Tender

It's been less than a month since I first saw the surgeon who will give me a new hip in the morning. From the moment I limped out of his office into a beautiful fall afternoon I felt changed. It took some time for me to identify what the change was.

At first I felt shocky. I had just willingly decided to have a part of my body removed and replaced with metal and ceramic. After a lifetime characterized by an avoidance of all things medical, my world was suddenly about to be full of doctors and procedures and endless questions about every nook and cranny of my body.

By the next day as I talked to the scheduling nurse to set up the four appointments necessary before the surgery, I found myself more curious than anything. This was a whole new world for me with new people to meet, a new language to learn, new stuff to experience. And it had started to sink in that on the other side of the surgery I would walk fluidly on both legs again with no joint pain.

As I talked to the people who line my life with their soft and grace-filled care and love, I heard gratitude and wonder in my explanations of what was coming for me. "I'm getting a new hip!" "Isn't it amazing to live in a time where joint replacements are so common?" "I feel so blessed to have the resources to be able to do this."

Overwhelmed at times by the long list of school and life chores I felt I needed to get done before surgery, I managed most of the time to stay present and to do calmly what was in front of me to do. As the time grew shorter, however, I found myself doing odd things like writing and rewriting lists, organizing drawers and cleaning out my email address book. Finally on Wednesday last week, although I'd heard her say it many times before, when my best school friend Kelly said, "Let it go," I was finally able to.

Last weekend I was in the kitchen fixing dinner when I heard a thump. The unique thump that told me another bird had flown into the bay window of our dining area. When I went to investigate, there was a round spot of dust and feathers in the middle of the window. I moved closer, scanning the ground, not sure I wanted to see what might be there, hoping against hope I would see nothing.

I saw a fairly large bird, big-sparrow-sized, not the junco I expected. It sat with its back to the window, clearly stunned, but also clearly alive. Something was off though. The head didn't look right and for a minute I thought maybe it had been smashed in the collision. But then it started to rotate — slowly, slowly, slowly in my direction. Owl!

A Northern Pygmy Owl to be precise. Only the second I've ever seen. Certainly not a regular visitor to our feeders. I stood and watched it for the longest time. Walt ended up finishing dinner. While I studied that amazing little bird and watched it slowly regain its equilibrium, I was filled with a sense of joy and well-being. Not a new feeling exactly, but one brightened and enhanced in some way. After a bit, it was clear the owl was going to be okay—his head rotations increased both in number and speed—so I wasn't at all surprised when he flew to the fir tree at the side of our yard.

For the rest of that evening I returned again and again to both the owl and the feeling. Wondering why I was moved far beyond my normal reaction. And I realized somewhere in those meandering thoughts that I had been feeling that joy and sense of well-being, a feeling of everything being exactly right, since the day I walked out of the surgeon's office.

And more, I had been feeling— I still do—like I'd been opened. By making myself vulnerable to this great medical adventure, somehow I let go of defenses I wasn't aware I still held. And in that openness, underneath the skin of protection, I found a tenderness that exceeds anything I've ever known. The tenderness makes everything so much more - like new skin, or sunlight after months of gray skies, or falling in love.

I'm as prepared as I can be for tomorrow.  I believe them when they say the first ten days are hard. I know it's going to hurt. But I've done hard before, and well. And this pain will diminish a bit each day, unlike the pain I've been living with for years now. But more than anything I'll travel into tomorrow, wide open and as tender as innocence, held in love and prayers and support that humble me and make me sing with gratitude.

Walker

The dairy I spent the latter half of my childhood on was seven miles from town. That seven miles was often the reason I couldn't go to parties or go to the beach and hang with friends in the summer, at least until we were old enough to drive. I begged to be allowed to walk into town, was told it was too far, unsafe, "No!" But one summer day when I was in my early teens Mom said yes and I walked those seven miles along the highway with a friend.

There's a lot I don't remember about that day, but what does stand out for me still is the sense of total freedom and the intimacy with everything I walked by. Daisies seemed more exotic, as did the Canadian thistles and tansy that also dotted our fields at home. Dogs rushing to the edge of properties barking fiercely made us laugh with relief once we made our way past. The wind of cars rushing by, headed in the opposite direction to possibly the Canadian border, rocked us and whipped our hair and made me feel so alive.

That walk gave me access to the adventurer in my soul I'd only found previously in the depths of my imagination. I remember the arrival in town was a little disappointing. Even though my legs were rubbery, my feet were blistered (cheap flipfops not good hiking shoes), and my nose would peel in the days to come, I would have walked all the way to Spokane 80 miles farther with just the littlest bit of encouragement.

In the nearly half century since then walking has been my meditation, my exercise, my solitude, my everything.

The summer I was pregnant with Kathleen and as alone as I'd ever been, I walked the streets of Spokane every day for hours, finding comfort in my body's movement and the sense of relief from the oppressive heat of my attic room and the shame that threatened to consume me.

In the years between Kathleen and the cult I roamed the streets of Seattle, Great Falls and then Spokane again. When I moved to Portland, I rode a bike for a while, but found that two wheels and the balance and attention required to stay alive on them were nothing like traveling on the power of my own two legs. So I got rid of the bike and walked Portland as well. On those walks I imagined myself living in the beautiful old homes I passed. I prayed endlessly to be changed and to be loved. I inhaled the fragrances of flowers, and often took them with me as company for the rest of the walk.

I almost always walked alone, although much much later I came to understand I was accompanied on every single walk of my life by the Creator of the mysteries I absorbed with each step.

Even during the cult years I found bits of time here and there to escape into long wandering walks. Shortly after my marriage a golden retriever named Jesse came into our lives, and my walks took on a purpose. I found wild trails nearby our suburban home on which I would let him off-leash and I would watch the seasons change and be delighted with small scurrying thing and larger flying ones.

When that life and my marriage disintegrated, I began running. Mile after mile after mile around a high school track until my shins stung and my lungs ached. I ran everywhere, but found pleasure only in the accumulation of miles and the escape from myself. Running kept me safely separate from the world, my feelings, and the Companion of my walks whom I'd felt I betrayed when I left the cult.

Then I met Walt, and the walks began again. At first on the wild trails of our suburban neighborhood with a new golden retriever named Kelly. Then, when we moved to the country 20 years ago, on the miles of trails of nearby Lewisville Park with Kelly, then Riley (another golden) for the ten years of his life.

When we got Toby five years ago I found the park walks were too hard. In part it was his strength and stubbornness. But looking back, the decision to take the shorter paths closer to home had more to do with my own increasing pain than it did with Toby.

My right hip became a constant aching presence in my life. I ignored it as best I could for a long time. Then sought every alternative treatment possible, and did all I could to take care of it. Until one day I realized I was avoiding walking because it hurt too much. Where I used to park as far away from my destinations as possible so I could walk farther, I found myself avoiding places altogether if I couldn't park close by. Walking across my classroom seemed impossible and I made the kids come to me more and more. Shopping for groceries I got even more efficient than I'd ever been before, and if I forgot something on an aisle I'd already passed, it had to wait until the next trip.

What had once been a light and lively gait became a Lurch-like limp that inspired one of my students to say recently that I looked like a penguin.

The injection that provided enough relief for me to enjoy Belize this summer as though nothing was wrong wore off in three months. And so I find myself, at sixty, with a date to receive a new hip. In three weeks, I'll turn myself over to a surgeon who will remove a part of me that has served me so well for so long and is finally worn out. He'll replace it with a modern contraption of metal and ceramic that is meant to give me back my ability to make my way through the world on my own two feet, powered by my own two legs, freely and pain-free.

I'm as prepared as I can be for this new adventure. I feel deep gratitude that I live in a time and have the resources that make the replacement both possible and almost an ordinary event. I feel even more gratitude for this hip that finally wore out, and I'm sad to be saying goodbye to her. I will welcome her replacement and learn to love her as well.

The one thing I'm struggling most with right now is the fact that I'll have to use a walker for a couple of months after the surgery. I know it's not a rational thing, but I can hardly bear the mental picture of me shuffling along, pushing that metal contraption in front of me. I see old, decrepit, crippled. And even knowing that walker is going to be my ticket to independent walking, I'm having to breathe my way through the thought of it.

Walking saved me. I've found my true self in those miles, found freedom, found a God who loves me and understands me. The miles strengthened my body without my trying. And when I picture myself as an old woman, I see someone like Mary Oliver who strides out into the wilds of the world discovering the magic and wonder and beauty there until I draw my last breath.

I will make friends with the walker about to come into my life, not because she's someone I'd ever consider friend material, but because I need her to restore the most important part of my being to me. And I will soon be a walker again in every important sense of the word.

Capturing Color

Gray has returned to us, just in time to provide the perfect backdrop to fall colors that are more vivid than any I can remember in recent years. I wandered into my yard yesterday morning, camera in hand, determined to capture as much of the color as I could. It's an annual ritual. I have probably hundreds of pictures of the dying flames of summer, and none come close to actually reproducing what my eyes see and my heart feels. Yet that doesn't stop me from trying.

As I snapped the sunset maple and the parrotia and the sumac and the blueberries and the burning bush my mind kept going back to the colors of last weekend. Then I found a perfect rose in the midst of all the fall splendor and that took me straight to memories of the women I shared the weekend with. 

A group of blogger friends met at an incredible house on a sweet island. We knew each other through our words, and the instant bonds that were formed in real life were absolute proof to me that the written word exposes both heart and soul in ways we might not ever realize. 

Some of us had met previously, but this group of six women, all in their sixties, with uncanny life connections, had never gathered as a unit before. A bystander would never have guessed from the nonstop chatter, the endless smiles, the frequent laughter. 

We all got lost on our way to meet each other. Two of us weren't technically lost, but thought we were, which turns out is pretty much the same thing. The other four had gotten really lost, the result of too many directions and a number of wrong turns. What was amazing was that our first contact of the weekend happened while two of us were on a ferry the rest of the group was waiting to catch. 

Fall was in full glory on Vashon Island, and we had a ringside seat to its beauty, illuminated under unseasonably sunny skies. Our home for the weekend was a three story, fully-restored, 1930s farmhouse. The air was redolent of the scent of lavender. Mt. Rainier stood faded and majestic in the distance like a sentinel watching over us. Water surrounded us, a soothing and envigorating presence, blessing us at every turn. 

I spent some time one afternoon wandering the grounds of Lavender Hill Farm, camera in hand, determined to capture the color and beauty of the place. I picked an apple and ate it, savoring the crisp and juicy wildness. I picked late raspberries and ate them, too, delighted with the pops of summer tartness on my tongue. I cut lavender, stopping often to look back up the hill to the porch where the rest of the women sat. 

As the youngest of the group I felt their presence above me like a protective shield. Wisdom, love, understanding, acceptance, curiosity, openness - all radiated toward me. Wandering in solitude, seeking color and magic, held in the larger hand that is the gift of aging women whose light shines as brightly as the fall colors do against the backdrop of graying skies. 

When I downloaded the pictures from our weekend, not one really captured the friendships, the color, the powerful energy our coming together created. They will, however serve to refresh the vivid splashes of memory I've carried with me all week, when they fade, as they inevitably will. 

I see DJan, the oldest of the group, just a few weeks left in her sixties. Beautiful, serene, and incredibly fit, she hikes and jumps out of airplanes and writes about all of it. She makes aging something to be looked forward to, to be envied even.

I see Linda, whom I'd met once before, and felt drawn to instantly. Since retirement she's traveled more than most people do in a lifetime. She says she's not adventurous, but shows no fear about facing any challenge before her. She inspires me to pursue  my own travel dreams with more intention. 

I see Jann, whose dry wit is even sharper in person and whose irreverence and honesty had us all laughing to the point of tears. She reminds me that truth does not have to hurt, but instead can bring light and lightness to any situation.

I see Sally, traveled the farthest from Colorado, the one whose words had offered me healing comfort in the weeks after Kathleen died. Fellow members of a terrible club, our bond all stronger for that, we found our sisterhood went beyond the deaths of our daughters. 

I see Sandi, my dear dear friend and sister of my soul. A fellow member of that terrible club, yet she is one of the most generous, open and loving people I know. We traveled together, coming and going, our friendship somehow strengthened through our contact with the other women.

All women in the fall of life, yet all full of flashing, flaming light that radiates both heat and the brightest colors imaginable. 

So while my camera cannot quite capture the full palette of fall, and my words will not quite capture the magic of our weekend, the woman that I am radiates more fully, more brightly, because of my time with five women whose vivid colors will shine forever in my heart.

Sandi, Sally, Jann, Linda, DJan

An Ordinary Morning

The darkness in the room tells me it's earlier than I want it to be on a Saturday morning, and a glance at the clock confirms: 3:30. I'm tired through and through, but there's no going back to sleep. I get up and start the day as I do every day. Feed Toby. Feed Emma. Make tea.

I try not to think about the list of unfinished work on my desk at school, or the pile of correcting I brought home, or the new reading adoption I begin teaching on Monday. I try not to worry about the kids whose stories have begun to emerge more clearly and who I'm already wondering if I'll be enough for. But it was these thoughts that awakened me, and they cling to me, like the spiderwebs I walk into on Toby's walks these days.

The house is blessedly quiet. Walt still sleeping. Toby and Emma back to sleep. I do some laundry, sweep the floors, but then can't settle into any of the many tasks awaiting. As I stand, trying to decide what to do next, a glimpse of color catches my eye. The sky on the other side of the kitchen window shows the faintest blush possible. Just enough to draw me outside.

The air is surprisingly warm for a September dawn, but I can feel the bite underneath—like a really good lemonade. I wander into the yard, toward the eastern sky, but a movement to the west redirects my course. It's the head of a runner bobbing on the other side of our field and neighbor, on the road that connects us with the highway. I barely have time to register a frisson of envy, when a much larger movement  explodes into our field.

The runner must have startled the deer as they breakfasted on our neighbor's fine selection of fruit. We've been seeing deer more often in the last few weeks: a pair nibbling on my red twig dogwood, a yearling crashing out of the woods in front of me, a doe and her twins wandering across our back fence line. This morning, however, there are five. It looks like two does, a spike, and the very small twins we've seen before.

I watch them graze across the field, the fawns dashing ahead, and then back, until all five have moved into the trees the mark our eastern boundary. In all the years we've lived here, this is the first time I've seen five deer at the same time. And while deer are as ordinary as rabbits here, this sighting creates a huge space around my worries, lifting them away enough that I breathe freely for the first time in days.

After standing in the freshness of a new day for a while, wrapped in the wonder of the gift I'd just been given, I turned to go back in. Looking up, I saw a perfect half moon, with her friend Venus, both gazing down on me as though they were there just for me.

In every way measurable, this morning was ordinary. Yet the short time I was outside felt like an adventure of heart, soul, and spirit. An answer to a prayer I didn't know I'd sent. I walk into the dawned day now lighter, clearer, and with an energy that even sleep can't provide.

Curious about what message the deer might have brought me, I did some research and found these words: We can learn that the gift of gentleness and caring can help us overcome and put aside many testing situations. Only love, both for ourselves and for others, helps us understand the true meaning of wholeness. May you be blessed by them, the deer and the words, as much as I am this morning.

http://www.shamanicjourney.com/article/6025/deer-power-animal-symbol-of-gentleness-unconditional-love-and-kindness

Anticipation

During the planning of our trip to Belize we researched thoroughly the land of our coming adventure. We read books, went online, talked to people who had traveled there before us. Over the course of that learning, I formed very distinct and detailed mental pictures of what I expected to find on arrival: Large flocks of bright-billed toucans everywhere. Time in the jungle canopy (during our zip-lining day)   to savor the mysteries of life above-ground. Our cabana on the beach a perfect romantic tropical retreat.

Those things, and many others, did not even come close to my imagined pictures. Fortunately the delights and wonders that surprised me, far exceeded anything I might have anticipated. So Belize was not quite what I expected in either direction, as seems to be the case for just about everything in life.

We're given information about a new thing. We form pictures of the new thing based on that information and our previous life experiences. The more information we have, and the broader our previous experiences, the more accurate our pictures often are. However, for me at least, the reality is always different than the anticipation. A reality for which I find myself more grateful with each passing year.

For most of last year, as I was enjoying a particularly cohesive and delightful group of fifth graders, I was told by both current and previous teachers to enjoy them, because the next group coming up was not going to be that way at all. Stories were told about a class taking the sharp edges out of all the hand-held pencil sharpeners in the room.  It seemed that half the boys in the class were severely ADHD, and unmedicated. I was told once in the spring that I would need to "wear my helmet" with the new group of kids. They were described as needy, busy, exhausting, low (academic), unparented, immature, lacking leadership skills, poor writers, non readers. There were exceptions, of course, but those kids were seriously outnumbered.

My teammates and I were determined to love these kids. The four of us believe strongly in the fresh start each year offers, and we knew this class deserved the same clean slate being offered to every other group of kids. We knew they needed it more than many. But in spite of our doggedly optimistic conversations about this coming year, I was worried about my ability to provide the unconditional love and acceptance that were my only chance of reaching this class.

The exact kinds of kids I was receiving warnings about were often the ones I've had the hardest time loving, and working with, in the past. I knew I was sunk if I was going to rely on will-power, or training, or any of the myriad management tricks in my teacher toolkit. So I did something unusual for me. I prayed, and turned the whole thing over. That's not that unusual in itself. The fact that I did it before things got bad—that's unusual.

I didn't sleep well the last night of summer vacation. I never do. Not because I was worried about the kids, but because of the infinite list of last minute details needing attention before I opened the door at 7:50 the next day. I woke the next morning, my twenty-fourth first-day-of-school as a teacher, calm and even eager to meet the day.  That sense of calm stayed with me as I set up for the day, as I opened the door to greet my new students, as I introduced twenty-five wide-eyed kids to their fifth grade year.

The first day was perhaps the best first day I've had. It went fast, there were no (seriously, not one) problems, and we had fun. While I'd been prepared for the need for the don't-smile-until-Thanksgiving rule, I found myself smiling often and easily, with no adverse effects. The kids I'd been warned about were the most responsive I've ever experienced to a smile, a hug (these guys are huggers in a big way), a promise of good things to come.

On the second day a boy I'll call Daniel, whom several people had given me warnings about, went out of his way to clean up a mess in the lunch bin—without being asked. When I pointed out his initiative to the class, another boy wanted to know what had happened to Daniel, who that boy was, because last year Daniel was mean and nothing at all like the boy I was acknowledging.

By the end of the third day, the end of our first week, my sense of calm had, if anything, grown. Yes, I was exhausted. My feet hurt. My hip hurt. The pile of correcting on my desk threatened to steal precious weekend time. But none of that mattered. I knew that no matter what I was going to bring to my kids this year, no matter how much love or learning, none of that would be bigger than the gift of the sense of divine calm that seems to be a new default position for me.

I never was entirely clear last year why I had to return to teaching. I'm thinking this is the year that holds that answer. An answer that offers as much abundant grace, and love, for me as it does for my kids.

Solo

Deciding to solo in last night's performance was like so many choices in life: You say a reluctant yes, believing you can change your mind at any time, when in reality the yes refuses to be so easily undone.

I'm a new drummer. An accidental drummer, truth be told. Walt and I started classes with Clifford at the beginning of March. We had such a great time with the first one, we took a second, and a third. The only option for summer drumming was a performance class, so we signed up for that, trusting Clifford's right hand Audra when she said we'd do well and it would be fun.

And it was so much fun. Learning whole rhythms that involved not only the djembes we play, but also dununs, the bass drums of Western African drumming. Meeting new people. Getting to know new friends better. Feeling like a real drummer, with a true sense of the music, the beat, the complex weaving of sounds.

From the beginning Clifford talked casually about the fact that he wanted us each to at least consider soloing for the performance. Part of one class session was spent practicing both individual and group solos, with nothing decided about who would or would not do a solo at the end.

At another session closer to the actual performance date, he asked us all to try a solo during practice. Nothing big, just a couple of good hits to mark our place and intention. After we'd all survived that, he asked us who wanted to solo for at least one of our three rhythms at the performance. Mine was the next to last hand in the air.

I didn't want to solo. But neither did I want to be the only person who didn't solo—yes, there apparently is an adolescent alive and well inside. Plus I was hooked by the challenge of it, and maybe lulled by Clifford's easy confidence that we couldn't fail. Mostly, though, I agreed because I was so afraid of soloing. And I figured it wouldn't be too bad to hit a few quiet notes for one rhythm from the safety of our line of djembe players.

Then Clifford told us we needed to play loudly enough that we could be heard over the other drums when we soloed. Once we'd practiced a few times with very short  and sufficiently loud solos, he mentioned that it would be a good idea if we each stepped forward when it was our turn. When we all managed that without trauma, he added that we could play a solo for all three of our rhythms if we wanted.

No place to hide.

The thought of the performance itself didn't make me nervous at all. I practiced nearly every day and listened to recordings of our classes when I wasn't practicing. My handing and tones improved noticeably from week to week, and although I knew I wasn't even close to sounding like Clifford or Audra or any of the  drummers in the advanced class, I felt confident that I would hold my own in the group.

The thought of soloing was another story. It wasn't really something I could practice because it was supposed to be from the heart—my own personal rhythm in response to the larger rhythms being played around me. In order to solo, I had to be willing to step toward an audience, away from the safety of the group, and do my best knowing best would be far more about enthusiasm and guts than skill.

When my turn came last night, the first solo in our second rhythm, I stepped forward and made myself look into the audience. Where I saw two of my brothers and a sister-in-law smiling wildly, cameras at the ready. Where I saw my dear friend Daune and her husband and daughter with faces full of curiosity and kindness. I smiled back and  gave myself over to a nervous, short and sufficiently loud rhythm. When I stepped back into the safety of the line with the warmth of Walt's approval to my immediate left and the palpable love of my friends and family to the front, I felt the same sense of satisfaction I'd felt earlier in the summer at the end of our day in Actun Tunichil Muknal.

There was a second solo for the last rhythm, also short, also nervous, and nothing like the intricate and wonderful performances of both my husband and the more experienced drummers in the group. My success came not in the quality of my rhythms, but in my willingness to open the door for them to emerge. My willingness to be seen as less than perfect (even though I do really know perfection is a toxic myth). My willingness to celebrate my particular place in this process of learning without feeling the shame I often do that I'm not somewhere farther ahead.

Climbing

We sat outside the Tillamook Cheese Factory savoring rich ice cream and the perfect coast weather when Lisa asked if I'd ever been to Pacific City. We were on an adventure at the beach with the plan of continuing north to wander Manzanita and Cannon Beach. Pacific City was to the south, but the possible adventure of dune climbing at Cape Kiwanda made the change of plans an easy decision.

She knew of a place by the dune that stood above a crevasse where the ocean had cut through the sandstone. It had seemed magical to her, even in the fog of the day she was there—a place that might receive a hearts' desire and return it fulfilled beyond the asking. It was a perfect destination for two friends who hold each other's dreams as close as their own, whose times together are always gifts of discovery.

Our trudge up impossibly steep and loose sand in the sunny salt air was invigorating. Instead of arriving at the edge of the crevasse, we found ourselves at a fence with a sign warning us that to proceed was extremely dangerous. Even that far back from the edge, I felt the first stirrings of vertigo, my body's warning system warming up. We both held rocks gathered at a beach on the way intended to hold the wishes we were going to send into the crevasse and out into the universe. I decided that neither a fence nor my fear would interfere with our intentions.

I found a spot to duck under the heavy wire, leaving my shoes behind and proceeding carefully toward the edge. Each step was a bare foot connecting carefully with solid packed sand, until I saw the cut and the rush of compressed surf far below. Lisa was right, it was a magical place, even more powerful on this incredible cloudless, sun-filled day.

She joined me. After looking over the edge we stood back a bit, and held hands while she wished for both of us and flung her rock as far as she could. There was no sound beyond the surf and our breathing—no splash, no ricochet report of rock against rock, as if the wishes flew beyond. When it was my turn, we held hands again, I offered my wishes, one for Lisa, one for me, and hurled them with the perfect round stone over the edge. Again silence.

Satisfied, but not finished, we decided to proceed to the top of the dune. We watched people half our age climbing on hands and knees, rested with a young man whose face was geranium red, marveled at how tiny the people below appeared.

Finally standing atop the dune at Cape Kiwanda, my face stinging from the wind-blasted sand and the exertion of the climb, I took in the forever view of the rugged Oregon coastline. On one side, far below and spread out before me in a panorama of greens and blues with white lace trim, lay the Pacific Ocean. On the other, young people loped pell mell down the tawny mountain we had just climbed. I realized for the first time that high places no longer have the power to rob me of possibility.

Just a week later, on another part of the Oregon coast, with Sandi this time, I stood at the foot of a very long flight of stairs leading up from the beach. We were on the second day of our adventure which included antiquing and one long deeply satisfying conversation with roots in the ease of a common history and the sisterhood of shared tragedy. Our morning began with a slow meander up the beach picking the wrack line for rocks and shells accompanied by a lone pelican hunting in the surf.

Looking up the concrete stairs, I thought of the Maya pyramids I'd climbed with Walt earlier in the summer. I remembered the dune climb with Lisa. As Sandi and I moved upward, one slow step at a time, I considered how easy climbing felt when done in the company of connected hearts. We reached the top much faster than either of us anticipated, with much more wind remaining than we believed possible.

I'm going into my classroom this morning for the first time this year. It's time to begin setting up. To begin thinking like a teacher again. To begin trading the flowing gauzy freedom of summer for the more substantial crisp structure of school. Today represents the beginning of a different kind of climb, a metaphoric mountain looming above. In years past, last year in particular, the climb felt daunting—impossible even. Certainly not one whose summit I anticipated would hold a life-changing, soul-feeding view.

This summer has given me a new appreciation of heights and the often long and difficult climb to achieve them. As long as I'm not climbing alone, I have nothing to fear, and everything to hope for. And every step upward in the company of shared love is an adventure in itself. I'm ready for the next one: adventure, mountain, climb.