Wandering and Wondering

I grew up with TV shows about the Old West depicting Cowboys and Indians. My neighbor and I had horses that we rode in our farms. I did not have a saddle for my gray Appaloosa, so I got the Indian role. I would have chosen it anyway. As I look back, I am sad about the appropriation that we took in our play, but that was the culture of the time. I did not realize that I would circle back to those opportunities to connect with the First Nations people throughout the rest of my life.

Today, the most respectful and appropriate approach to address Indigenous people is to use a specific tribal or nation name (such as Cherokee, Navajo, or Lakota) rather than a generalized label. When a specific name is unknown or when speaking collectively in the United States, terms like Native American, Native, Indigenous, First Nations, and American Indian are acceptable. Individual preferences vary. Recently at a meeting, I heard the term “First Stewards” to recognize the commitment these natives had to the land. I will use Indigenous People in describing my evolving connections with these first stewards.

My first job out of college gave me the opportunity to work with the only Indigenous tribe in Iowa. Sauk and Meskwaki (Fox) Indians settled in central Iowa. One of my charges as a Professional Youth Development Leader in Tama County was to establish a 4-H club with the Indigenous people. I was able to initiate a club but did not work the way I should have with tribal leaders. The group did not sustain itself after I left.

In the early 1990’s, it became apparent that studies of health among US populations did not include African American and American Indian women. I had the opportunity to conduct research with colleagues at the University of South Carolina to explore the baseline of activity among these under researched groups. I worked with Pueblo and Navajo in New Mexico and primarily Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) in Minnesota. We involved Indigenous women tangentially in our advisory groups. The research ascertained that Indigenous women were less physically active, and thus had greater health issues, than did white women. We learned as we went along in conducting this research about how culture influenced physical activity.

My most recent connection to indigenous people is with efforts of the Estes Valley Land Trust (EVLT) to procure a conservation easement on Old Man Mountain in Estes Park. This mountain is one of three historic vision quest sites in Colorado for Indigenous People. Based on what people have learned over the years, our efforts must include consultations with tribal leaders as co-stewards in considering the future management of this land. We know that these efforts will take time. We want to assure that Indigenous people have major input to the project.

I have learned much about Indigenous people over the years. We may make mistakes in this EVLT endeavor. I now know, however, that our cooperative approach is imperative to ensure the project is successful from everyone’s perspective.

“Aging is often a process of adjusting to loss.” That statement was made at a recent lecture I attended related to emotional well-being. The therapist explained that loss impacts the identity each of us has as we age. We adjust by doing things differently. When change happens, we can feel loss. The world starts to shrink around us.

Loss can occur in various forms. I think often about the loss of my parents in the past 12 years. I still have the identity of a daughter but my relationship with my mom and dad is on a spiritual level, which is OK, but definitely a change.

I also think about other losses of friends and family to death. I have only one remaining aunt left when once I had fourteen aunts and uncles. I share these losses with my cousins. Without those parents, however, the cousins drift further apart.

Experts say that aging begins to occur early in mid-life. Into my 7^th decade, physical changes have become more acute. I am slowing down regularly and admit that I have increasing limitations and losses regarding my physical abilities and energy.

Nevertheless, Mark Twain noted, “Comparison is the death of joy.” I cannot help but compare myself to a younger self as well as to others who are younger and still going strong. I tell myself to be grateful for what I have had over the years in terms of good health. Nevertheless, I do not want my world to shrink. I feel like I am in the stages of grief beginning with denial edging into anger.

Acceptance means knowing that changes are occurring. I will be more emotionally well by recognizing the loss of identity but also the gains noted as I enjoy life in diverse ways.

I vow to try to find harmony in acknowledging the positives, and not just the losses, during this period of time. My new identity includes being active in slower ways, appreciating vintage and new friends, recognizing something bigger than myself, acknowledging the wisdom I have gained over the years, focusing on hope, expressing gratitude, and recognizing the need for forgiveness (of myself and others).

My emotional health journey continues as my identity evolves.

“I’m so happy to talk to a real person.” I hear this greeting every once in awhile when I answer phone calls to our Information Office at Rocky Mountain National Park. We are one of the only parks that has such a personal service available. With this opportunity comes a great responsibility to provide the highest quality of information for folks who call, email, or send mail. Because I have been a volunteer in the info office for the past 10 years, I am reminded of the value of good customer, or in our case, visitor service.

Weeks ago, I was renting a car at the Milwaukee airport enroute to a reunion with some Wisconsin friends. We waited in line for about 20 minutes, got a car assigned that was in short supply, went to the car, and discovered someone else sitting in it. The car had been double booked. The gentleman in the car was surprised, as we were, but agreed to go back to the office to see what the problem was. We went to the front of the line as we didn’t think we needed to wait again.

The representative stopped what she was doing, listened to the situation, and told the man he could have the car since it was designated to him first. She assured us that if we waited a couple minutes, she would get us a new car. She was cheerful, took care of the next customer in line, and kept circling back to tell us she was working on the problem. She chatted with us casually as she worked with the next customer in the lengthy line. In about 10 minutes, we got a car with her sincere apology and a smile. Despite the hassle, we felt good as we drove out of the rental car garage.

We have a sign hanging in the Info Office that says,” They may not remember what you said but they will remember how you made them feel.” I think about that often as I interact with visitors both in the Info Office and in the park in general. Most people want to do the right thing when they visit but sometimes do not know what that is. They appreciate kind reminders, an explanation of why the policies are as they are, and reassurance that their question or concern is important. I want to be helpful as a five-star helper in the interaction.

I appreciate the help of an authentic person in this world where chatbots and AI are more often the norm. Those mechanisms can be helpful. Interacting with an individual who is positive and competent in their assistance, however, cannot be beat.

Music reminds me of harmony and dissonance, joy and sadness, beginnings and endings. When I hear certain tunes, it takes me immediately back to a time in my life filled with fond memories. Sometimes it takes me to a place where I feel the reminders of a difficult relationship or a fearful time in my life.

I am grateful for music in my life. I enjoy making music and being a part of a community band. Metaphors about music influence my life.

Like a song, life has different rhythms and unexpected changes. Sometimes it feels fast and loud, and other times it is slow and soft. As I age, I especially appreciate the softness of music.

Music has pauses, sometimes short and sometimes grand. Tempos may change slowly with a ritardando or a speed up toward the end of a piece. My days are sometimes similar. Finding a rhythm and adapting to cut time can occur. All goes together to create the mosaic of music.

Pop, rock, folk, and classical are my favorites genres of music but I like most anything that is melodic. I am gaining greater respect for Latin, Country, and K-Pop. I have yet to appreciate all the nuances of that music. Nevertheless, I am willing to listen, and sometimes perform, new sounds and combinations of sounds.

A friend of mine, Dan Dustin, recently authored a book called Citizen Soldier. He described his conflicted experience as a Russian interpreter during the Viet Nam War. The book describes the importance of various relationships he had during his years of service. Although a minor part of the book, he identified the songs that sustained him in the late 60’s. The descriptions of the music brought me back to a time when I could connect to that era even though I had a dissimilar experience than Dan.

As in other aspects of my life today, I recognize that music does not have to be perfect to be meaningful. Music reminds me that life is not just about reaching the final note, but about experiencing and creating something interesting and memorable along the way.

I played basketball in Iowa over 60 years ago with its unique girls’ basketball history tied to half-court play and a legendary 6-on-6 girls’ basketball tradition. A person was either a shooting forward (me!) or a defensive guard. Although rebounding might have been a statistic that was kept, the focus was on points scored. I do not recall ever hearing anything about “assists.”

I have fond memories of my basketball competition. I regret, however, that the acknowledgement of teamwork was not conspicuous by measures of contributions other than points. My coaches talked about the value of teamwork, and it was understood, but little tangible evidence existed as there is today when “assists” are part of the trilogy of points, rebounds, assists, and occasionally steals.

I admire players like Caitlin Clark who make her teammates better because she provides assists to them. She can score points but also recognizes that often others are in a better position. Providing the perfect pass that sets someone else to score results in great satisfaction. It can extend beyond the immediate statistics as well.

Teamwork is an essential part of success in both personal and professional life. When people work together, they bring different skills to the table. Research shows that kids who participate in team sports can be better prepared for the work world. By combining strengths, a team can often accomplish more than any individual could alone.

Good teamwork with a mindset of “assists” also builds trust and a sense of shared responsibility. Ultimately, teamwork is not always about what one person can achieve. Although I hold the all-time scoring record for my high school, I know I had many assists that were seldom noted. Living as a teenager or an adult is about accomplishing goals together like winning a game or feeling supported in one’s daily life and acknowledging those needed assists.

Assists emphasize the notion of interdependence.  I am fortunate to live in a community that recognizes interdependence. We work together and support one another. In our environment, everyone can contribute to help others succeed whether it is in cancer treatments or cutting wood for an elderly neighbor. No one keeps score.

Scoring points is laudable but sharing in the success of those points is something I wish I had had a mindset for when I was a young basketball player. I am glad I can acknowledge its importance in my life today.

I still have things to accomplish in my last quarter of life (that’s assuming I live to 100). Yet, I am reminded in recent weeks that I do not want to live my life in continual urgency. I have noticed the way one of my friends seems to be in a constant state of urgency. I do not desire this approach to life.

I am slowing down (trot verses gallop as I recently wrote in this blog) and resisting the pressure to constantly rush, achieve, or react. I want to remain present and trust that everything does not need to happen right away. Oh, yes, there are things that need to be done with some immediacy like feeding Gitch when I am away from home all day. Even then, I want to find peace in the process.

I have known for some time that as much as I enjoy writing, I could never be a journalist with last-minute deadlines. I use due dates as suggestions. One of my best friends as an undergraduate, always completed assignments only at the last minute. She justified that something could happen to her before the deadline and she would have wasted all that time if she worked ahead of time. Not me. I always wanted to have a day or two to spare so I did not have last minute pressure.

Life without a sense of urgency looks more intentional, present, and peaceful. I still have goals and responsibilities, but don’t feel like everything must happen immediately. I like to have time to make decisions carefully without pressure. I like the idea of a natural pace, although I am not always sure what that means. More than ever before in my life, I enjoy resting. A power nap in the afternoon, which is refreshing, does not mean I am lazy.

As I write, however, I also recognize that urgency cannot be ignored when thinking about the injustices occurring in the world.  Issues such as climate change and AI cannot be ignored. Although I may be able to control the sense of urgency in my life, I am also conflicted by the need to “do something” as soon as possible. A quandary, indeed.

I wish I had the energy to do more, but I don’t. Therefore, I want to be aware of issues and try to settle back at the same time. I am striving to live with purpose and not pressure, and to balance what that means.

“If she can do it, you can do it.” That was the statement I heard from a young woman talking to her 7-year-old son as they trudged up the Alpine Ridge Trail, also known as Huffer’s Hill, at Rocky Mountain National Park.

During my “rove” break when volunteering at the Alpine Visitor Center, I always make the 1/3-mile trek up this popular stone step trail. Wildflowers are marked along the way and the views at 12,005 feet looking down on the Alpine Visitor Center are worth the walk.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the comment by this parent, but I suspect my white hair carried a certain connotation that I was not likely to make it. It reminded me of another encounter I had had over 30 years ago during a 15k road race.

It was a typical hot and humid summer Sunday in Greensboro, North Carolina. I had been racing regularly for years, and this event was a new one for me. I felt good and was running my consistent 8–9-minute miles.

A young woman came up behind me and started to pass on one of the hills. She nodded at me and then said, “I hope I can run as good as you when I get to your age.” What does one say to that? I nodded back and said, “Thanks, I hope you can too.  Have a good race.”

These two incidents remind me of how lucky I have been to be able to do what I can do. Although I have felt less confident in my abilities in the past three years, I am grateful for all the miles and hikes that I have had over the years. It also reminds me not to make assumptions about what age means.

I applaud Dale Sanders, known by his trail name “Grey Beard,” who is the 91-year-old Navy veteran who just became the oldest person in history to complete a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. I am not going to undertake such a feat, but I admire the people I have heard about through social media as well as the oldest adults in my community who keep on trekking.

I hope my efforts as well as those all around me continue to inspire little boys as well as young women to keep up their physical efforts. I also continually remind myself that “I can do it!”

My mortality seems like something closer to me these days as more people I know have passed into their next great adventure. A Facebook post just came through about another death in my high school graduating class—almost 30% gone now.

I marvel at how the years flew by and enabled me to reach this vulnerable, and hopefully venerable, age. I am not obsessed with what the future might hold, but I am thinking about getting my affairs in order so that my demise is easier for others to handle.

I am thinking about where my physical body will rest when my soul passes. I want to be cremated, and the ashes settled in locations that are most meaningful to me. My parents are an example with their desire to have a granite marker in the cemetery near their home. They also wanted part of their co-mingled ashes scattered over the family farm. I have been thinking about special sites in my life.

I would like a small headstone near my parents with some ashes buried there. I lived in Coggon, Iowa for the formative years of my life. I recognize more acutely each day how profound my parents were in shaping the values that I hold dear. A statement on that headstone in addition to my name and birth/death dates might be, “She loved the cornfields and the Ponderosa Pines.”

My Iowa roots are attached strongly to the influence on my life of the youth organization 4-H. I had long wanted some ashes spread at the 4-H Camping Center, which unfortunately no longer exists. I am still considering how I might honor that Midwestern past along with what I learned about raising sheep and being a somewhat competent homemaker.

The pines epitomize the most important “place” for me in the Rocky Mountains and specifically Rocky Mountain National Park. I speak with people frequently about securing permits to scatter ashes in the park. I recognize how meaningful this landscape is to thousands of individuals who have visited and inhabited this area for years.

Scattering my ashes in the park means choosing a specific place. Special to me is Twin Sisters Mountain. It was the first mountain I hiked in the park over a half century ago. In the ensuing years, I have relished that hike dozens of times. The views from the top are to the continental divide and Longs Peak in the west and the front range and plains to the east. This vista represents my love for open spaces that includes mountains as well as prairies.

I hope that I have friends or family members willing and able to make the hike to the top of Twin Sisters. If not, I would be happy to have the ashes scattered at Sheep Lakes where I have mixed my love for mountain landscapes with sheep of all kinds including the domestic ones I raised in 4-H as well as the Bighorns.

I enjoy my musings about where I will rest in peace. In the meantime, I appreciate these special spaces while I am still alive.

Experts have written volumes about retirement. Some of the advice relates to what to do in pre-retirement. Other recommendations concern adjusting to retirement and living with new opportunities as well as losses.

I read a recent article that described three stages of retirement that I personally interpreted as “getting down, slowing down, and winding down.” The more I thought about it, the more it seemed those phases could be metaphoric for galloping, trotting, and walking. Regardless of the label, I believe I am at the beginning of the second stage of slowing down, or trotting.

I retired from higher education at the traditional age of 65. I felt professionally I was still near the top of my game. However, I also knew that I had been studying leisure all my life and while I still had the energy, I wanted to experience it. I enjoyed the 27 years I lived in North Carolina, but John Muir had been speaking in my head for years: “The mountains are calling and I must go.” I was privileged to retire for a relatively minimalist lifestyle in the mountains.

The past 12 years have been filled with activity—getting down (galloping) with volunteering, hiking, and travelling. I have kept busy as has been my approach to life since I was a kid. I am beginning to feel, however, that slowing down has appeal by design as well as circumstances.

I do not have as much energy as I had in the past. Having a day with little planned is a luxury that I have not often allowed myself.  I am also feeling the aches and pains in joints and muscles more than in the past. I know that “motion is the best lotion” and I will continue to be active, but at a slower pace.

This change to a new mindset about my life is challenging. By slowing a bit, however, I hope to head off the last phase of decline for many more years.

I can reflect now on my mother, particularly, as she lived through these stages. I am a lot like her and hope that I have the same dignity as she did, especially when declining health resulted in her life being far more sedentary than she wanted. Change is not easy. I recognize its inevitability. Understanding change and facing reality does not mean I give up. Nevertheless, I am striving to be more patient with myself as I trot through life.

The sky was a bluebird color contrasted with the patchwork green/brown tundra. It was Monday morning during my bi-weekly volunteer shift as a Tundra Guardian. The tundra is the “land above the trees” that occupies over 1/3 of Rocky Mountain National Park. It is always beautiful but with sunshine, a light wind, and colorful flowers, it was especially lovely.

My tundra partner and I parked the car in the lot and strolled toward the 11,716-foot Forest Canyon Overlook where we often spent time chatting with visitors. Many days we saw marmots and pika on the rocks surrounding the designated overlook area. On this early July day, wildflowers were abundant including Old Man Mountain, Avens, and Sky Pilot, to mention only a few. The slight breeze was welcome as we made our way along the paved asphalt path to the end of the short trail.

When we pulled into the lot, I noticed a solo middle-aged woman getting out of a green Subaru with a Colorado license plate. I nodded to her as she stepped spritely ahead of us on the path.

We usually stand in the observation area and chat with visitors, point out any animals or flowers we see, and offer to take photos if desired. I said to the woman I had earlier acknowledged in the parking lot, “It’s an amazing day, isn’t it?” She smiled.

I chatted with several folks and then noticed that same woman holding back, apparently wanting to ask a question of us as many folks did. She walked up to me and said, “Yes, it is truly an amazing day. Let me tell you why. Six weeks ago, I was in the hospital with pneumonia and sepsis. I asked my doctor if I was going to be able to do my annual trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. He told me maybe, but only if my blood oxygen level was high enough. Today it was 92 and here I am at this elevation in this beautiful park. It is truly an amazing day.”

My eyes lit up and I was delighted to hear her story. I said “Wow, that’s great” as she turned and walked away.

I was humbled that she had shared her story with me. I looked around at the dozen other visitors at the overlook. Everyone has a story and I wish I knew more of them. Some narratives may be routine while others are profound. An amazing day includes many stories.