Sally Gerard

In “The Summer Day,” by Mary Oliver, she writes: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

It’s about noticing and it’s about making your one life count for you. When given an incredible gift, do you leave it wrapped or open it and enjoy the blessing? Do you rip it open? Carefully undue each piece of tape, saving the pretty paper for some other use? Or like a little toddler, do you dump it out and play with the box instead?

I tell myself that missteps happen, and that’s to be expected. But how I deal with them matters. It isn’t the thing you want to settle for, ignoring that one wild and precious life you have. It is the thing you want to continue to open wide to and experience in full, rich, and living color.

Yah, this is good advice. A good goal. Yet, I continue to settle. To give up dreams. To put life on hold, until…something. I’ve crawled out of a good many dark places, so I should be able to see the path now. But darkness, or maybe nothingness, is too easy to rest in. It isn’t a rejuvenating rest. It is a toss and turn kind of rest-less-ness. So, find your way. Find your say. Don’t ever settle.

Make one eensy move each day back toward that one wild and precious life. And I will make one too.

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I don’t believe that most people fit into the category’s others place them in. We have our little boxes and we want to put people into them based on one post or one conversation, the clothes we wear, the vehicle we operate, the length of our hair, the color of our skin, the way we say hello or goodbye, or any number of other traits.

I belong in this box or that box, but I belong in a million other boxes too. How did we all get so closed minded? So “write them off?” So downright mean?

Are your beliefs that much more important than seeing me as a person? Are mine? What happened to common curtesy?

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Is it because we are so removed from each other? We post on our social media sites and we like, and we don’t like but comment. We repost when we have no idea whether or not what we’re reposting has any basis in fact. It doesn’t matter. If I agree with whatever it is, I pass it on with all of its misinformation.

Part of me wants to find a long mountain trail and stay on it. Instead, I pray. I post more positive than negative. I do my darnedest to love, rather than hate.

Hiking in the mountains this week, I had the trail all to myself in the pre-dawn and for about an hour or so. I was hiking along, hopeful that I’d see the bull elk I’d heard frequented a certain meadow.

I love to hike in the mountains because it smells so fresh after a rain, all earth and pine. I love the way the squirrels chitter at me, scolding me for coming into their territory, tails flipping in staccato beat.

I love the bird song and especially the buzz of hummingbirds heading off to some vibrant Indian Paintbrush for a bit of nectar. I love the deep shade of trees and the chill that makes me dig out my glove liners to keep the chill from my fingers. I love the glimpse of the mountain vista that I know I’ll see clearly when I come to the tops of ridges.

I get lost in my thoughts, in prayer, in the wonder of creation.

CUE: cyclist on a death run.

Ripped out of my contemplation, I often don’t even hear them behind me. The ones that have little tingling bells are better. But this guy came ripping around a corner and if I hadn’t jumped up the hill, he’d have run right into me. I had many choice words, none of which were uttered as he flew past me. I heard the slide of gravel and a “Sorry bud,” a few moments later and around the next switchback there was another cyclist who’d been coming up the hill and had been forced off the trail by that same guy. Bud indeed!

It’s just like hikers who can’t be troubled to leash their dogs. Or people who carve their name into trees. Or those pesky litter bugs. They ruin it for everyone else.

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The envelope had no return address and held only some dried flower petals. She smelled the sweet scent before she opened it, and it clung to the tips of her fingers. She thought they must be lavender, though there was more grey than purple in the little dusting of petals. A feeling of calm came over her, but maybe that was because she’d read that lavender was a scent used in calming oils and lotions.

Still, she couldn’t think of anyone who might have sent this to her. The post mark was blurred so she couldn’t tell where it even came from. She didn’t think anyone knew about her personal gremlins, well, no one but her best friend, JoJo. And JoJo would be more likely to send her a kick in the ass.

Smiling to herself, at that picture of a gift from JoJo, Lexi stuffed the envelope in the top drawer of her desk and went back to contemplating exactly what she was going to do with her life. Right now, the empty coffee cup was the biggest dilemma she could handle.

I was thinking about the resilience of trees as I hiked along under their cover of cool shade. What force can bend a tree around itself? And the tree yields but continues to reach up. Other trees have fallen, their roots torn from the earth, and yet new trees grow right out of that decay stretching up to sun and blue sky. The old dying to give life to the new.

Other trees grow right out of jagged rocks and huge boulders. They must have to scrap for every tiny nutrient, struggling in the worst conditions. Still they find a way to move upright no matter the pressure and strain.

I was struck by the idea that this forest path wasn’t just a cool place to hike, but a whole classroom for how to be in the world. People are at each other in the most aggressive ways. No one cares about others, well, unless they are on your side because that has to be the right side, doesn’t it? It’s downright mean and it’s dehumanizing, and it’s so utterly not how we’re supposed to be.

But stand tall, even when you are twisted in half, even when you must fight for every tiny bit of sustenance, even when all around you seems to be in decay.

For there is hope and there is love, every time you give to another just that one kind word or smile or pull your mask up or tell the person at the drive-up window to keep the change. I hope that when I see you on the trail, I tell you to have a good hike, even if you don’t have your dog on a leash.

People who know me, know that summertime means hiking. I look forward to it all year long and miss it as soon as August hits and school is back in session. I hike with a good friend, we’ll call her Elaine, and we make a great team. There is no race to get to the end of the trail, to whatever lake or view we are seeking. We just go, at our own pace, and marvel at everything. This could be why we end up scuffing our boots as we trip over rocks and roots, being lookie-loo’s. We’ve taken countless usie’s and encourage each other to keep going.

Once-in-a-while, I end up on the trail alone due to something getting in Elaine’s way. (How dare they set a meeting on a hike day!) When that happens, I always go to a trail we’ve done before, so I know where I’m going. On that sort of day, I found myself hiking up a trail through dense woods, pines and aspens. Just breathing. And maybe wondering a bit, why we couldn’t just get paid to be day-hikers.

It had rained the night before and there was fog still lifting in the early morning. I came around a corner on a switchback and the smell, the humidity, the trees all combined to overwhelm my senses. I was transported to Georgia, to my best friends’ place. I had to stop because a longing deep inside surfaced and I felt myself transported to the path leading up their place. No matter how far away I’ve been, no matter how long I’ve been away, their place is home anytime I show up.

Certain smells, tastes, and situations can have that absolute ability to take me deep into a memory that lives in my body, but that only surfaces because of my senses. When it happens, it always brings me up short, reminding me that I am not alone.

Hope seems to be in short supply for many people, and not just now, but at other certain times in our lives. How do we hold onto hope? Rediscover joy? Find the courage to make a new move? Reach out for help even though it makes us vulnerable? Move past fear and into a more authentic self? Speak up for what we need? Put aside what we don’t need?

I have a few trusted friends who know my fears and walk alongside me, nudging, sometimes shoving me down the path I know I should be walking on. I find solace in running and in hiking. When spring begins to melt the mountain snows, it awakens an urge in me that must be what birds feel when it’s time to migrate. And on those trails, with the best hiking partner anyone could wish for, there is so much beauty. When I can get out of my own head to notice the wildflowers, the sun playing in the Aspen trees, or the moose standing just off the trail, then I find my joy.

What brings me down is seeing human beings treat other human beings as if they don’t matter, as if beliefs are more important than relationship, as if being right is the be-all end-all of existence, as if any of it really counts. There is fake news everywhere, on all sides and in all places. But we are better than that. Find hope. Find joy. Take courage. Ask for help. Use fear to move. And give that gift of love, even in a simple smile, to someone every day.

How is that someone you’ve never met can become a friend, a confidant, a blessing in a moment where you were in despair? In my work as an online teacher, I have colleagues I’ve never met, yet they ask about my family, the cattle, my latest hike or favorite treat. And I know they struggle with missing grandkids, juggling new borns with grading, and can cook a mean sweet potato mash. My work in social media, which began as a way to widen my base of readers has become a place filled with friends and spirit as well.

I know that if I showed up on their farm or at their door, I’d find welcome, conversation, a cup of coffee or tea, and genial, delightful company with a healthy dose of humor and good-natured ribbing. It’d be just like meeting up with the dear friends I’ve known for ages to break bread together, hike, or simply to catch up with each other’s lives. There is so much good in this world, so many people doing good in this world. Do good. Be kind. Love, whether you see each other every day or only know each other digitally. Make the world smaller by gathering in instead of pushing away.

Nelson Mandela said, “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”

I’ve made far more fear-based choices than I have hope-based ones. But the most recent hope-based choice I made was going back to school to earn another master’s degree, but this time in creative writing. My hopes to continue to write and publish pushed me to my best during that program.

Two of my best hope-based choices were my daughter and son. My hopes for their lives to be full of love, grace, creativity, and for each of them to become the person they were meant to be and to use that to change their worlds in positive ways. They often shine a light in dark places, and I admire their courage and love.

I am still working to conquer my fear-based choices for they are the ones that hold me back, keep me in a box, and push me away from who I want to be, who I am meant to be. Still, I’ve not given up and each tiny step I make to get out of my fear gives me more courage to try harder. I literally look to the hills and find there that the Maker of heaven and earth has my back.

For teacher appreciation week, my company sent us all a gratitude journal for teachers. I’m a sucker for almost any kind of notebook with lined pages to write on and inspiring quotes and such to get the juices flowing.

I’ve tried before to keep a gratitude journal on my own but failed terribly. So far, I’m enjoying this one because the pressure to write in it every day isn’t there. It has a space to list the date so if I miss some days, I don’t feel like I am a loser.

It is also very simple. The directions tell you to write 3-5 things you are grateful for, and I’ve decided that three is plenty, and if I don’t come up with three, I’m not holding myself hostage until I do. That is where I failed before because when I couldn’t list five each day, after several days, I just quit. It isn’t that I’m not grateful for a hundred little things each and every day, but I’m hard pressed to try to list them, even two minutes after I feel grateful. Why is that? I don’t know but it seems to be in line with remembering to make this phone call or write down that thing on the grocery list or why I walked into a certain room and get there and look around trying to remember what was so important to bring me in there in the first place.

Is this because I just have too many things bouncing around in my brain? Is it the “Oh, look at that new little bunny” distraction? It could be the strain from constant anxiety over various things, situations, or people. But I am grateful, right now, that I remembered to write and post this.