Wandering and Wondering

Volunteering in Rocky Mountain National Park (ROMO) is a great pleasure in life. My encore performance in life is volunteering. I cherish the beauty and the wildlife that I experience every day, and I welcome the opportunity to be a helper in engaging people in conversations about the park regardless of whether they are locals or may only visit once in their lives.

A question I sometimes get working at the visitor center or at Bear Lake is, “What’s there to do here?” This question confounds me as I wonder what people are expecting when they come to a park. I find that responding back with, “What would you like to do in the park?” helps me best understand how to accommodate them. Some things cannot be done in the park like snowmobiling, target practice, or taking dogs on trails. Usually people just want to “see” the park, so I send them on a driving tour with a couple short walks.

“How long does it take to do the park?” is not an uncommon inquiry. That question also takes me aback. I say that it depends on how often you stop and admire the scenery, take photos, and/or walk on the trails. When people say they will be in the area for several days and want to get out to hike or snowshoe, I can give them dozens of suggestions.

Another common question relates to what animals are to be feared. Most people are concerned about bears. Educating them about the difference between grizzlies and black bears is useful. It is an opportunity to clarify that our black bears want their food and not them. I explain that the most dangerous animals in the park are the moody mooses and momma elk who have babies. Reinforcing that the park is NOT a zoo and these animals are NOT tame no matter how docile they look is a challenge.

The Information Office operates the phone line where people call with questions. One call I got was about the cost of a senior/lifetime pass. I told the man that the cost was $80, and he hesitated a bit. Then I described a $20/year annual senior option that could be converted to the lifetime pass in four years. He chuckled and said, “I think I will go with the $20 per year since I’m 92 years old and can’t guarantee that I will make it for four more years!”

When staffing the desk at Beaver Meadow Visitor Center, a middle-aged couple came to inquire about scattering the ashes of their deceased uncle in the park. The park allows such scattering of cremains (human and animal) but requires a permit with certain limitations on where ashes can be scattered. The gentleman told me soberly that they would be coming to the park again in a few weeks and wanted to scatter the ashes then. I gave him the form, explained some of the restrictions, and suggested a few places that would be lovely for ash scattering. As the couple turned to leave, I thought it was appropriate for me to say, “I am sorry for your loss.” The man quickly responded expressionlessly, “Oh, don’t be. He was a son-of-a-#*@!h.”

Most people come to the park genuinely interested in learning and doing the right thing. I love being a helper, as Mr. Rogers would offer. It isn’t altruism, however. I am invigorated when I see the park anew through a visitor’s perspective. I appreciate working with other volunteers who feel as passionate as me. I never tire of the conversations regardless of how profound or mundane they are.

In Illusions, Richard Bach describes my attitude about the sky, weather, and clouds, “the sky is always changing, but it is always a perfect sky.” I keep my eyes on the sky. I unabashedly claim the title of weather nerd since all my life I have been interested in the weather. I would have been a meteorologist if I had had any confidence in my science and math ability. Not having pursued that career, I revel in my amateur status as one who loves looking at clouds.

My fascination with weather began on the farm. I learned early from my dad that every endeavor in farming was influenced by the weather. A farmer’s eyes were always on the sky. The failure or success of crops as well as livestock management depended on knowing what weather might portend. Dad taught me to read the weather—what clouds meant, what wind changes might ordain, and how to smell coming rain and/or snow. I kept a cloud chart on my childhood bedroom wall. I have amused my friends over the years with my “predictions” of impending weather that often, not always, come true.

My professional career was little influenced by the weather. Weather had more to do with my personal activities, although most of the time clouds and weather did not slow me down. If I bundled up, I could run in subzero temperatures in Wisconsin. A little rain was often a refreshing experience in the heat of running in the South, as long as it was not a thunderstorm. In Colorado I refuse to let the wind in the winter dictate how much time I spend outdoors.

Carolina skies are blue, and Colorado skies are bluebird blue. I have more access to the wide-open spaces making my sky observances easier now than when in the tree canopies of North Carolina. I am still learning to make sense of the weather patterns often mitigated by the presence of mountains and upslope winds. I continually look to the sky to see what it forewarns as well as the splendor it offers. 2015 was my “year in clouds” on Facebook. I shared photos of clouds that thrilled me, whether they were breath-taking sunrises or sunsets, or just interesting cloud formations. I am always mindful of the ever-changing perfect skies.

When I think of clouds and the sky, I sometimes reflect on the words from Joni Mitchell’s song, Both Sides Now. The metaphor seems to be that clouds are equivalent to life. I cannot agree more. The lyrics note, however, “so many things I would have done but clouds got in my way.” Yes, sometimes life got in my way, but clouds generally have not deterred me.

To take Mitchell’s cloud symbols further, I believe skies have taught me to reflect, “It’s cloud’s illusions I recall. I really don’t know clouds at all.” I am learning that the beginning of wisdom is when a person comes to wonder just how much she does not know about clouds (or life). I continue to learn about the world, and part of that learning is to be conscious of the beauty and awe of the skies.

I deeply adored a rabbit. His name was Wilson who had been rescued from an animal shelter by my neighbors. They built a 3’ x 8’ covered hutch in their backyard where Wilson lived alone but cavorted with local squirrels and wild rabbits. The neighbors were moving and asked if I wanted him. They assured me he was low maintenance—rabbit pellets, water, a clean and dry place to live, and a daily carrot. How hard could that be? We moved him in the hutch to my backyard.

All went well for several months until Wilson (aka Bun-Bun) acquired an eye infection. I found a vet who made a house call to diagnose him. I feared having to catch him in the hutch. The vet, however, captured him, checked him over, gave some antibiotics, and charged me an exorbitant fee for the visit. He got better for a few weeks and then the infection returned.

Another vet nearby specialized in dogs, cats, and rabbits. I caught and crated Wilson for the vet visit. Dr. Bussey was caring and stern. She informed me kindly that I had no business owning a rabbit since I knew nothing about them. Keeping a rabbit alone outside year around in a cage was not the best practice. She procured a 6’ x 6’ collapsible metal fence hutch for me to put in my living room. I had to exercise Wilson every day by letting him out to hop around the great room. She treated the infection and assured me that the new living conditions would be in Wilson’s best interest. In the house he had two cats as potential friends, but the cats cared less, and Wilson mostly ignored them. A couple times I tried to cuddle with him, but he wanted nothing to do with my overtures. Nevertheless, I became devoted to Bun-Bun.

His eyes did not improve. Dr. Bussey determined that he had plugged tear glands and needed an operation. I felt sorry for Wilson and also guilty about being a terrible rabbit mother. One of the eyes was fixed before he coded on the operating table and had to be revived. The $1500 surgery was only partially successful, but he didn’t have any eye problems again.

Several months later, however, Wilson began having seizures. Medication helped control but Dr. Bussey warned me that it was really hard to tell how old Wilson was and she did not know what might be causing the seizures.

The seizures became more frequent and eventually Wilson refused to go for his daily exercise and ate less and less.  He seemed to be uninterested no matter how many carrots and greens I used for bribery. It was time to let Bun-Bun go.

I held Wilson in a fluffy fleece towel while Dr. Bussey gave the first shot of sedative to calm him down. He snuggled up to me– the first time that had ever happened. His deep brown eyes connected with my blue eyes and then he closed them gently while mine filled with tears. Wilson took one last deep breath. I imagined him now in a peaceful field where he could see everything, run in the grass with other rabbits and not on a hardwood floor, and where carrots were abundant.

I doubt I will have another rabbit. I did the best I could as a rabbit mom, but I do not want that role again. Whenever I see a cottontail rabbit or a snowshoe hare in the wild, however, I remember Bun-Bun fondly.

The Hidden Life of Trees is a book about how trees have social systems among themselves and how they take care of each other. Trees have “brains” in their roots that protect them and help communicate with one another. Another book called The Overstory: A Novel is a compelling fictionalized account of people’s experiences with trees and their value for civilization. In thinking about the meanings of trees in my life, three special trees come to mind.

A sprawling tall maple tree shaded the south side of my childhood farmhouse. I loved the tire swing dad put on a lower branch for us kids to use. The Angus cows huddled in its shade on the other side of the fence. It tendered the most brilliant red and orange leaves in the fall. Since our farmhouse was set on a hill, the maple was visible for some distance. When my parents sold the farm years ago, the tree was showing signs of stress. I drove by the old farm a year ago and the tree was gone. Since the farm had been in the family for almost 150 years, the maple had lived a long life under Henderson appreciation.

North Carolina has trees—lots of them. Many are tall white pines. My house in Durham with its three-fourths acre lot had dozens of trees as its natural landscape. My favorite, however, was a cedar tree that grew outside my home office window. The tree provided privacy, and songbirds loved to roost in the lower branches. My realtor offered helpful hints to make my house more desirable when I was preparing to move to Colorado. He suggested that my relationship with the house and trees might not be alluring to everyone. The cedar tree was hiding the curb appeal of the house. I balked at cutting it down. Unfortunately, a winter ice storm broke off the top. It had to go. I waited until the weekend before I put the house on the market and my neighbor helped me cut it down. My house looked naked, and I blessed the tree for all the years it had brought me and the birds such joy.

I love many trees in Rocky Mountain National Park. One of them was along the trail to Hollowell Park. It is a lone Ponderosa that had died many years ago but left a majestic silhouette of gray branches reaching toward the sky. It was the gateway to an old CCC camp once located in the area. I can imagine the stories it could tell for the century or more it presided in that meadow. Last year it fell down. The skeleton is on the ground, and the stories continue from a different vantage.

These remembered trees, and other living trees, are my ardent connection to the outdoors. I have other favorite trees that I look forward to seeing along the trails. They are like old friends when I wander upon them—the twisted limber pine on the way to Mills Lake, the tuning fork shaped ponderosa on Bridal Veil Falls Trail, and the huge Ponderosa on the northeast corner of Sprague Lake, to mention only a few.

I envy the trees. They experience firsthand the fluctuating weather as well as season transformations. I imagine trees rejoice in the bathing of the sun. I suspect they welcome the animals and insects that call them home. They are resilient in cruel weather that could tear them apart. Trees hold secrets that humans may never understand unless we continue to love and protect them.  

I miss the making of music. I felt that loss when group music-making was taken away by COVID-19. I know others who play musical instruments and/or sing in choruses feel the same way.

I began my musical life when I was 7 years old. Mom made me take piano lessons and exchanged eggs for the lessons each week. I loved playing the piano and even dabbled at composing some piano music. My most famous piece was called Picasso because it was a mish mash of chords and rhythm. In 5^th grade I started playing a cornet and gave up piano lessons.

We had an old cornet in the family that my uncle once played so I was destined for that instrument. I practiced religiously and loved playing in band–marching band, pep band, and concert band as well as small group ensembles. I did not like playing solos, however, and froze whenever it was forced upon me. I relished making music and being part of musical groups. In high school, I switched to playing a borrowed French horn because we needed another horn player in our concert band.

After graduating from high school, I did not play a brass instrument for over 20 years. In 1990 a friend, Leandra, leased a trumpet for me for two months as a birthday gift (she signed herself up as my band parent!). I had talked about wanting to play because I knew a couple other musicians, but it was just daydreaming. I picked the trumpet up and played a recognizable version of my high school’s fight song, On Wisconsin. I soon joined the Durham Community Concert Band. Rehearsals were two hours of each week when I became totally immersed in music without thinking about anything else. I love the concept of community bands because anyone can participate regardless of age, ability, or talent.

For 30 years I have been a mediocre amateur musician. I delight in playing with other music makers and I often feel a well of emotion for the beautiful music I can help create. Playing the Hallelujah Chorus with its great trumpet parts always brings tears to my eyes. I am humbled to play music from contemporary composers such as Edward Elgar (e.g., Nimrod from Enigma Variations) and Eric Whitacre (e.g., October). I have been associated with some inspirational directors/conductors who have transmitted the emotions of music deep to my heart.

Almost a year has passed since I rehearsed or performed with any musical group. At first I didn’t mind. I thought we would be back together soon. After six months, it became obvious that it was not going to happen quickly. Deb, who also plays a cornet, and I decided that we really needed to get our lips back in shape for the time when we could play with the local groups again. Since December holiday concerts were cancelled, we undertook a zoom Christmas Concert for our families and friends. We described our concert as “6^th grade students” playing junior high music. Our zoom guests, however, were appreciative.

Deb and I continue to practice so we are ready to make music with our community band when the time comes. I cherish the opportunity to go back to rehearsals every week and be part of groups aiming to bring concert music, regardless of how sophisticated it is, to the community.

An activity I did with my classes (both at the university and for public presentations) was to ask folks to make a list of “20 Things I Love to Do.” Not everyone could come up with 20, but we would discuss dimensions of their activities such as whether they were done outside/inside, alone/with others, cost money, and further, whether the “thing” would be considered leisure or not. Almost all their responses were considered leisure. I made the point that most things that were personally important and meaningful were considered leisure.

I suggested that I have never heard anyone on their deathbed indicating that they wished they had worked harder or longer. When people reflect on their lives, they value the relationships and the activities they enjoyed. They value experiences in their lives that brought them warm playful memories and made them smile.

I view the world through a leisure lens. Obviously, I am biased as I did research about leisure for over 45 years and I view the world in terms of how any event influences individual and community leisure and well-being. I make no apologies for this worldview because I believe that leisure is what makes life worth living. I do not mean that I am only interested in hedonism, although that can be an outcome of leisure. I advocate that leisure is an inherent right, responsibility, privilege, and entitlement that defines who each of us is, and the quality of our communities.

I was ingrained with a work ethic by my rural upbringing. A reason I became interested in studying leisure was because I watched how hard everyone around me worked, and it seemed to me there had to be more to life. Leisure complements economic or socially necessary work and offers people a means for growth and self-expression in their lives.

As my colleague Dan Dustin suggests, life is meaningful not because of a work ethic, but because of a worth ethic that leisure belies. Yet, the idea of leisure is often downplayed and discounted.

Leisure is ubiquitous. Most people know what it is and know the feeling of not having it, but defining it is elusive. One of the women I interviewed for a research project once told me that she did not want to define leisure, she wanted to FIND it.

A classical notion of leisure is free time. However, little time is totally free of obligations. Some people have too much free time (e.g., unemployed people) and it isn’t leisure for them. Another common definition is leisure as activity. Many leisure activities exist but what is leisure for me may not be for you. For example, many people enjoy bowling. Not me. I would never consider it leisure.

I understand leisure best as a state of mind, a personal experience usually associated with free choice and opportunities for self-expression, joy, play, and/or personal development. People know when they are having these experiences and seek them. Leisure is central to a life well lived.

Although leisure offers opportunities for enjoyment, leisure is not always good since it can be an avenue for injury to self or others. Nothing is good without recognizing the responsibility associated with any behavior–the worth ethic.

My appreciation of leisure continues to evolve. Since I no longer study leisure with empirical data, I have more time existentially to experience it. Everyone deserves leisure whether it is extended periods of time away from the everyday routine, or minute vacations where one simply takes a deep breath and enjoys the beauty of the moment. I find minute vacations in cuddling with my kitties or reminiscing from photos of vacations with friends. Regardless of what you call it, or how you define it, I hope people never have a problem listing 20 things they love to do.

I feel a sense of my place, like I am home, whenever I am in Rocky Mountain National Park whether on high tundra landscapes with wildflowers oscillating in the wind, along mountain streams that sprint toward lakes and valleys, high on mountains with 360-degree views, walking in lightly falling snow, or encountering living creatures such as moose, snowshoe hares, or scurrying chipmunks.

I think about the meanings of place often. Space and place are not the same as scholars have written. Space is a physical location that may or may not have meaning. A place is a space where meaning has been imbued by an individual. A place can be where your soul thrives. According to Wendell Berry, place and identity are closely related. He suggested that if you do not know where you are, you do not know who you are.

In thinking about my experiencing the Park, I recently saw reference to sense of place as the landscape of the soul, and I think that explains my affinity for this Park. I lived for 27 years in North Carolina and had a productive career with great friends and colleagues. But the landscape of North Carolina never felt like home to me. Whenever I was in the high snow-covered mountains and in open spaces, I felt I was home.

Other places have had important meanings for me. One is the farm where I grew up. I didn’t have the words to describe at the time what it felt like to be in the outdoors, to play in the creek (crick), to search for the wild critters, and to smell the earth, but I knew I resonated with it deeply. Iowa is a beautiful land and the rolling sand hills of Eastern Iowa will always be a geography of my heart. It was home for me for my formative years, but things change and so did my identity with the land.

Another consideration for me is how place can relate to spiritual senses about a setting. I experienced a strong sense of place in Wisconsin when I spent time at Picnic Point. The path, the wind singing through the trees, and Mendota Lake lapping on the shore always gave me the impression that I had visited it many times before, perhaps in previous lives. This place pulled me strongly, but I have not returned for many years. It is a memory in my soul.

Finally, some places I have never been but feel a deep connection such as the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Knowing something about an area gives me the opportunity to care intensely even though I may never experience it directly. Spending time in a space may make it a special place but having a context about the value of its existence provides me with an affinity for a specific environment.

I have visited many spaces around the world. It is not only the physical topography but also the people and cultures that make environments special. On a day-to-day basis, however, I have never felt a stronger connection to my soul than the landscape of the places where I now wander in the mountains and the privilege I have to experience deep engagement in what the Park has to offer every day, every season.

Four years ago, I made a New Year’s resolution to be consciously grateful. Initially I kept a little box with scraps of paper and pen next to my toothpaste holder and jotted a couple notes each evening before I went to bed about what I was thankful for that day. After a few weeks, I incorporated my gratitude into a few sentences at the end of each of my morning journal entries.

These years have resulted in heaps of thankfulness. At first it was easy to write ideas as the universe was open to me. Many appreciations were overtly obvious such as colorful morning sunrises and snow-capped mountains.

Over time, however, I began challenging myself to be more mindful and acknowledge the blessings that I often took for granted. I looked for little moments that made me smile each day. Gratitude jottings helped me pause and think about the day and what was unique and/or special such as juicy oranges and a heartfelt thank you from a stranger.

As I peruse my gratitude notes over the past years, I can identify several themes including nature, animals, people, privilege, and food. Here are a few examples:

Nature

• The full moon rising on a cold winter evening
• City parks full of active people
• Warm days in February
• Volunteering in Rocky Mountain National Park
• Watching approaching thunderstorms
• Sunshine on my shoulders

Animals

• A cuddly brown tabby cat sitting on my lap
  • People dedicated to protecting wild and domestic animals
  • The quizzical looks and sweet mews of elk calves as they follow their moms around in late spring
  • A marmot oblivious to the rest of the world nibbling on yellow flowers
  • Geese that land gracefully flat-footed on Lake Estes

People

• Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream
  • People who make me laugh
  • Dedicated co-volunteers who care deeply about the environment
  • Parents who love(d) me unconditionally
  • The kindred spirits in my writing group
  • Kind and generous friends who offered boundless help after my shoulder surgery

Privilege

• A car that gets me where I want to go
• A warm shower after a cold day volunteering at Bear Lake
• Christmas lights all over our little mountain town
• Asthma medicine that helps me breathe better
• The rights that I have and the responsibilities that go along with those rights

Food

• A little piece of chocolate after dinner
  • A holiday feast with friends
  • White pizza
  • Sticky, gooey cinnamon rolls
  • Rich dark coffee with cream

My gratitude journal enables me to reflect on and appreciate the good things each day. It keeps me grounded in the blessed life I live and the big and little moments that feed my soul.

I am especially grateful today that I got my second coronavirus vaccine. I am beholden to the researchers, manufacturers, distributors, health professionals, and other essential workers who have made this possible. I will be even more thankful when everyone in the world has access to the vaccine. My gratitude is especially huge and visible today, and it reminds me to continue to express my thankfulness with every opportunity I get.

A month after I retired and moved to Colorado, I filled out a survey. At the end it asked my occupation. The last category just before other was retired. For the first time in all the hecticness of leaving my job and moving across the country, I was directly confronted with acknowledging I am retired.

I thought objectively about retirement and planned it for years. I worked with a trusted financial advisor who guided me in preparing to have enough money to retire. Her assessment was, “You will be fine, Karla, just don’t go crazy.” I was a leisure researcher and had written about aging and retirement. I loved being a professor, but I also did not want to be one of those people who “stayed too long.” I wanted to leave when I still felt productive. I had watched both of my parents retire and continue lives that were meaningful to them and their communities. I also had been thinking for almost 50 years about wanting to live in Colorado to be near the mountains that fed my soul and offered me a sense of place.

I never thought, however, about what it would feel like to be retired and to check a box that marked my new identity. Retirement was now an emotional reality and I had to confront my new actuality.

Somewhere along the path of pondering retirement, someone told me that the most successful retirement was about “going to” something new and not “going away” or escaping from life of the past. In living retirement as moving toward something, I embrace how my friend, Linda Erceg, described retirement as an encore performance.

Music, sports, volunteering, writing, and outdoor adventures are dear to me. Even though I worked diligently in my professional career, I was also passionate about my social and recreation activities. My life was heavily scheduled so I could get everything done.  

What I had never done, however, was sit still and just relax. I defined myself as a human doing. Retirement meant putting my energy in other ways besides working, which had been far more joyous than drudgery.

The Covid-19 pandemic taught me more about slowing down than I had learned about retirement up to that point. I started to appreciate the mental energy that I could decrease. When working, I seldom shut my brain off. I was continually thinking about what I needed to do the next day, how I could have done better in teaching, or what more I needed to do to finish a research article. In retirement, I can do something like volunteering and then go home and not think about it anymore. Retirement, and the forced slowdown from the pandemic, has helped me center on living in the moment rather than evaluating the past or always planning for the near future.

A professional colleague, Kathy O’Keefe, sent me a note upon hearing that I was going to retire:

 “Most of us in recreation might have an easier time viewing retirement as walking toward opportunities rather than away from our past. Someone asked me what I want from this next period of life, and I think it’s contemplation, engagement in all kinds of activities and adventurous experiences, deepening of relationships, encounters with the transcendent, and a whole lot of laughs. I wish all that for you too.”

I am making my encore performance all those things. My wish is that others can experience their later life in a similar way.

Snow was a given growing up in Iowa. We seemed to have more snow then and we tolerated it as it was just a fact of life. Snow meant more work on the farm with clearing feed troughs and keeping the animals dry. The fun kid thing about snow was when we had a blizzard and got to stay home from school—Snow Days!

I did not have a choice about snow growing up but today, I choose to live where snow is possible every month of the year. I do not love driving in it, but otherwise I relish snowfall.  Absence sometimes makes the heart grow fonder as I spent 29 years living in parts of the US (TX and NC) that received little snow. A fond recollection in NC, however, was going to the beach in January after an unusual overnight snow. Instead of the ocean water lapping to the sand, it splashed to the shoreline and slowly crumbled the snow into the salt water.

On average Estes Park gets 75 inches of snow a year and significant snow 9 months of the year. Except for a few dirty piles, however, the snow doesn’t stick around much. The solar power of the sun melts it quickly OR the wind blows it away. The mountains retain their snow for months and in minutes I can leave my house and play in snow. Yet, I do not have to live in feet of snow.

I am overjoyed to open the blinds in the early morning and see fresh snow on the ground. It makes me want to go immediately and explore what critters have left tracks on their early morning ambles. I love Carol Rifka Brunt’s quote: “There’s just something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on. It makes you believe you’re special.”  

My colleague, Jerry Apps, wrote about farm life growing up in the 1930’s. He poetically described the quiet of winter on a farm. One statement he made, however, reminded me of the Monet exhibit I saw a year ago. Apps suggested that everything in the winter appears black and white. As I reflected on the Monet exhibit, I now understand that Monet saw numerous shades of white when he painted dozens of winter scenes such as the photo above.

Snow is clearly not monochromatic. Nothing accentuates the various white shades of winter as much as when a burst of color comes through—a red rose hip peeking out from the side of the trail, the stark blue sky, juniper bushes with their blue-gray berries, the silver glisten of snow melt running down a rock, a rainbow twinkle of sunshine on a snowdrift, and even snowfall on elk duds (see above photo).

I also appreciate snowflake shapes and patterns. In grade school we took colored construction paper outside to collect (momentarily) snowflakes. No two snowflakes were alike. My co-volunteer, Jon Olsen, is teaching me about the different types of snow as we work at Bear Lake every Saturday and analyze the snowflakes that land on our brown volunteer fleece jackets– hexagonal, stellar plates and dendrites, needles, columns, and rimed crystals also known as graupel.

After years of deprivation, I am romanticizing snow. Yet, I feel a thrill in watching snow fall and experiencing the magic of snow as I wander through the winter.