rememberings

I remember when life wasn’t so complicated. No need for a calendar. No need to keep track. Everyday I would wake, greet the chill of wide morning air, pack my bag to the brim, hoist it on my back, and walk. That was my job, just to walk. Simple. Pure. One step at a time. I didn’t need to keep my mind compartmentalized, split between the complexities and details of different subjects, relationships, and tasks. It could be wide and wild. It could wander. Like a dog on the beach, sniffing the rocks, chasing the squirrels.

As I spent days on the trail, looking under rocks, examining the undersides of leaves, experimenting with my breath, making simple meals on a camp stove, jumping in alpine lakes, I was happy. Life was simple, pure.

Now, I tend to myself differently. I'm in the "real world." It's much more serious, much more grown up, much more responsible. There are tasks and deadlines, there are relationships and projects, there are clients and friends, there is my sanity.

I remember in 6th grade being asked what I wanted to be - and I thought - a mystical doctor. One that had special powers and made a lot of money and lived on the ocean in South Carolina. I didn't know anything about the future or what that meant. I didn't know anything about South Carolina, either, except that it was warm, far away, and filled with mystery.There were narrow, mythical streets in my mind, tinted with perfumed trees and shadowy history. I also didn't know what it meant to become that doctor. I imagined studies, patients, sterile rooms, and - for some reason - writing checks.

Now I ride my bike to work, meetings, sessions, classes, or I drive my car. My car squeaks in the rear right wheel. Some days it’s louder and much more embarrassing than others. I made up in my mind that it’s because of the weather. When it's too dry or too wet, it squeaks more, announcing my parts untended. At the moment, I feel powerless to change it - because it’s not essential and I don't have the extra resources. But it flashes a tickle of shame when I go over any amount of variation in the pavement next to one of the many Teslas in this town. 

Santa Barbara is not a place of rest for me. The world tells someone of my age it's time to be making it happen. Your thirties are the peak of your life- a time to be saving for retirement and building your career, building your family, finding success. Time to know. Or at least that's what I hear it telling me. Sometimes a whisper, sometimes a shout. 

I don't usually listen. I feel a steadiness in how I know myself and my purpose, my work and my places of devotion. I feel an ever growing knowing of myself. But sometimes when I'm tired or wake, I listen to the voices of expectation and comparison. Yes, sometimes I lose my footing and I think I don't belong in this race-

Where I strive. Instead of waking to crisp mountain air and a trail, I wake to along list of tasks that I think are going to help others, that I think might help me, to dig myself out of the place I have been made to believe I put myself - by pop psychology books and new age thinking.

Ultimately, I see where I came from and I am grateful I made it this far already. I see that I'm not made of metal, computer chips, or concrete. I am made of tender leaf and mountain lake, I'm made of one foot at a time, I'm made of mystery and simple, pure .