"Adventures in Friendship"

Summer Block 2011

In typical form I flipped my calendar today, nearly two weeks past the time when such an act would make the most sense. My usual cues seem to have failed me. September is almost half spent and the golden days of summer persist. If I had spent more time here I might have a leg to stand on when saying this is late in the year for 80 degree days. Even the nights are warm and still.

Tonight I'll canoe up Diablo Gorge to the base of Ross Dam. Yesterday I scrambled up a dry creek bed to find its source timidly trickling down a crumbing rock face. I'm making the best of this time because its easy to walk out your door when you can see blue sky face to face. Now, I won't go bad mouthing weather...any weather. I've chosen to live in some places where to hide from a cold gray day is to hide for half your years. Nevertheless, when you can't rely on a steady 70 and sunny all year long you come to rely on other things to a great degree.

Small community dynamics are such that careful, honest connections must be valued for relationships to grow and be sustained. For me contentment is bound to the quality of my friendships. What may have gone unnoticed when I first arrived here was that my neighbors and cohort-mates are parts of my family. We share kitchens and bathrooms and we'll 'fight' over whose turn it is to use the computer. We'll do dishes together and sit down at the same table for dinners. We're members of a close community and we rely on each other everyday. Everyone plays a role and brings unique value. When Novembers comes and the sky decides to lay low for a spell we'll still do dishes and teach together. We'll go on hikes and pressure each other to swim in Diablo on our birthday. But when there is no business or entertainment to contemplate we'll pass time with those we consider our friends.

I'm humbled to look around me and see so many people with whom I can naturally connect. By now I consider many of them good friends or friends to be. So I've come to think about building friendships and making them last. It's early in the year and the potential of my experience is locked in the potential of my connections with others and the synergies they create. I'm hungry for friendship because one of these days I'll flip the page on my calendar and walk away from here with experiences that will serve me well but my experiences will mean nothing if I have not also passed time in the company of good friends.

Keeping an eye out

I've been away too long. It's far too tempting to live and live and live and not stop to pull your head out of your...life long enough to see where it's taken you. Since I last sketched the world as it appears projected on the inside of my head the scenery has done nothing but change. If change is fuel for learning I've got 5 cords stacked in the side yard. The narrative account of my summer would cripple my fingers and draw smoke from the keyboard. Too much, too much. So, believing what I've read of winter in this place I'm counting on time in the coming months to reflect and share. I'll leave this summer's wood to season in the pile and start slow.

"If I had an orchard, I'd work 'till I'm sore"

We've talked at length of wilderness these past months. The discussion has been broad and deep and, for me, has added meaning to the word. Written 'wilderness' it means a place of solitude I worked to find. Written 'Wilderness' it speaks of restraint in an otherwise unrestrained society. In the context of a culture with a 10,000 year history here it may lack meaning altogether. This summer I've dragged myself up and over these mountains and dug deeper into this place than any other place I've been. I'm afraid that in immersing myself I've forgotten to keep an eye out for something of equal importance; mystery. That's a problem. Mystery is like change in that it catalyzes learning. It makes questions possible and answers worth the work. It turns the page in the novel of life and makes satisfaction sweeter than an overripe blackberry. I need to remember to keep an eye out for mystery while I'm here. I'm lucky in that respect, though. Alone in wild places it can hide behind awe and beauty but what I've discovered is that places like the learning center remind you that mystery is just beneath your feet or in the sky above your head. 

A Glacier Lilly emerges from its secret life beneath the snow.

I saw it yesterday afternoon while driving back to my house to unload some provisions. A guest stumbled over a rock because he was too busy staring up, mouth agape, at whatever boundless wonders filled his eyes. It might have been a good thing too. I suspect he found something equally wondrous on the ground when he smiled at the rock which stubbed his toe. I saw mystery again while eavesdropping on a conversation between a father and son last night. The moon was settling low between Pyramid Peak and Colonial Peak and the man could barely contain himself as he pointed out the way the high snowfields were lit. His son responded in kind with a question of the highest order. “Can we go there? I want to climb closer to the moon.” I think those two may have discovered mystery on the moon last night. 

"Nobody knew quite what to make of the moon anymore."

The learning center brings people into new places and creates space for questions. Our job here is to set the scene and lay out the tools which satisfy a guest's mind when it becomes wrapped in wonder. But what about MY astonishment quotient? Where will I look for my dose of unrestrained wonder?Where's my mystery? I think the biggest clue lies in what I felt in listening to our two moongazers. I was exhilarated by the prospect of watching one thousand scenes of that sort, each one colored different by the moon, the mountains and the eyes with which they are seen. In a few short weeks I begin teaching again. Another event too long in the making. This season of Mountain School will bring hundreds of young people to this place for several days each. Their experiences will no doubt spur me to look at this place, in which I am also a guest, in new ways. And maybe that's where the mystery starts. If I look at a familiar scene from a new perspective I wonder what will look back at me. For now that remains a mystery. 

The day begins to shine on the secrets of the night.