Ready for nature! Ready for life.

I’m at a family reunion sitting under a canopy watching two of my brothers, an uncle, and my mother play a long game of croquet. One of my six (seven?) year old cousins gets something in her shoe. Semi-frantic, she dashes over to her parents. Her voice wavering with the first notes of panic, she says, “There’s a thorn in my shoe!”

Her parents calmly recommend she take her shoe off and dump out whatever is in it.

She does.

It’s not a thorn.

With the crisis averted, she puts her shoe back on and stands.

“Now I’m ready for nature!” she exclaims.

Then she darts off to play with the other kids (one is digging in the dirt. Another is wielding a croquet mallet like a weapon. Another is hammering croquet wickets into the ground for some game she’s organizing but has nothing to do with actual croquet).

I watch her go. Ah, such newfound confidence. What resilience. What adaptability.  

These days there isn’t a lot I feel ready for. And too often, I experience a surging panic of my own because everything feels like a thorn.

I’ve been winging it a lot. In a lot of areas. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just sometimes I wish I knew everything I needed to know already. Or that it was already done and behind me. Or that one task out of the million tasks didn’t actually need to be done or I could outsource it but still get the learning benefit. Or . . . well, you get the point.

Later in the week, I’m chatting with a fellow author. She tells me one of her mentors had once talked about how she’d tried a technique with a book, but at the time she didn’t yet have the skills for it. Still, she’d done the work, she’d tried the technique, she’d finished the project. But in the end, it wasn’t quite what she’d hoped for.

Life is a lot like that.

We develop skills as we go. We finish projects that don’t quite achieve the vision we’d had for them. We try again. We get better.

Aren’t we all just learning as we go?

Mastery is about showing up for the work. Trying and failing. Revising and learning. It’s about the daily practice whose repetition grinds in the muscle memory, establishes habit.

So I show up. I learn new things. I practice old ones.

And yet, while doing this thing called life is about adapting, growing, learning, it’s also about having some fun along the way. Sometimes I forget the fun.

With that in mind, I make notes for myself. Little coping strategies. Little encouragements.

Such as:

If you have a “thorn” in your shoe, take it out.

Keep up a daily practice.

When you have the skills, use them. When you don’t, wing it. It’ll probably end up fine.

Or at least, if it doesn’t, once you’ve developed the necessary skills, you can try again.

Don’t forget the fun.

 

Metaphorically, I shake out my shoes. Both of them, because why not? 

Then, as my young cousin did, I head back to join in on the game, exclaiming as I go (more as a way to claim it as truth than anything else), “Now I’m ready for life!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Sense of Wonder

I’m setting up for a book event. As I do, I make nice introductory noises at the person who will be my table neighbor for the day and give a quick glance at her books. Then I do a doubletake because there is a see-through travel beehive with actual bees inside.

I stop what I’m doing and go take a look.

 

I’m not unfamiliar with bees. I’ve gotten close ups before. My dad (and my grandfathers) kept bees. They started keeping them because they were told that local honey could possibly help me with my childhood chronic asthma issues.

Maybe it did (I don’t suffer from asthma anymore).

But one close up (or many) doesn’t mean the next won’t be as good. For honeybees are wonderful.

Not (only) because they are so valuable to our ecosystem (it’s not all about us) but, to name a few reasons, because of their intricate social structures, their amazing sense of direction and navigation, the way they can heat or cool their hives to keep it at a steady, precise temperature, their defense mechanisms, their symbiotic relationship with pollinating flowers, and their skill at communication.

As the day goes on, I get the most joy out of watching people pass by and, as I’d done, do a doubletake when they catch sight of the travel-hive.

 

The beekeeper-bookseller tells each person, “There’s a queen in there. See if you can find her.” Even as she also peers through the glass to find the queen herself.  

Though a few people ask for reassurance that the hive is secure and the bees aren’t loose (or won’t get loose), only a few people refuse to take a closer look. Most go to press their noses up against the glass to watch the bees work. To look for the queen among all the worker bees.

The son of one of the other vendor’s (a boy of 12 or so) comes over every so often to continue a conversation with me and then to look with intensity for the queen bee. But she stays out of sight.

When he has to return to his booth, the beekeeper tells him, “If I see her, I’ll yell for you.”

And when she finally does locate the queen, she yells out his name until he hears her and comes rushing over, quivering with excitement. After a moment, he darts away to go grab a phone so he can record the moment.

I can’t help the smile on my face. I’m experiencing vicarious wonder and it tastes as sweet as honey.

What I often miss by living in the city is a sense of wonder.

Not that I don’t get to sometimes sit and watch anoles in my mom’s backyard flaring their dewlap, leaping from one stem to another, or running across the deck only inches from my foot.

 

Or feel peace as a leaf drifts from a tree down to the ground in its own unique floating pattern.

Or track a bird flying across the clouds.

Or stop to listen to the trees sing as the wind stirs their leaves.

Or admire the purple flowers shaped like trumpets that I (probably mistakenly) call morning glories and which have sprung out of nowhere from one day to the next.

Or catch a glimpse of a coyote or a hawk.  

Or see the harvest moon rise up over the horizon, big and orange.

Not that wonder isn’t all around me. But that it can be too easy not to see it when the cement radiates heat up at me, the passing cars distract, or mosquitoes drive me inside.

But the wonder is there. If I take the time to notice.

If I pay attention.

Some days later, I find a different kind of wonder when I tag along with friends to a concert at the Grapevine Mills Grapefest to see another friend play piano with his band To-Jo, a Toto and Journey tribute band.

There, as the band warms up and does its soundcheck, I people watch and visit with my friends.

 

When the set starts, I sing along to the choruses I know, admire those who get up to dance (my dad would have), and, almost to my surprise (I don’t get out much), really enjoy myself.

As the band plays on, I’m reminded of the account I’d stumbled across one day while scrolling rather mindlessly online. NYC Preston Rakovsky videos himself asking people what makes them feel human and then (if possible) does that thing with them. After watching a few of his videos where one person said playing hopscotch made him feel human, another that getting matcha and having a conversation made her feel human, and another said taking a nap made her feel human, I’d reflected upon what I’d say if I was asked the same question.

I come up with two answers.

 

One: what makes me feel human is watching a play because there is this moment where I know it’s a play, that the stage is nothing more than boards, paper mache, or a painted backdrop, and that the actors are people pretending. And then, magically, at some point (like that unchartable moment between wakefulness and sleep), I’m transported beyond what I know is real and what I know is fake and am drawn into the play. It makes me feel human because it’s an agreed-upon arrangement between players and watchers using the species-specific trait of sharing a story with others.

Two: what makes me feel human is singing, singing in a choir, singing in a group, or listening to a choir or group use their voices together in melody or harmony, with language or wordless notes, with or without accompanying instruments. Singing or listening to singing make me feel human because it taps into something deep within me. Something that is not confined to only me. It’s a universal expression. It’s a transcendent form of connection.

There’s also something wonderful (yes, I’m feeling the wonder) about seeing people do a thing well. My friend plays well. And his band plays well. All in all, I’m feeling distinctly human.

And, in the moment, under a darkening Texas sky, with both friends and strangers around me, with music blaring through the speaker, tapping my foot in time to the beat, being human feels really good.

 

 

 

What makes you feel human?

 

 

 

 

 

Hoodoos, Paradise, and Birds

Just when I’ve begun to despair (which is a bit of a dramatic exaggeration but only a bit) of ever going on an adventure again, I somehow manage to invite myself or get invited along on my mom’s birding trip/commemorative anniversary trip.   

Mom’s going for the variety of hummingbirds and some other photographic catches like the elegant trogon and the yellow-eyed junco. I’m going for the mountains and the chance to officially add Arizona to my visited-states list (I had a layover in Phoenix once but, in the unwritten traveler’s code, airports don’t count as a location visit).

I tick off the days on my calendar and wrap up my work as best I can. For once in a long time, I’m leaving all my work behind. I’m taking a vacation. I can’t wait.  

Finally, the day arrives. We pack up the car, bid the house farewell, and zip away.

We drive across West Texas (which is prettier than I expected), stopover in Roswell to check out the aliens (the actual crash site is 70 miles away from Roswell, but Roswell has charmingly capitalized on the occurrence, extraterrestrial or otherwise), and, after crossing the full width of New Mexico, arrive in Portal, Arizona in time for a dark-cloud, mountain-menacing, large-raindrop downpour.

We love it.

Welcome to Arizona.

After the storm has passed, leaving the air cooler and the parched world water-touched, we unpack. Mom takes her camera, I take my book, and we sit on the back porch and drink in the view.

The mountains calm something within me. I settle and am soothed.

It reminds me of when I moved to Colorado, those long years ago, and felt like I’d come home. Like I’d finally come home.

I’m not meant for the city. Not long term.

The days pass too quickly, of course. But they are lovely. I spend the majority of time outside reading, watching birds, lizards, clouds, and laughing at the quail. Top knots bobbing, they come in like a committee let out of a conference room, making sounds like ridiculous videogame creatures, and dashing around like they have important places to be and essential actions to perform. I’m sure they do.

When they come, the thunderstorms blow in mostly from the west, though one arrives with fury from the east, bringing in lovely, lower temperatures and showy clouds.

The mosquitoes, as mosquitoes should if they must do anything at all, only come out at dusk.

And then there is the hiking.

One day, I tag along with my mom to a trail she’s said is supposed to be one of the best in the area for birding. Not having done my usual amount of location research, I hadn’t known we would be within a stone’s throw of the Coronado National Forest and the Chiricahua Wilderness.

With the knowledge and the evidence of both forest and wilderness in front of my face, I am filled with a sudden trail-lust. Or perhaps it’s love. Perhaps it’s always been love. I want to walk all these trails. I want to hike them until they’re familiar and well-known. I want to summit each of these peaks and see the views from the top.

This time, this day, this trail, we trek like proper hikers, fording the river again and again. On occasion, I leave my mom behind so she can stare into the trees until the bird she’s after cooperates enough for her to photograph it. Moving ever onward and then back the way I came, I breathe in the pine, the high-altitude air, and the spirit of the mountains.

Perhaps inspired by a recent post I’d made with the John Muir quote, “The mountains are calling and I must go,” or perhaps only by a coincidence of timing, one of my friends, still in Colorado, sends me a picture of a place we’d hiked together a lifetime ago which she, her partner, and two of their kids have just revisited, and asks, “When are you moving back to Colorado?”

Not soon enough. Maybe one day. Hopefully one day. I don’t know.

But I’ve got some mountains now.

After dark, I slip outside, careful to check for tarantulas, rattlesnakes, and other creatures, and stare up at the sky. The Milky Way films over the star spangled and black velvet backdrop of space like a wispy, elongated cloud. There is Scorpio and Sagitarius. In the north, the Big Dipper is easy to spot as well as the Little Dipper which pours into it. The familiar shape of Casiopeia twinkles back at me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the bright, brief flash of a shooting star. 

The next morning, I drop my mom off at a hummingbird site and go to take on the Silver Peak trail on my own.

There is no river to cross on this side. The path is rocky. The shade sparse. The views spectacular. I climb steadily up and up. I’m the only one on the trail. I’m the only one in the world as the sun beats down upon my bare arms, marks my neck, and tries to get my face where my ballcap doesn’t shade it enough. When I stand still, when I listen, I hear nothing and no one until the wind makes the grass speak or an insect goes buzzing by. The whitest cloud I’ve ever seen rises from behind one peak, growing bigger and bigger.

I could stay here forever.

But I don’t. 

Tucking the joy of the natural world in around my heart, I go back down and retrieve my mom.

When we drive to the Chiricahua National Monument to see the hoodoos, the changing mountains, the scrubland, cacti, beargrass, prickly pear, cholla, and yucca is every Louis L’amour I’ve ever read (I’m pretty sure I read them all). If I close my eyes (which I don’t do since I’m the one driving), I can almost imagine I’m the cowboy hero riding my trusted steed and following the tracks in the desert sand.

And if I’m not seeing and imagining a Louis L’amour landscape then it’s Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage.

While I scramble up the large rocks into the heart of the grottos and sit again in a blessed cathedral of silence, my mom ambles farther down the trail to let fly a stardust handful of my dad’s ashes. It’s their anniversary day. Fifty years they had together. Three years now that my dad’s been gone.

The next day, my dad’s death day, we, once again, take him along and drive to Paradise.

On the narrow, rocky road up, my mom has to squeeze the car over to the very tightest edge as a truck barrels headlong down the path our way. Coming alongside, with only inches to spare between vehicles, the cheerful driver rolls down his window, asks us if we’re looking for the Walker house (we weren’t, but we could be), says it’s great for birding, tells us how to get there, and encourages us to talk to his wife Jackie who will show us all around.

When he’s managed to slide past without going over the side of the mountain or scraping his truck or our car, he trundles down and we continue on up.

Two seconds later, we encounter another car. This time, there’s more room though.

The driver rolls down his window and with gushing excitement he and his travel companion tell us about the lucifer hummingbird they’ve just photographically captured on an agave plant.

“It’s the bird of the trip, for me! I can’t speak for him,” the driver says pointing to his friend. “To get it in the wild, not on feeder…” He’s nearly speechless with joy.

Speaking over each other, they spend the next expanse of time telling us how to park and then climb down into the dry creek bed if we want to try to find the bird for ourselves.

But, having worn ourselves out the day before at the Chiricahua National Monument, we are not wanting a creek bed adventure today.

Instead, we go up to the George Walker house and get taken in hand by Jackie who points out birds for my mom while I sit and stare off into space, half listening, half watching, and very occasionally saying something.

On the way out, with a view that makes me catch my breath, we stop and once again, my mom lets loose another cloud of my dad’s ashes to fly out and stay forever in Paradise. 

Winding our way back down the road, this time without meeting anyone else, we drive away from Paradise.

The last morning in Portal, as I’m packing up, I feel sad. I didn’t expect to be quite so blue about leaving. But I am because there are still trails to explore, birds to find, and mountains to be made speechless by.

But for now, we have to leave it all behind.

We drive away, saying goodbye to the mountains as we go.

We drive back across the width of New Mexico and into Texas.

Despite being horrified by the crowded and unsightly cities of Sunland and Odessa, the trip is a success. Mom got her elegant trogon and a number of different hummingbirds (as well as plenty of other birds). We didn’t go up to a high enough elevation for her to find the yellow-eyed junco. So, for that, she’ll just have to plan another trip.

And if I’m lucky, if I’m not already in the mountains somewhere else, maybe I can invite myself or get invited along for that too.