thoughts on joy and love

Sometimes you think you know everything about life, and then surprise! You get a message from a friend, or hear a snipet of a conversation not meant for your ears, or catch an unexpected smile from someone you thought you knew turns things on end.  Sometimes I wonder how I even know anything.  How I always mistakenly assume what I know for the truth, even as it crashes over me like a wave, time and time again, and just as often.  This conviction in the midst of chaos, of certain, constant change, of knowing I will never know everything, and I still make lists. 

Inspired by a TedTalk during my junior year of college, I created my first list of things I know to be true.  The list was a desperate attempt to put into words the change in my own worldview that took place over the previous year of my life.  Two months in Oregon, three months in Guinea, two weeks in my house, at last, that no longer felt like home, two weeks in Thailand and Myanmar, and then finally back to my little college in rural Ohio.  What did I know about the world?  What did I know about myself?  Was I sure about anything?  I knew a lot of negatives: life is not fair, the world is not complete, there is not always reason for actions, some things just don’t make sense, and never will.  This was my list of things I knew, but I was unsatisfied that that was all I “knew” to be true, because it was a list full of anger and uncertainty.  These may have been true at one time, true for me, but I still felt incomplete, felt like there was something I was missing. 

Fast forward to the next fall.  I’m camping with some of my best friends in the mountains of North Carolina; I feel that I can finally think clearly for the first time in a long time.   I take a walk by myself as the sun is setting, illuminating the sky and the whole world below.  My list of things I know changes.  I call it my list of beliefs.  I believe that there is love in this world.  I believe that everything is somehow connected to everything else.  I believe that I’ll never know the meaning to some things, but just because it evades me, doesn’t mean meaning, somewhere, doesn’t exist.  May not sound like much of a creed, but it felt right, at that moment.  It felt like I was at least going in the right direction.  Felt right, in my heart and mind and body.  I wanted to articulate a few more “things I knew,” but three was all I got, and so I let it be. 

Almost a year later, I’m sitting with students whose names I didn’t know ten days ago, but who now hold a special piece of my heart.  We’re supposed to be letting go of things we’ve held on to for too long, so that we can make space for those things that uplift us, positive things that illuminate out lives like the candles we lit last night, spreading light in the darkness, warmth where there had been none.  I was filled with awe at the changing color of the aspen trees.  The vibrant yellow against the green of the pines, the gray and brown of the rocks, the blue sky.  This is love.  This is the love of the sun, of the world, of life giving life, here for us to partake, or no, but here regardless.  It’s all connected.  And it’s all love.  The sunshine kisses the leaves, the wind embraces the mountains, myself, wrapping us all in comfort.  This is love. 

Love means nothing, if not connection.  Love is only shared.  It has to be, can only be, and so this thing that wraps the world in light and warmth, it is shared with me.  And I get to share it with others. 

And what is connection without genuine vulnerability?  The thing that scares me most in the world, letting my guard down against the world, the thing that leads to deep sadness, as well as deep joy.  We don’t know what path vulnerability will lead us down when we set out.  As we risk things we hold dear to us, our views of ourselves and the world, what is waiting for us around the next bend?  Disappointment?  Fear?  Loss, grief, confusion, sadness?  Or will we find joy?  Gratitude, affirmation, wonder, pleasure, happiness?  What is it that we open ourselves up to, each time we risk? 

Last night I got to spend a wonderful night with my roommates, hanging out, watching a movie, just enjoying life together.  In a week, two of them will be leaving us, going back to places that were first home, and even though I’ve only known them for three months, I’m going to miss them a lot.  I knew that they were leaving when I started.  What’s more, I knew that I would be leaving shortly, and still we became friends.  It would have been hard not to, as we all live and work together, but still, sitting on the couch together last night, I realized something I had missed before.  I’m happy here.  Really and truly happy here.  I miss home.  I miss having internet access and cell phone service.  I don’t always enjoy the 30+ hour shifts I pull a few times a week.  The stories I hear from our students often bounce around my head at night and make it hard to sleep.  Sometimes I wish I lived closer than a half hour drive to a good cup of coffee.  Even with all those things, I’m happy here.

Coming out here was a huge risk.  I knew no one I would be working with.  Didn’t even know exactly where I was going.  If I’m being honest, I wasn’t even sure what I would be doing, specifically, besides “hanging out with high school students.”  I packed my life up in a car I had bought (and learned to drive) two weeks previous, stuffed extra pain meds into my backpack, looked up at the stars, and set off.  I couldn’t, and still can’t, articulate what drew me out here, but I knew I had to go.  The same inner stirring that lead me to a small city in West Africa, the same conviction that there’s more to life than what I’ve known thus far, and the desire to learn all that I can about it.  This could have been a disaster. 

This could have, very easily, gone bad quick.  I live and work with the same 14 people.  Anything more than a pizza place is a half hour drive away.  It’s cold here.  I’m far away from the comforts of home.  My drive to work is five minutes, and I get to look at the mountains the entire way.  The students we work with exhaust me and inspire me every day.  My housemates here my best friends.  I get to paid to hike mountains.  Life is an adventure, and I love it.  This could have gone any direction.  When I set off three months ago, I didn’t know which direction it would go, but I had said yes to the journey, walked to the edge of the diving board, and trusted that the world would catch me. 

When we set off, we can’t know for sure where we’ll end up.  That’s the thrill, the adventure, the really scary part of vulnerability.  Will I make friends?  Will I find some sort of fulfillment?  Will people respect me?  Will I feel valued and important?  Will I find joy?  What will happen when I open myself up to others?  Is it worth the risk?  There’s no way to know.  Last time I crossed the country, then crossed the ocean, it wasn’t easy; joy was evasive, life was frustrating and chaotic.  And so, two years later, I set off again.  Hoping it would turn out better, terrified it wouldn’t, determined to find something I hadn’t even known I was looking for a few months ago.  In a world filled with material comforts and friends I had overlooked, I went off in search of adventure and found joy-filled gratitude.  Joy is always possible because there is always, always, something to be thankful for.   At home, I became so blinded by the call to adventure I missed enjoying what I did have, friendships built on years of shared hearts, the familiarity of a city I grew up in.  And even here, some days I miss home so much I fail to notice the beauty of the mountains and the love of my housemates.  It’s here, though.  At home, in Colorado, wherever I go. 

Vulnerability is always worth the risk because wherever I go, joy is possible.  There is always, always, something to be thankful for.  Where I find grace, where I allow myself to be loved and share the love within me, there I find joy.  May you, too, find joy wherever you are this holiday season. 

Love always,

Bridget

Thoughts from the Mountains-

            It seems, sometimes, that the mountains can speak.  Not in words, but rather in whispers of soft sweet sounds, whispers that you must listen closely to understand.  My mountains whisper soft comforts to my soul, and sometimes I listen to them.  It is not an easy thing to choose.  I wish I could say it was, but listening to the mountains is breathtakingly intimidating.  To listen to one that knows so much, to believe in the whispers from a source deeper than what could ever be described in the logic valued so highly by those of us who call ourselves thinkers, scholars, rational people (though that may be an oxymoron in itself). 

            Have you ever just listened to the mountains?  I’ve been living in their majesty for two months now, and sometimes still I am skeptical.  And yet, despite the logic I learned from so many of my teachers, I am beginning to understand the mountains.  They love so selflessly, standing there in all their splendor, daring us to…. To what?  For sure they are daring, one need not even understand the whispers to understand that the mountains are a dare to human kind, to all of us who try to make meaning out of this absurd and chaotic world, a dare to dream?  A dare to conquer?  A dare to live.  It is by choice that I wake up every day, look out my window, smile.  And yet, with the mountains daring me to live, what choice, really, do I have?

            I accept.  I surrender.  I acknowledge the beauty and the wonder and unexplainable whispers that resonate from the mountains to the depths of my soul.  I embrace the daily dare to live, to wonder with open arms and an open heart.  The dare to live.  To selflessly rise up, and breathe the whispers back to their source. 

            When the days are sunny and warm, I admit it is easier to listen.  The sun calls me from my hiding place behind the window, and beckons me outward.  “Come,” says the sun, and pulls me grudgingly away.  Some days, it seems too hard to follow.  Some days, I curl up in my empty bed, close my eyes to the world, and wish only for a few hours of bliss, ignoring the world outside.  When days are long and nights even longer, when stories enter the ears and make their way all the way down into my heart, when hugs hold me tight and lift me through what I never could alone, I pull the blankets over my head and pretend it is all going to be okay. 

            The sun, though, the sun does not need to pretend.  And the mountains know naught but truth. 

            Is this truth what makes the dare to live so compelling?  That the sun will never play pretend and the mountains continue to whisper, regardless of if I am listening or not?  The sun is shining, even if the clouds bring grey skies and snowstorms; the mountains whisper secrets free for the taking, and I, I want to know.  I want to listen; I want to learn of the selfless love whispered constantly through the trees, down the slopes of ageless rock, timeless secrets shared throughout eternity, forever ours. 

            I look sometimes, out across my mountains, and wonder if there is really a difference between what it means to live and what it takes to love.  This dare to live, with majestic and timeless creativity, is it not also a call to love boldly?  To love without expecting anything in return, just as the mountains live and love, selflessly.  Or is it more simple than that?  Is the dare to live, a call in itself, a whisper that cuts through the glass I try to hide behind, shattering what it is that holds me back- a view, boxed in on all sides, my reflection staring back at me, blocking what it is I long so much to see.  This dare shatters the box, shatters the preconceived notions of what I thought I could put myself, and my world, into.  A dare to live.  To step outside; to breathe; to listen.  To accept the wisdom of the mountains without judgment, without wishing it were any different than what it is.  To accept what is, here and now, in all its glory, in all its holiness. 

            It seems, sometimes, that the mountains can speak.  And I regret only that I do not listen more often. 

            I hope you can find something in this poetry.  It is times like this that I am convinced my words know more than I do.  Maybe this will hold meaning for you, for I still do not know how to make meaning out of all that I have written. 

Much love,

Bridget

reflections on people and love

Monday morning, and the living is beautiful.  For a few more days we’ll have fall weather here at 8,500ft, but I don’t want to think about that.  Because now is beautiful.  The sky is clear, the clouds float by, I got to sleep in, and when I woke up I had time to wake up slow, to rub the sleep out of my eyes and say a few mumbled “good-morning”s to my other housemates also (half-)awake.  It’s a beautiful morning.  And in a few hours I’ll go into work and we’ll drive to Denver International Airport and pick up 30 students, most of whom haven’t been out of California before, and more than likely haven’t seen snow ever.  Thursday’s snowstorm is going to be a shock.  It’s supposed to snow all weekend.  We’ve had a few inches accumulate before, but never anything that’s stayed for more than the day.  This might be the start of winter.  Soon.  But not now.

Now, the aspen trees have almost all dropped their leaves, and the pines continue to stand majestic.  The sun streams in through the windows, casting a yellow haze over us all inside, both blinding and comforting all of us here this morning, whatever it is we’re looking for.  The clouds float by, in what little blue I can see, high above the mountains.  The butterflies are playing tag, the flies wish for one more hour, and I’m just happy I have an extra hour this morning. 

When most of my thoughts were reflections on the world and on myself, it was easy to share them with you.  What is forgiveness?  How does the sunshine encourage me to live more selflessly?  How does the work I’m doing matter to the world?  It’s harder to write about people, about a life so intricately connected with those of you who are reading this that distance is harder to fake.  You, who are a daily part of my struggles and joys, how can I write about my life without calling you out, without admitting that my life is still tied tightly to yours, even though we’re now miles apart and I’m hiding behind a screen.  How to be honest, to you and to myself, if I only get to tell the story one time? 

For as much as I love writing, I hate words.  These words seem to fall short of what I mean to say; what is in my heart comes out distorted and superficial and it’s hard to confine the whisps of feelings and emotions into words on a page.  And yet, still I try, futile though I know it can be.  Sometimes I say what I want to say; sometimes I wish I could have found different words.  And still, I try.  Because I can’t not.  I have to try, have to do something, have to try to communicate the extent to which this whole thing matters.  And so, even though it’s easier to pretend that I can live this world on my own, that’s not the whole story.  I’ve written parts of that story, and now, the story continues. 

And so, people.  Because that’s what’s been on my heart most recently.  How much I love people; how, even when they confuse and frustrate me and move me to tears, I still love people so much.  I’m thankful for all the love they pour into me, how they comfort me when I’m sad, how they hold me when I cry ugly tears.  Since I’ve been out here in the mountains, my housemates have taken care of me more than I could ever have hoped.  In less than two months I’ve become closer to these people than I ever thought possible in that short of time.  My roommate is my favorite person in the world- she really gets me, and without her I don’t know how I would have gotten through these past two weeks.  She’s my rock. 

And she’s not the only one.  I love the people I work with (who, incidentally, are also the people I live with… go camp!).  Random chance has brought us all together, and quite frankly I probably wouldn’t be friends with many of them if I had just met them on the streets, but I think that’s part of what makes it so special.  The people I live with are the reason I wake up every day smiling, they’re why I want to go to work every day, why I don’t mind putting in long hours, because I know they are right next to me, will be right next to me, until the very end.  My co-workers and house-mates, they make sure I make it through every day, they take care of me, they love me deeply and show that love constantly.  I love you.

Thank you for endless games of True American; for taking care of me, and everyone; for letting us take care of you; for driving everyday; for helping me accomplish my goals, big and small; for just being there; for making me toast when I can’t move; for teaching me how to smoke Cubans; for hours upon hours sitting on the couch; for movies; for the record player and endless hours listening to records; for doing dishes; for letting me complain about it being cold (and then telling me to shut up and get used to it); for looking at stars and finding constellations; for late nights in the kitchen, sitting on the counters; for hot seat; for putting up with my endless list of camp games; for hugs, even when I’m unable to ask; for so much love.  Thank you for just being you.  I couldn’t do this job, couldn’t be the person I’m becoming without you.  I love you. 

And when life gets overwhelming here, and I get to missing home, I just have to check my phone, or my mailbox, or the back of my clipboard, to remember all the love that has carried me before, and still loves, even from a distance.  Hour-long phone calls with friends, playing phone tag with my family, cards in the mail that just say I love you, smiles and conversations shared about how much little things do matter.  We’re miles apart, but this space in my heart will always be yours.  And I love it.  I love that even though we don’t talk as often as we used to, when we do, it still feels like we’re close.  Sometimes this moving on thing sucks, but knowing that you’ll always be there for me, makes it just a little easier.  Thanks for loving me from afar, for still taking care of me in ways that only you can.  For sharing the little joys of a postcard, for letting me know I always have a place to stay when I visit (not if, when), for letting me know what’s happening in the lives of friends, and for being honest with me even when it’s hard.  Thank you for loving me in your own ways, for staying in touch, for just letting me know you’re there.  It’s hard moving on, but being able to continue to celebrate the love, celebrate that life is better because of rainy April morning, because of (not-so-)quiet time in the morning, because of saying yes to the unknown; this celebration continues, even from miles away. 

Life is better because you held my hand through the hard times, and I’ll never forget that.  I hope that you don’t either.  Even though I can’t hold your hand anymore, even though Sunday morning breakfast will never be the same, even though hot cocoa tastes different when it’s not shared with you on the basketball court under the stars, even though I’m no longer living in the room at the top of the stair, I hope that memories can sustain us until we can again.  When I can hold your hand, when Sunday brings breakfast after church, when the basketball court is ours again, when my head rests under your roof; it’ll happen.  I’ll celebrate that day with you, wrapped in your arms; and I’ll celebrate every day in-between for all that was and all that will be. 

I love people.  I can’t not.  Couldn’t choose it, even if love was an option.  On one of the hardest days of my life, I realized that I don’t get to choose who to love, or if I love.  I just get to love.  With my whole heart, through all the joys and sorrows and everything in between.  I just get to love, from my heart to yours, with love from the universe, from Brahman, from Baraka.  It’s liberating, to know that this love is nothing I’ve ever deserved, and so you don’t need to deserve it either; you, and I, we just get to receive and pass it on.  This love isn’t here because of anything we’ve ever done, or even because of who we are, it just is.  The sun kisses the earth as it finally finds a resting spot, the snow kisses the leaves as it continues to fall, the wind wraps its arms around all of us as it moves from one eternal embrace to another.  This love, thank you for sharing it with me, for helping to name it and claim it and celebrate the joy it brings. 

Some of my favorite lyrics say it best: “I will weep when you are weeping, when you laugh I’ll laugh with you; I will share your joys and sorrows, till we’ve seen this journey through.”  Not because of anything, just because we’re here, on this journey together.  Thank you for all the love.  Let’s continue to love from wherever; until we meet again.  

love and thanks on a sunny October day

Exactly a month ago, I was sitting in a Denver coffee shop, trying to eek out words to describe what I was doing and everything I was feeling, trying not to let my fears and anxieties show through too much.  It’s hard to believe I’ve been here for a month now.  Where has the time gone?

In the month I’ve been here, we’ve had two sessions of students at the Ranch (yes, Ranch.  With horses and goats and alpacas; and I wear jeans and flannel almost every day.  So far, I’ve resisted wearing a cowboy hat; sometimes I wear my baseball cap.  More often than not, I wear my boots, especially with the daily rain we’re now getting).  At the Ranch, yes, there’s the barn and the Lodge (and lots of mountain trails all around), and mostly we spend our time at the Lodge, where we eat all of our meals and sometimes have “academic time” because the students earn elective credit while they are here.  And they do learn, about the natural history of the area, about animals living on the Ranch, about leadership, about the culture of the West, and, oh yeah, about themselves. 

Mostly what we do here is tell the students how much they are loved and how much they matter and how they mean something in this big, confusing world.  These kids come from all across California, mostly from inner-city neighborhoods, where they spend their days out on the streets, or taking care of younger siblings, or trying to escape homes where “love” is as far away as the belief that they can make something of themselves.  At the Ranch, we try to change that. 

It’s not summer camp.  It’s not vacation.  We have fun, no doubt about that, but it’s not all fun and games.  It’s a lot of tough love.  The tough part comes with 10-hour days, and living with the same people you work with, and I want to help you, but you’ve got to learn to help yourself.  It’s when they wish they could stay here forever because it’s the first safe place they’ve know in their 18 years of life; it’s when the biggest smiles and most outgoing and loving hearts cry into your shoulder awful stories of abuse and neglect.  The love part is the only response. 

Of the students that come out to the ranch, many have just flown for the first time, most have never been out of California.  All of them, in lots of different ways, believe the lies society has told them about their lives, their worth.  When the students leave the Ranch, they will have completed 5 academic units, but they walk away with a lot more than that. 

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I moved out here, out to a small haven on the side of a mountain, and I don’t know if I could have found a better place to be.  Yes, the days are long, exhausting physically and emotionally, but I don’t want to be anywhere else. 

On the last night of each session, the students write letters to themselves.  We mail them three months later, once they get back to their lives outside of the Ranch, in hopes that they remember the things we did at the Ranch, the love, the courage, the change, remember that the joy is as real as the struggle.  Las week, I wrote myself a letter.  Mostly, what I write I’m too self-conscious of to share, but as it sits next to me, I want to share it here; I can’t take it back, can’t dismiss it as false, now that it’s out to the world.  Before a bad day makes me want to throw it into the fire.  Before I, too, succumb to the doubt that threatens to chase the love away. 

October 1, 2015

Dear Bridget,

            Session 2 draws to a close.  Never doubt that you matter, here and now.  Whatever emotions threaten to bring you down, know deeper than that that every moment, every expression of love, every embrace, this here is real.  The love that emanates, radiates from what we do here, this is real, these expressions of love different than what you’ve known in the past, different than the fairy tales, but no less important, no less valued, no less needed.  You love so hard.  Because so many people have poured into you, and that matters.  You could not love like you do without all the love poured into you; it changes expression, but never the strength, the passion.  Your story isn’t the fairy tale story, but the love you share reaches the ends of the earth.  On days when it’s hard, remember to also love yourself.  You are radiant.

Love,

Bridget

Thank you, all of you, for believing in me.  You, who tell me, in all your beautiful and unique ways, in some way or another as we’ve shared our lives together, “I love you.”  I wouldn’t be here without you.  Wouldn’t see the sun’s radiant light as a daily shower of love over the world, wouldn’t know deeper than words that this life is something special, wouldn’t know the daily joy that manifests in more ways than could fill a book.  Thank you for making me who I am today, I wouldn’t be here without you.  Sometimes the doubt and shadows threaten to block out the sun.  Thank you for all the reminders, for all the little manifestations of your love.  I hope that this can be a reminder to you, on those days for you.  You have poured so much into me, I hope that I can but give a fraction of it back. 

Love, love, love,

Bridget

catching up

It’s been over a year since I’ve updated life in cyberspace, and life has been full in these months of absence.  Most notably, I graduated from Wooster, my home away from home for the past few years.  Moving into a cinder-block door room as a freshman, four years seems like forever; then graduation day comes and you realize how short that time really is.  Or I guess re-realize it; “the time is short and there’s so much to do.”  Been hearing those lyrics every summer since I was 10 and they’re as true today as they were that first Thursday night in June 2003.  But that’s a tangent for another day.  I graduated.  And now that I know all the answers to everything, thanks to my liberal arts degree, I know that there will never be satisfaction in answers; living is bigger than answers, and so armed with more questions I’m off again.

The funny thing is that two years ago, September 7, 2013, I was also on the brink of a journey, traveling across the ocean to try to re-kindle meaning in a life that had gotten so full of routine I wasn’t able to see the richness life held in a small town in the middle of Ohio.  Two years later, I re-read through all of the anxieties, all the passion cursing through my veins and my words, and smile, remembering that person who seems so far away now.  So much has happened in two years, and the adventure is still continuing.

I’m getting ahead of myself again.  I graduated in May with a B.A. in life, and the world a blank slate before me.  And so I did what I love best, I went to camp.  Spent the summer, summer number 12, at Camp Joy, making camp happen for over 1,000 campers and staff- little kids and big kids alike.  Two weeks of training and ten weeks of camp… life was a sprint, (every moment matters!) and while some days I felt too tired to even get out of bed, I went to work at a place where smiles greeted me every morning and hearts and lives were changed for the better.  Physically and emotionally exhausted, I ended the summer with a few mandatory days of rest, thanks to pain pills and recovering from surgery but I’m still cancer-free!!! and healing, slowly but surely.

And so, two weeks out of the hospital, what am I up to?  I’m currently sitting at a coffee shop in Denver, Colorado taking advantage of free WiFi so that I can keep my promise to my family and friends that I’d let them know how life was going, not across an ocean this time, but across the continent, as I once again pack up my life in Ohio (my first and always home) and see what life brings in Colorado.  I’m moving to Lyons tomorrow morning, leaving the city and the comfort of my sister’s apartment for a camp I’ve never been to and where I know no one.  And I’m thrilled.  Excited beyond explanation.  Last week was one of the hardest weeks of my life; saying good-bye to people you love more than words is really really hard turns out (and I’m leaving it at that because I’m in public and despite the fact that crying is ok, crying in public isn’t something I want to do right now).  I said good-bye to one chapter in my life, and tomorrow begins another.  Maybe we’ll call this one trying to see; trying to see what things are, as they are, trying to appreciate each moment of love for what it is, miracle of life, every moment of every day. 

Maybe it’s that leaving makes you see things in a different light, maybe it’s that I stopped wanting to see.  Anyways, now I’m here.  For better, for worse; only time will tell.  As for now, this is me, writing to stay alive, to stay connected, to that light within me and to the lights of innumerable souls who have made my life better because our paths crossed and they chose to smile.  Chose to ask a wandering soul to do quiet time in the morning; chose to rescue crazy college kids from being drenched in the April downpour; chose to watch Baraka, and hold on tight; chose to let me learn from my mistakes and my own writing; chose to be excited for me instead of letting me see how much it hurts to move across the country.  I wish I could tell you all exactly the impact you’ve had on my life, but words fall short on so many occasions and this is no exception.  For someone who loves writing so much, sometimes I have to leave the black and white on the page and send my love through the stars.  So wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, my you see the stars and know the love that cannot be extinguished.  I pass it on, but it not mine.  I hope you continue to know it, and continue to pass it on.  My life is better because so many of you chose to say yes to this infinite love and pass it on to me.  Thank you.  With your love in my heart, I now travel on. 

Until next time. Love, love, love,

~Bridget