Pack Your Rubber Boots
The kids and I headed out to take an afternoon walk in the rain. It had been rainy all morning, an on-and-off soaking. As we piled into the car, we heaved rubber boots and rain coats and a few small umbrellas into the trunk, along with water and some crackers.
The rain continued as we made our way west, in this terrible weather, although I hoped that the conditions would not improve too much more. Cloudy was great; rain wasn't a problem. In fact, I saw it as an asset. We were equipped, and I had a hunch that the rain would ensure we had the place to ourselves.
We had learned to be equipped for this particular task in Europe. Our years in the Middle East taught us to be equipped in different ways, but our years in Europe drilled us to be ready for adventures in weather like this. One had to be properly equipped with footwear and appropriate outer gear, but also readied with a kind of indifference to the discomforts that could present obstacles to our getting out into nature. The Germans in particular modeled this attitude for us. There is no bad weather in Germany, as the saying goes; there are only ill-equipped people. This is the attitude, and it indicates a willingness to embrace a measure of physical discomfort for the sake of some good adventure.
Obviously, there are real and hard limits to this posture. One cannot just inure to any kind of weather, and each person is different in their needs and capacities for toleration. But our metaphorical participatory thermostat, as it were, for what we are willing to try and endure is often set for us by others. Minnesota gets a lot of snow, but Minnesotans aren't usually incapacitated by it. Washington, DC, does get incapacitated by snow (or even a whispered threat of snow!), even though it has a lot of equipment to deal with it. This is true everywhere. I will never forget, years ago, getting a phone call from my dentist's office in Amman, Jordan, calling to cancel my scheduled appointment that day because of the weather. "What do you mean, the weather?" I said, completely baffled, wondering if I had missed some issued warning about a sandstorm or something. The receptionist said, "You know! It's raining!"
So we had our boots, but we also had a willingness to endure some of the muddy, drippy discomfort for a greater good: Virginia bluebells. And the pay-off was tremendous. Words fail to capture in the same way that my photography does. The reality of those bluebells was a taste of transcendence. The rain was beginning to taper off as we squished across a forested stretch and splashed and splooshed onto the Bluebell Trail. The bluebells were freshly washed, their bright and tender faces in various stages of awakening -- the infant-young pinks, the bright teenage purples, and the mature petals of cool blue graced the greening carpet beneath the leafless canopy of the trail. Our rubber boots allowed us to sink into the mud and gaze in every direction, and our posture of practiced indifference to the discomforts of mud and dripping water allowed us to give our attention to all that fleeting beauty. And the rain and mud had graced us with quiet solitude.
As we approached the other end of the trail's loop, we noticed that the bluebells were growing sparser, but also that there was an elevated wooden boardwalk to walk along up ahead. We started passing more people, coming from the opposite direction, and almost none of them were wearing rubber boots, only sneakers. A pair of walkers stopped us to ask if the path ahead was muddy, and we told them it was, but that the bluebells were much more abundant ahead as well.
But the mud! This able-bodied pair of walkers decided to turn around and turn back, heading up on the boardwalk ahead of us. As we followed at a bit of distance, we saw that the bluebells had disappeared almost entirely. All along that safe and mud-less boardwalk, there were none to be seen. We passed them just after exiting the boardwalk and the trail, and they were trying to wash the mud off of their sneakers. They seemed fixated on and swallowed up by a few patches of mud on the path, and now on their sneakers. The problem wasn't just that they weren't in boots -- poorly equipped -- but that they couldn't bear the delicate discomfort of mud for the beauty that was nearly theirs. Practicing discernment in those settings is tricky, but rest assured, there is always practice involved. The narrowing bands of comfort form by practice too, and they can easily be expanded with practice of learning into a bit of discomfort.
I think there's value to thinking about where in our lives we need to practice packing our boots for treks in risks, for the sake of beauty, connection, service, patience, and so on. Obviously, there are limits to this metaphor, but the thought exercise is important in our lives and in our settings. The dental appointment cancelled for rain baffled me, continues to make me laugh a bit, but also serves as a bit of personal reminder. There may be possibilities we aren't entertaining, or possibilities we deny ourselves -- some delicious agency or a wonderful life experience -- because we are prioritizing comfort, or mindlessly embracing a narrow band of comfort governed by a prevailing culture. I have many of these narrow bands in my own life! But being willing to test and try those boundaries for ourselves can be really fruitful space for personal growth. That's not to say we shouldn't simply test heedlessly, but there are likely aspects in life where we could put on some rubber boots, and see what adventure may emerge.
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A few items of worth:
Reading - I've just finished reading Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede. I'm also trying to plow my way through, among others, Ian B. Bell's The Relevance of Bernard Lonergan’s Notion of Self-Appropriation to a Mystical-Political Theology. Guess one which requires me to wear rubber boots?! Both offer satisfying vistas of beauty and insight, and both thrill and challenge me. But yes, one of them requires I get booted up and practice a bit of healthy indifference to discomfort.
Accretions - Jen Pollock Michel's newsletter Post Script passed its five-year anniversary. Jen is a wonderfully gifted writer, and a wonderfully productive writer. She models for me a kind of booted indifference for the sake of faithful risk and adventurous growth. Her newsletter is another reliable source of wisdom to me, and I recommend it. Her latest one had some lovely insights into mustard seeds, the power of practice by accretion, the sturdy promise of small things, and a willingness to keep plunging ahead, quietly and faithfully, on her own muddy path towards the bluebells.
Gratitude - I had originally titled this update "Thank You Notes and Rubber Boots," but I waxed on too long about rubber boots and decided to leave it at that. The title had to change. But another life tip that I routinely practice is packing thank you notes along too. There are always people to thank on our paths, and it's always good to be equipped with a proper card to do so. The artifact of it matters here. It makes a huge difference to have a card along that is begging to be put into the game, to be inked and given. Being equipped gives us sight to see all the people we could thank. I won't say more about this now, but I will another time.