Broken: How the Light Gets In

 

I love to sled.  

We hike for miles up the snow covered hills, up steep slopes and through forests to get the perfect fifteen or twenty minute ride. 

 Sometimes it is smooth and sweet and gentle, sometimes, after lots of people have packed down the path, it is fast and thrilling and slightly terrifying.  But every time I sled, I always fall off.  After snowstorms, falling off is a puff of snow and a cold face and ice melt running down your neck, but more often, it is a slid into a rock or tree or a flip off your sled onto ice.  You get bruises and sometimes, like Finn last year, you break things (second arm break).  We laugh and say that we need to wear helmets, but I’m actually thinking I’ll wear one next time.

This year, there isn’t much snow.  We have to go up to Pine Hallow and fight with mountain bikers and hikers on the narrow, barely there trail with cliffs on one side.  On that trail, there is no possibility of a soft landing.  It is nerve wracking and yet I still go (though I am in the back and ride with my feet tucked under me with the breaks on).

Last week, John and I took Piper and Finn down to Arches National Park.  It was so fun and again, terrifying because there was a foot of snow with melt and freezing creating ice coating over the smooth sandstone.  I had awesome Sorrel, waterproof sneaker with absolutely no tread.  I tried to walk up the fin just past Landscape Arch and slid sideways towards the 20 foot drop.  I dropped to all fours and spread eagle to stop the slide.  Hallelujah, it worked but Piper and Finn who were behind me were gray with fear.

We decided to hike around the other way—hoping it was easier.  It wasn’t, but I had no pride and on all fours, crawling like a baby or holding onto strangers hands and hoisted by strong arms, I made it.  I spend the whole time looking over edges, thinking . . .there are no soft landings here.  

But we made it.  Double O was worth it and traveling along with strangers who offered help, even in this masked and worrisome time, hands were there when I needed it to pull me away from an edge or up a ledge; advice and encouragement and laughter spread around freely.

There were crowds everywhere.  We’ve gone to this park for the whole of our married (and courting life) and John went his whole childhood and we have never seen it this busy.  Especially in winter.  Everyone was from all over the country.  All, like us, seeking a moment of reprieve and beauty.  

I hope they felt, like we did, that solidness of nature.  The snow, the rocks, the landscape, they will outlast us . . .and all pandemics.  

In this we are all the same to Nature.  

She doesn’t care about us—rich or poor, what sex we are, who we love, the color of our skin or our religious or political bent—She only cares about water and wind and snow and ice and heat.  We are the ants that momentarily pass through.  

I take such comfort from this.  She is here for all of us equally, un-partial and unmoved by our fantastic outfits or lack there of.  We are all, in the middle of the desert, the same.

As we drove, I thought about comfort I feel in nature.  The impartiality.  The abundance of which the beauties can be seen without cost or requirement.  

For days since our trip, and after our two sledding, definitely terrifying sledding trips, I have thought about soft landings (or the lack of them).

When we were driving down to Arches, as the kids were plugged in, listening and reading, John and I talked.  I found myself admitting to John some of my fears and insecurities.  I felt naked.  I felt alone.  I felt scared of the words coming out of my mouth.  I told him my greatest worry about my character flaws and weaknesses. I let the words hang in the air, shimmering around me, desperate for validation, comfort and assurance that despite my legions of flaws, I was still worth something. 

He nodded and said, Yeah, you are that way.

I felt like I had been hit in the gut.  All the air in my lungs evaporated and I began crying.

He looked at me and immediately knew he had missed something.  Bless his heart, he reacted as we all often do, not with regret and sorrow, but defense and confusion. 

I could not stop crying.

 

I kept imagining myself, sliding down a hill, being brave and letting go of my control and trusting that I would find not rocks, but a soft snow bank that would embrace me and give me a soft landing.  But instead, I found rock and tree trunks and ice pack.

John, lost in his own thoughts, had not realized or perhaps even heard the ache in my voice—the worry and fear and lostness. 

I realized, as tears ran down my cheeks and my heart felt bruised and tender and perhaps a bit raw, that the most important thing we can give people is a soft landing; a safe place to crash into that will hold them steady while they feel out of control.

It is not until you are crashing, that you realize how much you need a snowbank.

During 2020, especially on December 29th, I needed one.

There was none to be had.  

I wiped my eyes, pasted a smile on my face, and told him, everything is fine.  Nope, you weren’t listening, but that’s ok.  You’ve got a ton on your mind (he does).  It’s ok.  Let’s go enjoy this day.

But something inside me, still isn’t right.  

Or maybe . . . I am finally getting myself right.  Maybe I am righting myself.  

I may not have many places to land right now that is gentle and kind.  (I wonder how many of us do—I think everyone is tapped around us), but, during this righting process, I can become the snowbank.  I can be the pillow, the soft grass, the warm water.  

I’ve spent my days thinking about who makes me feel this:  Who helps me see the world better;  who, when I am with them and I am cranky or cross or out of sorts, lets me be that way without judgement or worry; who helps me, when I am that way, to see the root of those feelings and works with me to get back in my balance; and most of all, who has time for me.

In this year of challenges, many of my relationships have dried up like a puddle without rain.  I do not, heavens above, judge them for this.  I fully understand.  Bandwidth is so so limited.  That doesn’t mean I don’t feel the loss.  But it has shown me, in perfect illumination, true friends.  They are so dear and precious and a joy to me.  I know—I know—I matter to them.  My words and thoughts and time, comforts them as much as it comforts and heals me.

I know, I sound like a crazy person here, but I feel like having that rocky, bruised landing has woken something inside me to a new tenderness to the world at large.

I have realized that I am afraid.  I am afraid I am not enough.  Even after all these years on this earth, I still wonder if I am worthy of love.  This is my fear.  And I think it is all of our fears.  If we do something off or wrong or mean or hasty or don’t meet the expectations of others, will we still be worth loving?  

I am afraid that if I am vulnerable, I will be rejected.

At forty-five years old, I am still afraid of rejection.  

And what I’ve learned—I will 100% be, at some point, probably tomorrow, be rejected.  Over and over again, especially as I try hard to find that truth centered inside of me.  But that does not, I’ve also realized, mean I am one teeny tiny bit less worthy of love and time and attention.   

I love that quote, which when I examined, was attributed to Emerson, Hemingway, and Leonard Cohen, “We are all broken. That is how the light gets in.”

That is how I feel.  Broken, but at the same time, whole.  Soft and yet, full of strength.  Blinded, but with a new, amazing sense of touch and smell.   Wrong and yet, right.

When asked, what has 2020 taught or given me that I want to take with me, it is this. 

I hope that I can learn, in 2021, how to become the soft landing we all need and that I can learn, with the broken parts of me, to see how the light gets in.