Time and Time Again

In the past month, I've eaten in a thousand-year-old restaurant, skittered up a winding path to a 900-year-old castle, and finished a book that featured 500-year-old third-generation trees growing from 2,000-year-old roots.

It would be fair to say I've had time on my mind.

. . . and what I keep coming back to is this realization that the United States is a young pup, a petulant teen, often impatient beyond impatience.

I think back to my afternoon in Bratislava, Europe's newest capital, where Mark and I attended a walking-tour 400-level college course in Slovakia's complicated history, as told by our brilliant local guide, Nora.  Wandering the city's 18th-century Old Town, Nora told about her grandfather who, in the '60s, made a crack about the communists, only to have a neighbor turn him in for such dangerous fodder.  The sins of her grandfather fell upon Nora's dad, who was then denied the chance to attend school and sent to the uranium mines instead.

Nora also talked us through closed borders, Nazi incursions, citizen revolts, peaceful breakups, a new female president and free college and health care for all.  An hour later, over beers at an outdoor cafe, Mark and I sat in wonder, reviewing the long, complicated arc of Nora's storyline, a storyline that ended with hope and possibility for the people of Slovakia.

Slovakia's stories--compelling and memorable--were hardly unique, though.  Each place we visited and each tour guide we walked with carried stories of war and loss, hope and reinvention.

Aside from an H bomb our own military accidentally dropped near Albuquerque in the mid 50s, the United States has nary a pockmark of war upon its soil.  And yet, like a swaggering male teen, our country struts and huffs and throws out its defiant arms at the merest provocation.  Ironically, these days, most of those provocations are self-inflicted.

But back to the old restaurant and the "young" trees . . .

My experiences with both travel and books this past month have helped me frame this hard-to-endure chapter the United States finds itself in.  I'm reminded to be patient.  To put down deep roots in good soil.  To share food and laughter with others.  And to crossed the padlock-riddled bridge to see what's on the other side.  Ultimately, I'm heartened by all of these old places I visited and the very new people now walking along their streets, just as I am comforted by the shade of a tree that holds generations'-old secrets in its roots.

This world is both hamster wheel and kaleidoscope--the same old same old and a thousand unimaginable iterations of fractured light, both heartbreaking and beautiful all at once.   Hungry for a way forward, I plan on seeking the bridges and crossing them, hands and heart opened to whatever and whomever I may find on the other side.

Holmes Sweet Home

I love my walks at Holmes Lake.  Like a visit to the East Campus Dairy Store, they rarely disappoint.  Yet, I almost never walk around the whole lake.  Instead, my typical path looks like this:  Head up the dam, cross the bridge, follow a dirt path towards the planetarium, and bend my way back towards the bridge and dam.

How does a place that is so familiar to me keep me coming back, especially if I turn around, halfway through my walk, and retrace my path?  Where's the fun in that?

Here's the thing, though.  When I leave the upper meadow and head back to the bridge, that path is the only thing that hasn't changed.  Now, my eyes and nose are drawn to the voluptuous milkweed plants, their bossomy blooms having never looked--or smelled--better.  Above them, an eastern kingbird chitters wildly in its mid-sky battle with a grackle.

With the yawning sun behind me now, I watch the dam and grasses explode in deep, dark greens while my shadow--stretched long and low--falls across the front page of the local author's newspaper, as she sits at her kitchen table and plans out her day.   Or so I tell myself.

Walking past the low dip of land just east of the dam, the brilliant purple flowers of a native tall thistle catch my eye, and I stand there, gape-jawed, taking them in.  I decide to go off path to take a closer look, although Finn's attention is on a tiny vole as it dashes madly through the grass to safety.  Amazingly, while I can't see the vole, I can follow the jagged line of its escape path by watching small blades of grass bend under its weight.

Atop the dam again, this time I'm blinded by the sunlight, now flooding my view ahead.  Gone are the vultures that, 30 minutes ago, had gathered on the beach below.   Now, a mama mallard and her teenaged kids head away from the shore, while a fisherman casts his line just beyond its mossy edges.

Nearly an hour into my walk, there are more people, and more mosquitos.  Less appealing company, perhaps, but still different, despite being on the same path.

Maybe that's the real pleasure for me, then--the fact that there are new things to discover even when the way might seem old.   Always, by the time we take the slow path off the dam, I feel a connectedness that wasn't there an hour ago.  My senses are heightened, my heart rate slow and easy.  And I care not a whit that my path has been in the shape of a new moon rather than a circle, because it is always revealing something new to me.

A Dreamy Moment on a Timeless Summer's Day

I used to be a much more interesting dreamer.  Back in the day, I might disrupt sleep with outbursts of flying and mayhem,  or with a strange, toothless amble down a raging river.  These days, though, my dreams are more like visits to the local grocery store, filled with little lists and ordinariness, the occasional Jackfruit thrown in to keep things interesting.

Dreams, like so many other things, can let us down a bit if we are expecting only fireworks and Lord Fauntleroy.

So, how to explain the small smile I woke with this morning?  Surely, its source wasn't the tiny dream I'd been having, the one utterly void of action verbs.

But I knew otherwise.  It was, indeed, that simple dream that had washed over me.

In it, a younger me is laying on my bedroom floor, propped up on an elbow and feet crossed casually above my head.  A sketch pad in front of me,  I move my pencil across it, the fat, rounded nub working patiently.  Downstairs, my mom finishes the morning paper, both of us content in the morning quiet.   While I'm sketching, my mind moves to the books I've read and I'm filled with such love for them, for the places they've taken me, the people I've met.  And, for just a moment, I set down my pencil, overwhelmed that there are such things as libraries, all those stories free for the taking.

That was it, my dream.  A few minutes in a timeless space, filled with the beloved and the familiar--my mom, my room, some doodles and books.  Yet, the deep contentment that I woke with hung with me through the next few hours, its presence both warm and familiar.

I'd been between books when I went to bed last night, having said goodbye to Inspector Gamache and Three Pines earlier in the day.  After this morning's dream, though,  I knew exactly what my next book would be, one that is both magical and familiar.  The Wind and The Willows was written, no doubt, for a younger me, yet it is also deeply loved by my current self.

So, this morning, I said "hello" again to Mole and Ratty, letting my hand dangle into the river, while Ratty pushed off from the shore, with no particular place in mind.

The Unbearable and the Lightness

A friend of mine has endured unbearable things these past three months, from a broken body to the violent death of a loved one.  And while I sit here, tongue-tied and baffled, I hope no one will utter to him what some feel compelled to say.

"God never gives us more than we can bear."   

I do not care to know a god that would toy with a person, just to find his tipping point.

On my walk this morning, I had to struggle to resist the urge to explain my friend's recent string of hardships.  A part of me knows that there is no answer--no karmic nod, no cruel god, no if/then equation.  But the desire for explanations seems to be human nature.  We want there to be a logical sequence that adds up to this, in part, I suppose, so that we can manipulate our own future outcomes.

In my resistance of such certainty, a softening emerged.  My eyes and ears took over as my mind began to quiet a bit.  I watched three young grackles--their squawks as shocking as their name--frantically chase after their worn-out mother, her brood now brooding.  At my feet, a half dozen worms, thick and languid, patiently swam the breadth of the rain-pooled sidewalk, seeking higher ground.  Scattered in the dewy grass were hundreds of tiny maples, just a week ago crisp, brown helicopters whirring their way groundward.  Most had landed under the protective limbs of their mother.  Some, perhaps, would become mothers themselves one day.

Near the pool, I ran my hand along the fence and closed my eyes, listening to the rhythmic "gloph" of swimmers' feet, as they broke the surface of the water.  Punctured by occasional laughs and the "hup" of a coach, it was a blissful collection of summer sounds. 

A cloudburst released another round of rain, and I found myself listening to individual drops as they landed on maple leaves and hostas, each contact a distinct note.

By the time I walked by the tennis courts, I felt calm, bathed in the balm of the spirit that breathes through all things.  It is a breath that I hope finds its way to my friend today.

Where, in the midst of Big Bad Things, do we find healing?  The answer, for me, is just outside my door, where roots and wind, rain and sun bind us all together.  And, when I fill up on these things, I am better able to sit with my friend in his darkness.

The Long and Short of It

Saturday morning, while I was outside mowing our weeds, my friends Estelle and Ken stopped by and gave me a beer.  I normally don't drink at 10 a.m., although I'd like to think I'm flexible and open minded.  It was a home brew--a witbier, for you stuffy hopheads--with a lovely label that featured a photo of my friend Andrea, in full mohawk mode.  I held the bottle like I might hold a baby--one reason I'm done having babies.  And I promised to crack it open on May 24, the last day I'll be employed by Lincoln Public Schools.

This photo of Andrea and a motley crew of her fans--myself included--was taken when she was donning that same beer-label 'do.  She was halfway through her cancer journey, which meant that East High also was halfway through her cancer journey.

Andrea was a mighty bright light in my 29 years at this lovely school.  But she was not alone in that spotlight.

For someone whose dad changed jobs every 7 or 8 years, I am verklempt as I ponder this 32-year-long teaching career  (two years at Pius and one at Pound, as well) that began with a lunchtime visit to Teacher's College while I was writing sappy commercials at KFOR.

And, while I suppose it's possible that other jobs can leave a person changed, I can't imagine anything that changes you like a building filled with teenagers.

On those mornings when I woke without oomph,  there was lovely Maryam waiting for me, her shy smile hinting at the poem she wanted to share with me.

On that day when I wondered how we'd get it all done, there were Mya and Noah, across the street from Everett Elementary School, showing off the Little Free Library they'd helped make possible.   And dozens of their classmates--cheerleaders and nerds and woodworkers and readers--along with their teachers, stood on the steps of Everett, all of them celebrating a really cool project that built bridges between tweens and teens.

Over and over and over again, for 32 years, the kids just kept showing up.  Sometimes wily, often funny and kind, they found their way to school, to my classroom, into the library, and made a point to just say "hi."

And the adults did the same.  Like this fall, when, at the end of that really long week,  Pam and Luciano salsa danced on my patio.

Many people who become teachers do it because they love a thing--English or reading or history or art.  But I'd argue that, down the road a bit, it's the humans that keep us coming back.  It is the human framework on which the content hangs that makes this thing work.  And, as much as I love journalism and great books, it is the people I will most miss when I walk out the door May 24th.

. . . everything else was just an onramp to the person I've become.

Walking: The Superior "Sport"

The fife-and-drum-corps that is my nose roused me from a heavy sleep this morning, just in time to make the sunrise at Holmes Lake.   Sluggish, one foot still planted in my dreams,  I pointed the Altima eastward, hitting every red light along the way.   If I were a runner, the amber disruptions would've agitated me.

But I'm not, so they didn't.  Not really.

Along the way, Finn kept sticking his snout in my ear, snuffling a little.  We may have different ways of expressing our excitement for the lake, but ours is a shared enthusiasm.

We left the parking lot and made our way up the dam, anxious to take a look around.   One of the great things about walking is that you can stop walking at any time and just stand there.  In fact, just standing there is a big part of walking.

So Finn and I just stood there, silent, while the sun started peeking over the horizon.  For the next few minutes, I watched our shadows stretch across the dam and over the grasses until I eventually found myself in the living room of that lovely house on the hill.   And then I turned my attention towards the lake, where a dive-bombing, fish-hunting hawk plunged into the waters in search of breakfast.

We stood, immobile but hardly unmoved.

A pride of runners disrupted our reverie, their lycra-clad bodies whizzing by, not a nod or grunt tossed our way.  And, in some small part of my mind, I felt bad for them, certain that they'd missed the show in their noisy pursuit of the perfect heart-rate-to-body-fat ratio.

Standing still is never the goal in a runner's life, which makes no sense at all to a walker.

I've tried to understand the running culture.  Heck, one summer, I ran around Woods Park each morning for ten days, seeking to find out what the draw was.  I came away with shin splints and a growing fear of plantar fasciitis, not a sunrise or bird encounter emblazoned in my mind.

I have friends who run on purpose.  We remain close despite that fact, because that's what friends do, overlook each other's shortcomings in favor of companionship.  I figure running, for them, is a compulsion, like picking at a scab or double checking that the coffee maker is off.

The thing that runners don't seem to understand is that there are other--quieter and calmer--ways to get your heart rate up.   Coming off the dam this morning, I watched a blue heron glide above the water, casually pursued by a handful of red-winged blackbirds, until it settled on a large rock in the middle of the shallow channel.  Had I checked my FitBit, I'd have seen my heart rate spike at 150.

Slow and steady wins the race, so the saying goes.  But, to a walker, the saying is all wrong, because there is no race.  Just one foot in front of the other, until you decide to stop and look around a bit.

A Beautiful Puzzle

What do you do with a view like this when, 50 miles away, someone is standing in his living room, knee deep in mud?  This is the question that has haunted so many Lincolnites of late.

We who were asked to take fewer showers bit our tongues last weekend as sun and warmth pulled us all outside.  And we jammed our relief--a kind of dark, distasteful secret--deep into our pockets, determined not to show it.

As I write this, a handful of vultures buzz my neighbor's treetops and a dozen robins bend earthward, listening for worms.  This morning's view, against a lake no longer thick with ice, was yet another sign that spring may very well be here.

Was my hour at the lake a lavish waste, given the suffering of Nebraskans to the north and west of me?  Depends who you ask, I suppose.  And, while a part of me was tempted to feel guilty, I was grateful for that hour, for the way that it renewed and refilled me.

It has been a very long winter and a lot of folks are suffering right now.  All the more reason to seek out the things that make us more grateful--a beautiful sky, a semi trailer filled with supplies, a stranger's hand reaching out to lift us up.

Take the sunrise when you can.  Then put that light to work.