Into the Current
Circling Home Boundary – 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
We had one of those slashing, ripping winter windstorms last night that has become all too common in the Northwest lately. My house is nestled in a thick stand of conifers, and the fir boughs were flying past my window like rain. The roar of a gale whipping through this kind of forest is one of the more humbling experiences I know – exhilarating and scary at the same time. A storm like this on Whidbey Island means that it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” the power will go off. Last night the lights went out at 6:00 PM, just after it was thoroughly dark. In my neighborhood that means DARK. There is part of me that loves this kind of storm surge, even if the other half of me is waiting for the first Douglas fir giant to crash down on my house.
Soon after I’d gotten the candles lit and the fire going I heard a knock on my door. It was my next door neighbor, who needed help getting her smoke alarms turned off. She lives alone, and of course I was glad to help her. While I was there our neighbor on the other side showed up to help also. Once we’d disarmed the smoke alarms, we sat down and had tea together in the candle light, catching up on news from the neighborhood, our kids and our own lives. It was a sweet moment, something that I rarely make time for these days. So often it takes something out of the ordinary to get neighbors together like this, but I’m always struck by how satisfying it is to step back from my far-flung virtual community in cyberspace and actually get together with real neighbors. I’m also struck by how pleasant it is to spend more evenings at home with a good book or home movie. Being without a car has meant that I’m much more likely to cash in on the down time of an evening at home. I have to think more carefully about the constant stream of options for going out at night, because it is no small assignment to get around in the winter darkness by bicycle when there are no buses running. Last night that paid off with an unexpected good visit with my immediate neighbors.
My wife Sally was in Seattle for the night. A dear friend of ours’ died early yesterday morning after a three year fight with breast cancer. Sally has been holding a vigil with Sue at the hospice center for much of the last week, and stayed over last night to help get Sue’s body ready for burial. I was able to see Sue one last time a few days ago, and both Sally and I are sitting with the poignance of this moment – Sue’s passing, the frailty of all our lives, and the tragic upsurge of diseases like breast cancer that are the result, at least in part, of our toxic lifestyles. In so many instances, from breast cancer, auto-immune disease and birth defects to global warming, the bills are coming due on a culture that plays fast and loose with the life support systems of our planet. Sue’s death brings it home to us in a very personal way.
Last week I had the opportunity to be interviewed about Circling Home on our Seattle NPR affiliate KUOW, for a Northwest affairs show called Sound Focus. It was fun to see how these shows are put together in the studio, and I really enjoyed my conversation with Megan Sukys of KUOW. I’m gratified that my personal efforts to respond to climate change seem to be striking a chord in the community. I know that means that I am far from alone in wrestling with these questions, and that’s reassuring to me. If you’d like to listen in on the conversation, here is a link to my twelve minute interview on KUOW.
These days it is a fair journey for me into Seattle from the island, so I combined my KUOW interview with a final visit with Sue and my weekly trip to the Veterans Hospital on Beacon Hill to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). I teach a three hour class once a week to veterans that uses meditation and yoga as components of stress management. I am privileged to teach this class with Dr. David Kearney, an MBSR colleague and a gastroenterologist at the VA Hospital. This work with veterans is an important grounding rod for me during a year when I am temporarily on sabbatical from much of my teaching in other parts of the country. The VA Hospital brings into sharp focus many of the forces in our society that are out of balance, and the long wake of suffering that our veterans seem to bear far out of proportion to the rest of us. The VA is a big shift in context from my work with professional leaders in other contexts, but I’m always surprised by how common our human experience is when we get down to the basic ingredients. Mindfulness practice is a great tool for doing just that.
The process of learning to navigate my life without a car definitely takes more time and planning, but it is also delivering some unexpected pleasures. One is the obvious health benefits of doing a lot more walking and biking. I arrive where I’m going with more energy and focus rather than less, more awake and juiced than if I’d had several cups of coffee (but without all that cafeine). I’m also struck by how energizing it is to be in greater contact with the elements. Even in our Northwest winter, the typical wind, rain and exposure are not nearly as intimidating in reality as they always seem from the inside of a building or the back side of a car windshield wiper. A dash of grit and resolve, and the simple act of plunging in, and I immediately feel a resurgence of aliveness and control over my circumstances. The extra time enroute would be spent doing what? – writing a few more emails? – worrying a little more about all the work I’m not going to get done anyway? Besides, I arrive where I’m going in a more productive frame of mind.
I’m also enjoying the serendipity of getting from Point A to Point B. For anyone who has experienced the pleasure of being footloose in Manhattan, Boston or San Francisco, try Seattle. The moment I get off the beaten path of the I-5 corridor or the endlessly clogged Seattle thoroughfares, the magic of the city opens right up. Seattle is filled with quirky, colorful neighborhoods, gorgeous vistas, lots of greenways and hideaway parks, and lively public gathering places. On foot or bicycle I can dodge my way through the neighborhoods with a lot of creative license, and I have time to notice the unexpected gems hidden in the nooks and crannies. I feel as though I have more time rather than less, because I no longer write off the time it takes to get where I’m going. The whole process tends in the direction of adventure rather than hassle, and I am nearly always more available to my task at hand when I do arrive.
And this is still the “dead of winter” in Seattle, where people tend to engage in a strange war against the water-driven climate that makes the Northwest coast so special in the first place. At this time of year, conventional wisdom (and local media) hammer on a false choice between seasonal affective disorder and flight to sunnier places. I’ve never bought it. I grew up in this bioregion, and therefor I am a creature of its version of the four seasons. When winter comes, my body still remembers the instinct to pull back on the throttle, even if my culture drives me to maintain full velocity. My choice to step outside of the prevailing car culture this year (and more directly into the elements) has helped me reconnect with what I love about our Northwest winter, rather than making it more daunting and difficult. This is for me an encouraging confirmation of the wisdom inherent in place.
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