on it went from there.

My anxiety climbed after about 10 minutes when I thought about sharing my “I come from…” with the group.  I wanted to be able to say how what had made this last year so painful—so heartbreaking—but couldn’t find the words.  Everything seemed inadequate, or too specific.  I wanted to speak a truth for me—one that captured the profound loss without saying the details.

Also, as the leader of the group, I didn’t want it to be about me too much. I could be a part of the group to a certain extent, but not so much that the spotlight stayed on me.  The only people who had a sense of what my last year had been like were my co-leader and one of the participants who I had know for 4 years.  As I scrolled through possible phrases, they all seemed to miss what I was trying to say.

I come from a place of deep hurt.

I come from a place where this last year I feel like I no longer remember who I am.

I come from a place of deep, deep anger at the events that have happened.

None of them worked.

When I finally knew what to say I almost panicked at the thought of speaking such pain aloud.  To say this in a group of strangers would be one thing, but 2 of the people (my co-leader and “R”—the participant) would know what I meant.

I stood to the side and said, “I come from a place where I have lost one of the most important things in my life this year.”

Gradually, one by one, they came over to me.  The comforting pressure and warmth of hands rested on my shoulders.  Gathering friends—strangers only 2 days ago—moved beside me and behind me.  Then R walked in front of me and faced me.  She went against the norm of the activity, stood a foot away from me—closer than you stand if you are going to have a conversation, more like a hug—and she looked up at me until she had my eyes.   Reaching out, she took both of my hands—another unchartered territory in the activity—and she held both my hands.

She knew what I was referring to when I said I had lost significant things and people.  She knew exactly.  Standing behind me, or next to someone else was not enough.  R knew the pain I was referring to.  She had seen it play out.  Even though she was 16 years younger than I was (a 19 to my 35,) she stood with me in that moment.  I was unaware of the others once she did that.

Rarely have I felt so exposed, so vulnerable and so supported at the same time.

She didn’t say anything.  She just smiled at me and squeezed my hands.

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Sometimes It Just Takes a Backpack…

Yesterday—deep in the woods of the Olympic National Park—I found a little part of myself.

I’ve been lost for a while.  Maybe you know the feeling.  The uncertainty that comes when life turns upside down and the memory of who you were before slips away like dreams in the morning.

I was healthy…then I wasn’t. 

I never thought about my breathing…then I thought about it often.

I was enthusiastic and full of energy…then I couldn’t remember what that felt like. 

I didn’t forget who I was overnight.  The loss was almost imperceptible.  Faint moments of forgetting replaced by whatever pressing matter was at hand.  Old thoughts replaced by new concerns, bigger concerns.

I know you used to do that…but NOW you do this.

I used to hang out with friends…now my social calendar included my doctors. 

Stumbling across little bits of me was a process.  Wandering down the trail I saw myself scattered like rose petals dropped carefully by a flower girl.  A little here.  A little there.   I had not lost myself all at once. It made sense that I wouldn’t find myself all at once either.

It started in the ranger station parking lot.

• The familiar confidence of my hiking boots.
• The daypack with enough water and snacks.
• The extra Ziploc of emergency essentials—a pocket knife, small flashlight, a lighter, and a small first aid kit among other things.

My first step on the trail was a moment of pride.

Oh yes, I remember now.  This is who I am.

I picked up that part of me and made space for it in my pack.

Further down the trail, my feet falling into comfortable cadence, my breath escaped. This part was New Me.  Short-of-breath-me.  Can’t-quite-get-a-full-breath-in-damnit-me.

New Me—like a needy child—asserted herself and announced, “I’m here too!  And I’ve been here awhile, so don’t go hiking off without me!”

So I told Old Me, “Hold on a minute.  New Me needs some attention.”

And I slowed down a little and fought the short of breath, incomplete feeling.  Then I kept hiking.  I have this place to myself.

After 15 minutes, the trail begins to climb.  Nothing drastic, but enough to make my thighs start to burn and send my pulse to thumping.  The nature worship of only minutes earlier is not replaced with Ok, just get to that point up there and you can rest.

Soon, the trail levels out and I find myself again at the top.  I see the Oh yes, I can do this.  I remember this.  I put that part of me in the pack and keep hiking.  My photos along the way are my proof that I did this.  They are my evidence that I remember Old Me.

This trail, this green and mossy trail, with its Douglas Firs and Cedars standing protectively nearby, is my last 7 years.  And I am back.

I am humming Stephen Sondheim’s closing song to his musical Into the Woods.   All respect to Steve, I claimed the lyrics as I hiked.  He must have known my story.

The way is dark,
The light is dim,
But now there’s you, me, her, and him.
The chances look small,
The choices look grim,
But everything you learn there
Will help when you return there…

Into the woods–you have to grope,
But that’s the way you learn to cope.
Into the woods to find there’s hope
Of getting through the journey.

I’m not the same me now as I was before all of this started.

But we’re in the same neck of the woods.

 

What French Monks Taught me about My Monkey Mind

In a rush of a possibly naïve attempt at personal growth, I stumbled on the documentary “Into Great Silence” about monastic life inside of Grande Chartreuse.  It follows the lives of Carthusian monks in the French Alps.  Here’s the kicker; they have taken a vow of silence.  There is almost no speaking.  No background music.  No commentary.  (Think feet shuffling, creaking floors, and the quiet that accompanies no cars, no airplanes, no sirens…)

It took 16 years to get permission to film it and even then, only the director was allowed to film.  He used no artificial light.  I thought that I would learn about the “Great Silence.”  I didn’t expect to experience the great silence.

In my defense, it wasn’t like I’ve only watched Law and Order and West Wing.

I’ve tackled books on faith, spirit, the Tao Te Ching, compassion, the Amish, trials, prayer, meditation, the Quakers, the Mormons, solitude, forgiveness, love, fearlessness, grace, dharma, Buddhism, inner peace, grace, enlightenment, atonement and the Holy Ghost among other things.

I’ve read a handful of books about the lives of nuns (Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns and Stalking the Divine) and priests as well as Buddhist monks.   I have read books on silence as well (Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality and Dialogues with Silence: Prayers and Drawings.)

I felt prepared to watch “Into Great Silence,” to learn about monks, to get a monastic fix without having to actually take vows.  I hoped to siphon a bit of spiritual deepening by watching others.  Truthfully, I hoped to learn something.

And I did.

Here is the truth:

My brain is chaos.

I have the attention span of a fruit fly.

I could not sit still.  8 minutes into the film and I am jumping out of my skin.

 

Beautiful, rich, deep bells echoing over a snowy mountainside

More snow?  Am I really sitting here watching it SNOW????

A monk in creamy thick robes, kneeling and still in prayer.

Could they cut this to get to the next part?  What is he praying about?  Do his knees hurt? (insert 100 questions I have but will not be answered because I am quickly realizing that this is not just going to be about “great silence” but is going to actually BE silent. 

A single, small candle in an ocean of black.  On my computer screen it is the size of an eraser head.

How long is this going to go on?  I wonder if there is anything else to watch on Amazon         Prime?  How am I supposed to learn anything if they don’t tell me what I need to know??

The monks are singing.  Their voices echo in foggy complements of each other.

Ok.  That’s nice.  Singing monks.  I like this.

14 minutes into the movie.  It is 162 minutes long.

Here is where the learning happened.  It occurred to me that my reaction to this movie—which was delivering exactly what its title said by the way—was an indication of my monkey mind.  The swinging monkey that flung itself across the bars of my brain, from one reckless thought to another.  That undisciplined, inattentive, spiritually immature monkey.

What does that say about ME?

My mind looked to check email, learn interesting facts about the monks, find out the weather tomorrow and check to see if there would be a movie on later.  Anything but sit quietly and be with the monks.  Anything but slow my pace.  Anything to not reflect on how much I was totally lacking in the qualities I saw before me on the screen.

Simplicity.

Prayerfulness and meditation.

Attentiveness to the task at hand and only the task at hand.

The importance of consistent spiritual practice, rather than occasional or spiritual practice that is an after-thought.

 

I’m 84 minutes in and only now am I starting to appreciate these guys.

So I’ve decided to stop writing and actually watch.  Just watch.  Not watch and do something else.

Let’s see how it feels.

Me and My Sudden Yoga Nature

Recently–in a moment of Who the hell knows what’s happening!–I became a practitioner of Spontaneous Yoga.  Yoga that required no training, no class, no online video, just walked inside and within 2 feet of the door dropped to my knees in a pose that looked something like this.

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It is a called balasana pose—according to the always accurate internet—but I won’t insult yoga aficionados by presuming to understand what or how to do it correctly.

Here was my method:

1)   drop my bags

2)   plunge to my knees

3)   smush my face on the carpet

4)   fling my hands in front of me

I am fairly certain I didn’t look like the picture.  Put her in jeans, chop the hair and throw a sweatshirt on her and tennis shoes and the picture is clearer.  She—on the other hand—looks like she meant to do that.   My sudden yoga nature appeared unexpectedly and without permission.

It looked a lot like prayer, but a less romantic vision.  Had someone been in the room, their comment wouldn’t have been, “Look at that quiet moment with God,” but more likely, “Did she just slip on something?   Should we call a doctor?”

Mostly I was impressed with the ability of my life to drop me to my knees.   I had forgotten the way an experience, a conversation, a moment, could liquefy the bones in your legs and—like a bag of potatoes—drop you, rendering you helpless on the floor.

Suddenly the floor felt welcoming, like an old friend who says “Where ya been?”  The kind of friend you don’t see very often, but when you do, one of you inevitably says, “Why don’t we do this more often?!”

When I fell to the floor—the carpet brushing my cheeks with threads of comfort—I heard it say, “It’s safer down here anyway.  Stay as long as you like.”

The truth was—in that moment—life had floored me, just like my legs had.  Falling to the floor was a physical manifestation of having the energy sucked out of me.  It caught me off guard.   But walking in the door, away from the car, from all the noise outside, from all the everything, well, I was no match.

Standing is overrated anyway.

When I’m ready, I’ll say a prayer….then look for lint.

Boils, Blood and Baffled…and we’re just getting started.

“Well let’s see what’s going on” the doctor says.  She is older than I am, likely in her 50’s and warm.  The fluorescent lights brighten the windowless room.

My dad is quiet in the chair to the side while I sit on the exam table, my legs dangling beneath me like a kid on the bars at school.  In a t-shirt and sweats, I look like I’m hanging out.  I look like I’m fine.  I wonder if the doctor thinks, “She’s 36, why is her dad here?”

“Well…” I hesitate.  Then I scoot back so my legs are straight in front of me and I carefully pull both of the pant legs of my thick cotton sweats up to my knees.

“Oh my.”  She says. I’m not sure if this is what doctors are supposed to say, but I appreciate her honesty.  I am glad she doesn’t hide her shock like other doctors might.  Her oh my validates what’s happening.  It gives me a little doctor street cred.

It acknowledges I am not imagining how hideous this is.

From the knees down, my legs have 20 boils all over them.  Each one to two inches in diameter and easily ½ an inch off of the skin.  They are full, deep red and raw from the blood beneath the surface and they hurt like hell.

When I start to cry around her later from the cumulative stress of the past 7 days of this, she comes over to my side and hugs me.

 

The Elusive Goodbye

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The hospice room is large—the bed, its center—but it is empty.  Where are you?

In your room, perpendicular to the bed, and there’s a chair where your awkward body sits, slumps really.  You’re propped up like you’re feeling fine—that’s what healthy people do, they sit—but instead of attentive and alert, you are a rag doll.  Your head flopped useless to the side, your mop of brown hair piled on top of your head like this is normal.  Your bloated stomach from the swelling and the tumor looks wrong on you.  This is not how cute, college girls of 23 look.  You do not belong in this place with old bodies, bald heads and loose skin on bones like lace.  This place, where death hangs on the walls like yellowed paint.