When Your Heart and Body Are In Different Places

I’m a warm weather woman with a passion for the sea. As a child, my first glimpse of the ocean was from the backseat of my parent's car. My head hung out the window, the salty air whipping my hair into my open, smiling mouth. I was lifted to a new level of contentment that increases every time I step into the surf. My current passion is ocean kayaking, but I live in the Rocky Mountains and there are no imminent change-of-venue plans.

On a recent return home from the sea, I unpacked my damp wetsuit, swimsuit, hat and fins. I laid them out to dry on the sun-filled west facing deck. As I looked out my kitchen window I thought “what a beautiful sight.” I could imagine that I used the swimsuit and fins in my own backyard,--that I swam up to the dock, took off my wetsuit and hung it on the deck on my way in to make dinner. It was wishful imagining and in the morning I was jolted to reality. I looked out the window to the deck and my ocean playclothes were surrounded by snow. The contrast brought sadness and I realized that my soul and my physical presence were in two different places.

With the practice of yoga, I have learned that the right side of my body is stronger than my left. I strive each week to balance as I find my body leaning to or depending on the strength of the right. I’ve tried to become more conscious of combining these two halves into one whole. Working together I will be stronger and more balanced. The effort has already improved my skiing, my posture and my mind/body awareness. When I think of my heart longing for the ocean and my physical reality in the cold dry mountains, I sense that I am spiritually divided and therefore spiritually and physically weaker.

When I realized the division in my heart and body, I recommitted to gratitude: thankfulness for the eyes to see the sea, thankfulness for the ocean itself, thankfulness for a husband and children I love and live with. Gratitude helps me see the abundance and not the lack. My second goal is to enjoy my presence. When I am home, I will embrace the details and security that enrich my life. When I am paddling in the sea, I will savor the seal that surfaces unexpectedly, the salty taste on my lips and the laughter after cutting through a wave.

Foremost, I am comforted and encouraged by what I saw painted, in French, on the wall of a home I visited. Translated, it is a familiar phrase: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Mattthew 6:21

Where's Your Sense of Adventure?

It was a dark and stormy night… (really) in the wild interior of Wyoming. My friends Dave and Jeanne were sitting cozily in their home, when Jeanne remembered that she had an errand to run. The errand wasn’t an absolute necessity so she hesitated until her husband Dave said to her, “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

Jeanne jumped in the car with her sense of adventure leading the way, unaware of how bad the weather really was. Her destination was approximately ten miles away on a dirt road. The rain was coming down in torrents that made driving on the muddy road similar to driving on ice. Jeanne slid back and forth until she slid into a deep ditch. She couldn’t determine whether she was closer to home or the nearest neighbor. She climbed out of the car, into the muddy earth, and was pelted with rain. When Jeanne reached the nearest neighbor she was totally drenched and equally miserable. The neighbor pulled her car out of the ditch and Jeanne cautiously ventured home without her sense of adventure.

Some years later, Jeanne retells the story about the night she lost her sense of adventure. I’m thinking how lucky she is to know where she left it. As adults we may not even realize our sense of adventure is missing; but if we pause and listen the evidence may be blaring: Are we too cautious, too boring? When was the last time we vacationed? Made a new friend? Took a class?

When I look at this photo of children I love, I remember watching them climb on the water banana with their sense of adventure leading the way. Can you see it on their faces? More importantly, can you see it on your own?

Pushing Through the Fear

On a balmy spring morning, my husband helps me carry my kayak down to the surf. As I watch the waves fold over, my heart starts to tingle. “Oooh, I’m scared” I say, with a nervous smile on my face. “Really?” my husband asks, “I thought after so many years you’d no longer be scared.” I think about this for a moment, as my bootie clad feet are washed by the chilly surf. I push off in the kayak and call back to my husband, “When I’m no longer scared is when it will no longer be fun.” I turn to face the demon, my heart racing, preparing for the perfect timing to break through the surf. If my timing is on, the wave will crash and I will paddle hard to emerge through its back door. Prepared to take on the next wave, I will back paddle, hesitate and push into a full throttle paddle through the second set. Once I am clear, always, I break into laughter: laughter of conquest, laughter for feeling like a kid again, laughter to release the fear.

The fear gives way to calmness, my own, and the placid ocean beyond its raging gatekeeper. If I am lucky today, I will paddle next to a pod of dolphins, or a sea lion will pop its head through the sea. But more than likely I will only have the seagulls by my side. I will be amazed by the vastness, yet stillness, of this great body of water. My head will clear and I will be overwhelmed with gratitude, for my body that can see, feel and hear and for the good fortune to be where I am.

There have been numerous times when the first set of waves have spit me back on the shore. There was even a time when the lifeguard parked his Subaru rescue vehicle right in front of me. The tide was fierce that day and I finally came back in, drenched and embarrassed. But there was one day, …after a beautiful morning, I brought the kayak in on a wave that grabbed my back tail, flipped and dumped me on the beach. As I pulled myself out of the water a lady walking on the beach said to me, “That’s so wonderful that you can kayak.” Feeling like I couldn’t kayak, I humbly moaned, “Didn’t you see me get dumped?” The woman quickly retorted, “Doesn’t matter, what matters is that you are out there doing it.”

To this day, whether facing the surf, a phone call, or an interview, I see beyond the tipped kayak, the possible rejection, the not-quite-achieved goal, because of the woman on the beach who taught me, it doesn’t matter, for the victory is in the effort.

Dr. RC and Gail postscript

My neighbor went to a conference in Arizona. He is in the pipe-coating business and pipe coaters convene like other professional organizations for the latest pipe technology. There were presentations on pipe corrosion, coating techniques, etc. Since the Arizona conference, I have also seen my neighbor leave for a pipe convention in Florida. He took his golf clubs again. Perhaps the pipe conferences are really an excuse to get away and play golf.

My husband’s profession meets frequently for the latest brain/computer discoveries. The computer scientists seem to have the best location strategy. They meet in China, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and France...all of which are a great compensation for attending lectures on neural networks, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
He takes advantage of the surroundings by diving the Great Barrier Reef, climbing the Great Wall, and eating a lifetime portion of pain au chocolat. I think that computer scientists use their conferences as an excuse to travel and overeat foreign delicacies.
Professional conferences don’t usually make the best column fodder, but there is one exception to this presumption. Dr. RC and his wife attended a dental convention in Honolulu Hawaii. Dr. RC was looking forward to classes on dental adhesion and pain advancement, but looked most forward to a little snorkeling in Hanauma Bay. Snorkel geared and fin clad they waded into the tropical waters. After paddling around, enjoying the friendly colorful fish, Dr. RC’s mask filled with salt water. Revolted by the taste, he yanked the snorkel out of his mouth. He yanked so hard that out came the brand new bridge consisting of his six front top teeth, he had just installed himself. He plunged back into the water with hopes of swooping up the bridge and putting it back into place. As he watched his front teeth sink past his reach, he was certain that a fish with a large mouth swam by snatching the teeth for himself. The good dentist’s wife didn’t buy the probability of the teeth snatching fish and fast and furiously she dove and resurfaced again and again. Alas, the front and center choppers were lost forever to the Pacific Blue, and yet another bitter beer face was created. Just imagine being a dentist at a professional gathering of fellow dentists and missing your top front teeth for the remaining 4 days... A lot of hand over mouth laughter took place. In the words of Dr. RC himself, “Oh what we appreciate when we don't have them.”

Where World's Unite

It is early Sunday morning and I awake to soft and familiar sounds. Through a hallway and behind a sliver open door, lies a little person trying to form his sounds, his pitches and his syllables into words. It’s a one year old’s private game of boggle, no competition or pressure, only joy. I listen to his word play for only a moment before I can resist walking in on the game. “Good morning,” I say forming my own old and familiar sounds. I reach into the portable crib and lift up a little boy in a flannel pajama suit with built in stockings and appliquéd airplanes. His eyes are bright and he is ready, trusting, purple crayon in hand, for a new adventure. I like to call him Harold, and one morning while he toddled around the kitchen, going from truck, to cupboard, to scattered crayons and toys, actually brought me a purple crayon.

On this day in his early morning sweetness, at his insistence, I wrap him in his “bay-bay” hurry downstairs where I pop a piece of bread in the toaster and fill a bright green sippy cup with milk. Breakfast will be outside, among the trees, the birds, wrapped in his bay-bay, wrapped in my arms. It is a lovely morning, before the color enters the cheeks of this world, before the “vroom vrooms” can be heard in the street below, before the birds and quail hide from human intrusion. As we walk down the hill there is a rustle. Two deer have heard our approach and are tip-toeing away. If we hear a dog bark, this little boy will start to pant like a dog; if a bird darts through the air he will point and say “bur, bur,” but when I say “Deer. Look,” there is no reaction. He is a clean slate and nothing has been written about deer.

We settle at the end of a staircase on the ledge of a very small valley. It is like sitting on a boat dock but instead of water, there are trees and a spring surrounded by cattails and aqua blue, wispy brush. Nature, aware of our presence has become bashful, but so have we. This child and I are usually exchanging syllables, half words and half thoughts. So eager are we, the nurturers of this little boy, for him to learn and develop, that we are constantly speaking, pointing, and defining the concrete and abstract objects in his world. “Look Max,” we say, “this is the color green,” or “Can you say thank-you?” and “What kind of truck is that? Dump truck? Can you say, ex-ca-va-tor?

But today is different and we continue our observations in silence. We both understand that voices would be an intrusion, that reverence is satisfying. My incessant hopes for his language development are calmed when I recognize that he is still learning, for silence is a language too.

Life Shift

Two months before my mother's 68th birthday, she mentioned to my niece and me, that her neighbor rode her bike everywhere and she was thinking how much fun that would be. My response was, "Let's get you a bike!" whereas, my niece, who has only known her grandmother as an older woman responded, "Grandma, you'd never ride it." I watched my mother deflate faster than a slashed tire.
When my sisters and I gathered for her birthday, I remembered her previous wish. So while one sister stayed home to occupy our unsuspecting mom, my little sister and I set out for the bike shop. The variety of beach cruisers made us giddy. Should we get mom an electric pink bike with a flowered plastic basket? Or an emerald green with racing stripes? We settled on a bright red bike, embellished with white plumerias, and white wall tires that rivaled a Cadillac.
In the dark, I rode the bike home. As I passed the pharmacy, I had an idea. I purchased a string of Christmas lights. It was, after all, December 21st. Only after mom and dad were soundly asleep did we roll the bike into the living room.
About 5:00 a.m. the next morning I awoke with excited anticipation. I checked on the Christmas-lit bike. The next day, I learned my sister had done the same. When dad woke the next morning, he reported back to mom still in bed, "It looks like Christmas."
And so it was, but more for my sisters and me than anyone else. The five of us had made a life shift and in doing so my sisters and I had also fulfilled three of the four stages of life: 1. You believe in Santa Claus. 2. You don't believe in Santa Claus. 3. You are Santa Claus. 4. You look like Santa Claus.