Category Archives: Spiritual Well Being

remembering Shirley Bryan-an introspective

Shirley Bryan is dead, and she didn’t get to read the book. The book in which a very important supporting character is modeled after her. The book in which I put words in her mouth – made her say what I understood her to say. The book that was dedicated to her because she believed in me, mentored me from afar. Just knowing she was there, just knowing what she would say gave me the affirmation to move forward. Shirley Bryan died January 1 of this year. I found out when I googled her address to send a copy of The Cemetery Wives – albeit with fear and trembling because she has a much more particular grasp of the English language than I do. Nevertheless, I thought proper to send her a copy because I dedicated it to her. Would she still be at the same address? A mere three months ago when I penned the dedication line, I searched online and found her husband, Chaplin Bill, had died two years ago. I have not seen Shirley, talked to Shirley, or been in contact for over 25 years. It is I who am totally responsible for the distance and lack of communication. For the first 12 years after leaving seminary, I chose not to burden her with my day-to-day frustrations because she had plenty of new young women to mentor. For the past twelve I have been ashamed to reach out. I am divorced. My life did not go as it ought. It would have grieved Shirley, as it grieved me. My presence at the seminary was due to my marriage to a seminary student and we are no longer married. 

Back in the day when I was married to a seminary student and Shirley mentored young mothers, we had an understanding. Speaking to young wives was her calling, writing was my growing passion. We would travel the ancient biblical lands together. She would gain knowledge and speak. I would be her amanuensis. In both speaking and writing, we would reach the maximum number of people with truth. In addition, we would both luxuriate in seeing the wonders of the world.

It was never a real plan – only a casual conversation – but her participation in the dream was true encouragement. Something that told me I could move forward. I was free to pursue writing. It might even be my calling.

Tired of living the life

Living the life, he writes from a 230-square-foot studio cabin while penning a yearly update to family. Panoramic views stretch expansively into public lands from the windows liberally flanking three sides of the studio. In the center stands a pot-bellied wood stove. Water reaches toward a boiling point for tea. Hardbound classics stand upright on knotty pine shelves. A vintage microscope, typewriter and various state of the art wireless word-processing devices conveniently litter a sweeping 24-foot, built-in desk space. It can be assumed he is clothed in wool that is very smart – in more ways than one – and featherweight down. 

This is the life, she says. And she is eternally grateful. For over 60 years she has longed for the time and solitude to write. And now she is living the life; living in a well-equipped authentic Victorian row house; rising before dawn and writing for a couple hours; bathing in a vintage claw-foot tub with hot running water that she doesn’t have to fetch or heat; hiking for two hours a day,  every day at whatever time of day suits her fancy; keeping fit, keeping well-read, indulging in virtual choirs and virtual bass workshops and adding to her piano repertoire and strumming her pain with her fingers on a handsome acoustic guitar she never had time to caress until this year.  Most of the time, she is vastly content.  She has done what she said she would do 13 years ago – write.  In the space of eleven months, she brought two novels to print, novels begun in the 80s and now historic. She resurrected a children’s book first published in her initial crusade to become a writer.

But they are tired, these siblings, tired of not being able to meet in a cozy coffee shop, tired of not being able to travel by train or plane to exotic places to expand their intellectual horizons. Tired of restraint from family reunions where laughter is shared by people who overlap with common inherencies. 

Sometimes she grows tired of living the life; tired of not being able to go to a ballroom just every once in a while and find herself in the arms of a man who can really lead and who can dance to boot – or dance in boots if the situation is western; tired of singing virtually without the felt energy of leaning in to match the blend; tired of hawking and signing her books electronically – missing the smiles uncovered and the handshakes hearty and the spontaneity of laughter that does not mute the audio of everyone else.

And as for him? He is living the life – in the lap of all that he loves and has earned, but he is tired of talking to colleagues, about bears and nutes and biodiversity and the human genome, via Zoom. He longs to go global once again – lecture and discuss in Zumbian zoos and the Tanzanian tropics and rustic Denalian lodges. 

And so they coexist, these two siblings, closely related by blood yet often differing in opinion, a few hundred miles apart, in virtual solitude and partial isolation.

Yes, they are living the life in so many ways and they acknowledge it with heartfelt gratitude.

 But in some subtle way, they are tired of living the life. Something needs to change.

Please Judge the book by its cover

Please judge the book by its cover!

It’s the book she never intended to write. You know, the Christian Women’s fiction one. And the audience for this book is probably well over 50 and likes best to read comforting feel-good books by Jan Karon about Father Tim and all the residents of Mitford. 

It’s the book that disappointed her favorite cousin “why doesn’t the main character DO something?” said the cousin when prevailed upon to do a final read through.

It’s the manuscript the author read aloud to her best friend while on a long road trip, so the best friend is not obligated to read the book again – but that friend did volunteer that she loves the cover! The art is mesmerizing.

It’s the book the author’s 32-year-old daughter will probably never read since it’s not Rowling or Tolkien or Austen or Brönte or Frank Herbert. But her daughter, none-the-less, has an eye for style and an opinion about the cover. And that is how the cover came to be washed in shades of brown and looking like a southern gothic adventure set in the 80s.

Artist Courtney Harris did a fabulous job of interpreting the author’s ideas of a cemetery in Texas in 1989. The author is happy with the cover. The author’s daughter is happy with the cover. The artist’s mother is happy with the cover. The author’s best friend is happy with the cover. So please, go ahead and judge the book by its cover!

Because the back cover says “Caution: contains Bible quotes and seminary speak and a very unconventional love story.” 

Unconventional. Yes. In the latest film version of Little Women, Mr. Dashwood (the publisher) tells Jo March, “and if the main character is a woman, make sure she is married by the end of the book – or dead!” The ending would satisfy Mr. Dashwood – and all those who share his point of view. Someone is dead and someone is married.

Farewell 2020 i regret nothing

Farewell 2020.

I regret nothing.

Hindsight is 2020, everyone is saying, and now 2020 is in our rearview mirror. 

None of us have any desire to cling to the past

Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be? 

We move forward with hope that tomorrow will be better than today.

We turn the leaf to a fresh new page

Farewell, farewell!

There is no going back.

I regret nothing.

Now is the time to harness the energy for greeting the adventures around the corner, not for ruing the past.

Hope springeth eternal

Does it?

Then, let it!

There is no time like the present to continue to do what you have always wanted to do.

The challenges are no greater and no less than they have ever been

Give it your all

Things I do not regret from 2020

I do not regret moving back to Colorado

Not sorry I discovered Durango

Not sorry I spent my savings on a washer and a dryer and two down vests and a pair of

top-flight, waterproof hiking boots.

I do not regret the kayak

Not sorry I found people to sing with virtually so that I must practice every day and thereby increase my oxygen and endorphin intake

Not sorry I busied myself about music during isolation and learned bass and bought a bass amp.

I have no regrets concerning cloistering myself and writing for nine and a half months.

2020 was a year of incredible events, unforeseen depths of loss and amazing opportunity. I regret nothing. Onward 2021.

River Reprise

When the Universe speaks, I try to listen. Winter cometh. I offer this reprise:

A Trickle or a Flood, June 7, 2016 She sat on the banks of the muddy San Juan, in the shadow of a bighorn sculpture and watched the river roll away lazily to the Southwest. It made her long for the beach. That is where the river was headed, after all – to join the mighty Colorado at Lake Powell and finally empty into the Pacific Ocean.

But she knew something the river did not yet know; it would never make it to the ocean. It was headed for the beach, but along the way destined to recreate, irrigate, hydrate, relax and refresh millions of people. Somewhere, 50 miles or so short of the Gulf of California, the river would trickle to a stop.

So she pondered this truncation, this travesty, this unavoidable change of plans people foisted on the river and she asked herself, “How are you doing on your own bucket list? Are you headed for the beach? And whether you ever make it to the beach, will you restore and refresh and recreate and relax? How much of you will be absorbed and diverted into the schemes and needs of others? How much of the landscape of your life will you beautify along the way?”

Live. Love. Laugh. Learn. You do not know if your end will be part of a cataclysmic flood or simply trickle away.

San Juan River, Bluff Utah, May 2016

The covert bassist

The Covert Bassist

So. I’ve been learning to pay the bass – for about eight months. No amp. No teacher. Just reading the books and the notes and learning. She is home now. Home from six months of backpacking and back country rangering and so the dance of living in a music house begins again.

I wait until she goes off to noontime martial arts class before I practice my vocal exercises because I don’t want to scream her ears off and I am trying to break through that barrier, to give it more, to be a better, stronger vocalist than I have ever been before. I play piano in the evenings. Often with the door ajar. Piano I have under my belt so it is a good thing to share with the neighbors; not so my siren wailing. Once the door is closed, I woodshed on the guitar. Anytime of day I can play the bass because I don’t have an amp. So really, I can’t play the bass when someone else – like the off-season ranger – is playing mandolin and singing at performance pitch. Actually, who would want to practice bass anyway when you can listen to such heartfelt and talented protest folk tunes coming from the other room. 

Let’s rethink that. Who wouldn’t want to play along to such anthems? Mandolin. Voice. The only logical complement to the sound is bass. Preferably upright bass. But here I am – the mom in the other room with a horizontal bass and no amp. An aspiring bassist who can’t help but move toward the music. So, I head to the kitchen. Two walls and the thickness of a closet between us. 

When she plays, I play. When she falls silent, I fall silent. But I am cloistered around the corner in the kitchen and she doesn’t even know I am there. When she stops to ferret out the next gem of a lyric, I hold my peace. I look around the kitchen to see what is at hand to occupy my time. Sadly, what is at hand is carob chips, a cask of peanut butter, bags of corn chips, a plethora of natural snacks. I’m going to have to move to the other room and confess before I gain 20 pounds. While there’s not too much unusual or interesting about a mom hiding in the pantry and eating herself into obesity; and there may be a little something romantic about a covert bassist; it’s probably time to come out of the closet. I’ve ordered an amp. That way I can plug in the headphones and no one will ever know.

Turning gray with dust

You see, I tried washing my hair this morning to no avail.

October 18, 2020: Andrea and I traveled two hours up a dirt road yesterday – to a ridge dense with lodgepole along the Colorado Trail behind and beyond Purgatory Ski Area – almost to Rico. We hiked for a couple hours and then returned via the same dusty road, coughing and sputtering and sneezing whist reminding ourselves to keep sipping from hydration packs. Arriving home, we exited her trusty 4-wheel drive truck, stomped our feet at the door and entered our apartment. We smelled like dust. In our wake, the kitchen smelled like dust.  My hair, freshly washed before setting out, was grey and smelled like dust. As I brushed out my hair – billows of dust scattered everywhere. I thought of my Mom and her stories of traveling the Alcan Highway in 1953. Her hair turned so gray from the dust – she said – that the inn keeper thought she was Dad’s mother when they found a room and stopped for the evening. She remedied this by washing her hair in water dipped from the nearby stream. Her hair returned to dark brunette. I tried washing my hair this morning to no avail. I’m still sporting long shimmering gray over light brown locks. Maybe I need to fetch water from a stream?

Why We Weep at Weddings

We attended a wedding yesterday. Yes. We suspended our Saturday busyness and took baths in the vintage claw foot tub, dressed with care in garments chosen from the special events side of our closets –seldom used of late – and Zoomed in and attended the wedinar. It was a very early wedding for some of the guests. 9:00 AM Mountain Daylight time for those of us in Colorado. God forbid you woke on the west coast this morning and had to be washed and dressed and in attendance by 8:00 AM.

It probably seemed a late wedding for the principals who have known each other – known this was the one – for three years and who have been waiting, waiting for COVID19 to clear. Late or not, it was a beautiful wedding. 11:00 AM in Cambridge meant the bride looked fashionably appropriate in her street-length, flare-skirted, professionally tailored, white wedding dress and elbow length veil. The ceremony took place in a lovely, huge, Presbyterian church complete with pipe organ, vestments, linens and vessels of communion; and empty pews. Fortunately, both bride and groom are musically astute so they obligingly sang the congregational hymns. But most of all, the bride and groom are intelligent and wise. We loved them for their integrity. We applauded them for pulling this off in the midst of a socially distanced pandemic and in such a way that we could be invited and included- something that would not have been possible from a distance of 2,000 miles in more traditional times.

And we cried. Not because of Coronavirus and because these kids can’t have a regular wedding with hundreds in attendance. No. We cried for all the reasons guests usually cry at weddings. We cried because they are young and idealistic and have perfect plans for their lives. One of us is old and disillusioned and knows what too often happens to idealistic plans. So she wipes her tears and smiles and says in her heart, may theirs come to fruition! The other of us is still young and idealistic and listens to their vows with rapt attention and thinks, it finally happened for them. Will this ever finally happen for me? We listen to the bride’s parents extol her virtues. She is literary and loves to hike and camp. Sigh. She is a perfect woman. We weep. Like women of any age and any era we look over the groomsmen in Zoom thumbnails and try to decipher who is most eligible. In the plus column, we see that all have beards. Wonder of wonders, they are quoting C.S. Lewis in their wedding speeches. What riches! What intelligence! We have found our people! Briefly, we cry again for joy. Where have all the young men gone? We also see companions in the thumbnails; family members in the guestbook photo gallery. Ah, most of the wedding party have found their people and are surrounded by wives and toddlers. The best woman (aka sister of the groom) is planning her nuptials That is good! The world is unfolding as it should. And again, we weep.

Not one tear do we shed for social distance. We are happy to be invited and attend virtually. In no other way would it be possible to be present. We didn’t have to wait until cake was served. You can have your cake – and eat it too, and your popcorn or chips anytime you feel like it at a virtual wedding. You can run spontaneously to the kitchen for chips and juice to take communion with the un-crowd. I even answered a phone call from the other room.

So yes. It is August of 2020 and we went to a wedinar yesterday. We laughed. We were inspired and comforted. We wept. What makes you cry at weddings?

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The Grateful Victim

It was something of a miracle to wake for the ninety-sixth time with a feeling of well-being. Make no mistake; she had moments of sadness and loss – bereavement even; periods of anger and denial. But she soldiered through them like a normal person. Treated them like an acceptable result of life and death. Gone were the days of abject despond and paralyzing fear that used to seize her for no reason when everything was going well. Gone the constant feeling of victimization even in the midst of the best of times. These days gratitude is her trademark. Gratitude on waking. Gratitude on drifting off to sleep – solidly. She abides in Peace. And Love. And Creativity. She knows herself to be a victim of only one thing. She is a victim of God’s perfect timing. Yes. A victim of the unfolding of the Universe. This is not the way she chose for it to go. Her choices were snatched from her hands. All her perfect plans – and she laid many with her God-given analytical brain – were treated as nothing. She is now living in Colorado – the place she longed to be. But she didn’t get here with the pomp and circumstance and grace she intended. She was unceremoniously thrust out of hot Arizona and tossed into Durango without warning on the cusp of COVID-19. Did I say without grace? By all appearances it was not a graceful landing – it was more of an ignominious heap. But it was definitely Grace! Yes. She is a recipient of God’s perfect timing. Orchestrated by a Universe in which she is a miniscule particle. Quarantined in the mountains. Forced to not go to work for eight weeks – to not even sip from the bottle of workaholism. Forced to write and read and make music. Required to engage in no activity save those that were exactly what her soul needed. Prohibited from shopping save for health and nourishment. Absolved of any pressure to socialize the introvert within. Add to that, her mother was dying. She had known it for many months. It was no unnatural or sudden shock. The death of an aging loved one is as expected as paying taxes. These global circumstances, so negative to the entire world, again positioned her in proximity to be there the moment restrictions eased and her mother attained final peace. And for that she is eternally grateful.

There are years, years we live through without relief, where nothing happens for us. We are caught in the overwhelming mud of the flood. Bogged down in the Slough of Despond. We are not absolved from the responsibility of our own self-care nor, ironically, of the admonition to give thanks in everything. But let us not fail to acknowledge and be grateful for the miraculous when God steps in and victimizes us with a perfect plan. You can trust the Universe. Rest in that. And be grateful.IMG_4863skysteps

An Old Fashioned Girl and Sneetches

First, let me say that I am aware there are far more important things going on in the world than my sense of fashion and what I ate for breakfast. Conversely, what I wear and what I eat may directly inform my immunity to disease and strengthen me to engage in meaningful activity whether active or passive.

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An Old Fashioned Girl She had always been a little bit old-fashioned. Her high school classmates can attest to that. But after her release into adulthood, she gradually drew abreast of fashion, in some instances becoming a trend-setter. And so it was with the reintroduction of bandanas. She was like everybody else, yet ahead of the game. She had a collection of 15 and wore a different one everyday. But lately she seemed to be falling behind again. Increasingly fewer folk were sporting bandanas on the trail. And then, her city enacted a face-covering in public spaces policy. Sadly it met with open rebellion and scorn. Yet, she had always been a bit old-fashioned, and that often entails following the rules.IMG_4756The Rules If you bristle that your rights are being violated when you are asked to wear a mask – or a shirt – or shoes – or a uniform-or a bathing suit – please save that energy and zeal for issues of prejudice we have recently witnessed – like Stars Upon Thars. In my opinion, mandatory testing should not be for all – nor should mandatory immunizations – or immunizations that have not been fully tested. But hey, bandanas for all is no great sacrifice – nor is a six-foot rule grievous to she who rather likes her space on the trail or in the grocery store.IMG_4704boulevardbandanaKeep on Doing Good 

  • If you would protest, stay fit and stay well. What you eat for breakfast and what you wear may be important.
  • If you would cry out, don’t cry “wolf,” save your voice for what really matters. Keeping your instrument (be it voice, strings or pen) well exercised will keep your music – and you – alive.
  • Be strong! Flaunt your fashion! Keep calm. Save your protestations for things that really matter.

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Keep doing it – day after day! Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Be courteous to your neighbor. Fight evil. May Love be with you.

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