You do not have to be good
As Mary Oliver wrote, “The world offers itself to your imagination.”
I wonder if it’s possible to cure FOMO? Just cut it out of the brain altogether, that fear of missing out, that dopamine-craving mechanism that pushes tired bodies and souls to forever pursue the next big thing.
Lately, I’ve been swinging wildly between the FOMO mindset — that bucket list, “do all the things,” “pursue big dreams” sort of drive — and a Zen mindset, a desire to sit quietly with my surroundings and appreciate the present for what it is. One side is urging me to finally make some plans to visit Greenland or scheme an arduous adventure of some sort, because I need compelling experiences to create compelling art. The other side reminds me that I could simply walk out my own front door every day for the rest of my life, nothing more, and still witness more beauty and wonder than I could ever process.
I recently listened to a wonderful audiobook, “Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver,” which included interviews with writers, actors, and others whose lives were changed by the beloved author’s poetry. I too am the cliched middle-aged, outdoor-loving woman who has devoured Mary Oliver’s words for two decades — ever since a friend gave me a book of Mary Oliver essays for my 25th birthday. I don’t usually become emotional over celebrity deaths, but I genuinely teared up when Mary Oliver died in January 2019. As a child, she spent a great deal of time outdoors — her refuge from a dysfunctional family and horrific sexual abuse. For more than 40 years she lived in a small town in Massachusetts, walking through the woods near her home. She never needed to venture far to find inspiration.
“I go off to my woods, my ponds, my sun-filled harbor, no more than a blue comma on the map of the world but, to me, the emblem of everything,” she wrote in “Long Life” — the book of essays my friend gifted me.
My favorite Mary Oliver poem is “Wild Geese”
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
I think about this poem often because it pushes against the ambitious and ego-driven side of me that thinks I do have to walk on my knees for a hundred miles through the desert. I want to be something more than a soft animal. Loving what I love is not enough — I need to love the whole world, to experience the whole world. I don’t want the world to go on without me.
But the world does go on, with or without me. The sun and the rain, forever shifting across the landscape, the geese flying south and north again, over and over. The world doesn’t need my love. The world doesn’t need me at all. But it invites me …
No matter how lonely …
To embrace my place in the family of things.
On Saturday morning, I decided to go for a hike on Niwot Ridge. Beat and I haven’t been to the high mountains in Colorado all spring — a result of busy schedules, travel, and a thick layer of rotten snow that leaves many of the higher peaks inaccessible. Beat wasn’t all that interested in joining my hike. He’s training for the Hardrock 100, and Niwot just isn’t steep enough for a good workout. Niwot Ridge is our go-to winter training ground, where we take advantage of its broad slopes, brutal weather, and limited avalanche danger. But we don’t often venture up here in the summer. There are just too many more interesting places to be.
Niwot Ridge is not popular. I don’t know why. It’s not a secret. It’s a designated ecological research site that allows public access, and it has fewer restrictions than the surrounding Indian Peaks Wilderness. You could ride a bike here if you were so inclined. Sure, the west wind blows at gale force almost incessantly here, and sure, there’s no exciting destination like a peak or a lake. Still, the sheer unpopularity mystifies me. Trailheads to the north and south are packed and overflowing for much of the year. There are weekend shuttles and online reservation systems just to manage the crowds. But when I pulled up to the research center on a lovely Saturday afternoon in June — I waited until 1:30 p.m. for the gale-force winds to die down a bit — there wasn’t a single car in the visitor parking lot.
The first four miles of the hike follow a rocky jeep road. Is this what people don’t like about Niwot Ridge? When Beat and I snowshoe here in the winter, we often have to break our own trail. Now that it’s late June, with the heat finally cranked on high, most of the road was a stream of flowing runoff. I did what hikers always do when encountering open water. I gingerly danced around the current until I finally took the accidental “freedom step” plunge into cold water. I grumbled about my wet shoes until I accepted that walking through the water was easier and faster than trying to avoid it. This led to big splashes and little laughs as I soaked my pant legs without a care in the world. I eagerly anticipated the wet-and-wild fun I’d have once I started downhill. This is the path to a good life in a hard world — don’t just accept the suck. Embrace it.
Above treeline, the winds had indeed died down to a breezy 10 mph. It’s strange to be up here when the air is so warm and calm. It’s also strange to be up here when there’s so much snow. In the winter, the gale-force winds blow much of it away. Beat and I will clack our snowshoes over frozen tundra and rocks as shards of icy spindrift pummel our barely adequate winter body armor. (It’s that walk on your knees for a hundred miles thing. We need that suck to feel alive.) On this June day, large snowfields had not only managed to stick to the ground, they somehow stuck around for weeks after the last snowfall. The snowpack had become slushy and rotten — an ankle-rolling minefield, really. But without the usual meanness of the biting wind, I felt like I was walking on clouds.
There were long patches without snow, too. Already, the June wildflowers have awoken. Pika squeaked from their hiding places beneath the rocks. The occasional ptarmigan erupted from the ground, feathers mottled white and brown and completely invisible until they moved. I settled into my stroll, feeling content. Does it matter if Niwot Ridge is apparently so homely and unloved? It only matters that I love what I love. I love Niwot Ridge. I want to build a cabin up here, a place where I can cower in awe of the winter wind and soak in the spring sunshine and flowers. And then I remembered … my home is like that. I don’t even need to travel this far for beauty and awe. But I love that I can.
I passed the last research station and continued scrambling up snowfields and rocks toward the pointy end of the ridge. Here the terrain becomes more technical and exposed until it surpasses my comfort zone. Whenever I reach a point like this in the mountains, I tend to stare up at the imposing climb with a combination of fear, awe, and resentment. My logical mind can see the line, the handholds and footholds, the achievable path to the next high point. But I can’t make myself try it. I know vertigo is likely to set in, and I’d find my body frozen on a precipitous ledge, unable to overcome the fearful paralysis imposed by my mind. Here is where I feel the resentment. I hate my fear of heights. I wish I could override it. But as I grow older, I realize that I’m happier — and undoubtedly safer — if I just listen.
Instead of feeling FOMO about the summit I’ll never reach, I turned around, sat with my back pressed against a narrow boulder, and took deep, satisfying breaths. I pulled out a pack of Honey Stinger Chews and savored each one for long seconds. I gave myself time to take in every detail I could — the sweeping views of the Albion Lakes, the Peak to Peak corridor, Bear and South Boulder Peaks with my neighborhood below, and the expansive plains stretching across the eastern horizon. And really isn’t this enough? Why do I even listen to the side that’s always telling me I need to do more? It’s never going to be satisfied either way.
For five hours and nearly 15 miles, I didn’t see another human. It’s a lonely place almost always, Niwot Ridge. This makes it feel like a sacred place. Without the wind, the silence is sublime. I can hear runoff roaring in the valleys far below. I can hear the low hum of life in the cities many miles away. The late afternoon light cast long shadows. I felt an icy breeze announce the approaching night.
During the descent, I turned on my music and broke into a jog. My breathing has been awful this month, but here at 12,000 feet and well above the summer grass pollen particles that clog my lungs, I could finally take big draws of breath to fill my blood with oxygen. I felt light, free, as though I could leap into the air and take flight with the mottled ptarmigan. Or the wild geese, calling out in my imagination, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing my place in the family of things.
Note: I’m still planning to write one more Tour Divide post. I wanted to catch up on the happenings in this year’s race, and I didn’t have the energy to do that tonight. Thanks for reading!
We are currently fighting the same battles...you as a middle aged athletic woman, me as a former athletic man now fighting the demise of strength, will, and stability. I dream about the long strolls through woods and harbors of which Oliver speaks, and your "casual" trip up familiar Niwot Ridge. I often wonder why I'm ravaged by an unsettling guilt/failure when I take a day off or don't "push." I, too, hold those youthful dreams of physical achievements as I peddle, run, hike, whatever...fearing that if I don't keep using it I will forever lose it. I don't know what the answer is. But I so identify. I figure I will someday die trying to match or exceed a Personal Best. Foolish old man acting like he's still a kid who still cherishes the post-exercise high of endorphins. Maybe we are just addicts?
I love and relate to this piece...
mark in lovely ouray
I love this so much, Jill. The only way I will ever visit Niwot Ridge is within your words. With your beautiful words and pictures I am right there with you. With my recent injuries I have developed a fear to walk outside at all. I know I must keep going to keep up my strength. I know I must keep going in order to satisfy my passions for the wonderful outdoors. I have spent many many days recovering and only LOOKING outside. The folks here in Iowa want to put me in bubble wrap and keep me inside forever . . . I would die from depression. So, dear Jill, thanks so much for taking me to Niwot Ridge this morning. Thank you for inspiring me to read Mary Oliver's poetry. My best to you always.