Lost

I got lost today.  Actually, I've been lost for the last couple of weeks.  At least I was home when I couldn't find my way through the jungle of a new computer program I was trying to learn.  I'm grateful that I was physically safe while teetering on the edge of nerve wracking crazies.

There is a sweet spot when it comes to getting lost.  It falls somewhere between the excitement of the unknown as we test our ability to be resourceful, and the terror of realizing that we don't know where we are and don't know where to go next.  Numerous times over the last couple of weeks, I have visited both ends of the spectrum.  My head hurts.

But today, I threw in the towel, surrendered, cried uncle.  I heeded the STOP sign, and found my way back out of the Cyberspace mire.
 

The U.S. Parks' website gives the following five suggestions for things to do in the case of getting lost.  Now that I have found my way back home to peace and equanimity, I see that not following rule #2 was my biggest problem.

1. Signal for help.  Check.
2. Build a fire.  Damn!  I'm assuming they mean a fire for burning the computer.  Good idea!
3. Find shelter.  Check.
4. Stay warm.  Check.
5. Stay put.  Did that, but it didn't help a bit.

Coincidentally, I just started reading Rebecca Solnit's book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost.  From the book:

"Explorers, the historian Aaron Sachs wrote me in answer to a question, 'were always lost, because they'd never been to these places before. They never expected to know exactly where they were.'"

Do you hear the liberation in those two sentences?

We are always lost, because we've never been to this place in this moment before.  But we don't remember that we are lost - we think we know exactly where we are.  Or we expect to know how our spouse will behave, or how a computer program will work.    

Admitting that we are lost in life requires courage and trust.  But it offers us exciting exploration and the freshness of seeing everything with new eyes.

May I always be lost, experiencing the wonder of never having been here before.

But I'm still done with that feisty old computer program.  There are some paths that just don't call to us (or that are closed, due to bear activity).

Many Gates

For too long, I have thought that it was because she is the way she is. 

I gave up on thinking that she would change.

And I also gave up on thinking that I would change, since I kept trying the same things.  Over and over.

I was right.  We didn't change.

I have banged my head so many times, and I have also walked away, hopeless.

But now I realize that when one gate won't open, I can try others. 

The Moment Before

The moment before you and your husband received the biopsy results.

The moment before the car hit you, doing damage to your body that will be with you the rest of your life.

The moment before your mother died, before you got the eviction notice, before you lost your job, before you were robbed.

The story goes that all was fine, until out of the blue...

But is that true?  Did you really not have a care in the world before your boss called you into his office to deliver your pink slip, before the doctor called to announce your fate?

This is the moment before.

And so is this.

And so is this.

Yes, it can feel like a perfect life was turned upside down by events.  But isn't that a pretty limited view?

I know that the day I walked in the door, only to be greeted by Michael announcing to me the diagnosis the doctor had given him over the phone, I had been walking in a beautiful park with a friend.  I know it's a beautiful park, because I've been there many times.  That day, I don't think that I noticed the views, because I was distracted with worry.  It had been a week since the biopsy, and we were waiting for the results that were supposed to have been available four days earlier.  I felt a dark shadow hanging over my head.  So, by the time I walked in the door of our house and heard the news, darkness was already with me.  The "moment before" was not much happier than "the moment that changed everything."

Before diagnosis, I could be lost in thoughts while walking in beauty, and after diagnosis, I still can find myself lost in thoughts while walking in beauty.  Before diagnosis, I noticed sunsets and red-tailed hawks, and ever since the diagnosis, I still notice sunsets, red-tailed hawks, and the beach ball of a full moon rising.  Maybe I notice them more often now.

Of course life might change drastically after a major event - we might need a wheelchair, we may never see a loved one again, we may be uprooted to a new environment.  We may think we want to go back to "before" (as if that is even remotely possible).

But this is the moment before.  Notice it.  Be it.  We don't know what comes next.

Right now, I am alive, breathing.  The sun is rising outside my window.  Oops. I'm missing that show!  I'll be right back!

Ahhhhhhh...  gray skies grounded by dark skeletal tree silhouettes gave way to a hint of blue, light caught the edge of our neighbor's roof, and a bright ball of yellow and orange peeked over the house behind us making bare trees glow golden.  Welcome, sun!

I don't want to walk in the park caught up in thoughts that take me away from the skies and water and geese around me.  But I probably will.  And I'll miss sunrises as I type on my computer.

Truly, there is no "moment before".  That is only a memory, thoughts that take place now in this moment.


Each moment. An opening.  Every moment of our life, we walk through the door of the moment - we have no other choice.  Life says, "Let me show you the way" and we let it carry us.  Sometimes kicking and screaming, wanting that last moment back.  But it has never come back.  Just opening and opening.

“What day is it?"
It's today," squeaked Piglet.
My favorite day," said Pooh.”
― A.A. Milne