I’m back from a weeklong adventure out West, and my soul can exhale again. I hadn’t boarded a plane since August 2019, nearly two years ago, back before viruses and diseases entered my everyday vernacular.
What a thing to step away, spread my wings, and soar again. Like old times revived.
I left my laptop at home for a true “unplugging” of a trip. I can’t even remember the last time I went without my trusty digital lifeline to the world. Amid record unemployment, financial devastation, and isolation abounding, I’ve been grateful for my remote work with YOB — co-building an awesome community along the way.
But this year has taught me that man was not made solely for the digital realm all day, every day. In one sense, how convenient for a pandemic to occur in the year 2020-21 and not 1920-21: for many of us to work remotely and stay “connected,” at least in some sense of the word.
But I’ve felt the strain of not experiencing a dimension beyond screens on screens on screens. Experiencing the dimensions of humanity and creation interwoven again.
Last week, I saw humans with hats and cameras and boots and smiles walking all around me from the blues of Lake Tahoe to the beige of Death Valley.
Humans: exploring, basking. Like we were ever ago made to do, like we evermore shall do.
My first day out West was hard. Walking the shores of Lake Tahoe, I felt like a fish out of water, like my Traveling Golden Trout moniker of yestercamp had lost something of his former name. Like learning to swim again.
But by Day 2, I started to rediscover my wandering stride by climbing some hills. Donning my “epic hat” of old. Extending the selfie stick and capturing the vistas behind me like Pokémon in the wild.
Ambitiously, I crammed four national parks into five days of travel, spending time in Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Death Valley. Each park so different from the other. Each park offering me something unique and wonderful.
Yosemite: her waterfalls, her meadows cupped by granite fortresses, a true glimpse of Paradise.
Kings Canyon: her far-off trails, her hidden rivers, a wonder even to discover let alone camp overnight inside.
Sequoia: her trees, oh her trees, towering for literal millennia, first planted when prophets of old spoke of a coming Messiah.
Death Valley: her bounty of life, bushes and lizards and coyotes, even in the face of absurd deserts and scorching temperatures.
Often in my meditation exercises, I’m encouraged to deeply inhale and deeply exhale. Ole Tamara tells me to breathe an extra second longer than I think I can: an extra second in, an extra second out.
Maximize your breath. Feel this moment, really feel it. Do not let this now pass unawares.
Much of 2020 and 2021 has left me apathetic, lethargic. Like I’ve been asleep or comatose, waiting and waiting for this plague to pass.
But now is the time to awaken. To be alive and live lively lives again. Now is the time to step out in ways new and old, to breathe that extra second of breath while we still have it — in, and out.
Because we’ve never stopped being alive. Even when we felt unseen or even dead inside.
Plague or no plague, now is the time to dive into the blue and bask in the beige and realize our alivelihood once more.
