Thoughts to A Friend and News From Here

I sent this as an email to a particular friend recently, then realized it’s a message I might well have dispatched to others. And so I decided to begin a blog post with it, and here it is.

This is such a difficult time in our world. At a community gathering last night, I stood outside an historical California ranch house within sight of an old orchard and a field of native grass, and it was a beautiful October evening.

Then a woman I know came up to me, wine glass in hand, proclaiming, near tears, "The world is in a state of mayhem."

And I knew she was right, but it was still such a beautiful night. 

Earlier that day we had witnessed the muted light of a partial solar eclipse, while a prism in the window cast tiny crescent-shaped rainbows on the sofa, walls, and floor. Everything seemed enchanted.

And I cannot help but think about how the mayhem and miracles coexist in every moment, how the misery and magic vie for our attention.

It is life making a duet of wonder and grief, as poet Mark Nepo has expressed it.

I believe the great challenge of living is to somehow hold these in balance.

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Despite the assault of bad news, it hasn’t been hard to spot the wonders and delights. We’re seeing frisky calves in the canyons now, just beginning to discover the world, while many of the cows are still as big as ships, moving slowly, awaiting the birth of their babies. There’s a fiberglass water tank near the sycamore trees that fills a nearby trough with drinking water for the cattle; just this week, Monte showed me how I can determine its water level by placing my hand on it and sliding my palm down until I feel the distinctive, startling coolness of the water within. It seemed like a magic trick.

I had a good conversation with a friend who has been diligently monitoring bird life here. I often see her passing, a slender, long-haired wraith, binoculars slung around her neck, always quietly watching. She tells me about a burrowing owl, the intrepid plovers making their comeback, the elegant terns. She has seen migratory birds taking refuge here, and fledgling peregrines cavorting near their nest, and a mind-boggling burst of perhaps 500,000 raucous shearwaters skimming the sea along the coast. The twinkling sound of a sparrow tells her it is winter, but we both love the song of the canyon wren best, that liquid waterfall of minor key notes. I stop and sigh whenever I hear it; she has it as her ring tone. She watches constantly, with curiosity, pride, and concern, bearing witness, noticing and hearing things most of us would have missed. It’s important work.

And as you can imagine, it’s hard to leave the ranch, but I ventured into town to do some errands last week, among them an adjustment to my eyeglasses at the optometrist store. A thousand glassy blank eyes stared at me as I sat at the counter, while a kind and proficient young man tightened my spectacles and wiped the smudged lenses clean with a large soft cloth, and I felt downright pampered. A fellow working at the adjacent station was talking to his customer: “Is this your first progressive?” he asked her. “You’ll get used to it; you just lower your gaze and find the sweet spot.” He looked eerily like a guy I dated in the 1970s, now dead. I almost turned and told him that, but wisely resisted the impulse. It’s one thing to be chatty, but comparing a stranger, apropos of nothing, to a deceased 1970s boyfriend might border on weird.

Anyway, isn’t it a luxury to be here? Isn’t it good how we tend to one another? Whole businesses are built upon it. I gathered up my eyeglasses and put on my favorite pair, the ones with tiny rhinestones embedded along the upper frame, only visible if I tip my head slightly. The glasses don’t slide off my nose now, and everything is clear.

Don’t underestimate these small achievements. They have the power to bolster beyond their actual significance. It’s cumulative.

I even ventured into REI and found a pair of hiking shoes, just my size, only lightly used, and bought them for an excellent price. The tag said they had been returned due to a squeak on the left side, which I have yet to hear, but I am deaf in my left ear, so it seemed like a match made in heaven.

I also went to the market to get ingredients to make the perfect lentil soup, which is a perfect meal. It was my father’s specialty, comfort and sustenance. A squeeze of lemon at the end wakes up all the flavors. I’ll just pluck a juicy beauty from our tree.

Later, I went into the craft shop where a woman in the frame department was remarkably helpful, guiding me through a maze of scrapbooking supplies and other things that I had not known existed, and I even bought some rhinestones and glue because I have special needs.

I finished off my town trek with a stop at the ATM, where crisp twenties were dispensed. Lately I am a spigot through which money flows, but I seldom use cash. It’s funny to have bills in my wallet.

I did a mountain hike with the ladies on Wednesday, which always revives the soul. We looked down from a high place, and the fog was like a field of snow below us. We arranged ourselves among the rocks to eat lunch, and someone brought out cookies to share, and we were simply there. In the sweet spot, I guess.

So there was plenty of good news, locally.

Our paleontologist visitor last week talked about fossils and geology and the forces and confluences over millennia that have rendered this coast so biodiverse. When you try to contemplate these fathomless spans of time, you realize what speck we humans are, what a recent and ephemeral glitch on the screen, and it puts everything into a different perspective.

My friend Kappy tells me she finds this weirdly comforting, and my wise mentor Dan agrees. He writes:  “Perhaps paradoxically, I take comfort sitting out under the stars from the sense of how insignificant we are.  That brings me some ease, even if only in the notion that we’re only a blip, that life was an accident, a glorious, fleeting accident, and that we happened to be here for it when it happened.”

As for me, I'm not so sure. I get a lonely free-fall feeling if I imagine that there may be no higher meaning beyond all the suffering and struggle, and that everyone we ever loved and everything we thought mattered amounts to nothing more than dust and energy in an endless procession of dust and energy.

And things look pretty ominous sometimes.

So I shall end this blog post with the words I wrote to conclude the email I sent to my friend:

I am just checking in with you and sending you thoughts of light and love and hoping you are managing to navigate through all the trauma and sorrow still able to see wonder and possibility…you who have given these gifts to others; may you find them anew from surprising sources in unexpected and numerous ways. 

I am open to advice, affirmations, ideas, and hugs.

Somehow we’re all in this together.