I think most people visit Mount Sequoyah at the wrong time of the day. At 6:00 a.m. you won’t be crowded. This morning was cool and the sun was filtered through heavy clouds. Deer wander around everywhere and are largely unconcerned by your proximity. (Unlike your boss, who is undoubtedly plotting another round of micromanagement for your own good.) Due to federal law, my age requires me to be fascinated by birds I haven’t seen. This morning up on the mountain it was Indigo Buntings, which are bluer then a 6-year-old holding his breath during a tantrum. I have a sentimental connection to the spot but more than anything, it is a singular reminder that we often don’t need to travel to distant places to see the places we inhabit differently.
Am I the only one who sometimes realizes how absurd life is? When I awoke this morning, I had been dreaming something nostalgic but I couldn’t catch even a whisper of what the dream was. For a minute, I thought it was Friday and that work was ahead of me. I was driving around after 3:00 a.m., having gone to the inconvenience store for a soda. The clerk, who was stocking and cleaning over by the soda dispenser, told me “That one is out of flavoring.” I laughed and continued to dispense the soda because I drink carbonated water without a second thought. When I left, I turned the wrong way without thinking and just kept driving. Soon enough, I went through the stretch of construction and up the side hills of Fayetteville. One section had been redone and the street lights were both beautiful and bright, casting shimmers in the darkness. The deer crossing signs became more numerous and on the way back down I discovered why. I had to come to a complete stop because five deer were standing in the middle of the road looking at me. I waited and watched them. After a bit, they dispersed to the left side of the road and I drove on. Because I listen to a wide range of music, I switched the radio to 106.5, which I like to call Old Person’s Variety Radio. I sang along to the ridiculous song playing. It was “Summer Nights” from the Grease soundtrack. I took a moment to think about the fact that I was in fact in a summer night, albeit at 3ish in the morning. At the next intersection, I watched a vehicle come toward me as the song played. The driver was either intoxicated or driving with a bag on his or her head. They erratically passed and I continued on my way. I adore these early mornings because most of the people I encounter are closing out the day before while I’m starting mine. I stopped on top of one of the hills and exited my car. I took a moment to look across the city and see Old Main shining in the distance. The early morning robins were singing loudly. Although nothing happened, it felt like something was about to. It was just a beautiful untimed moment. With a few exceptions, it’s all mine in these early mornings. There’s a fine line between enlightenment and lunacy. Summer nights.
I’ve been out wandering the colorful nighttide. (Still one of my favorite words.) The colors and sky have been worth seeing. I enjoyed seeing the little house cat in the industrial building, its paws raised up behind the dirty glass of the front window. The fox that darted across the street in front of me, headed to the creek. A couple of rabbits, one dog wandering and wanting to be petted, goats in their enclosure, a few bats, and a variety of birds that I collected on my Merlin app. The wind has been blowing the entire time, rustling the trees and foliage. I saw a couple of people who were ill-advisedly still up from last night. One of them was sitting by the creek on the large rocks along its banks, enjoying a beer. I don’t normally walk in the creek barefoot so early in the morning, but I couldn’t resist. There are a few places near my apartment where the sky opens up and are relatively uncluttered. I sometimes forget how much a juxtaposition the area is. The world is unfortunately waking up now. But I owned it for long enough this morning.
Am I the only person who has infrequent yet regular interactions with someone simply to pretend to be annoyed? A few weeks ago, a man in a blue sedan was going at least twice the speed limit down the hill toward the Scull Creek bridge. I had more than enough time to cross the street, so I did. The man in the car stopped very quickly considering the speed he was going. He backed up a little and put his window down. I will call him Chad. I calculate there is a 1 in 74 chance that is his actual name.
“Hey, you need to be more careful,” he hollered at me.
“I’m not sure that caution will help me with low flying blue aircraft like the one you are piloting.”
He couldn’t help himself. The irritation disappeared from his face. “Fair enough. You should use the crosswalk.”
“And you should watch for low power lines,” I fired back at him. Both of us were smiling at this point. He waved, put his window up, and sped away.
A couple of weeks ago, he saw me standing by the bridge. He slowed down and put down his passenger window.
“Still running your insurance scam?”
I laughed. “Yes, because your mom says I don’t make enough at my job to support us both.”
He laughed, waved, and drove away.
Today, I saw him coming from the other direction for once. He put down his window as he slowed. There was a car behind him.
“Mom asked me to tell you to bring home a loaf of bread on the way,” he said, obviously remembering my last joke.
Because of the car behind him, I didn’t want to hold him up so I gave him two thumbs up and laughed. He laughed too, as he drove away.
When we are firing back and forth at each other with commentary, it feels exactly like a hidden camera sitcom.
The interactions make me feel literal joy. Maybe because it all started with a flash of irritation. But now I’m on the hook for clever comebacks. I guess I’ll ask his mom while she is cooking us dinner tonight.
One of two surprises given to me for taking care of a sweet dog and cat a couple of weeks ago. The other one I will hold in reserve for a bit of shenanigans. In two weeks when it stops raining, perhaps this one will reveal its polychromatic sunlit spectacle.
There are some things that only the early risers can experience. When the moon is full, there are a couple of spots along the road where I live where the world loses its shadows and becomes a dark rainbow. .
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.” Captain Picard. I come back to this quote often. Lord knows I am not guilty of doing everything right.
When I went skydiving recently, I signed many waivers, ones that consistently reminded me that I was giving away all control. The back of my parachute harness made this clear; almost anything can happen when you jump out of an airplane. Not just human error but a million mechanical or environmental things. The universe is not a safe place. The truth is that almost anything can happen when you’re on the ground, too. Your organs can spontaneously fail, an invisible aneurysm can surrender, or a vehicle can come from nowhere and turn out the lights without warning. You can wake up to find someone you love has departed, whether through the door or into the unknown place that waits for each of us. A plane can fall from the sky, even if it is piloted by the most expert of those who chose the job or avocation. You can trip on the sidewalk and break your neck, even on a beautiful sunlight-filled day.
I knew in real time when I leaned out of the open plane into the sky that THIS was the moment I’d waited for. Not the 30 seconds of freefall, nor the minutes of floating down with the parachute, watching how everything looks different from such a height. Don’t get me wrong. When the instructor asked me how it was to jump out once we were floating, I enthusiastically shouted, “Holy f@ck!” It was already over by the time I struggled to hold the harness on my chest and keep my arms and head tucked safely. The unspoken thing about skydiving is that you’re going to get back to the ground – one way or another. Likewise, you’re going to end up somewhere in life, even if you don’t make conscious choices.
The next part is tough to admit. I jumped out of selfishness. The day I was in the tree, watching a plane go over, I just knew I had to jump. I waited to be nervous or afraid, even on the long ride up into the beautiful afternoon sky. The only moment that I really wanted was to experience leaning out the door and knowing I had to let go. The moments during and after were window dressing and distractions from wanting to KNOW what would go through my head. It wasn’t fear because it didn’t feel real in the way that we think about reality. It was surrender.
Even if fear had overwhelmed me, I still would have fallen out. Oversimplifying it, the result is the same. There is a lesson in there. The result for each of us is the same, ultimately. It’s the in-between and how we either enjoy the moments or are dismayed by them. Overthinkers and anxious people spend too much time concerned with appearances, control, and things beyond our control. Your face, mind, and body are the ones you have; work with what you have, change what you can, and release the rest of the nonsense into the void. I can preach it because although I understand it, I don’t consistently practice what I preach. That pisses me off.
When you are prone to anxiety or worry, you’re really not seeing that you are trying to be in control of things that aren’t in your domain to do so. Both anxiety and worry take energy and focus away from what it is. Cognitively, I get it. But if you can accept the idea that although you live your life perfectly, the results are not going to be perfect. So why do we expect things to go moderately well when we know we aren’t doing things correctly? There’s nothing you can do about it. This sort of visceral understanding can either mobilize you to action or it can freeze you in your tracks, maybe forever.
I say I jumped out of selfishness because it’s true. I’m hoping that the moment of looking out into the sky clogs my head with the absurdity of worrying about the infinite list of things that cannot be controlled. I’ve been in the headspace before where I was completely detached. It’s liberating, but it is also dangerous.
Friday at noon, I climbed 30 feet into the trees near the creek. Saturday, I climbed 10,000+ feet into the sky, leaned out into the nothingness, and let go. The one second I spent hanging out of the plane, looking down at Northwest Arkansas with the sun on the horizon on such a beautiful day, is something I will be thinking about for a while. The 15-20 minute plane ride to get the right altitude was gorgeous, too, even though we were cramped into a very confined space. If you are prone to nervousness or overthinking, this part would be your downfall. The 30 seconds of freefall was an adventure, but nothing could top the loud roar of the plane and the wind going silent in my head and fading away in that one single second. I kept waiting for the nervousness to hit me; it didn’t seem real. It was more of a hassle waiting on the process to get on the small plane. Erika accompanied me to the site but, surprisingly, wasn’t interested in jumping out of a perfectly good washing machine disguised as an airplane. Just letting go and falling, knowing everything was beyond my control. Once the parachute deployed, it was live tv with the world at my feet. Trees won’t feel the same to me now. The only real danger of jumping is the landing. It went perfectly as I slid across a few yards of clover and came to a stop. Back to the real world, with the memories of allowing myself to let go and jump into the sky.
I didn’t have much time and maybe that’s why the urge to ascend seemed reasonable. I jumped across the gap between the trees. Had I missed, I would have taken a swim. Up I went, for some reason confidently and quickly. Because I was near the trail, I got a good laugh because two bike cops rolled past. Both of them did a long double take, probably to confirm they were in fact looking at a middle-aged man dressed in blue rapidly climbing a tree that didn’t look like it should be climbed. I expected them to turn around and at least ask me questions out of curiosity. They didn’t, so I continued to climb. I didn’t risk the long step over to the adjacent tree, one of those in the pictures. But I did perch up there high enough to feel the amazing breeze. I wonder what these same trees might look like from 10,000 feet. There’s only one way to find out. And that makes me secretly smile too.
My egg surprise, hidden in Fayetteville, was found on Easter of all days.
I wondered why I hadn’t heard from the person who found it. It turns out the email was hidden in my spam folder in my other email since Easter Day. 🙂
She wrote to me and told me she had walked further along than normal and spotted it there. It sparked her curiosity, and she ventured into the fringe of the woods to retrieve it.
As promised in the note included in the egg, I will leave her another surprise, this one intended just for her.
When I opened the email, I felt pure joy and adventure, knowing that one of my shenanigans had resulted in a great moment for someone I didn’t know. I was touched more than I realized I would be.
