I am standing in Yosemite Valley, jaw gaping, eyes gazing up. Before me stands 3,000-foot-high, white granite El Capitan, the chief of all “stone people.” I am on my way home from Lake Tahoe where I was invited to a Celebration of Life memorial service, the second one in less than a month. The first was held at Trust Ranch in Topanga for my children’s uncle, Chris Shea, whom I miss dearly. The second for a friend’s mother, Shirley, whose watercolor landscapes now grace two rooms in my home and whose photo lives by my computer above John Muir’s words: “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”
At each service, I experienced the feelings of loss and finality which only death provides, reminding me of the importance of mortality, its starkness and reliability. Death is waiting, welcoming all who enter its doors. I sometimes love the Peter Pan quote, “To die would be a great adventure.” I am not ready today, but some days I think I am. An unsettling thought, but true.
I have a vivid memory of being three years old. The memory is visual and visceral. I can feel my little girl hands tucking a soft pink polyester blanket around my doll in her tiny blue carriage. I still have the doll. She lives on the spare bed at my mom’s house, dressed in an outfit my mother bought 26 years ago, and that my eight-pound daughter, Ember, had outgrown before she was born. On my own bed is another doll, one I made when Ember attended Westside Waldorf. Handwork maven Teresita Gomez kindly offered a weekly circle for moms like me who wished we too could be five and enroll in the school. We hand-sewed cotton flesh-colored jersey for the skin and mohair strands for hair, then stuffed our babies with virgin spun wool and rolled tighter-than-tight balls for the head, recreating as best we could the soft/hardness of an infant skull. My doll wears powder-blue jammies with white moons and stars, the first baby clothes I bought while pregnant with my son.
I still miss those days. After 22 years creating a family and a home, my nest emptied. First the divorce, then my daughter moved out, followed in three years by my son. I like the peace and quiet. However, for the first time, I had full responsibility for a mortgage. This was scary, but I did it. The deeper challenge is that my time became my own, something I’d never experienced before. I’d spent my entire adult life as a family/team member and my entire childhood dreaming about it. That’s half a century of knowing what I’d do when I grew up, then growing up and doing it. My work appeared to be done. I’d lost my “Why.”
I called an old friend and shared how I felt.
“I’m purpose driven,” I said. “And now my life is infinite possibility. I need a plan!”
To which she responded, “Infinite possibility is a plan!”
Was she joking? How do I put “infinite possibility” on my iCal? I cried. She laughed. Then I started to grok the idea, and liberation sank in. I have no one to answer to. I can do anything I desire. It’s a bit daunting.
Since that call I spent two days in Yosemite. Life isn’t all death after all. I scampered up waterfalls, fell in love with trees, soaked my soul in green, and, whenever I could find a hidden pool, got naked in cold rushing water.
I also swooned over El Capitan, whose monolithic mass declares to the world, “I am here! I am not doing anything at all, and people travel the world to see me.” I love stone people. I feel reassurance and respect in their calm presence. El Capitan stands as mighty as death.
In his presence, I ask if there is anything for me to turn over, to release, and I receive a solid, silent reply: “Stand in what I know and who I am. No action required but this.”
For the next two days, I see El Capitan in my mind; I feel El Capitan inside my body, behind my lungs, standing by me, for me, with me. He’s got my back. Literally.
We arrive home one minute before midnight. Exiting the 101 at Topanga Canyon Boulevard., I am out of place. After two days being an ant looking up at rock faces half a mile high, walking on cliffs with thousand-mile drops, and peeing under 200-foot trees, I no longer recognize the gas stations, stores and stoplight at Topanga and Ventura. They are built by humans for humans with human proportions. I feel as though I’m in a dollhouse, and it’s too dang small. I’d rather be dwarfed by Nature.
The Hoh rainforest near Seattle is calling me. I downloaded Pinterest and started an image board. I have faith; my desire has wrought miracles in the past. I gave birth to Ember and Eamon; I traveled to Paris, Indonesia, and the Inside Passage; I own a home in Topanga (a bit small for me today, but still a miracle!). My work is not done. There is still beauty for me to behold. I don’t have a plan… except of course infinite possibility.
I am thinking of Einstein’s quote, “When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.”
Sage Knight is a local ghostwriter, speaker and tree hugger. She and her Golden Retriever, Shiloh, live at Top o’ Topanga and welcome your visits to www.SageKnight.com.
