Reflecting on Landscapes: A Road Trip Through Southeast Colorado

It takes two days to get here by car, but what a beautiful road trip!

We drove through Southeast Colorado yesterday taking the back roads to our destination in Gunnison.

Nothing other than striking scenery, but I took some time to reflect upon how a landscape mirrors different aspects of our humanity.

When we left Amarillo, Texas yesterday morning, I wondered how the landscape of a dry desert, long vistas, and skyscapes shape the people that live there now, and in the past.

When you look out upon the landscape where sky meets land, you realize that the land you occupy encompasses a tiny slice of your overall perception.

I understand why the ancients took so much stock in the sky, because looking around where there are no trees, most of what you see IS sky.

It was the same when I used to travel the inside passage in British Columbia and Alaska. The ancients that lived at the water's edge weren't so much interested in the land where they slept and ate--their life was on the water. That's why the ovoid shapes of their art resemble the water they derived their sustenance from.

When I come out here, time slows way down for me. I find myself caught in between the past and the future in the holy present.

Much like when I am engrossed in my creative work.

Big landscapes and tall skies change the way you perceive your own life, or at least it does for me.

I was awakened in a most delightful way this morning by this dude.

And I was also awakened by coyotes around 2 am celebrating their feast. Of what, I don't know. But they were happy.

How My Mother's Struggles Shaped Me

The best thing my parents gave me was their imperfection.

Sometimes, the gifts that your parents' give you aren't what they did right, but what they struggled with, and how they overcame it-- or didn't.

This is the time of the year that I review my mother's life, and what gifts she left me since she died 4 years ago.

My mother was a very smart woman. She could devour books and articles, and she understood so much about so many things.

But she had a problem in applying what she learned about, and believed implicitly, to her own life.

This is a problem that many of us have, isn't it?

We know better, but we don't do better.

I watched her struggle with this, and I learned how to do the opposite. When I learn something, and believe it is going to work or improve my life, I work on applying it.

And I've learned to be patient with myself as I work on the application, and give it time to see if it really works.

She didn't intend to give me this gift, but I took it anyway.

And I'm eternally grateful that she showed me the consequences of her decision to know, and not apply, as I watched her live her life according to her own terms.

She was cool like that...teaching what to do, and what not to do.

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Random fact about me: My favorite fiber supplement is Organic India Psyllium Pre & Probiotic Fiber, Cinnamon Spice. It's really good and I look forward to drinking it in the evening.

From Delays to Deep Conversations: A Day of Perspective

Travel days are often filled with delays.

Yet, they also offer glimmers of humanity while you sit around waiting.

Here are some of mine from yesterday.

My first travel day was devoid of much conversation, as I wrote about in the last post. But man, things changed on the second day.

Around noon, I went downstairs for a cup of coffee at the hotel I stayed in before the shuttle arrived to pick me up to take me to the airport.

I struck up a conversation with the manager, who was sitting next to me.

He was a very large man, and he shared that he was recently in a car accident. I expressed my sympathy to him.

He looked at me and said, "Thanks, but it was the best blessing. While I was in the hospital, they found a huge goiter on my thyroid. Now I understand why I couldn't lose any weight."

I saw that he was quite emotional about it, and that his life was already changing for the better. We had a nice conversation about faith. We talked about how everything happens for a reason, and how sometimes, God gives a little push to get us going in a new direction.

When I got to the airport and survived the TSA gauntlet, I immediately looked for a restaurant. I wanted to eat something other than protein bars and Venison Epic bars.

I found one, and the hostess seated me next to a couple about my age. And they weren't on their phones! We struck up a conversation and they shared they were heading to the Mile of Music Festival in Appleton, Wisconsin.

They went last year and had so much fun, that they were returning.

They loved the weather and said the festival goers were fantastic. The music was new and exciting and their son was also in one of the bands performing.

They shared that the festival was easy to walk to from the hotel and easy to navigate once there. They were surprised at how well organized it was.

I called Shayne and told him to put this festival on next year's calendar. When you find something that middle-aged Gen X'ers like, it needs to be noted.

It was time to get to my gate to Little Rock. When I arrived, I sat down next to a man with a big, shiny cross on his necklace.

He's a preacher. He related a story about a trip he just took to Michigan for a conference, and at the last minute, he found out that his nephew only lived a mile from the conference. His nephew has been estranged from his father, the preacher's brother, for years.

He was so happy to connect with him while he was up in Michigan, and he expressed real hope that his brother and his nephew might reconnect.

We discussed forgiveness and perspective.

He felt that its crucial to mend fences with a close family member as soon as you can, and he was afraid his brother would wait until it was too late.

We then reminisced about growing up in Arkansas fishing for crawdads and running over snakes on our bikes. He grew up in West Helena and preaches in Hazen. This area is flat farmland, very delta. I grew up in Loanoke county which is very similar.

As kids, we both had a couple of square miles to explore. We both laughed about surviving what kids got into back then and how it's so different now.

When I boarded the plane, I was in First Class because of being bumped the day before. I was on the aisle and a man was slumped and sleeping next to the window on my row.

We were on the tarmac for about an hour because a kid in the back threw up. The back of the plane was in turmoil before hazmat came to clean it up.

He slept through it all.

He woke up when we took off and I asked him what time it was because my phone was in the overhead bin.

That was how we started talking. We were in a deep conversation until the plane landed in Little Rock two hours later.

He was from the same town as my mother's family and I joked we were probably related somehow. My family's roots grew deep there.

We had a remarkable conversation about spirituality. He was also a part-time preacher. He was about to open up his own machine shop, since his job was now done. He had been a lead engineer for a company but this company was merging with another. He had been traveling weekly to North Carolina since January, and this was his last trip home.

We talked about spirituality and how to apply God's lessons daily.

How we fall short and also how we soar.

We also talked about perspective and the reach of our words and actions on others and how humans have a great capacity to love one another instead of reverting to hatred.

He just married the love of his life 4 years ago when he was 44. He said it already felt like a lifetime because when you love someone so fiercely and so completely, time bends back on itself.

This is what I love about traveling.

I love connecting to random people that after the connection, you realize it wasn't random at all.

I made it home.

As I was telling the day's stories to my step-father, we reflected upon my mother's death.

At the end of her life, she shared with us her experience that God was revealing to her what her impact was on others.

I would often find her gazing when I went into her room to adjust her position, or rub her legs.

When I disturbed her, she was often miffed.

She shared with me that she was getting a 'download' from God. He was showing her stuff that she found hard to express.

She said she was experiencing how she influenced those that she met in life. She saw how her essence rippled out into the world by the people she interacted with. She was awestruck by it, and it was one of the last things she talked about before she stopped talking.

She didn't have the perspective to see this during her life, but I guess God gave her a glimpse before she died.

The thing is, she wasn't a religious person in life at all. She was always searching for God, intellectually trying to figure out if she believed or not; but in the end, He found her as he was preparing her for the next adventure.

This is the exclamation point on my post from yesterday. Amazing things happen when we disconnect from our devices, and worries, and engage with the people we are around.

Who knows how your life impacts others when you care enough to share. Something you don't deem important may the be the lifeline someone needs. Random events during the day can lead to new insights when you put them together with the bigger picture of your life.

Perspective is a mighty thing, and when you get a glimpse, it can change your life.

Random fact about me: I was a snare drummer in my school's marching band.

Embracing Change: Life Lessons from 58 Years

If a photo is worth a thousand words, here's 20,000 words of personal evolution over the course of 58 years.

The top row is the story of my beginnings. I was born with a cone head. My father said it scared him to death when we first met, but my mother was in labor for like 24 hours, and my head showed the effort she made to get me out.

So what tone did the circumstances of my birth set for me for the rest of my life?

I believe it led to me wanting to understand pressure and the growth that comes from tight places.

The photo of me smirking in my cool 70's attire is a big memory for me. My mother was making a framed piece of art out of felt letters she had painstakingly cut out with her good sewing scissors.

There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill becomes any of us to find fault with the rest of us.

First of all, that was the first time I had ever seen my mother do something creative. I was mesmerized by her process. And my father, who loved photography, was using his brand new Pentax camera circa 1972 to capture this moment in time.

That was a day that I remember very clearly. I was basking in an atmosphere of love and self-expression.

Moving on, there is the photo of me in my 1980's big hair with the striped sweater. I was sitting on the couch on Christmas morning, waiting for the day to get going. My parents were divorced, and the merry-go-round of Christmas travel between parents had just started.

Those years were a pressure cooker for me in many ways.

Navigating new family dynamics with my parents' remarriages, step-siblings, moving to a new place and trying to deal with my own internal changes due to being a teenager was chaotic and filled with emotional drama.

I emerged from it understanding that life was unpredictable. After graduation from High School, I kicked around for a couple of years, then moved to Chicago with my best friend, Wendy.

Chicago was frightening and exciting to me.

I was 21, and legally able to drink. And I did. A lot.

And as a result of some things that happened, I decided it wasn't for me, and I left for Alaska.

The land of pressure and what it that looks like in a landscape was illuminating!

It changed me...and I emerged from that period of life learning to be more self-reliant.

On the second row, you'll see a progression of me growing through my love of the outdoors.

I started traveling solo and saw many things around the world that left me more curious about our water covered planet.

I lived on a couple of boats working as a Steward, and on my off time, traveled to Europe and walked a lot, looking at castles and drinking warm beer in pubs.

I discovered that I like to wander around in my mid-20's, and I moved a lot.

I ended up married to another wanderer and we explored various places for the next 20 years. We finally ended up in Roanoke, Virginia and it has become home.

My wandering over the last ten years has been more internal than external. That's the third row. I went through a period of coloring my hair blonde to hide the gray.

Menopause. Talk about a pressure cooker. All of those juicy hormones decided to take a siesta. I went through a period (ha!) of trying to get it back.

But no. Another lesson on the pressure to stay young.

Then I decided, fuck that, let that silver shine. Becoming authentic became very important. I wasn't chasing anything much externally anymore.

The experiences I was craving became focused on integrating all of these versions of myself that I'd experienced in the past into some wisdom for my future.

It was a time of deep reflection.

I was the girl looking to laugh. I was the teenager trying to shrink herself because of the changes that swept her up and tossed her around like a boat with no motor in a sea of tall waves.

I see different cities that led to different versions of love, different kinds of laughter.

Some of those faces I see in my photo collage feel like strangers. Some feel closer than ever.

Funnily enough, none of those women are fully me anymore. But they’re not gone, either.

Just a few days ago, I looked in the mirror at my studio and saw my mother and father smiling back at me. My mother's eyes, and my father's chin, live on my face.

I now see not just different versions of myself on my face, but others, too. I've spent so much time with my beloved, that we are now starting to resemble each other.

Integrating all of my life's experiences into what I am now is a trip!

Somewhere along the way, I stopped trying to become someone. I started allowing myself to become.

There's a difference.

So who am I now?

I'm here. That's all that I know anymore. I'm here, I'm always changing and have learned to appreciate the pressure of becoming, and accepting the death of what once was.

Even if I have to live with temporary distortions from those tight spaces, like my birth story, it's been worth it.

And maybe that’s the beauty of looking back... not to define ourselves, but to witness the cycle of birth, and death, and rebirth over and over again.

And understand that "I" am still here.

I find that comforting.

When the body I am using is used up, where do "I" go then?

And what do I want to leave behind that lasts indefinitely?

Random fact about me: My first job was working on a frog farm in Arkansas. I was 12.

Life Lessons from Baseball: The Journey to Home

I love baseball.

You know why?

It's life.

When the hero leaves home plate and makes the journey around the bases, with others trying to take him out, it feels great to watch him slide into home base, triumphant in his return.

We're all runners trying to make it back to home base.

The baseball diamond is the heart of the story.

You're born.

You start at home, but you need experience so you can grow.

So you approach home plate. You need a reason to go out and face some challenges. Life throws some pitches. Which one are you going to take a swing at?

The Hero (batter) has to be locked in and ready to swing when the pitch is within range.

The batter connects. Can he get to first base? Gotta run like hell to even get into the game before life snuffs you out.

He makes it. Whew. Rest a minute. Can he wait for life to give him an opportunity to get to second base, or does he take the ultimate risk and steal it?

Stealing a base is stepping outside of the normal order of things. He doesn't want to wait and let life (next batter up) dictate his next move. He decides to make a run for it while others are too busy living by the rules of the game.

He's gotta wait for the right moment when all eyes are on the next batter. He's now a player.

That moment when the batter becomes the player is divine.

Second base. Shit, he had to slide and his ankle hurts.

But he's in the game. He's got some experience now. How he made it to second base was either a choice to steal or let life carry him there with some effort.

He made a risky choice, but it paid off.

Doesn't matter.

Now he's on second. He's completely exposed. So many obstacles between him and home.

He's at his most vulnerable because he's injured and because he's on the outskirts of the diamond.

His life is now more complicated because he's got 2 players pushing him forward.

First base player is feeling the pressure to run to second as soon as the batter connects.

Hero is eyeing third.

Man, the pressure to move is intense. Others on his own team are anticipating now a potential scoring run.

Pressure to perform is increasing and he has to zero in on third, with a chance of returning home in flash if the batter in the box hits is out of the park.

This is where the boy becomes a man. Strategy, logic and risk assessment is developing at a rapid pace. More players in the game, more outliers.

The batter hits the ball, and he makes it to first.

Our hero is now on third, he can see home plate and wisdom is his reward.

He's got experience now. He's feeling the pressure to advance and return home, and he's almost made it through the gauntlet.

His eyes are on the batter, but he glances out across the field and respects the others that made his journey possible. They tried to take him out--they did their best, but they didn't succeed.

In a second, he recognizes that skill, luck, grace, and grit were his companions. He was never alone. Not really.

Batter in the box hits a base hit. The hero knows it's going to be close, and he runs like hell with everything he's got. Stealing second hurt his ankle, but he's adjusted his stride and he's heading home.

Slide! Slide! Slide!

And the crowd erupts. His team goes wild! Another one made it back home!

He's no longer the boy that was waiting for the right pitch to get into game.

He's different.

He's transformed.

One more rung up the spiral of experiences is completed.

The cycle continues.

And that's why I love baseball.

Random fact about me: My favorite color is indigo.