Retirement community adventures

The paved walkway weaved through and around the retirement community. I strolled idly along it in my husband’s oversized hoodie, feeling lighter with each breath of fresh sea air that washed through me.  The breeze and the sun played a bantering game with my senses, both cooling me and kissing my exposed skin with warmth and light.

Retirees sat in their well-kept houses and watched me warily as I strolled past their back doors.  I admired their perfect lawns and blossoming flowers, but resisted the urge to scoop them up and smell them.  Retiree lawn flowers are not for touching.

After some time the pavement ended and the groomed landscape stopped. I bent beneath some low-hanging branches and stepped onto a muddy, primitive pathway, perhaps once blazed by deer or an early modern explorer, or both.  I imagined the spirit of the deer and the noble trail blazer walking with me, encouraging me to pick all the wild viney flowers I saw and hold them to my nose.  So I did.  Fallen logs, red with rain, replaced well-kept lawns. The music of bumblebees drowned out distant stereos.  

The world of the retirement community was far behind me, or was it far ahead, in the unimaginable 21st century?  And me and my deer ghost and ancient explorer discovered a clearing at the end of our trail where the sun illuminated patches of long grass and scattered raspberry bushes.  I took some berries for myself and left some for the bumblebees, then left my forest glen and explorer friend and deer ghost and stepped back on to the pavement.

The retirees with their coffee and TVs eyed me skeptically again as I walked back past each of their homes, and I smiled at them through their screen doors and popped raspberries in my mouth.  I was giddy with adventure. And I vowed to never grow so used to any place that I don’t see the magic in my own backyard.

Writer's block

The little robin does a dance around a small spot on the grass in the park, darting its head around suspiciously, then shoots its head down and comes up with something alive and wriggly.  It sees me watching and hops further away, maintaining a safe distance between human and worm.  Ambitious; proud; polished; that’s what he is. And I take my eyes off the bird and look down at my blank sheet of notebook paper and wish I could dive in head first and pull living, breathing, wriggly words out of the raw soil, fueling myself with the energy to fly off and get more inspiration.  But the bird finishes his meal and leaves the ground without me, and I remain here in the park with a full pen and an empty page.

Spring

This week I planted some seeds.

I tenderly tucked them into a bed of fresh, rich-smelling soil, humming a Simon and Garfunkel lullaby and giving them a bedtime drink. I strained my ears to hear them, perhaps whispering the foresty fairy tales of their grandfathers, or asking for more water, or kicking off the blankets.  I poked my head in to check on them hourly that day, hoping to see one of them peek its tiny green head out to catch a glimpse of the sun.  None of them did.  And then I realized there was one more thing I hadn’t done for them.

Somewhere inside of me there grows a wild jungle and a struggling vineyard.  The jungle is my imagination; the vineyard is my dreams. And in between them rests the barren wasteland; the cemetery where I bury my insecurities. Occasionally I visit this in-between place to check that it remains still and desolate, for many times horrible things have grown here and tried to suck the moisture from my jungle and choke the branches in my vineyard.  It’s cold here: a perfect place for burying my winter, for keeping my baby seeds away from the cold negativity that sometimes flurries into my soul. 

And so, on the day I tenderly tucked in my seeds, I buried a deep, frigid grave for my fears.  I buried my doubts in my abilities; my discouraging thoughts of 5,000 unfinished projects; my guilt at not being a better friend; the pain and remorse for the miscarriage I still don’t talk about.

And I carved with my finger over that grave, “Here lies winter,” and I walked away. For my seeds – for myself – I walked into a new beginning.  Then the smell of blossoms and fresh soil and the taste of sunshine on my skin awakened my vineyard and my jungle into a lush frenzy of growth.  And somewhere, deep beneath the surface of my garden, I swear I heard a hundred baby seeds whispering tales of springs long gone by.

All of my falls

Fall is every fall preceding it. I smell smoke and I am eight years old, walking down a country road to a friend's Halloween party. A dead leaf crinkles beneath my feet and I am clumsily holding hands with my father in our leaf-covered driveway, or holding hands with a lover on an important leaf-covered walk, or alone with the leaves, walking with my hands in empty pockets, shivering from the bitter chill of heartbreak and dreaming of an impossibly faraway spring when everything will be better.  When I see a clump of raked-up leaves I am in a dying Soviet park, jumping in a fresh pile right before a homeless man asks me for five cents.  I see a child making the walk to school and feel the butterflies of a new teacher and a new year. I see the fragmented memories of relationships and friendships from seasons long gone by.  I recall dreams that blossomed, greened, then shriveled up and fell to the ground, crunched on and broken to pieces by passersby.  Fall is the fading away and the reappearance of things that once were.  Thoughts and ideas in this season drift away from me in the cool breeze or become frozen, numb, motionless overnight.

But with the complexity of fall comes hope.  The crunched-up dreams will rest beneath layers of snow all winter long, nourishing the ground and making it green again when the right time comes.  My thoughts and ideas will return to me in another fall, inside another memory.  And next year I’ll have this fall to add to my collection of falls: one where my hands are always warm and my pockets are rarely empty.

Beauty

I went running the other day and watched the sun set from a secluded hill in the mountains that overlooked the ocean. The pinks, oranges and purples bounced down from the sky and reflected in the still water. Birds sang overhead while the trees danced in unison.

Now I'm back home for the summer, in my native Utah. On a bikeride today I passed a bunny rabbit, sharing a green pasture with a small herd of cows and some sand cranes. All stood lazily in the sun, nibbling on grass and dandelions as the majestic snow-capped mountains towered above us all.

Nature is a wonder I can never wrap my head around. Everything works together to form something so complete -- from the tiniest bug to the tallest mountain -- that its majesty is impossible for any human language to do justice. I've seen some of the many wonders it has to offer. I hope to see many more. But one thing nature has taught me is this: I am only an insignificant speck.

I've learned that if I do nothing, the sun will still rise in the mornings and set in the evenings. The turtles, fish, whales and sharks will still form an entirely different, breathtaking world underwater. Lilacs and plumerias will still smell sweeter than anything else I know. Snow-capped mountains will stand their ground and giant trees will continue to sprout from seeds the size of a grain of sand. And I, the speck, can choose to sit it out in waves of self-pity or choose to be a part of it -- a contributor to the beauty that is everywhere. Because the other thing I've learned is that the most beautiful of nature's gifts are not found in the heart of a distant jungle. They are all around us. They are in a baby's innocent eyes; in a giant hug or shoulder to cry on, in a child's laugh, in a moment of inspiration, in a beautiful song or story. The beauty is in knowing that maybe you helped someone the way God would have. It's in improving a life, even if for a moment in the smallest way. It's in expressing gratitude when it's deserved, and in giving love even when it's not. It's in doing the things we do best in a way that will benefit another. It's in sharing a smile with someone even when we don't feel like it, because maybe that someone needed it more.

Being a part of the beauty isn't always easy. Sometimes in giving of ourselves we get disappointed, discouraged, disheartened. But stepping away from it and dwelling on pain and regret only makes a person more of an insignificant speck than he was before.

Nature is beckoning us to be part of its perfect flow and rhythm by giving of ourselves. Not doing so won't make the sunset less vivid, but making an effort could prove more beautiful than the most orange of evenings atop a tree-laden hill.

Running

I haven't been running in several days, so on Tuesday I pull on my shorts, slip on my brown running shoes (they used to be green) and a t-shirt, and step out into the hottest, muggiest day little Laie's seen in weeks.

Down the road, past the empty rugby field and the Laotian farms, there's a muddy trail that snakes up into the jungle. Other people can have their beach on sunny days. I like the ocean too, but up here... this is the paradise I will remember long after I've left Hawaii.

Jumpy creatures -- probably frogs -- get startled as I run by and create brown clouds in the giant puddles keeping them cool. I cross a few barbed wire fences and keep running: up, up, right, left, two steps breathe in, one step breathe out.

Eventually the trail goes over a dry stream bed that winds deeper into the jungle. It's too enticing to pass up. A run is not a run unless I've veered off the trail somewhere, attempted to catch some unsuspecting creature, or at least climbed a tree (banyans are my favorite). The rocks here are slippery, so I hoist myself out of the stream bed and wander into the jungle. Tall weeds and fallen branches immediately attack me, and my legs begin to look like that time at 13 when I realized I was allergic to penicillin. But I keep going. The jungle is peaceful but full of life, and it beckons me deeper and deeper. The trail, the jumpy mud puddles, and Laie feel like worlds away, and now comes my favorite part. I climb atop a boulder and listen.

I hardly notice the beads of sweat running down my shoulders and back or the mosquitoes savoring my wet, smelly ankles. I just stand there on my mossy boulder, inhaling the delicious smell of green and listening to the surrounding song of the jungle. An angry finch sits on a nearby branch and threatens me in the only way he knows how: his tiny orange beak squawks and bounces up and down while his throat and small body vibrate rapidly. Other birds, ignoring me, sing to no one as they fly overhead. There is no sky here; only the soft leaves of the jungle pine can be seen above me, getting teased by the gentle wind. I listen in wonder. The music of the jungle is a music no symphony could do justice. It's the most beautiful, quiet cacophony I know of. It reminds me that, even way up here, I'm not alone.

The jungle screams at me, sings to me in this manner until I let gravity carry me back down the trail and on to homework, neighbors and facebook pages. In the meantime I listen from my boulder... and rather enjoy the company.