Hike

Mountain-climbing imagery.  I've been noticing a lot of it lately. 

Is this truly a pattern to be noticed or is it merely coincidence or the result an over-active imagination?

Really, after the undeniably ubiquitous desert imagery, I am hoping I'm just imagining all the mountain-climbing imagery. After the desert, I want oasis.  Rest, refreshment, shade.  Not a hike, and definitely not one up a mountain.

My husband, king of the Mountain!  At Ptarmigan Pass in 1995

But I do love to hike... up mountains even.  When I was in my twenties (before children) and was spending several summer weeks taking seminary intensives in Colorado, I hiked a few fourteeners.  I even hiked three in one day.  (Actually four, but the dip to the saddle between one of these mountains and the others was not great enough for it to count as a true fourteener.  At the time, it definitely felt like it should count, but I digress...)

These mountains bear noble and slightly intimidating names: Lincoln, Democrat, Princeton, Quandary...  Names you want to work into conversation later.  "Well, when I was hiking Mt. Bross..."  

The reason I like hiking mountains is because it doesn't require a great deal of athleticism and skill.  (Some mountains do, of course, but not the ones I dare to scale.)  More than anything, it demands tenacity and patience and plenty of water.  Camaraderie also helps, as does a readiness to enjoy the journey, even the difficult stretches.

Hiking with small group friends near Breckenridge in 2008

Perhaps this is why I was so captured by Nathan Foster's depiction of hiking with his father in Wisdom Chaser (also mentioned here).  Foster scoffs when his dad speculates that if they hike slowly and steadily, they won't need to stop as often.  So though his father "moved his feet methodically, slow but steady," Nathan recounts:

I brushed off my father's wisdom and raced ahead up the mountain.  After about a half hour of hiking up a steep pitch, I noticed that, with all my painful stops, he was keeping up with me.  I felt exhausted.  Dad didn't stop even once, and he seemed to be gliding up the mountain. 

As is often the case in life, pain made me teachable. That day it was burning lungs and shaky legs.  My father had a lesson to teach about hard work, and I was ready to learn.  I gave Dad's theory a try and joined his ridiculously slow march.  I soon discovered that if I kept going slowly, it was easier not to stop.  I couldn't believe it....

Eventually we summited with grace and precision and a slow, steady pace.  The destination proved more remarkable than I had remembered from our last climb.... I took a bruised apple from my pack and bit in.  It tasted delicious.  (pp. 34-5)

A slow steady march up the mountain.  Eyes to see the surrounding, ever-changing beauty.  Patience as the journey unfolds.  Anticipation of even greater vistas to come.  And big gulps of water.


Okay,  I think I'm in.

Not a bad way to descend Mt. Bross after a long day of hiking -- 1995

The Bright Field

I have seen the sun break through 

to illuminate a small field 

for a while, and gone my way 

and forgotten it. But that was the pearl 

of great price, the one field that had 

treasure in it. I realize now 

that I must give all that I have 

to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after 

an imagined past. It is the turning 

aside like Moses to the miracle 

of the lit bush, to a brightness 

that seemed as transitory as your youth 

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

~ R. S. Thomas ~

Home-grown Tomatoes

If you love home grown tomatoes and if you live in the Midwest with a nice sized backyard, you will probably want a summer garden to grow your very own red, juicy beauties.

Quite possibly, you love home grown tomatoes because you grew up with a garden, a huge one, you were expected to help weed and to help pick -- tomatoes, okra, corn, asparagus, strawberries.  Maybe you had a dad who loved to garden and a mom who loved the vegetables, but grumbled about all the canning.  (Now that you are an adult, you do understand that.)


And chances are, though you remember griping about all the weeding (and perhaps you even remember complaining to your elementary school friends about summer beginning because now you would have to weed the garden all the time), you now understand the beauty of gardening, even the weeding, maybe even especially the weeding.  You understand the solitude of the garden. Working alone, sweat dripping down your back, clearing the soil of weeds, creating order. You still feel that childish rush of pride all these years later in knowing the difference between a corn seedling and a weed.  You still delight in the pungent organic smell of tomato plants.


You may remember all these things, savor them mentally, and vow to plant a big ol' rural-Oklahoma style garden next summer.


But life will be as busy as ever when tilling and planting time comes... and goes. You will mentally settle for a tomato plant or two and maybe some dill or zucchini. And then more time will pass and your dad will possibly ask when you want him to bring some tomato plants over.  He will have started all sorts of varieties in his greenhouse during the spring and he'll be anxious for you to plant some of them. More time will pass.  You will probably look out your kitchen window while hand washing a few dishes and you will see the barren garden and feel guilty you've continued to neglect it.


Finally, your dad will relent.  You hadn't intended that to be the result, but you won't feel disappointed either.  He will till the garden for you.  He will plant tomato plants.  You wanted a couple of plants.  He will plant five.  That's okay.  You don't have to eat each and every tomato.  You can share.  Maybe you'll puree and freeze some.  Maybe you'll waste a few.

Special tomato-slicing knife

When that first full, fragrant tomato reddens, you will slice it with the special tomato-slicing knife you received for Christmas a few years ago.  You will prepare a turkey sandwich on 12-grain bread -- green leafy lettuce, cheese, mayo, celery salt and a fat juicy slice of tomato.  It will taste so transcendentally delicious you will make another sandwich.  Forget about chips or a cookie for dessert; two tomato-laden turkey sandwiches will do.


You will document your first turkey-with-homegrown-tomato sandwich of the year as your Facebook status.

The summer will progress.  You'll savor more tomatoes.  Your husband will eat some of them like apples, squirting mustard on each as he goes.  (A strategy he learned from you.)  Sometimes you will eat so many tomatoes, you'll get canker sores.  And over time, you will no longer appreciate the tomatoes quite so much as you first did.  You will give away more and more.  You will pick less frequently, allowing some to rot on the vine in the blazing summer heat.


When fall arrives, bringing increasingly harder freezes, and the vines begin to droop, you will once again neglect your garden.  Now when you look out that kitchen window, you'll see a garden patch in need of clearing.  You know it won't be much work, just a few minutes of tearing out vines and dragging them to the compost and a few moments of stacking the tomato cages under the deck.  If you've thought ahead, maybe you'll spread around coffee grounds collected from the local barista.


There's a good chance though that even in December, those vines will still be there, black, ugly, sagging, evidence of the difficult months that preceded this one.  But one afternoon, you just might look out that kitchen window and see magic.  


To be continued...

So, Why the Strange Blog Name?

One afternoon last spring, while I waited in the car enjoying the sunshine during my kids' piano lessons, I noticed a robin gathering dried grass for her nest. I'd never observed this process before and because the day was beautiful, I allowed myself the luxury of lingering to watch.


The robin, rather than flying repeated trips to its nest carrying one piece at a time, continued gathering grass until it had a whole beak-full.  Of course!  That's a much more sensible approach.  I applauded the robin for its cleverness and myself for noticing.


Then something magical happened.  The robin turned my direction.  At that moment, it looked as if it had a big, bushy, straw-colored mustache.

Photo from Minnesota Outdoor Journal

I was delighted!  I felt as if I was experiencing a serendipitous moment meant just for me, one in which I played an important role.  No one else was seeing this bird.  It was up to me to notice, to really see, and to savor.  I alone was given the responsibility of celebrating this divine frivolity.

And celebrate I did.  I put it as my Facebook status.

(That's meant to be funny.)  (Even if it is true.)

This little gift, though, gave me a mental image of what, in part, I wanted my life to be about and consequently what I wanted my blog to be about (if I ever got around to creating one).

Life is difficult and sometimes painful, yes.  but it is also full of beauty and unexpectedly magical moments -- of mustachioed robins.  I'd like to notice these more and celebrate often.

Plus, I figure that if it's not natural for me to linger and to remember to celebrate these things on the sunny days when life is good, it sure won't be easy to do so in difficulty, to rejoice always.  I'm going to need practice -- lots of it.  And I'd better get started now.

So to celebrate (and because mustaches are just plain funny sometimes), here are some mustache pictures just for you... and me.

Photo from http://thelateststory.com/2011/05/27/5466/

Really, who knew an actual Mustache Bird exists:

Photo from http://www.thelensflare.com/gallery/p_bird_42690.php

And one more link.  I can't get the picture to post, but this may be my favorite mustachioed bird picture of all: http://www.flickr.com/photos/springlake/3730189358

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Thank you for celebrating with me today!