Voices

August 26, 2019

Greetings from the prompt,

There have been several important experiences in my life where, afterwards, I would think to myself: “How can I hold on to this?  What can I do to keep the magic, the change in me, and apply it in the rest of my life in a meaningful way?”  That sounds so formal and stiff, but after trying a number of times, it’s as close as I can say this morning.    

I’ll admit I sometimes expected more dramatic, or more obvious evidence of my life lessons.  But it turns out that many times what lasts longest from the mountaintop experiences is often so small it can be missed.  It is often as subtle as a whisper.  The impact however is more profound, I think.

Imagine you are an actor on stage, with no idea what the play is about.  You are doing your best to seem like you fit in the scene, but without knowing what the story is, it feels awkward and awful.  And sometimes there is a voice in the wings, there just off stage, whispering your lines to you.  You listen because you don’t know what else to do, you need direction, maybe desperately.  Whatever the voice says you cling to and try to make sense of what is happening.

You also listen because the voice is so familiar, because it is almost always your own.

I find myself drawn to people who are returning from their own mountaintop experiences, to see how they make the transition from being inspired to living inspired.  How will they now walk through life holding on to the change in them?  What do they practice to ensure that the lesson is not diluted by the steady deluge of ordinary life?  I have friends who have travelled as missionaries, others who have battled cancer, some who rode their bicycles across the country, ran ultramarathons, a few who have failed hugely and started over.  How do they keep the magic in their lives?

No one can say exactly.  It’s not like it’s repeating a mantra, or creating a discipline, or something so overt as that.  The lessons that stay with us are these strands that are woven into our subconscious, maybe just below the everyday operations.  They show up in what the voice tells us, the one there just off stage waiting to see if we forget our lines.

When my daughter Katherine came back from a bike tour I asked her what it was like traveling with sometimes five other guys, trying to figure out the dynamics of how fast to ride, when to eat, stopping for the day.  She said “Being accommodating is a strength.  Compromise is a skill.”  I don’t know if she says those words out loud, but I like how she makes it a part of her life, still.

One of the constants I hear from people who are molding a life lesson is the way that time passes differently when you are fully present an experience.  Challenging yourself in an ashram, climbing a mountain peak, running a hundred miles, immersing yourself in Colombia for a year, caring for a dying spouse, recovering from a near death accident.  And that lesson carries into playing with children on the floor, loving someone, learning to play an instrument, creating something, making a new friend, writing an essay at five a.m. on a Monday.

Many years ago, my son Harrison spent a weekend working with kids in Special Olympics.  When he left, he was a kind, empathetic twelve-year-old.  When he came back, he was that same person, but his voice said: “Man, I can’t believe anyone would make fun of someone just because they have an extra chromosome.”  I’m telling you today he still hears that voice.

The other thing I know is that sometimes there is a voice, still ours, that does not respect the lessons we care about.  It is the voice of some lesser self, still us, but not who we aspire to, not who we hope for.  Not the voice of the person we promised ourselves we would be.

There is a place in the marathon where the voices come in to contend with the challenge I am experiencing.  There is one voice that suggests that I give up, make some excuses, even tries them out with me.  ‘Here’s what you can say to people after you fail.  See? That sounds reasonable.’  The part of me that is afraid, unsure, that doesn’t remember the lessons, sometimes gets to speak to me too.  The lesson here I have learned the hard way.  Don’t listen to the voice that tells you to fail.

A couple of days ago I ran a race, a course I have competed on for 38 years.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from my body, even though the conditions were good.  When I went through the first mile, I knew it would be a day to celebrate; I felt full of life and passion.  When the ninth mile came so did the other voice, the one that said I should coast, that maybe the scouring I was feeling in my lungs was a sign that my running days are over.

The lesson I remembered then was this: “Don’t listen to the voice that tells you to fail.”  I learned it at the top of Trail Ridge Pass, at the 21 mile mark of Boston, when I stood to tell a Moth story, when I wrote the first words at the top of this page. 

Listen for the voice that brings you the lessons you wanted to live by.  They are not always dramatic or world changing, they are the light that makes your life one shade brighter, one moment closer to your best self.  What we were intended for. 

This morning I stood on my deck, just before it got light, and let the voice come.  These are not merely aphorisms, not just mental memes to be flipped past and forgotten.  Like you I have lessons that I care about, the ones that I want to listen to.  The voice said:

“You better bring it.  Before you flip someone off in traffic, assume you will meet them later in the day.  Don’t judge a run by the first mile. Ask someone what the best part of their day was.  Be remembered for being fair.  Listen to people before you guess what they care about.  Never underestimate the day.”

Hope this finds you listening,

David

Remembering

August 19, 2019

Greetings from the forgotten truth,

A few weeks ago, I was listening to a podcast and this question came up.  It was not the focus of the story, but it became so for me.  There was a reference to someone trying to document all the trivialities of her past and keeping them in various forms so she would remember them.  And she said something like “If I don’t remember it, what was the point of living it?”

Before I go any further, I will tell you I am woefully unqualified to address deep philosophical questions.  But I still chose to think about this, and to write about it.  Now you can choose to read it or not. 

Psychologists will tell us that the experiences we have are stored in our subconscious, even if we are not always aware of their detail.  Something happens, we react, it changes us slightly, and then it becomes part of our makeup, in some degree, for all our lives.  The experience informs other experiences. We feel differently today because of the cold sand in our sleeping bags when we were five.  Okay.

I have been sitting here in the quiet of my den, going over images of the last year.  Some are vivid, beautiful, life changing.  Some are only impressions.  Some are unclear, some I’m probably misremembering.  Some of what happened is lost, buried in some fold of my brain I can’t find in this moment, but will come to me, unbidden, in some morning I sit waiting for the sun to rise. 

And then there’s this: Somewhere out there someone is remembering that same year.  I am in some of those memories, so those paths cross and that creates something else.  They are misremembered and unclear and vivid and beautiful and just as real as my memories.  And mixed together they make some other real thing.  Multiply that times infinity.

If you can’t remember it, what was the point in living it? 

I can’t resist.  If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?  If no one hears it, what was the point?   Yes, it doesn’t make sound, no receptor, no sound.  It makes sound waves. It falls and the air rushes and things move and vibrations happen.  The tree, whether it has consciousness, whether or not it is aware, has lived out a purpose and even in falling has changed the world.  And nearby a butterfly lifts off and changes the world again.

 And it startles a whirl of birds that change the world again.  And I see them, and I am changed.

The universe began at some point and none of us were there to hear it or see it.  We simply live in the part unfolding now, see the result of that forgotten moment.  Our paths cross with the outcome of something that mattered, forgotten by all but the Creator.

Our lives matter not simply because we remember them.  There are our interactions with others, what we create, what we leave behind.  We were born with a light that extends out from us, shines on others, matters, then reflects off them into other lives.  And we shimmer in their light, even long after they forgot the details of how they touched us.

 Somewhere in that is our purpose, what we were created for, another philosophical question that will have to wait for the day we meet the Creator.  Our experiences don’t un-happen because we don’t recall them.  What effect they have is unknown, but as a dreamer, as a writer, I can see a glimpse of the possible and it brings tears to my eyes.

Another question that helps me is this: if we knew we would probably forget what was going to happen to us, would we still choose to experience it?  For me the answer is easy.  Hell. Yes.

 Give me the joy and the grieving and the ache and the love and the laughter and the baby’s first cry and all that knowing that one day you might erase it from my memory.  I want it.  I want it so much I can hardly sit still long enough to write these words. 

That tells you something; that if even if I can’t put words to it, I know in my very essence that it’s important. “If I don’t remember it, what was the point in living it?”  Do we need an exact record of life to make it worthy, like some kind of receipt for having been in love? I think we were made for greater things.  I’ll show you.  It’s incredible.

As the years stack up, I am aware of the experiences I recall, and honestly, the shadows of those I’ve forgotten.  It is a rich tapestry of living, this blend of the memories, clear and fuzzy, and the hints of others that smile from the wings waiting to say their lines.  Even as I sit here sifting a few from the last year, I know the point of all of it. 

Hope this finds you remembering what you forgot,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith

Reflection

August 12, 2019

Greetings from the reflection,

It is round, maybe the size of a penny. On the back is etched a couple letters.   It is somewhat crudely connected to a piece of heavy metal wire, stiff but bendable, and on the other end, another amateurish braze holding a small metal clip.  It is a simple design, although you might not guess what it’s for by looking at it.  It’s small and fragile, and it has saved my life countless times.

On the narrow two-lane roads snaking through Oregon and into California there are huge trucks pulling double trailers with enormous logs strapped into them.  Wood that was only recently enormous trees towering in the dense rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.  These trucks are the lifeline of the lumber industry and they are on a schedule and they drive fast.  The drivers know every curve and hill and they can do the route almost without looking.

There is a white line, sometimes, that marks the edge of the road.  It is four inches wide.  The other side of the white line there is the slip of the road left over, maybe six inches, and then either gravel or dirt or grass or nothing.  The white line is where I lived.

I lived in large part to the incidental generosity of the logging drivers, who gave me the few inches I needed.  I lived also in large part because of the simple, small, fragile contraption that now sits in a box where my prized possessions rest.  In a different era, it would be a bowie knife or a compass.  In my era it was a mirror.

The mirror clipped to my sunglasses on the left bow.  It extended a few inches in front of my eye, positioned so that I could glance up to the left at about forty-five degrees and in the small circle I could see the world behind me.  Tens of thousands of miles I wandered around the country on two lane roads, my bicycle packed with the only things I needed, and among them a tiny mirror that kept me from being crushed by logging trucks.

For months after I was off the road, and then to a lesser degree for years after, I would instinctively glance for my mirror to know if everything was ok.  When I walked out of a building, or got in a car, or walked across the street, my eyes would automatically dart up to check.  I did it just now.  For a while, I did it so often my left eye would ache.

The logging trucks were violence and chaos, the lumber held in place between metal stakes and lashed by chains onto the bed of the trailer.  When they roared down the road it was normal to see bark swirling behind them, and mud and branches flying off the sides.  There might be seven sets of wheels that went by me, literally inches from where I pedaled.  I would lock my arms, my hands gripping the handlebars, focused on the white line, but watching the wheels to see if they slid too close.  I glanced in the mirror to know if there was another logger behind it because when the truck was past there was a suction that would pull me off the white line.

Once in a while I would look in the little circle mirror and see that I needed to dive out of the way or be crushed.  Dropping off the white line and into the shells or the gravel or the ditch, fighting with the brake, gritting my teeth, praying I would not fall sideways under the wheels. 

There were some places and some days when I would see no cars.  I could weave across both lanes and sing and ride no handed or eat while I rode.  In truth most days were like this, my view of the world was in front of me.  Vistas that held mountains and oceans and prairies and deserts.  I didn’t live by only looking into a penny sized reflection of what is behind me.

But I was aware.  Cars whooshed by, motorcycles, pick up trucks, farm equipment, ambulances.   A few times I was surprised and nearly dropped in behind a car only to find out it was pulling a trailer and narrowly missed being hit.  Greyhound buses, with the engines in the back, would glide up like whales, nearly silent, and then roar past.  I could have touched the doors where the luggage was stored.

I didn’t live my life through the mirror.  I experienced every day through all my senses, explored my own thinking, met new people, exchanged our stories.  I saw the overwhelming beauty, the desolate places, felt the rain and the sweltering sun, the burning pain of hard work, the hollow ache of loneliness, the triumph of sunrise.  The mirror, the tiny circle of what was behind me, served a purpose, but was not my purpose.

The logging trucks were not malicious.  They were not sharks trolling to feed on me.  They were a small part of life, the part that could hurt you, so worth paying attention to, but still only a part.  I will say that one of the lessons they taught me was that sometimes it was better to sit patiently in the grass and wait until the logging was done for the day. 

This morning when I looked at this fragment from another life, I realized how much it mattered. I looked into it countless times, not to see where I was going but to learn from what was behind me, and to know how to safely go where I was headed.  It seems like a good reminder no matter how I’m travelling.

  

Hope this finds you looking ahead,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith

Confluence of Awe

August 5, 2019

Greetings from the confluence of awe,

The ditches along the country roads are deep with rainwater.  The reeds have filled up the low place between the road and the field, taller than normal because it’s too wet to cut them.  Here is where rabbits wait to be released into the mad dash across the tarmac, where yellow finches dart and swoop. 

I ran a few feet from the edge of this, lost in thought, watching the road come to me, running effortlessly, sweating in the morning sun.  My thoughts were floating as easily as I did, moving through the miles. 

In this moment, from a low place, a catch basin at the edge of a field where the culverts come together, suddenly there was this glorious movement.  Out of the reeds came a phoenix, graceful and impossibly slow against the pull of gravity, stretching into the first feet above the tips of the grasses.  A Great Blue Heron flowed into the air, opening its wings to a six feet span, a beautiful powerful display of movement and color.  She crushed space around her, folding the tips in as she surged up, and then captured the air again and pushed into the sky.

I was held in awe, too amazed to even be startled.  The heron was facing me, wings fully open, pointing its long beak up, and then turned in the blue background and swept again and rushed higher away from us mere earthbound mortals. 

For a mile or two after this encounter, I remained in a state of amazement.  I held on to the image of this incredible example of life that happened, just inches from where my own was taking place.   

Ahead of me clouds of gnats were held in place by the sun, their tiny wings glistening in the light as they swirled together in a choreography nature wrote before I existed.  It is something that is easy to miss, or to take for granted, but I had just been taught a lesson from the heron.  See it, David.  It is a miracle you are here in this moment.

The thought came to me, not in words but images, that as I gave witness to these things, as they happened right in front of me, I happened right in front of them.  I was a miracle for them.  I say this with the full knowledge of my frail, fractured existence, knowing that I only can be here out of the graciousness of my Creator, and it is still true; I am a miracle too.

Each person who you meet today, whether you think you planned it, or the moment is serendipitous, the cumulation of actions that make it possible are remarkable.  Look at that person with all of that and be in awe.  Oh, and by the way, they should be in awe of you.  Not only because you both exist in that same moment, but because of everything that is in you and them that made it possible.  It is fantastic.  The potential is even more inspiring.

Somewhere on a lonely road a heron waits, thinking heron thoughts.  A couple of hours before I sat on the lip of my deck, the first cup of coffee in my hand, watching the day come.  The hint of light in the inky sleep of night, the peach-rose blush, the first taste of the richness of the day coming my way.  I don’t think too hard about these things; it is an instinct of mine to be there as the day shows its passion.  I am never disappointed.

I dawdled and stretched and retied my shoelaces and rethought my route and took a hundred other actions that filled the seconds and minutes before I took my first step.  Miles later, not a coincidence, but the perfect unfolding of living, I met a heron.  And she met me.

Some weeks ago, before Summer staked its claim, I was in the garage and I saw something moving on the door going into the house.  I looked closer and it was a circle of white, and inside there was a movie of leaves dancing.  After a few minutes of searching I found where the sunlight was focused through a tiny nail hole in the flashing of the outside wall.  Beyond that was a maple tree, its new leaves waving to me in the morning light, now projected on the inside door.

The sun was only in that place for a moment, passing over a hole so small I would never know its existence otherwise.  Its trajectory in the day, as our planet rotates, and its path in the year as we roar around the sun, was a miraculous confluence of timing. Add to that I was there to witness it, which with the thousands of variations that could happen that morning, might not have been true.  I was there to see what played out, and all of existence around me was there to witness me as well. 

The moments that pile up in your day that lead to the next intersection of you and beauty, or whatever waits for you, are a convergence so incredible that they will likely never be repeated in all of time, and since they occur they will be true for all of time.  It is fantastic.

I do not know the experience of the heron or the gnats or rabbits or the sun before I crossed paths with any of them.  I think there are a billion variations that might have led us to intersect in a different way.  But that morning they existed as they did, and the heron rose out of the grasses, and was amazed at a man passing by.  Graceful and powerful, glistening in the morning sun, floating along the road as if he owned it, moving across the earth away from mere feathered mortals.  The heron rose into the sky in awe of me and was changed for all of its existence.

Hope this finds you in awe of you,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith