To
Smooth A Mountain
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(The
following appeared as a guest column in Sage, a woman's monthly magazine in
the Albuquerque Journal.)
Walking
In My Own Time
One
autumn many years ago on the outskirts of a small Colorado town, early morning
walks along cow pastures began as a form of exercise. A season later, when
white faced baby calves scampered and skipped, romping in the new grass, walking
had changed into something else.
Invariably, I'd head out each morning with a certain concern. The farther
I walked, though, the gravity of that concern lifted. As if movement--legs
striding, arms swinging--freed up the tight corners. Particles of what mattered
earlier began to dissipate. This all occurred during the vogue of Transcendental
Meditation. I'd wanted to join the movement but didn't have $75 for a mantra,
so I walked. Not just around the block or on Sundays with the dogs, but everyday
at the same time for at least two miles.
Inside my job, my circle of daily chores, my thinking mostly ran in
patterns. It doesn't take much to live by rote. But one step into the
weather released me from my own drudgery and like my own spectator, I began
watching my mind. And surprised by the territory it covered made me feel as
though I were eavesdropping on myself. A new sensation accompanied me: a distinct
lifting out of myself. Meditation at no cost.
Leaving Colorado,
I followed a man who lived in Los Alamos, NM. Our
backdoor opened to a mountain in the National Forest. It didn't take long
to set about finding the perfect trail. A maze of paths crisscrossed the area,
resembling veins under a wrist, some wide and definite, others strong then
slowly fading into the folds of foliage. I wanted a trail that could become
familiar under my feet. I would know it, follow it, a crease in the mountain's
palm. It would be like a rosary, the path like a strand of beads slipping
between my fingers, something felt without thought. I continued walking the
mountain, my feet listening.
Days later a narrow
footpath lured me on; the best so far-tame, only one fallen log to cross.
Half thinking about the trail and half thinking I
should have new friends for dinner, should call my sister, should paint the
bathroom. I suddenly stumbled. It was one of those stumbles that throws you
to your hands and knees.
I looked around. Nothing could have tripped me. No stone or exposed root.
I sat, stunned. When I realizing where my thoughts had been, I wondered. Was
it a coincidence? Or was this where we get bogged down, in the middle of shoulds?
A bit shaken, I hoisted myself up and continued on. Instinctively, I knew
I'd found my trail.
A few days later
while walking and thinking about my new relationship, I began reveling in
my new nesting instincts. Up ahead in the middle of the trail sat a clump
of twigs. A bird's nest. What was going on?
Another time, intensely wondering what the point of life was, I felt a
thump on top of my head. As unbelievable as it may sound, a pine needle stood
there-straight up. Pointing at me?
At first I believed
the trail held magical powers. And maybe it did. But
as the precise timing of thought and action occurred more and more, I came
to understand this magic as quite ordinary.
The naturalist John Burroughs once noted, "To learn something new, take
the same path you did yesterday." All I had to do was head for the mountain
for another layer of myself to peel back. All I had to do was be honest with
what was exposed.
Upon first arriving
in town, I only vaguely knew what Los Alamos was: home of the atomic bomb.
Looking back I like the parallel of moving to Los Alamos, a town of physics
just as I began walking the edges of
metaphysics. In Greek the word meta means beyond; the word physics means nature.
If metaphysics literally means "beyond nature," then what the science
lab and I were both doing equaled the same: attempting to go beyond the physical
barriers of nature. We just did it in our own way.
While the lab continued splitting atoms, walking let me step through
invisible membranes that until then had falsely said life was a series of
choices. Freed by a methodical gait, my thoughts turned spontaneous, proving
how undetermined life can be. Walking allowed a more fluid involvement with
my surroundings, less separation between wondering the night before how a
forest gets made and in the morning coming upon a ponderosa freshly split
by lightning.
I now live at the mouth of the Pecos Canyon, thirty miles east of Santa Fe. And I still walk. Every morning as I approach the Benedictine Monastery, I enter my own sanctuary. It's here that I'm looser, less common than I am in my daily round of chores. It's here that the shape of what I am gets held and pushed, talked to, scolded and finally believed in. It's alone time that's trustworthy. After years of traversing inner terrain, it's invigorating to know that no one has quite the same vantage point, the same path through life. It's here that I become authentic.
A long time ago
I learned the purpose of life from a pine needle: to
continue being conscious each day of where I step. And so I walk.
(The following appeared in Woven on the Wind, edited by L. Hasselstrom, G. Collier and N. Curtis, Houghton Mifflin Co., 2001)
To
Smooth A Mountain
I worked
my way through the crowded hardware store and noticed a woman fingering a
cabinet in the kitchen department. There was something about her--the way
she stood, the way her hair fell. I paused; couldn't place her so continued
on.
Heading for the gardening aisle I passed her again, this time lifting paint
chips to the light. A slight grimace crossed her face. Then a twist of muscle
under her high cheekbone sent ancient sparks through me. It was Carol. The
woman who once had stood so committed on the sidelines while I took on the
project of breaking one of the wild BLM horses. The woman I once considered
a friend.
I could have easily stepped forward. Enough time had passed. We would have
chatted and brought each other up on our lives, and I know she would have
said, "Come on over and we'll go riding." I stood in the aisle and
imagined how it would be trailering the horses into the high country and riding
side by side, talking of everything like we used to. Instead, I turned away.
Days went by, then months. Thoughts of Carol wouldn't leave. Twelve years
had passed since we'd last seen each other. We began so innocently. She was
shoeing horses and I interviewed her for the local paper. She also trained
horses and had a string that needed exercising. "Come on over and go
riding someday," she'd said after hearing I'd grown up with horses but
hadn't been around them in years.
I live on the other side of the valley now, a mountain range rises between us. To say our lives went separate ways is kind. We split down the middle, ripping a friendship to shreds. I thought we were through. So why this pulsing insistence to think about her and go back to the past?
One night while
letting warm water run over my wrists doing the dishes, I finally began to
understand. Carefully I let myself drift back to those years. The pain was
still tender. But instead of the searing anger that once protected my hurt,
something new had moved in. After all this time, I realized what the heart
of the matter was. I wanted an apology. I turned away in the store because
I was afraid of not getting one.
In the beginning Sadie, a wild mustang from Wyoming, had been easy. At the
adoption center this blue roan kept eyeing me no matter where I walked. She
was my first experience with a horse fresh off the range. She was easy because
her own curiosity pushed her forward. It let her take hay, let her touch a
human for the first time. Both smitten with this new exchange, we eagerly
took each step in the gentling process. After mishaps, we made up and moved
on.
Three months after
the adoption, I mounted Sadie; Carol was ponying her off Taco. That evening,
when the horses were put away, Carol and I hugged and hugged.
The praise Carol gave me still reverberates: "You've done a real good
job with that horse of yours."
Carol served as my guide, staying on the sidelines and mentoring me through
all the steps of this enormous project. Her support buoyed me on the rough
days. Then her own rough days began. Her marriage was breaking up, her kids
running wild. She'd taken a lover. Many days her face turned dark and fierce;
her mood swings frightened me.
As each moment
replayed itself--the day she didn't say hi, the day she was too busy to ride--a
transformation began taking place. After all this time, the view had widened;
now I was in the picture. No longer could I say Carol turned on me. It's how
I'd always told the story. That it was her fault.
But as I remembered each successive fissure between us, I was forced into
deeper waters. Rather than wanting an apology and merely leaving it there,
leaving it again on Carol, I had to face my own contribution to the demise
of our friendship. I also had something to apologize for.
As Sadie took more and more to civilization, she needed fine-tuning and Iknew nothing of the subtleties. All my other horses had known what they were doing. When Sadie began a phase of not moving without following another horse, I asked Carol for help one day. Not completely understanding how stranded I was--literally on a horse that wouldn't move--Carol calmly looked at me and announced, "You're on your own now."
Through the ensuing days the tension rose, and through the years I told and retold the same story: how the day her son showed up drunk at school was the day she kicked her husband out. How that same evening she told me to leave. "Take your horse off my land."
In each retelling of how Carol turned on me, another layer never got told because I didn't know it then: She needed to be free and I needed her too much. Some days when I asked for help, my guilt reduced me to the role of beggar. In a word, I'd become too dependent, and our different needs stretched us to the breaking point.
In the end I found
a new trainer who easily brought me and Sadie together. I moved Sadie to another
ranch, began working cattle with her and thought Carol had settled permanently
into the past. Yet it never took much to find her memory close, important
and unforgotten. Now not only do I want an apology, but I need to give her
one, too. I'm sorry for needing so much her when she couldn't have anyone
else pulling at her.
As I go about my chores chopping kindling and trying to out smart the
resident bear, I can feel myself moving to give Carol a call. Maybe drop by
someday and try smoothing the mountain between us. Maybe even go riding.
