Weekly Bread #238

I spent part of the last week in Yosemite. The picture above is from the trail around Mirror Lake and has a partial side view of the iconic Half Dome. It looks different depending on the angle and where you are standing. It also depends on who you are in that moment.

As a child, I spent two weeks in Yosemite every July. As adult, I try to get back every couple of years. It is important to me. I am not looking to recapture my childhood. Heaven forbid! I am glad that part of my life is over. Those weeks in Yosemite were the best part of my childhood – a safe(r) place where I could run around unsupervised with campground friends, swim in the river, and ride the rapids on an air mattress. I watched the firefall very night and yelled for Elmer (the little lost bear) with all the other camp ground kids. I also went on ranger led hikes by myself after the age of 10 or so, to the top of Yosemite Falls, on the four mile trail to Glacier point, and up the Mist trail to the top of Nevada Falls. It was a taste of freedom and of peace, the blessing of nature and I would soak it in hoping it would hold me for another year. It mainly did.

But the Yosemite of today is not my childhood park. It is much more crowded for one and seriously harder to get a reservation. I don’t think we even made them back then. I remember moving camp when a spot by the river opened up, which it always did in a day or so. I am no longer that child either. I need a room not a tent; it is too hard to get up after sleeping on the ground. The park is still magical to me, still a place of both healing and renewal, but in different ways.

Now I can drive up to the higher elevations where it is less crowded and cooler and there are new trails to explore. I like being an adult. In some ways I also like being old. I can look at things differently now, the angles are softer, the memories more nuanced. Bittersweet is a good description of much of life’s journey. I am definitely not of the “everything happens for a reason” persuasion, but I can appreciate that one can learn and grow from experiencing hard times. It doesn’t always happen however. First you have to survive the hard times, if you can, and then you have to at least sort of understand your wounds and the traces of the scars that will always remain no matter how much time passes. Scars can be tender, but they can also be tough and protective. They can lead to openings in our heart where we can connect with others, or they can be walls that protect us from more pain. Discerning whether to open the door or bolt it firmly closed, sometimes depends on who is knocking or trying to get in. All of this takes some work and a lot of luck. These days I also name it as grace.

There is more than one side to every mountain, and more than one way to reach the summit. Sometimes just looking up at what can be is more than enough.

L’Chaim!

Average weight this week was up .8 pounds for a total loss of 144.2