Retreat: 1) an act of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable 2) a place of privacy or safety 3) a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction under a director

Retreat: 1) an act of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable 2) a place of privacy or safety 3) a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction under a director

Took a few days to read a New York Times Magazine special feature about the past, present and future of the human life span. I had to take it in mini-bouts. Put our current state of affairs into stunning perspective.

That first pair arrived as harbingers of middle age. Cheap readers from the drugstore. Every year or two the numbers rose: 1.0, 2.25, 3.5…you get the picture. Maybe you’re living it. In no time the number could not go high enough, my arms were just not long enough, the lighting was just never strong enough.

Ever had shoulder pain? No??? You are lucky and very unusual. I totally remember my first bout. Scooping really hard ice cream at a school fundraiser, this giant container of vanilla, the table way too high for a short gal like me. Feel that? But I was fine doling it out for a couple hours. It wasn’t until the next day I noticed a dull ache about three inches south of the shoulder joint. Classic. And so began my personal introduction to rotator cuff dysfunction.

What happens when you return to the same spot 20 years later? Here I am again. The base of Mount Whitney, the eastern slope of the Sierras rising everywhere that is west, straight up and out of the 5,000 foot plains of the Owen Valley.

January and February…quietest months of my life, on mute. Undoubtedly. Taught online classes, showed up live for the garden dance each Sunday, Coop shopped once a week. Saw friends and children outdoors time to time, talked on the phone, read an insane number of books. Gardening and cooking---saving graces. Too cold to camp. There was no to-do list.

"Not even an inch." This mantra, established immediately, oft-repeated throughout the reunion week-end. Emphatically, joyously, giggly---over and over. Marveling how crazy close we were to each other. A vaccinated release from an entire year of no physical contact with my children and grandchildren. After three glued days it still felt utterly strange, weirdly verboten.

Bhandha: a gesture in which a segment of the body is sealed, isolated or constricted in some manner. Sanskrit for lock, bind, hold captive. And why would a body want to do that?

By and by the events that pepper our days fall into place. Our minds, hungry to create meaning, chew on personal stories. Eventually interpretation breeds perspective.

A year ago today I matched each rise and fall of my breath with my father’s. I didn’t know his breath would end the next day. We never know exactly, do we? Yet even as I remained bed side attentive, I was aware of fear and restlessness, a longing to know woven with denial, this wondering how long side by side with the wonder.

Valentine’s Day dawned overcast and cold and damp. No matter. Because since June, every Sunday morning, you'll find me outside on farmland bordering the Sacramento River. Music radiates from my trusty old Mackies and a hardy group spreads out all over the property to dance.

I’m old enough to remember the 1955 polio outbreak, the long lines of kids waiting for their vaccine sugar cube. I can only imagine my parent’s fear. But they had already lived thru scarlet fever, mumps, diptheria, whooping cough. They had already lost friends and family and felt gratitude for the science behind vaccine.

Fifty years ago I kept a 20 week standing date with a cadaver. Without fail. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, eight to noon, scalpel in hand, trusty Gray’s Anatomy propped at my side. My original oft-referenced fifty year old text pictured above. Me and three intrepid lab partners dived in, layer by amazing layer.

I’m totally indifferent to any debate about science validity. For me, it’s a given. Neil Tyson said, “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe it.” Totally resonate. Given the fact that science just is, what intrigues me is it’s intersection with the sacred. The co-mingle of science and magic. The marriage of science and art.

My children, constant source of inspiration and wonder to me. I feel them so deeply, mid-life stream, transforming through adulthood's unrelenting lessons. Juggling more than we prepared them for, showing a maturity of utter grace, ever-thoughtful skill and consideration. This pandemic year has crystallized a slow change in our relationship. The children they were always palpable beneath these astounding adults. The parents we were a fading memory overlaid by the elders we have become. Who worries more about whom is now a toss up.

The ground of current events, the shifting backdrop of threats to our well-being, the hypnotic media messaging…it just keeps crashing on our shores. I wake each day and wonder what it will be. Spiking pandemic and vaccine news, wildfires waiting in the wings, protests and boarded buildings, chaotic politics and disputed elections. And now? In case that was not enough? A riptide of violence, raging humans who are so dispirited and desperate. People who are armed with weapons and values that I struggle to fathom. I have no answers, only questions.

After The Holidays you might expect an essay about how unique, how challenging, how memorable the past two weeks were.  And they were.  But this morning I am curious about distraction, which the dictionary defines as 1) a thing that prevents someone to giving full attention to something else 2) extreme agitation of the mind or emotions.  Maybe this topic is connected to The Holidays.

Plant medicine…trending way to politely reference pychotropic drugs. We are so creative with our euphemisms. Back in the day…well, I digress. But I've been steeped in plant medicine this week. Not the kind of plant medicine one might call in, but medicine all the same. You're lucky if you've never been gifted an excruciating brush with poison oak.

Have you felt a bit spur of the moment lately?  Carpe diem inclined?  Something about these times sparks this muscle in me.  It was mid-December when I looked at the long stretch of no-dance-scheduled time approaching.