by susan | Dec 31, 2022 | Uncategorized
on this last day of the year 2022, I went skate skiing. the forecast called for snow all day, with temperatures hovering right around freezing the entire time. some snow had fallen during the night, but the overnight temperatures barely slipped below freezing.
this is not ideal for the ski track.
nevertheless, I (quelle surprise) was determined to ski, and headed up the canyon, hoping to be skiing by the time the track was groomed.
this past year has brought me tremendous personal growth, and tremendous personal pain. I don’t remember much about who I was a year ago; I do know that the me who types this today is wiser, more capable, more accepting, and more able to connect with those who ache because of how much I’ve ached these past ten months. I thought I’d known loss and grief, but what I’ve learned is that each new experience of them has the opportunity to take one even deeper into pain and open up new places within. these new places offer opportunity to understand, connect with, and perhaps even silently speak to fellow humans who have similar, internal pain-created reservoirs.
the ski track this morning was less than ideal. the first thirty-minute stretch I skied hadn’t been groomed, was covered in a few inches of heavy, wet snow, and had been walked on and skied on a little, leaving a surface that was hard–tiring–to traverse. okay, exhausting. I then stayed on groomed trails which were much better, but still heavy and wet and soft ~ not things we love a ski track to be (we like smooth, firm, fast!).
it sleeted on me. the wind was fiercely in my face at times, and I felt battered.
and I kept going.
I grew up skiing, alpine, at ski resorts. my family would ski at night because passes were inexpensive (think colder than you can imagine). I skied when the family skied, and conditions weren’t always perfect.
then after college I became a spring skier, a nice-day-only skier. forget the freezing, blizzardy days. no way. I might go ski if it were nice out and someone I liked invited me.
and now, I find myself out there whether the sun is out or not, whether the track is great or not, or whether it’s zero degrees or thirty-five. I ski, I take what comes, I learn, I grow stronger. I let those less-than-ideal conditions work to help me become a better human.
as I was nearing the end of my session this morning, approaching the long stretch of trail back to my car that is a gradual descent and ever-so-appreciated, I was drawing the comparison of today’s ski with this past year. each has made me a better human. today, because I toughed it out and experienced our amazing world in its glory. this year, because I toughed it out and remembered to experience our amazing world in its glory.
life is sacred.
this year I haven’t always been at peace, or happy, or even content, but I know I’ve grown. my heart has been working to repair itself, and has, I believe, put itself back together even better than it was before. it feels bigger, and even more genuine, if that can be.
none of us know what this next year will bring us.
however, I hope you all are able to join me in letting go of the one at its end, to thank it for its lessons, to thank it for keeping us tethered to this earth, to express gratitude for its commitment to helping us become better humans.
namaste.
by susan | Jul 18, 2022 | Uncategorized
twenty years ago I was committed to living a life without regret.
now I realize the naivety of that position, and that I could likely fill a page or two–or ten–with the things I’ve done, said, or chosen that I now truly wish I hadn’t.
perhaps this is simply the wisdom that comes with age (that is so very hard to type, this acknowledgment that I have absolutely aged), with wider perspective, with greater awareness. regardless of its origins,
it has led me to a place of surrender. to truly accept that all is as it is, and to understand that my trying to make things happen is rarely helpful to anyone. to accept that my role right now is to be aware, insightful, patient, grateful, generous, and loving. to have those intangible, oh-so-difficult-to hold-onto things we call trust and faith.
to have a deep trust in the universe. I’ve tried it the other way, and now I surrender.
so far, it’s feeling pretty good. I hope that my list of regrets will stay at its current length, that I’m done adding to those pages.
by susan | Jun 11, 2020 | Uncategorized
my left toes wedge into a minuscule fissure in the rock face, and those on my right seek purchase somewhere, anywhere. a smooth, blue rope attaches to my harness with a figure eight knot and stretches upward against the rock face. it is held, far above and out of view, snug and secure, by someone who believes in me.
my right fingers grip a small knob of rock, and my left are jammed into a crack in the quartzite. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t believe in myself. I press my hips toward the wall of rock I’m climbing, look down at my right foot, and consider my options, what tiny dip might support my weight, what other way I might possibly adjust my body so that I can move up the cliff. I have nothing; there is nothing I can do. I shouldn’t be here.
but I am here.
what is my next move? I voice these words; the rock absorbs them. for a moment I am still. I repeat the words, and I calm. adjust my right hand, look down, see a possible ripple to which the edge of my foot might cling, pray, test then press down on my right foot, and release my left hand to move it up the crack onto an impossibly tiny but solid ridge.
what is my next move?
surveil, contemplate, test, advance. I don’t let myself look down.
when I reach the peak, there is a pause before my partner and I reattach the blue rope to our harnesses to rappel down what we just climbed. a scraggly, stunted tree sprouts from a crack in the rock and its leaves are effusively green, pliable, soft between my fingers. below us, a sea of pine, oak, aspen. purple and gold crags across the canyon, afire in the evening sun, are, at the moment, my equal.
trust the equipment, trust my partner, trust the mountain. trust myself.
trust that a next move exists.
by susan | Jun 17, 2015 | Uncategorized
there once was a man whose feet hurt. everywhere he stepped, prickly things stabbed his skin. if not thorns and briars, it was sharp-edged rocks and gravel. when it snowed, the cold burned. when sun poured over the land, the heat seared. he was tired of blistered, aching, sore, painful feet.
so he covered the world with leather.
it stretched over the prickly things, the broken pieces of what were once great boulders, the icy snow, the desert sand that held heat long after the sun sunk beneath the horizon each day. he walked everywhere he wanted, his toes relaxed, his heels gently rolling with each step. the land was now predictable and safe, and never again did his feet blister, ache, suffer wounds, or cause him pain.
no more arrowleaf balsamroot with its sharply pointed leaves and bright yellow petals, no more pungent sagebrush or leafing lavender. river-worn stones and ragged rocks now lay beneath the leather, springs and creeks and glaciers, too. the world was smooth and even.
the man walked until he stopped. he sat on the leather, and thought about what the world had looked like back when his feet hurt. he thought about how it felt when his feet hurt, and how it felt when they healed from the hurt. he thought about the tickle of lichen on his soles, and of trillium leaves against his ankles. the rub of millions of grains of dry sand, the shock of snow, the hypnotic caress of warm rain puddling around his feet. he thought of his many scrapes and bleeding cuts, how the skin had gradually come back together, how the scars were now fine lines of stories, poetry on his toes. on his insteps. on his rising arches and on the shallow indentation between ankle bone and achilles tendon.
he thought about what lay beneath his leather. he contemplated his feet. and then he took his knife, and split the leather. he peeled it open, and uncovered the springs and talus, the glaciers and rivers, the pine needle covered trails, the thorns and thistles and waving lupine. he stepped onto the pebbly soil and grimaced. stepped again and winced. moved more firmly onto his path, and felt the needles, the rocks, the shells and twigs and heat and cold, the wet, the tickle, and then he felt a stone slice the bottom of his foot and he smiled.
(with gratitude to kim dastrup and bob rolfs, and to shantideva, from whom the roots of this story come.)
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