Stepping Out -- Writing and Hiking

Today I e-mailed a query letter, a synopsis, and 35 pages of the memoir (now called The Light in the Darkness) to an editor of a small CA press.  It was scary so I took my journal and a book and retreated to the pool.  There I listed more hikes for my newest book proposal--hikes as a spiritual journey tool.  Then I decided that I need to plot out the journey and see what hikes fit in those spaces rather than listing hikes as there are too many.  Doing that, and hanging out in the pool for a while (a lovely mid-80s day) calmed my fear.  It will no doubt be back in a couple of weeks when I know that the editor is back at her post (she's vacationing right now).

I also went on Facebook and friended our new St. John's priest, a 54-year-old woman who graduated from Sewanee School of Theology and is a rector in Utah right now.  She looks fun and likes to hike.

Friends Judith and Mary Ann and I hiked to Blue Lake on July 2nd to celebrate my 74th birthday.  In about two and one-half miles we reached the lake, which sets just above treeline.  It's one of the shortest and easiest ways to reach space where trees are left behind.  It is a rocky trail, which we had forgotten when encouraging Mary Ann, who will turn eighty later this month, to join us.  The lake is pictured here.

Look at my new hiking boots!

After a gourmet lunch prepared by Judith (including champagne), we returned to a high meadow and enjoyed seeing the bull moose we saw last year in the same place.  My camera had died at the lake (it's really dead), and I hadn't yet uploaded an app to improve my I-phone camera so no new photos of the moose.

On July 4th, I drove to a flower hiking trail that's become a favorite, even though I've only been there three times.  Butler Gulch is about ten miles beyond Empire, a village that looks as if it hasn't changed in 50 years, off Interstate 70 on highway 40 that leads to Berthoud Pass and Winter Park Resort.  While it seems like a long drive (1.25 hours), it's shorter than going back to the Bear Lake Trails in RMNP.  I didn't leave early so was between the early throng and the afternoon hikers.  It looked as if it would rain in the afternoon.

I remembered that it was a thirty-minute hike to the first flower areas so I wasn't anxious.  Soon columbines lined the path, dotted the first meadows and hugged stream banks, red and bright pink paintbrush mixed in.  Chiming bells climbed hills and covered valleys.  I was early for the monks hood, though I found a few blossoms on my way down.  After fording a couple of creeks (and being thankful that my new boots are water proof), the rocky trail rises steeply.  I met and chatted with a three-generation family on a 4th of July picnic, but lost them when I wanted down to the creek to take photos (with my new I-phone camera app).  Again I stopped at the waterfall and took pictures.  Making myself comfortable on a boulder, I realized that the clouds were closing in.  I couldn't miss the flowered meadows that were up and around the next steep climb. 

As I crested the hill, my efforts were rewarded.  Red paintbrush filled the high meadows. 

 I could have stopped then, but then I would have missed more flowered meadows and the flower-lined stream near the trail's end.  A line of morning hikers were heading down.  I ignored the thunder.  It wasn't loud.  Chatting with a couple whose dogs were determined to go up rather than down, I wondered if they were the last to leave.  I would follow them down (though I wasn't ready to go).  Then they hollered back that a couple was coming up the trail--and another and another came, ignoring the probability that rain might set in. 

I hiked on to the stream where a friend and I had eaten lunch when I was there on a fall trek, took a long look, some photos, pulled out one-half a sandwich and took a few bites, and turned around to head back down as I felt a few large raindrops.  Reaching trees, I sat on a boulder and pulled my poncho out of my backpack.  I did take off my hat.  Later I would realize that my sun glasses were on my head and must have fallen onto the ground as I squeezed the poncho over my head.  I hurried down the steepest part of the trail, then realized that the sky was getting lighter.  I sat by a stream and ate the rest of my lunch.  As I exited the trail and headed to the parking lot, a few raindrops reached the ground.  A couple joined me at the outside table where I enjoyed ice cream in Empire before starting the drive home.  It had been a delightful day.

Flower Garden Above the Fray (and fires)

After writing a post that I saved but didn't publish and discovering that I couldn't find it, this will be short.  I couldn't wait until I had more time to share these photos, particularly with those of you who live back in the southeast. 

The flowers found in the Indian Peaks Forest, along and above the Isabelle Lake Trail were so refreshing during the fray in my spiritual journey and the wild fires burning not that far away.

I am reminded of how the daisies on our farm took me away from the chaos in our farm house when I was on an errand to the country store at the end of our north field. 

My personal spiritual healing journey fray is cluttered with too many endings and connections.  A couple of conversations recently reminded me of how little I considered my personal needs for satisfaction during most of my life.  Now these hikes and wildflowers fill a deep personal need--and I am gratiful--for the health and strength and time to see and enjoy them, especially with a dear friend.  I won't say no money is involved for gasoline and car repairs are expensive.  However the lifting and joy these hikes and flowers provide are far more than the cost of getting to the mountains where they thrive.  I am deeply grateful.

Gratitude for light and dark

Splashy water--falls and streams--fill the mountains.  Darkness too--in spaces large and small.  Light and dark, up and down, in and out, around and about--paths go up, up and around.  And always we must come down.  Down can be dark, as a journey deep inside.  Bringing that darkness up allows the light to shine through, light to invade and change the view, release allows for freedom, even joy.

Gratitude covers all--light, dark, up and down.  Waking each day is cause for gratitude.  Walking a path is joyous, even with a stumble.  New life meets with decaying wood and leaves.  Skies blue dotted with frothy white clouds above.  Watching the path--one step at a time--presence.

Enjoy your day!

A Family Hike

We went to Rocky Mountain National Park, but we didn't plan to hike far.  Son Mike, visiting from Nashville, chose to see a falls rather than a lake for a short hike.  The hike to Alberta Falls was on a clear and soft trail.  It was easy.  We climbed the rocks to sit above the falls (falls pictures were taken there).  He wanted to go on, quite all right with daughter Michelle and me.  We told him we could stop any time.  After a few more "how are you doing" queries, Mike turned and said, "I'm not an invalid."

The Park Ranger had said that there were snow patches on the way to Mills Lake, but that is was doable.  A woman who heard me talking to him warned that her husband had post holed to his thighs.
We chose the Ranger's approach and dug our heels into the soft snowbanks to make our way. 

It was a beautiful day and a lovely hike.  Though windy, lunch at lakeside was pleasant.  For me, it was a special treat to hike to one of my favorite spots with both of my adult children.  I was blessed.



PS:  Michelle had insisted on driving, and as we waited and then bumped over the two construction sites on the park road, I was pleased not to be behind the wheel. 

Graduation!!! And what's next?

Margaret and Taylor graduated!!  I was there and proud too.  Margaret was first, on Saturday May 19th.  She was nervous, thought she would trip and fall (and I might have in those high heels she wore!).  They marched in.  She didn't trip (or look as if it would happen).  The announcement of those graduates in the top 10% of the law school class began, named alphabetically.  We counted.  Josh's last name was Mabry.  There was probably only one left to be named.  It needed to be Means--and it was--Margaret R. Means!!  She had that as a goal from her first semester, but had given up with a difficult class her 4th and senior year.  It was wonderful, and a lovely celebratory brunch followed.  (One sadness--Ben--her oldest son--couldn't be there.  While he was where he needed to be, we missed him.)   

Sunday morning, May 20th, Mike took an early plane (through Atlanta) to Boulder.  I took one a couple of hours later.  We arrived in Denver about the same time, had a glitch getting to the airport parking lot (the place to catch the shuttle had been moved), and reached Michelle's home later than we had hoped.  She hollered downstairs that she was ten minutes from being ready so Mike quickly shaved and we both changed clothes.  In the car, we knew we were later than most who were attending Taylor's graduation at CU's Coors Event Center.  We walked around to a tier of seats near a back side of the auditorium and walked down near the front.  Others were there with cameras ready.  Why there, we asked?  The graduates would come down that aisle and another aisle across the back of the auditorium.  They knew which aisle their graduates would file down.  We didn't know where Taylor would be.  We watched.  I thought I saw him coming through the door into the auditorium.  No, that wasn't him.  Again, I thought I saw him.  I motioned to Michelle and Mike, and they confirmed that it was Taylor.  He was on our side of the twosome as well.  Taylor would march right by us!  And had we been earlier, we wouldn't have taken those seats.

So they have graduated, and both have tentative plans.  From what have we graduated--and what are our plans?  My "graduations" have been many--from being a stay-at-home mom to a career mom to being an empty-nester, from being single to being married to being single, from being young to being middle aged to being a senior, from having a high-profile career to being a care giver to being a support staff person, from giving new and growing businesses advice for which they paid to assisting where none of what I had learned about business development was wanted.  From thinking I was a writer and would become an author to giving up on that hope.  And now--renewing that identity--and knowing that I may be publishing my own book.  A "career" that costs me money--that hadn't been in my plans, even in this senior time of life. 
                                           Mike was celebrating too!!  (He called it getting his wife back!)

What guides me now?  So much is written these days about each of us doing the thing (often that specific) for which we were created.  Hopefully, I've already done some of that.  However, I continue to feel called to publish my growing-up memoir.  And I'm creating a book proposal for another book, not yet written.  What path these plans will take is unclear.  Our graduates wonder about their future plans.  And I wonder about mine.  Being open to the opportunities that come our way, siezing them in a timely fashion, and paying attention to our calls seems to be a life-long journey.  Stay tuned.

For those of you who might be curious, here's the brunch group.  To your left, Mike, Tom and Ann; right, Margaret, Will, and Maggie

Spring Flowers Gracing Our Hills Early

                                                                  The sugar bowl!

                                                                                                  Lance-leaved chiming bells

A hike I didn't start out to complete yesterday became engrossing because of the variety of wildflowers that dotted the hillsides and meadows.  Later there will be more flowers, but few additional varieties and the pasque flowers and sugar bowls will have completed their blossoming.  I went to the Goshawk Ridge Trail near Eldorado Springs, CO, about 8 miles south of Boulder thinking that the sugar bowls might possibly be out.  Their blooming season is shorter than most of the wildflowers in this area, and I didn't want to miss them.

Approaching the first bend in the road, I wondered at the burst of yellow.  As I neared there were wild iris too--and the yellow was a hillside of golden banner.  Farther into the hike I would find meadows and fields filled with golden banner, a wildflower I think of as belonging in the higher mountains.  I'll still appreciate its setting there, but enjoyed the splashes of yellow in the fields yesterday.  The lance-leafed chiming bells were profuse and their blue bright against the hills and grasses.  Chokecherry bushes provided blossoms and perfumed the nearby air.  And as I looked at iris in a hilly meadow, I spied--yes.  Sugar Bowls.  They were smaller than I remembered, but they were there.  I climbed a hillside that seemed steeper than it feels coming down, the usual approach to that part of the trail.  I was doing it backward, intending to reach the blossoms and then to turn around and go back.

I was startled by a loud chugging noise.  Where was it coming from?  It sounded like a train, but there was nowhere for train tracks was there?  Then I looked up at the mountainside high above and what appeared to my eyes to be a toy-sized train was snaking through the trees.  My camera doesn't have a long zoom and the photo below doesn't show the perspective from which I looked but I wanted to show the top of the mountain.  You get a bit of the idea, right?!

                                                        Golden banner on the hillside.

The train.

A first paintbrush (orange) delighted me.  I found a wonderful rock near bright blue-purple larkspur and stopped for a snack, deciding whether to go on.  I was near the top of that hill climb, but had not yet reached the stream and hillside where I was accustomed to finding pasque flowers and sugar bowls.  Would they be bigger, more of them, than those I had found?  After a short rest, I resumed my hike.  Yes, it was farther to that stream and hillside, down a steep hill and up another, and I was rewarded with more and yes, bigger sugar bowls and pasque flowers (these are taller than in the mountains) than those I had seen earlier.  By that time I was much closer to the beginning of the trail through the woods and down the road than going back the way I came.  My reward was to find those fields of golden banner and penstemon along the roadside.  I posted photos of many of the flowers on Facebook, and will put only a few here.  It was a rewarding couple of hours with few people to interrupt my reverie.  (And now I will have no excuse to keep me from my new book proposal in the morning.)

NOTE:  This is a new blog format, and I'm just discovering how it works.  The photo settings are completely different.
                                                Chokecherry bushes behind the rocks

Blossoming--trees, flowers, and creativity

It's April, and you might think you were in Tennessee with all the blossoms--even some trees beginning to drop the blooms for leaves. And more leaves are coming out each day.

The World Affairs Conference, CU's traditional (64th year) blend of talks and panels from scholars, scientists, artists, political commentators, and activists of all stripes is this week--five days filled with more than my brain could take in. Yesterday the creativity panel (in arts and science) reminded that a regular practice is needed for skill building--and for the blossoming of creativity in all endeavors. I've been neglecting my writing this winter so it was a good reminder. No, I won't practice on this forum daily, but will be more intentional about an early morning writing practice. Hopefully, I can also set aside one day when I do little but write.

The next speaker I heard, after a CASA board meeting, was a political writer and speaker. Though saying much that appealed to Boulder's liberal audience, he was willing to poke on both sides of the political aisle. He commented that in the fall, we would have a choice of presidental candidates--between the Tin Man and the Wizard, hidden behind the curtain, noting that what we needed was a leader with courage.

After that was the brain series, and I hope for another opportunity to hear two of those panelists for what they spoke of was changing our brain patterns in positive ways that aren't difficult. The woman shared her work in Haiti--how she asked children what imagine came to mind (a scary one) about the earthquake. Then she asked them to visualize a memory that made them feel happy and secure. She taught them to go to that memory whenever they felt anxious. Later an elementary school student of hers came back to tell her that she had taught her class this exercise. Talk about changing the world one person at a time, what an inspiration.

PS: And last night (Tuesday), the annual WAC jazz concert was amazing and delightful. However, it didn't have much to do with traditional jazz.

This morning's time is up, and I must get ready to go help Sam's substitute teacher as her literacy volunteer. Tonight is the WAC jazz concert, sure to be delightful and fun.