Tag: perspective

An Adventure

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“Jobs fill your pocket, adventures fill your soul.” – Jaime Lyn Beatty

Last weekend I took my kids to IKEA. I had to borrow my brother’s truck to do it. When the kids and I joined up with our family and friends later that day, and were sitting out on the stern of my brother’s boat to watch the Blue Angels, my sister-in-law commented that she couldn’t believe I took my kids with me. She said she gets stressed just going on her own. My friend, Eric, chimed in with a good-natured smirk, “She thinks of it as an adventure.”

Bahaha (I’ve gotten that laugh in writing from the delightful blogger and Cheryl Oreglia). But hey, he might have a point. I had the itinerary completely mapped, and packed a snack for each break. There were even ropes involved. It might not be a mountain climb, but it had some of the same elements.

I don’t know you all, but there isn’t anything like a project from IKEA to make me feel completely stupid. I say that even though I really love putting things together. But that first page, the one where you have to start assembling, and are looking at a wordless page indicating three or four parts from the dozens strewn around, and six or more screws, bolts, barrels, and dowels from the hundreds? Well, ugh!

Invariably, I do something wrong. Usually right out of the gate. This time it was to put those short wooden dowels in the wrong holes. And because I often get am racing to “completion,” I like to do it systemically, and did it for all the boards on the page. Then to make sure I was extra diligent, I hammered them in. Only to find out on wordless page number two that was wrong.

There was no way I found to get the dowels out, not pulling, or using pliers, or trying to make them cold in case the wood would contract. I had to drill them out. As I sat on the floor of Miss O’s bedroom with sweat running down my face and her loft bed still in pieces around me, I had to face that I was already on the wrong path, and had to go back to step one.

Huh, not entirely unlike a mountain climb after all.

Eric’s remark, even though delivered smirk, might have been right on the mark. It’s reminded me that of the adventures I’ve been on, they have all come with hard moments – and also learning and growth. The other thing they’ve all had, whether I’ve made it to the top or not, laughter, the satisfaction that comes with trying, and joy.

Last weekend I took my kids to IKEA. We got a loft bed with a side of adventure. Not a bad deal….

If you have a moment, please check out my Heart of the Matter blog post today about happiness versus joy: Good Mood of the Soul.

Loving Our Differences, or at Least Understanding Them

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“Bless the people who see life through a different window. And those who understand their view.” – unknown

Sometimes the people closest to us see things differently. I’m throwing that out there as my opening line although I suspect that it surprises no one. But it is one of the conundrums that fascinates me.

Here’s an example. My 84-year-old mom and I were recently talking about the information I learned from the Ten Percent Happier podcast, The Science of Longevity with Dr. Peter Attia, a longevity specialist. Specifically, we were talking about exercise and how it really is the wonder “drug” of aging well. I shared with my mom the measures that I wrote about in my Healthspan post: that longevity research has found we should be doing both aerobic and strength training for the best outcomes. For aerobic fitness, VO2 max which measures lung capacity among other things, is the longevity predictor and grip strength is what they use for strength training.

About a month after that conversation, my mom told me that she’d been using a stress ball to increase her hand strength. Then she added she’s been working on lung capacity using the breath device they gave her after she broke her ribs in the ping pong accident when her competitive nature got the best of her common sense.

Huh, I marveled – she’s directly working to improve the two factors we’d discussed. As an aside, let me say that my mom exercises a lot – golf, bike riding, strength training – so these are not the only things she’s doing. But given the information from Dr. Attia, I would have never thought to work specifically on lung capacity and grip strength. Since they are indicators, I took the information to remind me that I should work out more, both aerobically and strength training, figuring that if I did that, it would affect the things they measure. Sort of the indirect method. In fact, as I type this, I realize that I think that it’s kinda cheating to affect the things directly as I worry that I’d miss the point of overall fitness.

Two people and two different reactions to the same information. Not only that, two people from the same family so it’s not like some different cultural bias is at play. It highlights a difference between my mom and I that I’ve often thought of as the forest and the trees. My mom is incredibly detail-oriented and often sees the details I miss.

I recently sent her an adorable picture of Miss O petting a bunny and her response was, “Do you think Miss O minds the hair in her eyes?” I had to go back to look at the picture to see the one wisp of hair out of place. (see featured photo) My reaction was, “Sheesh, Miss O’s hair was pretty tidy that day because usually it’s way worse than that!”

Because I’m a forest person. If most things are flowing towards the end result in a somewhat reasonable fashion, I’m happy. Picking out the details in a day or a project that are a little out of order is not something I’m good at. Really, I don’t really care if something is a little wonky. It would take a lot of energy for me to get worked up about it – so I don’t. To put it succinctly, my mom is a great line editor. I am not. But give me an idea you are working on, and I can contribute a lot of enthusiasm about the big picture.

Here’s where I appreciate aging. I have come to find that the truth of life is not my way or my mom’s way. I think we’re both right. I no longer feel like I have to convince anyone, especially my mom, that she needs to see it my way.

But I still find it absolutely fascinating how differently people see things and that it presents a challenge when communicating, to find a way to speak my truth and feel seen. Often that is much harder to do with my mom because it feels like she gets stuck on the details. That’s where I’m thankful that I’m a big picture person, because I can rest easy knowing she loves me dearly and given her exercise regimen, will probably be around to do so for quite some time!

The Return Trip

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“You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain.” – Miyamoto Musashi

I was walking on the beach right at twilight on the first night on my mini vacation on Whidbey Island. I walked past a shell and went about five paces before I registered that I wanted to pick it up. I turned around to look for it and couldn’t find it – the tide line looked completely different.

It reminded me of a lesson I learned climbing Mt. Ixtaccihuatl in Mexico. My guide friend, Phil, brought along a roll of crepe paper – lightweight, colorful, and paper, not plastic. At every decision point, Phil tied a small bit of crepe paper to a tree branch or stick.

When I asked for more detail about route-finding, Phil told me that when we make the choices about which fork to take and think we’ll remember, we often forget to turn around and look at what it will look like coming back. He pointed out that the light, the contrast with the surroundings, the angle, it all looks different on the return. What we think is memorable going one way looks completely different when we turn around.

This rings true for me in life as well. The choices I’ve made on the route I’ve taken through life – the scary, vulnerable, or leap-of-faith ones – they look different when I look back at them. Sometimes the return view has me asking why it took me so long while other times I just want to get on my knees and pray in gratitude that I choose the way I did.

The past few months I’ve been struggling with charging my iPhone. Every time I went to charge the phone, I’d have to fiddle with it for upwards of five minutes to get the plug in just right so that it could charge. Then I’d carefully pin the cord in its position with a book so that nothing would move. Then when it was charging, I’d try not to use it, or if I ABSOLUTELY had to, touch it so tenderly as not to disturb any part of the delicate configuration.

Finally this past week, I couldn’t get the cord in to charge it at all. In the middle of my workday, I just had to suck it up and go to the Apple store. It took about 20 minutes of waiting but the helpful tech dug out a small particle jammed in the charging port and now it takes all of 5 seconds to get the plug in. During the time I waited, I realized that I’d avoided doing it not only because it was time that I felt I didn’t have but also because I was scared the news would be that I had to buy a new phone.

Yes, things look different on the return trip. It something that I’m reminded of when I’m deciding something – that there’s another perspective I can’t even see yet, but as soon as I decide and move on, I’ll get the benefit of looking back. Knowing that helps me to keep fluid.

Like when I went back to find the shell, it took me some time to get adjusted to the new perspective, but I eventually found it.

This is a sister post to A Brief Interlude Provided by Nature on the Heart of the Matter blog.

Old Routine, New Fit

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“I am still in the process of growing up, but I will make no progress if I lose any of myself along the way.” – Madeleine L’Engle

I’m sore. Do you ever do the thing where you go back to doing something you used to do all the time only to find out it feels totally different?

On Saturday morning, I was gifted a few free hours because my kids wanted to have a babysitter. Before I had kids, I used to spend almost every Saturday morning either hiking or doing my favorite sets of stairs, the Capital Hill stairs – 13 flights for a total of 290 stairs for each ascent. And descent, of course that is obvious, but as a math person, I couldn’t just let it go. Anyway – with free hours on a Saturday morning, the Capital Hill stairs seemed like an obvious thing to do.

As I was doing them, I felt how long it’s been. I’ve changed and grown (rounder, mostly) and finding my rhythm was hard and uncomfortable. My legs felt leaden, my knees stiff. There is a beautiful garden next to the top third of the stairs created by Ann and Dan, a couple that bought two properties there in the 1960’s, one for their house and one for the garden. Then they gifted the land with the garden to the City in the late 1990’s. Next to the garden was a plaque that commemorated that history and noted Dan’s passing at age 96 in 2020.

As I noticed all these differences, including the fact that I’ve lost my ability to sip from my water bottle while on the go without spilling all over myself, I started to feel all the versions of myself that have done the stairs. The 20-something woman who was building confidence for climbing mountains, the 30-something woman who was trying to keep in touch with that adventurous part of herself that her husband had little interest in, the 40-something woman working out her comfort with discomfort after divorce. All the way to now, the 50-something woman using a set of stairs to remember where she’s been.

Soon enough all the lessons I’ve learned about doing stairs came back to me. Take one step at a time, go slowly using a barely perceptible rest step when it gets hard, and pause for a deep breath before the last 90 stairs.

Yes, I’m sore today. But it seemed like a worthwhile exercise to find out that as I change and grow, my hard won lessons go with me.

Speaking of growth and change, I have a companion piece posted on The Heart of the Matter this morning, Growing Like a Weed.

Do You Believe In Magic?

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“We are like someone in a very dark night over whom lightning flashes again and again.” – Maimonides

I just finished watching the first three seasons of Arrested Development. The impending change where the show would no longer be available on Netflix finally got me to watch this hilarious and highly -recommended (well, the first three seasons were touted as worth watching) show.

In the show, the eldest brother, Gob, is a magician. A ham-handed, totally inept so his tricks never work, kind of magician. But somehow his character in this show works with all the other characters to make magic of the worth-watching variety.

Do you believe in magic? I mean really believe in magic so that when it comes to getting your deepest desires, something will step in and help along the way?

I don’t. I believe in a lot of things that create magic – being present, finding joy, and counting my blessings to name a few habits that keep me more or less delighted with my life.

And I believe in listening to my inner voice – my God voice or intuition, and then following it. I believe in a Higher Power that I am so grateful to for that inner voice that points me in ways that are bigger and better than I could imagine on my own.

But I think all the work to make life happen is up to me. I don’t think magic will save me, or give me huge leaps to skip over all the steps.

However, I have the feeling that I’m wrong. I have the feeling that magic is happening all around but just on a different pace so that it seems undetectable. Before you think I’ve gone over the bend from watching too many Disney movies (which might also be true), just bear with me.

The other day I was frustrated with a friend – I’d reach a limit of too many bids for connection that had gone unanswered. I’d been totally fine with that for a while because my friend has a lot going on right now but it had reached a tipping point where my heart was starting to feel sore. I was just thinking that I needed to quietly close this door between us when my friend, completely unbidden by me or aware of what I was thinking, sent me a gift.

On Monday, I was working alone at home on a day with no meetings when I suddenly felt disconnected from life around me. I walked to the grocery store, Pictures of You from the Cure was playing on the overhead speakers. As I was dancing down the aisles connecting to memories of my college days, I ran into an old friend.

Or this morning my skin was feeling itchy like it couldn’t stand one more day of winter clothes, and I opened the window to see the blossoms on the tree out front had shown up like magic overnight. (see featured photo)

And my final example is right in this moment when I realized this post, that I thought was completely unconnected to my Wise & Shine post this morning Fear and Courage, is actually completely related in the way that when we acknowledge we are scared, lonely, or fed up, help arrives.

If our lives were a tv show like Arrested Development, the magic would probably be easy to see. But since life doesn’t work that way, it’s up to us to see the magic.

I Have No Words

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“Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.” – Orhan Pamuk

When I first started this blog, it was mostly a place for the pictures I took of my dear dog, Biscuit, and the signs he’d pose with. And even though I wrote them, I swear I was channeling his sweet and funny messages, referee calls, and commentary on life. Every once in a while the cat would get to pose with a sign as well. Here’s a slideshow of some of his best signs:

So I felt wordless when Biscuit died six years ago at almost 14-years-old. The day after he passed, all I had was a sign for the cat who seemed equally as lost:

That space and time we need to find our words again after something monumental has happened in our lives is the subject of my Wise & Shine post for today: Writing From The Heart

Photos of the Week: Jan 7

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“Everything we hear is an Opinion, not a Fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the Truth.” – Marcus Aurelius

Last weekend, Mr. D and the 5-year-old twins down the street were riding around the block with their cameras. It was like an impromptu meeting of the camera club.

After they were done, I took a look at the pictures on his camera that he’s taken over the last year. I deleted all the ones of my butt (you can thank me later) but I found the others to be a fascinating look at what the world looks like when you are 3’2″. It’s a lot of people bending down to put their faces in yours, looks up people’s noses, missing the full picture and things that are interesting when you are 3-years-old. All the pictures below are Mr. D’s.

(the featured photo is mine – I thought the clouds looked like an arrow reminding me to check out Mt. Rainier)

Our Hobbies, Our Metaphors

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“In every walk with nature, one receives far more than one seeks.” – John Muir

The other day I did a really fun podcast recording with Todd Fulginiti, a musician and former teacher who is also a writer for Wise & Shine. We had a great time talking about trying – what enables and encourages us to try new things, who and what inspires us, what our limits are.

It occurred to me as I listened to this conversation that our hobbies fuel so much of how we see and face the world. For Todd, he gave examples as a musician. And for me as a climber/hiker, so much of my experience in the mountains still helps me face life. So I wrote about it for my Wise & Shine post this week: Climbing Out Of My Gunk

And here’s the link to the podcast in case anyone is interested: On Trying New Things

Miracle or Coincidence?

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“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

When a friend turned 60 recently, I tried to think of 60 things I could give her that would be relevant, useful and fun. She really didn’t need anything so I created her a little tree with 60 of my favorite quotes.

During the unveiling, my friend and I were looking through the little quotes, taking them down, reading them and then reclipping them. We were rotating the tree so it wasn’t clear which ones we’d already tried and we kept on grabbing one quote, the quote for this post, “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

And then just as I was writing a piece about the quote for the Pointless Overthinking blog, Eddie Two Hawks posted that exact quote yesterday.

Coincidence? Or a miracle? It feels as if we are collectively in need of a miracle. Whatever the shade of our belief in God, the Creator, the Universe, optimism, or goodness, we can do the work to develop eyes that see.

I’m better at spotting miracles in the small circumstances of my life but I believe they apply to the bigger view of our world as well. The key is practicing seeing the world that way. Here’s my post about Creating Eyes That See at Pointless Overthinking.

When the Clouds Roll In

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“One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art in conducting oneself in lower regions by memory of what one has seen higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.” – Rene Daumal

Twenty-three years ago when I was practicing to get ready for a five-day expedition on Mt. Rainier, my friend Jill and I went up to the mountain to do a day climb up to Camp Muir at 10,200 feet. It’s is a non-technical climb of almost 5,000 vertical feet starting on trails and then trudging up the Muir snowfield which is snowy but not glaciated. On that June morning it was a lovely 4-5 hour hike up with views of the mountain and surrounding peaks to the south. It was early enough in the season that there were a few people on the route but it was comparatively quiet to the really busy high summer season.

When we got to Camp Muir, we sat on a rock outcropping and were eating our sandwiches when we saw the clouds coming in. They started from below and then just rolled up the mountain, thick and gray. Jill had summitted Mt. Rainier the year before, I had attempted it but not summitted so even though we didn’t have a lot of experience, we had heard warnings of how conditions on the mountain could change quickly with dire consequences.

Jill and I started hiking down and very soon were enveloped in the clouds. It was so thick, we couldn’t see the route. If you hike straight down from Camp Muir, you end up off the snowfield and in dangerous glacier territory strewn with crevasses. So Jill and I searched for the wands left by the guiding service. We couldn’t see from one wand to the next one about 150 yards away so we developed a strategy. We’d hike down about 50 yards from one wand until we could just barely see it and I’d stay there while she went down about 50 yards until she could see the next one and then I’d join her and we’d walk together to the next wand. It took us several hours to get down but eventually we reached the paths and got safely to the parking lot.

This hike makes me think of what we do when the clouds roll in. When we can’t see the horizon or any way points and everything looks white, grey or something in between. Do we look for the Divine waypoints marking the route? Do we ask our friends, therapists or other professionals to help us navigate safely through? Or do we keep walking in hope that motion will carry us down?

I think there as many answers to these questions are there are Wisdom traditions and personality types. But life has taught me that there are markers out there, just like the wands in the snowfield, if we bother to look.

The older I get the more I find it easier to stop and ask for Divine guidance. And when I have trouble discerning that, to seek out help from my friends. Whether it’s my ability to be vulnerable, imperfect or just because I know more quickly that I’ve lost perspective, I’m quicker to seek safety. When I’m having trouble finding my way, I have found that talking or writing about it helps me immensely.

The reason I remember this particular hike so well was the day after we returned the news reported that a 27-year-old doctor that had just moved from Georgia for a resident program in Seattle was missing after snowboarding on Mt. Rainier the same day we were climbing. The park rangers were out searching for him but in the days and week to follow there was no luck finding any sign of him.

Then the epilogue to the snowboarder story came for me about 3 years after that climb. The “nice guy” (from The Deep Story post) I dated told me that he had been hiking on Mt. Rainier the summer before with a friend and had gotten lost in the clouds. Knowing they were in dangerous territory, he set up camp and they waited out the night. The next morning rangers found them right on the edge of the Nisqually Glacier. And right around the corner, under a waterfall, was the body of the missing snowboarder who hadn’t been discovered for 2 years.  

While I drew parallels between my hike and life experience in this post, I don’t mean to infer any parallels or judgment on that snowboarder, a promising young man tragically lost too early.

(featured photo is of me and my parents at Camp Muir that same summer)