40x40: run up becky mountain

I remember the first time I drove up becky mountain. it was probably 2004. I had a minivanful of girls in tow. we were taking one of those girls up to free rein for a horse therapy session. it was winter. I thought anyone who lived up here must be crazy. while the rest of us waited for the girl with the lesson (this was back when free rein was at sugarbush farm, which I now think of as an extension of our yard pretty much) we drove to eagle lake and played on the swings and threw rocks in the water. I didn't know that wasn't allowed and miraculously no one said a word to us about it.

I remember the first time we drove up becky mountain as a family, to look at the house we live in now. we made the trip down from asheville and I still thought it was a crazy idea to live up here, to make this curvy drive daily. I have since learned that it wasn't all that long ago that becky mountain was a dirt road all the way up to the seeoff switch. a neighbor here on the mountain tells tale of learning to drive in the sixties before it was paved. her daddy told her if she could drive up becky mountain in a stick shift she could drive anywhere in the world so she did it over and over until she had it down. that daddy was probably right.

somehow a few years ago eric got it in his head that he should run up becky mountain. so one thanksgiving he did. it was so cold his beard was frozen by the time he got home. our friend lev was visiting and he danced circles around eric all the way up the mountain, but it kept eric going. and it made eric want to do it again. and again and again and again. it became a tourist attraction for anyone who came to visit: see looking glass falls, eat at bracken mountain bakery, and run up becky mountain. and most of our visitors were totally in. over and over the kids and I stood at the mailboxes to cheer for our friends (stevie. lindsay and maeve. kyle. jason and stephanie.) and over and over I just thought they were all nuts.

but yesterday I joined the ranks of the crazy. not only do I make that windy, curvy drive up and down becky mountain every day, I have not made that climb on foot as well. it is exactly three miles from the bottom of the mountain to our front door. I didn't run much at all, but I did it. on  my own two feet. all three miles in 53 minutes. boo yah.

it is a very different experience to walk a road you are used to driving. I noticed different things all along the way. I couldn't believe I could still hear the cows from the bottom of the mountain even as high as halfway up. I saw driveways I'd never noticed before, I told myself stories about people living along the route I pass through so very often. I thought again about how much of our lives, our spiritual selves is shaped by where we are, the physical geography that surrounds us. how deep the mountains are etched into who I am. how I relate to this place like I was born to it. how even through the asphalt through my sneakers I could feel this ancient hill in the very core of who I am.

I sang out loud until I was too out of breath to keep up with the tempo of my feet, and even then music poured through my head every step of the way. over and over I heard my deepest self say, "this is all that is required of you: one more step. one more step." and that is exactly what I did. one more. one more. one more. until I was home. 

it is really all that is required of any of us. one more step. all the way home.

Put one foot in front of the other
Steppin' into the here and now
I'm not sure just where I'm goin'
But I will get there anyhow

I got this far with no direction
Followed my nose to where I stand
My heart's still strong, I know I'll make it
Sit right down in the promised land

too noisy peter

my mom is a trainer. not the kind that helps you work out in a gym (although, given her personality and stubbornness she might not be half bad at it), but the kind that stands in front of large groups of people to prepare them for a job they have just excepted. mostly she trains people to work with teenagers in residential facilities. she is very good at her job. 

one of the curses of having a mother who speaks in front of large groups of people on a regular basis is having family stories become part of the training material. she regularly uses a certain story of a certain daughter who stood in front of the church during the christmas cantata making a slashing motion across her throat every few seconds. when she talks about "family speak" (the phenomenon that occurs when families use their own language among themselves that other people may not understand) she gives away years' worth of inside jokes and family secrets. after decades in the training room these stories have become soundbites, sanitized down so that the players are barely recognizable anymore. she talks about how we call the remote control "the beep beep" or how for years none of us said anything but "shhhhhhicken" whenever someone asked what was for supper. it isn't embarrassing anymore because we feel so far removed from the players that we were in those stories.

I've been thinking about my mom in her training sessions as I think about blogging. I've been trying to decide how long I can talk about my kids online without their knowing about it. I think of this space as relatively private, but of course it isn't. just last week someone I met for the first time told me that she has been reading my blog for years. flattering, yes, but a bit tricky as well. how fair is it to our kids to have an online presence they don't know about? when they go to google themselves years from now, will they be okay knowing I've been recording their childhoods for my own self-indulgent blog fodder? already the precursor anytime I take cora's photo is "okay, but don't send it to anyone." a reasonable request, I'd say. 

but if I'm not going to write about my kids, what the heck do I have left to say?

the struggle is more than blogging. I am at a place in life when I want very different things from life than what my kids want. that has been true since the moment they were born, but now we are to a place as a family that we have the maturity to pursue different stuff in bigger ways. some of us are more ready for that change than others. but for me I feel rather lost when I realize I can do anything I want to do. for so long I have been parenting, direct in-the-trenches parenting my own kids, as well as group home parenting, foster parenting, teaching parenting classes, leading parenting support groups, heck I even teach a parenting sunday school class at church. I am ready for what is next. and I don't have a damn clue what that is.

and of course it is not that simple. just because I am ready for a parenting break doesn't mean my kids are done being parented. and just because I recognize this need for change, this shift in habits and identity doesn't mean I know what to do instead. and just because I know I want something different doesn't mean that change is gonna come overnight, just because I say I am ready.

in our own family speak we often say to each other with a sigh, "too noisy peter." it was a bedtime story favorite of jamin's for what felt like years. you know the folktale: a man thinks his house is noisy so the local wise guy suggests bringing a variety of animals to live inside his house with him. then when he pares his life down just to what it was before, his world is blissfully peaceful and he lives contentedly ever after. 

the problem in our house is that I am the opposite of peter. I rarely complain about the noise. instead I am driven to distraction by the quiet. we hit a seasonal lull and I start saying things like "we should really think about adopting another kid" or "I think we should move to idaho" or "wouldn't it be fun take a trip to south america for an indefinite period of time?" my family is not entertained. they roll their eyes and keep talking about whatever things normal families talk about, just to spite me.

but the past few months I've been hiding. after four months away from life here this summer, a whirlwind tour of new england, coming home to homeschool and homestead, two big disappointments in the potential job arena, an extra roommate and an extra dog, I just don't feel up to it all. it feels like failure not to feel like myself. it feels like paralysis not to know what to leap into next. it feels like a loss to not have a plan, a dream, a vision. 

but here is where the magic happens, too. sometimes the not knowing is the most knowing place of all. questioning where we've been, where we're going, and how we're going to get there is how life happens. I'd rather feel lost every so often than coast through the life unexamined. I'd rather feel too noisy and too quiet and have to do something about it than not feel any of it at all. 

so here we are: change is coming. it's already happening. every bit is just preparing us all for the next bit. the same girl that made those slashing motions across her throat in the church concert has to decide which stories about her own kids the world gets to know. and the wisest around me say I have to get quieter, much much quieter, before I can get myself up to the life noise level I prefer. so that's what I'm doing: paying attention, listening, staying willing to change. even if it means a pace of life different than what I think I prefer. even if it doesn't happen on my own timetable. 

and in family speak, it all sounds just right.

Unconditional

Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I gain the embrace of the universe;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so,
Who has crafted this Master Game.
To play it is purest delight;
To honor its form--true devotion.

- Jennifer Welwood