Colorado Cruisers

“Roar, roar, roar!” Gavroche was in killer stance, hair standing up on his back, looking pretty fierce for all his 16 pounds of testosterone. His barks bounced across Rocky Mountain Lake landing on four American White Pelicans. They were huge.

“Whoa, Gavy, that’s something to bark about!” The birds were easily twice his size. He looked up at me, proudly protective, a snarl still posed on his lips.

The pelicans floated like massive multi-deck cruiser ships. They appeared to have a plan, closing in on shallow water fish where they could scoop them into large pocketed bills, amazingly able to hold almost three gallons of water, point the bills down to drain excess water, then tilt their heads back for a long, extended swallow.

Coots and cormorants milled about, gabbling and squawking about who knows what while the pelicans silently controlled the waters. The low rider cormorants skulked along with sleek black backs barely visible on the water’s surface, necks poking up like submarine periscopes. In contrast the coots (who resemble ducks but aren’t) pumped chicken-like heads on top of their short, fat necks, occasionally prompting the pelicans to flash their nine-foot wingspans and send the coots bob-bob-bobbing along.

By then I had managed to get my pocket digital camera out and wedge the two extend-a-leashes between my knees. Holding the camera at arm’s length I tried to fit the scene I had been observing into the elusive viewfinder, but the sun’s glare and my precarious hold on the leashes had me teetering at the water’s edge. A mallard couple splashed out of winter’s smashed cattail reeds and the dogs lunged. Let me tell you, it wasn’t a graceful sight. I managed to stay afoot, not drop the camera, and most important, grab the leashes, but I’m pretty sure I looked like a windmill in a hurricane. The pelicans, who had been quite tolerant of us only moments before, cautiously navigated toward deeper waters. With slow flapping outstretched wings, one even heaved itself into the sky. I swear I felt the air shift.

I sank back into a dazed stare as the dogs settled down. The remaining three floated on in unison as if doing some kind of dance, occasionally making exaggerated head movements that I later learned are the way they keep their under-the-bill pouches elastic and supple for the next fish roundup. A fishing lure tangled in the nearby reeds caught my eye, along with a floating plastic bottle and a crumpled potato chip bag. Nearby another walker called to her young Labrador, off-leash and crashing gleefully into the reeds. I thought of how pelicans are another species in decline, mostly as a result of general human disturbance along with diminishing wetlands and generous use of pesticides. Once again I reminded a fellow dog owner of nesting season at the lake, and the necessity of the leash laws. She acted genuinely surprised about leash laws and the existence of birdlife on the lake, glancing around as if looking for proof of feathered creatures.

Last year warm temperatures fooled hundreds of pelicans, convincing them to hang out in the north two months longer than normal. When their internal alarm clocks finally pushed them to fly south, they bumped into paralyzing winter storms leaving many frostbitten, ill, and extremely disoriented. Believe me, this did not make major headlines. Most readers, like the dog owner above, are generally not interested in birds, for God’s sake, or the fact that more than 10,000 pelicans spend the summer here in Colorado, nesting, lounging around, and resting up for the next long haul south. I looked up to see the fourth big bird soaring overhead. I wondered what a baby pelican looks like and wished I could show one to the off-leash Labrador’s owner, hoping that might convince her to pay closer attention.

Get A Grip

Gardening gets me in its grip around this time of year. To even make it to my car I have to walk through a gate and into the garden to reach our garage. Even the sound of the gate latching sets off pictures of all that has filled this sacred space for two growing seasons and what I’m envisioning for the coming summer: towering cosmos flowers, juicy peppers, plump eggplants, shiny red tomatoes, sneaky squash, flavorful lettuce, basil, chives, herbs, cucumbers. Ok, I’ll stop or it turns into a planning session as I try to decide how I’ll rotate plants and what would do best where.

Both sets of my grandparents cultivated the earth. Trailing my granddaddy in his garden outside of Ft. Worth, I remember how he would make holes with his cane, drop in a seed without so much as bending over, then cover it up with his foot. Even my parents turned a quarter of our west Texas backyard into a thriving garden. Before my mid-twenties, I was shoveling dirt for my first garden in Austin. And when Bill and I moved west of Austin to rural Spicewood, we soon had a flourishing garden beneath a busy Martin birdhouse.

Eyeing the Navajo Street home for purchase, we weren’t discouraged to see a backyard covered in rock. No problem, we thought; we’ll just scrape up the rocks and soon have a garden. But beneath the debris we found a solid, concrete drive, apparently the perfect place to overhaul old cars. Hire some muscle with a jack-hammer, and the soil will appear. It wasn’t as painless as it sounds, and more than one set of muscles was involved, but within two years a remarkable garden was growing and a freezer full to the brim as a result.

After plenty of chitchats about manure, a good neighbor friend, Kathy, and I headed out to shovel llama poop a couple of weeks ago. An ad on Craig’s list prompted the outing: $5 for all you can shovel. We googled llama manure and discovered all its beauty: you can work it right into the soil or even put it on top of plants and it won’t burn up anything, it’s high in nitrogen but lower in organic matter than most other barnyard manures (when organic matter decomposes it produces the heat that can damage plants), and it can improve soil texture due to strong water-holding capacity. With visions of llama beans dancing in our heads, we threw our shovels in the back of a QKS van and headed south of Denver to Deer Creek Canyon.

We filled garbage bag after garbage bag, cheerfully heaving them up into the van after quickly learning not to fill the bags to capacity. Temperatures were cooler in the canyon, but quite predictably we were plenty warm in no time. Working with Kathy was a pleasure; stopping ever so often she had a way of remembering a story and threading along while muscles calmed down and were rejuvenated. Once the van was full, we decided to go thank a few of the peculiar looking animals who had delivered the product of our labor. Up close to a mama and baby llama, we were charmed to have a furry, smiley snout shoved into our hands. Those eyes alone were enough to justify considering a llama for a pet.

Back in our hood, we unloaded bag after bag, swept out the van, and called it a day. Or so I wish. Well, you know how the days are longer now, and my garden was right there and smack in the middle of it was a pile of manure better off in the soil than stinking up our walkway. I figured I’d just loosen up the soil a bit and maybe work in one bag. Ahhh, the soil was so soft, and taunting weeds deserved removal. Sure can’t fertilize those suckers or let them spread! One quadrant shoveled and manure spread, let’s see, think I’ll transplant these newly sprouting strawberries over there, but I need to pull the weeds in that area first and loosen that soil, and gee, I’ve had it with these dominating, spreading mint plants so let me pull up as many roots as I can (my god, where do these things stop??), and I might as well open another bag of llama beans to spread on this other quadrant, and are these more strawberries in the center flower patch? Well, don’t need ‘em here, especially if I’m going to (and I might as well) spread some manure on the flowers and looky here, the oregano is greening so let me trim it up so it can take off and oh, let me open one more bag of beans for this quadrant and why don’t I move some of these chives, which are about to bloom after all, to the front of the house because really three batches are enough back here and. . . ouch. . . oh, god, my back really hurts! What in the world was I thinking? Was I thinking?? How old do I think I am anyway??? What’s so wrong with the seven days for creation idea?

I limped into the house where Bill was ready with a pain-killing glass of wine. He had arrived home a bit earlier, shaking his head knowingly as he traipsed back and forth from car to house carrying in groceries. “Darlin’, you don’t have to do it all in one day, you know.” Too late. This is a familiar character trait that has gotten me in trouble plenty in my life. Apparently what I haven’t learned well is the “being fully in the moment” with the “slow way down and just take it easy” because “there’s plenty of time for everything under the sun.” There’s time for everything? Yes, just like the miracle of growth that seemingly happens in no time at all amidst a jungle of flowers and vegetables and fruits, the garden can be prepared and planted and nurtured in one long, slow, leisurely dance if I can just get a grip, before it gets a grip on me. No lingering, laid-back dances for me the last two weeks; every move of mine has come with a wince.

For the Love of a Sister

(Paula (oldest), Pamela, Patricia (youngest), Pamela as senior in high school

My middle sister, Pamela, definitely didn’t have to beg hard to get a lock on her bedroom door when we were growing up. Mom wasn’t even entirely aware of the full extent of the spying campaign I conducted on the only older sister left at home. Almost four years younger, I had a lot of time on my hands and couldn’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing than undercover work on this sister: sneaking into her closet to watch her practice singing for some contest, slipping under her bed to eavesdrop on phone calls, reading her journals that she had carefully hidden from my eager eyes, waiting quietly in the bushes for her to return from a date so that I could watch a possible kiss, and even hiding in that little dip in back of her boyfriend’s VW when they went out on a date.

Pamela’s patience with me has been building for a long time, despite my early antagonistic behaviors. She listened compassionately to my angst when for my first homecoming football game in the seventh grade I was mortified to only receive a mum from Corky, the retarded boy down the street, and not from the boy I was interested in or, as was tradition, from my ‘Big Sis’ at school (someone in the ninth grade that ‘watched’ over me to help me adjust to Junior High School). Those large, smelly corsages, with the year and the school’s initials glittered on them, had silk streamers that floated all the way down to the hem of one’s dress. At thirteen years old this was a big deal in our very west Texas town of Abilene. I couldn’t not wear the mum from Corky, who I always made an effort to be nice to despite my peers teasing him mercilessly. Neither was I mature enough yet to wear the big, sparkly flower and say with ease who it was from. Wiser with her almost sixteen years, Pamela tried to help me see what was right in this situation as I sobbed in confused distress.

Mom was still at work selling lingerie at Grishom’s department store in town. Paula, our oldest sister, was away at college. Dad was in another state as a North American Moving Van Line driver, and the car he drove when home sat idle in the driveway. Oblivious in my grief, Pamela called a florist, found the car keys and slipped out to drive, illegally since she didn’t have a license yet, to go pick up a mum she had ordered for me. It must have been hard for mom to get mad at Pamela for her thoughtful intentions when she found out, as she had to since Pamela backed into another car on this quest. Touched by the gesture of my real big sis, I headed off to the game much more comfortable now with a gaudy mum on each side of my jacket.

In the middle of the eighth grade, and Pamela’s junior year, we moved to Richardson, just north of Dallas. Pamela had her driver’s license now and carted me around plenty in her own little VW bug. She even kept it a secret after realizing I had taken her car out one Valentine’s school day (this time I was the one without the license) when home sick I decided to drive around and deliver my valentine cards directly to friends’ mailboxes. Another time she agreed to ‘a wake-up party’ where we arranged with my friends’ parents that Pamela would drive me to their homes early on a Saturday morning and I would drag my sleepy girlfriends out of bed, one by one, eventually arriving at our house for breakfast, everyone in hair rollers and pajamas.

Older for Pamela’s biggest beauty pageant, I now admired the courage and discipline of my big sis as she prepared for the final night. I slipped a note of support in her bag amidst the swimsuit, heels, hairspray, and evening gown paraphernalia all potential beauty queens pack for the actual pageant. Now, edgy with anticipation while sitting in the audience with my mother, Pamela had been selected as one of the finalists and it was her turn to answer a question from the judges. Based on my sketchy memory, it went something like this: “We’ve heard you have a little sister who has been carefully watching you during pageant preparations. If you had one piece of advice to give your younger sister, what would it be?”

I’m pretty sure Pamela hadn’t expected or prepared for this question. And forgiving as she was, she didn’t focus on my earlier years of terrorism and how developing other pastimes could have benefited me much more. After a long pause, she instead quoted a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

I don’t remember word for word what she said next, but listening with utmost tenderness and care I came away remembering something along the following lines which, in my book, should have won her the pageant crown and not just first runner-up and Miss Congeniality:
“Finding out what is true for ourselves takes time. If we’re brave enough to explore who we are and risk being vulnerable, we get to know our weaknesses as well as our strengths. And learning to be honest with ourselves and others helps us to love ourselves more, even with all our imperfections, and also others. Living a life that is truthful can be an expression of love.” Unlike her sneaky, social, and often selfish little sister, Pamela was modeling an internal exploration, earnest to discover what would hold the most meaning in life and doing her best to encourage me take a look inward as well.

About a year later Pamela and Jimmy got married, and she let me have my high school boyfriend over for a romantic dinner for two in their home. Clinking their new crystal glasses like we’d seen them do in the movies, the glasses shattered on top of the meal Pamela had helped me prepare for this special evening. Years passed, and the crystal came out again as Pamela prepared an after wedding dinner for this same boyfriend and me, doing her best to steer us toward something more traditional that included family in our haphazard, hippy wedding plans.

In the interim of using the crystal glasses, Pamela was dismayed when I approached her at 19 years old, the summer after my first year in college, subsequent to learning I was over two months pregnant. At the time, Pamela was eight months pregnant with her first child. I had already made arrangements for an abortion, illegal in 1971, and I was terrified. All I could think about was how difficult it had been for me to get into the University of Texas and navigate the grants, loans, and work-study that would help me pay for college, and how having a baby would most likely cause this to come to a screeching halt. Pamela listened to all this and sensing my stubborn determination, agreed to drive me to the abortion and then let me stay with her afterwards, despite her firm opposition to my decision.

The entire experience was as bad as you may have heard from descriptions of illegal abortions: back room, coat hanger, painful, the hemorrhaging that followed. Pamela sat up with me the night and day afterwards as I bled and cried. I think Jimmy was out of town and I remember feeling like I would kill myself if she told or called anyone else, and knowing how hard-headed I was, she obviously decided the best thing she could do was to love me through this awful ordeal I had imposed on her.

Pamela birthed Jason several weeks later and adopted three other children during the decades that followed. Loving her family in the way that she loved me that terrible summer has been an intention of mine, whether it has been her own children or the children of her children. You see, in a way I feel I owe my life to this sister, who stuck by my side and helped me hold tentatively onto the coat tails of life, even when I knew she regretted some of the choices I was making.

Our choices have diverged in other ways since that experience, and as adults we’ve butted heads and stood our ground plenty of times. But I’ve always felt my sister’s love, whether through some beautiful calligraphy she has made me, our singing together at Bill’s and my first wedding, or her arranging a place for me to stay during a healing sabbatical year. Now, after we have moved our parents closer to her and my other older sister, Pamela handles the multiplicity of details involved in the care of the aging, never voicing resentment of my living thousands of miles away during this crucial time.

Pamela is going on a ‘HeartQuest’ in the coming week and Jimmy has asked for letters of encouragement from family members and close friends that would let her know how loved she is. My words of love about this older sister are long overdue, but if they touch her heart in any way while she quests on, then I’ll consider it a prayer answered, something else she has often gifted me with and taught me to value. And Pamela, you were right, living life truthfully is an incredible expression of love.

One Shoe Squeaking

( started on 3/14/09)
The mountains were socked in all day yesterday, from Cuchara Pass all the way into the San Luis Valley. When I arrived at Graceland, our little trailer on the slope overlooking this valley, I had a clear view 50 miles to New Mexico, but behind me Mount Blanca and its neighbors were all gauzy white.

My steady canine hiking companion, Amber Grace, and I took off for a stroll. Something about low-hanging clouds made the noises seem louder; each sound seemed separate from the other, very distinct and slightly amplified. Mountain bluebirds flitted about and twittered to us as we descended the slope. The neighing of horses down on the flats floated up our way. And my left boot squeaked so loudly it sounded like a squawk.

I bought these Ariat barnyard boots in November, calling stores all over Denver and Boulder until I found my size. They zip up on the sides, cover my ankles, and provide such support that I’m reluctant to take them off. My feet feel like they’ve found their proper home to such an extent that I’ve been wearing these babies to work, for city walks, and even mountain hikes. But one shoe squeaks. I’ve never had a shoe squeak before, and I’m clueless as to why it does or what in the world to do about it. Walking down silent, empty corridors in the schools where I am to observe a teacher candidate's classroom, my shoe announces my presence before I even get there. Children turn to look, wondering what the ‘creeeak-creeeak’ sound is, perhaps imagining a wooden leg beneath my slacks.

I’ve conditioned the leather, but this is something in the inner sole. Ok, now I’m wondering if there is a message for me in this experience. My soul is squeaking?? And if one pair of squeaking shoes is not enough, a second pair of shoes, some Merrill clogs that I bought at a big Title Nine sale at the end of last summer, starting squeaking about a month ago. Once home, when I finally coerce my feet out of my Ariats, I slip on my Merrills, but with no relief from the sound of one shoe squeaking, except that it’s the opposite foot. With the Merrills my right shoe has decided to speak up.

Back to Graceland. On my second morning there I was up at 4:30AM for two reasons: I wanted to get to the Monte Vista Refuge by the crack of dawn to catch sight of the migrating sand hill cranes, and I was tired of listening to the mice in my trailer. A chilling 14 degrees hit me as I emerged from my down comforter to hastily crank up the oven and turn on the little pro-cat heater. Coffeed up, I stepped out of the trailer into the light of a bazillion stars to go warm up my frost covered car. The sound of my shoe squeaking echoed in the crisp air, possibly alerting the coyotes who began a series of yips, yaps, and yowls prompting Amber to tuck her tail and rush to the car.


After picking up a valley friend, Lynn, in Alamosa we found our way to the back roads of the refuge by sun-up. A blanket of diamond hoarfrost covered the fields. In the areas where there was standing water, a fine mist rose up to meet the morning light and create a breathtaking glow. The cranes were luminous, standing four feet tall with their long legs and long necks, leaping several feet skyward as part of their elaborate courtship dance. Six foot wingspans with feathered fingertips swished through the air amidst the raucous calls of thousands and thousands of sand hill cranes that echoed across the valley. When we got out of the car we were immediately struck by a consistent croaking, crowing rattle. It took a few seconds to realize that those guttural sounds resulted from field upon field of flocks of cranes. Thankfully this was an environment where the sound of a squeaky shoe couldn’t be heard.

Arriving back at the trailer later that morning, I froze on getting out of my car and hearing a squawk. Lynn told me the cranes sometimes lounge in the fields in front of my trailer. I reached for my binoculars then slowly began walking toward the open view, when the regularity of the sound reminded me of my shoe. Oh well, if the sound of one shoe squawking can bring to mind the majesty of a sand hill crane, surely I can find something Zen in that.

An Astonishing Life

(photo: Road to Graceland)

“Am I no longer young, and still not half perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.”

from the poem “Messenger” by Mary Oliver

During my recent trip to Houston I kept hearing myself say “Life is so interesting!” while in conversations with close friends. Out of context, and perhaps in, those words sound and look so trivial and bland. Perhaps like Mary Oliver I should say instead how absolutely astonishing life is!

Yesterday while on another writing retreat when Karla or Rebecca one commented, “Well, it’s another learning experience,” I retorted loudly, “I’m absolutely sick of that statement!” They weren’t even talking to me as I busied myself elsewhere in our secret hide-out cabin, but I didn’t hesitate throwing in my two cents.

How does life being interesting, to being astonishing, to viewing life as another learning experience all come together at this moment? I’m not ready to give up learning from all that life presents to me, and indeed the diversity of experiences is interesting, but standing in the muck of it in a state of pure astonishment fits so much better: letting it all sink in, mouth agape, pondering how I got here, in that all too familiar less-than-half-perfect state.

Coming into the last years of my fifties I most definitely expected that my awareness would have so expanded that wisdom would be readily accessible. Instead, here I am with a bundle of questions and a growing curiosity about what it all means, whether contemplating the miracles of life or the sheer pettiness of half of what I spend time trying to understand.

This morning amidst coffee conversation, I remarked on the beauty of having arrived by accident at Sacred Heart Elementary in Austin at 22 years of age, interviewed and hired by the principal, Sister Antoinette, who ushered me into the world of education with comforting and encouraging words that have continually guided and sustained me now in this field for 35 years. The miracle and magic of life had me walking with or sitting across from Sister “Kitty” yet again the weekend before last in Houston, clearly astonished once more at the strength of this connection we have preserved and the utter holiness of it, highlighted by Kitty’s own ageless beauty that glows from her 70 plus years of service and love for whomever she sits across from.

I carted an indoor Greek lunch picnic to a much anticipated appointment with Gene, my Einstein-look-alike therapist that I’ve talked with for well over a decade. Although I acknowledge the therapy that has indeed happened in this relationship, the word therapist doesn’t come close to describing all that our connection has encompassed: Gene was my most engaged and influential thesis advisor, later becoming a fellow traveler/explorer in life, fellow philosopher, friend, teacher, mentor, and crucial guide back into the world of marriage, as well as into middle-age and beyond.

Sitting in his substitute office while his home office, damaged from Hurricane Ike, still undergoes repairs, I became acutely aware of the hours Gene and I have shared, both on the phone and in person. Like with Sister Kitty, Gene has consistently encouraged me to keep my mind on what really matters – the beautiful simplicity of learning to stand in absolute awe of life without feeling like I need to understand it all. Yes, when I am able to become still enough to keep my mind on what really matters, it does indeed strike me how incredibly astonishing life continues to be.

Bearing Witness

valley cactus in bloom at Grace Land

Recently I had an opportunity to sit and listen as a friend spoke about her partner learning she may have lymphoma. My friend had already left me a message asking if she could call and “be received," speaking through fears, questions, confusion, concern. Her request brought to mind a Margaret Wheatley article where she talks about “the simple practice of being brave enough to sit with human suffering, to acknowledge it for what it is, to not flee from it . . . When I bear witness,” Wheatley continued, “I turn toward another and am willing to let their experience enter my heart. I step into the picture by being willing to be open to their experience, to not turn away my gaze.”

Both of the women in this relationship have been at the forefront of my thoughts and prayers the past two weeks during testing, a biopsy, and the predictably uncomfortable wait for results. Clearly the best loving I can do is to "bear witness" and “receive” my friend, listening with utmost tenderness as she ponders what this could mean in their lives.

Last year I asked another friend of mine if we could practice ‘radical listening’ together. On regular walks one of us would talk while the other listened without trying to figure anything out or offer advise at the end, simply staying present for attention’s sake, taking in as much of the other’s experience as possible. This is different from trying to ‘fix’ something or someone, and as is so often the case, how would we know anyway what should be fixed? In the case of my friend whose partner may soon be navigating an intense and uncomfortable course of treatment that I know little about, what in the world could I offer that would be better than listening while remaining powerfully present?

It’s certainly a very different situation, but I’ve found I must be in a similar place of “receiving” or “bearing witness” when I visit a classroom to observe a teacher, watching and listening with as much attention as I can muster. My work is to center myself and absorb what that teacher is doing as he or she interacts with a group of learners, later giving a voice to what I’ve seen and heard in a way that will hopefully encourage someone to reflect on this incredibly difficult endeavor of teaching. My friend has a strong propensity for reflection and I only hope that after listening to her, whatever I shared may be of help as she and her loved one traverse the potentially arduous healing path ahead.

In the world of education I’ve never felt particularly comfortable with the label of ‘master teacher.' Looking back on my own career some startling mistakes remind me how I could have done a number of things very differently. Although I made plenty of changes while still in front of classes day after day, there are other things I was simply oblivious to at certain points in my practice. What stands out to me, however, is an almost bulldog-like commitment to keep on keeping on. Such vigilance certainly included experimenting with some different instructional methods, but ultimately mixing determination with a willingness to listen carefully may have helped me more than anything to become a stronger teacher – listening to other teachers, administrators, authors, parents, students, and especially myself.

That’s the real test: when I can take all that I’ve heard and turn the lens back upon myself, “bearing witness” not only to what others are saying to me, but also really hearing what I am saying to others as well as what I’m saying to myself. Whether in the moment or later, when I am able to step outside of the circumstances and carefully observe such things, some stark realities fly in the face of how I think I’m being or what I thought I was saying or doing. For example, as I remember the conversation with my friend and all that was shared, I realize that amidst my love and concern for her and her partner, a certain preoccupation surfaced with “am I saying this right?” or “am I being of value here?” along with nagging fears and doubts around my own life. What if this were me or my spouse? How would we navigate a similar situation? Some of this chatter can be relevant, but other internal conversation simply sounds like my own ego jumping in trying to 'save the day.'

I’m inching up on my sixth decade of living and honestly, I don’t know if it’s my age or the world these days that makes life seem increasingly challenging. Hannah Arendt once said that it’s when we are in dialogue that we are most human. My hunch is that learning to engage in the some of the most meaningful dialogues, whether with myself or others, can also mean learning to practice the deepest kind of presence possible, receptive silence. If only I will be courageous enough to take time to “bear witness” on my own life, over and over, so that doing so with others is truly of help. I hope I can do this next week in the most supportive way possible when I see my friends in Texas. Several days ago they learned that lymphoma is indeed the diagnosis.

Back to Square One

Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time – that is the basic message. Pema Chodron

Changes are popping up in my life like the flipping figures on a foosball table. I hear talk of returning to square one and wonder how to get there, where it is. Maybe it’s like Monopoly when I draw the card or land on the square (honestly, I can’t remember which it is) that tells me to go back to start, the first square of the board game. The game of four-square comes to mind, when you try to out play your opponents by advancing to server, heading back to square one whenever you miss the ball or hit it out. Perhaps square one is the center of a labyrinth, or could it be each turn in the labyrinth that sends me in a different direction - here I am at square one again, and again, and again, and again . . . I wonder, should I keep moving to the center, or stop at each turn and simply be still? Is square one a destination or a process?

I heard a poem by Rumi last Sunday that called us each to "return to the root of the root of your Self." In another poem by Rumi he coaxed, "Even if you don't see the water, artfully, like the blind, bring the jug to the river an dip it in." Both poems appear to suggest reliable routes to square one.

Last week I sat still in meditation for so long that my left leg went entirely asleep. Not once did my mind quit racing, but regardless, the mere physical stillness while fully awake was deeply soothing. Was it an experience of square one?

I lie in bed each morning and cast forth prayers like pennies in a wishing pool. Dear God, take this day and take me, and combine the two for goodness however you see fit. May I feel your presence in all my doings and my way of being. May I feel what is greater than my worries or gripes, arriving at a place of peace with whatever is. This place could very possibly be square one.

When a day runs its course and the winter light fades into evening, sometimes I look at what I’ve done since early morning: emails, surveying what the day holds, driving, listening and watching teachers, writing and writing, reading, walking, answering calls, talking and talking, pondering problems, preparing food, washing dishes, looking at what tomorrow holds and days to come, planning and planning, finally feeling like enough has been done, a sufficient number of things crossed off a to-do list or applied to a new list and there I am, back at square one.

Suddenly it occurs to me that square one isn’t a square at all but my heart. Let me go from there and return there off and on all day, over and over, again and again, arriving and leaving from that place of honor, hope and patient love, like the blood coming and going through my beating heart, coursing tirelessly throughout my entire body.