friday quotation

 




The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you.  Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can. 
- Neil Gaiman 
 

friday quotation

 


When you look at a beautiful sunrise, sunset, lonely light on the water, a marvelously beautiful face, or a flower dancing with the wind - at that moment, you get truly connected with the world.  At that moment, true happiness is unfolded in your heart.  That happiness is beauty.
~ Dr. Vasant Lad

happy birthday, Gran!

Can you wish someone in heaven "happy birthday"?  I like to think so!  I also like to think that she's having the biggest birthday bash ever with Granddaddy and so many others who were part of her welcome parade last September.  Welcome parade?!  Sure...why not?!  I mean they'd been waiting a loooooooooooong time for her to get there.  Granddaddy had been there 25 years before Gran joined him.  And her parents...and younger sister who died too young.  And, and, and...  You see, the way I look at it, Gran's having the best birthday ever.  With wine and Goldfish and collard greens and lump crabmeat.  Finished off with some ice cream sundaes with brownies on top.  And all of her friends and loved ones who preceded her in death.  And no more walker or cane or other troubles of this world.  Yep.  She's in heaven.  Literally and figuratively.  And the only thing that isn't "just right" is that I couldn't pick up the phone and hear her sweet voice today to wish her "happy birthday".  So in my prayers and in my thoughts and in my blog post today, I shall do it.  Big love to you, Gran...you're 96 years young and getting younger each day!  Raising my glass of chardonnay to you and sending a hug across the space between heaven and earth...trusting it will reach you.  I love you still and always will.  

full circle

I've been home from New Mexico for a couple of weeks now and I'm still ruminating on my time there.  Which is, I think, the sign of a good trip.  I captured some of the moments that marked my time there on film:

The spectacular view from Window Rock - with someone in the way, I realize!  But the journey up there was part of the glory of this moment.  Allowing myself to be led by my students, once again.  To scramble up the side of a canyon that I wasn't sure we were really supposed to climb but that we did anyway - and that was absolutely okay.  And the prize view in all directions once you got to the top. Another reminder that it's always worth the trip up, even if it's rocky and messy and a little bit scary. 

One evening I took a walk down into the valley that was right below our mesa and I saw this abandoned horseshoe on a rock.  I realize that someone must have picked it up from the trail and placed it there, but it stood out to me because it reminded me of Casey.  A few days earlier I had learned of her death.  Casey was a horse lover, a brilliant and passionate human being, a fighter of cancer for 10+ years, and my first friend at school when I moved to California.  I had not stayed in close touch with Casey but through other mutual friends and through updates from our high school I did know that she'd been sick.  I just didn't know how bad it had gotten.  So hearing of her death from another classmate rocked my world a little.  Honestly, I think even if I had known how sick she was it would have rocked my world.  There's something about seeing the span of someone's life in brackets that mirror the dates that you have lived.  A reminder of our mortality.  A reminder to live each day with a new passion for life.  That was something that Casey had right until the end.  Little does she know she was an inspiration to me in New Mexico - to embrace life, to create meaning, and to share joy.  Thank you, Casey.

This sky. This land.  This view.  This was our view for so many days.  There is something about the way that the miles stretched before us, nearly uninterrupted save for the reservoirs of water and the random ranch house, that made me think that anything was possible.  Even in this rather desolate setting.  It's as if the barren, dusty, dry land offered the most fertile ground for reflection.  Or so it seemed to me.

S'mores in Tohatchi.  Well, not quite.  But our Thursday night meal consisted of hotdogs cooked over an open fire, with flatbread that we made ourselves, and roasted marshmallows for dessert.  I couldn't help but think that just a few states away some girls at a camp in Tennessee were also eating hotdogs and marshmallows cooked over a campfire.  It was just one of the many reminders during this trip that in spite of all of the differences between us, we're so very much the same.  I was reminded of this as I sat with Rose's caregiver in Toadlena during the first week of our work in New Mexico.  I felt as if I could have been sitting with one of Gran's caregivers.  And so I thanked her for her devotion to Rose.  As a meager gesture to "pay it forward" as I'll never be able to give enough thanks to the sweet, sweet women who watched over Gran.  That circle of life.  We're all part of it, no matter where we live, no matter how much we have or don't have. And if we're lucky enough, we have special people along for the journey.
New Mexico reminded me of that which each new adventure, each moment for reflection, each moment I shared with those on the trip, and with each new sunrise and sunset.  Another cycle that repeats itself.  Thank goodness.

 

friday quotation

There's this beautiful expression in Navajo that people use to greet one another.  It's Yá'át'ééh, meaning "hello" but really it is an expression of love and kindness upon greeting someone.  It embodies the notion of bringing things together and preserving harmony.  I also heard it described as meaning "it is good" or "it is well".  I love the symbolism and the depth of meaning behind each Navajo word.  Words that sometimes describe the sound that something makes.  Words that tell more of a story than simply what the word is.  Such a lovely, complex, lyrical, beautiful language...

up on the roof

I never know what to expect when I hop in a suburban (well, two suburbans) with students and two colleagues and head out on a Jr. Experience adventure.  It is never what I imagine, quite frankly.  But sometimes, when I'm lucky, it is more cup-filling than cup-draining.  Such was the case this year in New Mexico.  A wonderful group of students who inspired me to be bold and adventurous and hard-working.  Two colleagues with whom I worked beautifully as a team.  And three homes that are truly better, more comfortable places for the work that we did.  Trips to canyons.  Quiet mornings spent watching the sun rise from my bed and then coffee enjoyed in the crisp air of the 6:00 a.m. hour.  Evenings with a moon that grew to be full while we were in Tohatchi.  And days in the brutal sun doing work that made me forget that I was hot or perhaps not wearing enough sunscreen.  I was very much in the moment.  Which is very much my work of the summer.  To be present.  With people.  With myself.  With my surroundings.
I will write much more, but I had to start with my rooftop experience.  At Rose's house, one of our tasks was to repair (well, replace) the roof.  The students were not allowed up there so mostly it was Daric, DJ, and John up on the roof.  But for a little while I got to climb up to the rooftop with them.  To pull up nails.  To help lay shingles.  Or, as they laughed, to bring the wind to the roof.  The wind was a blessing and a curse in New Mexico, and even more so on the roof.  It brought movement to the otherwise stagnant heat...but it also blew sand into our eyes and noses (and really everywhere!).  And when you were on the roof, it threatened to blow you off.  Or at least to blow your hardhat off of your head if you didn't hold on to it.  And it was in one of those great gusts that I felt it - the feeling of being present.  With every fiber of my being clinging to the roof in an effort not to tumble to the ground below I got it.  My mind, my body, my thoughts, they had to be there.  Not on the dinner that we were having that night or the meeting we would have after dinner or the guest speaker or my 'to do' list back at home.  No.  I could only be there.  Bracing myself against the wind.  Protecting my hardhat from sailing across the air waves.  And staying in the moment.  It was so liberating.  So freeing.  So calming - even with the wind blowing through my ears as if it was a freight train passing through my head.  Such a good reminder of how to be.  Present.

friday quotation

Here's to doing the impossible.

I'm willing to give it a try.