Mind Set Go

Have you ever stopped something you started?  Stupid question, I know.  But I just did that very thing in the wee hours this morning.  What is unusual about it is that it involved a walk in the woods.  A walk in the woods congers up memories of the book and movie, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.  Think Robert Redford and Nick Nolte and you may remember the movie.

It was happenstance that I packed up and left in the woods.  That’s because I was in the woods when I decided to leave.  Another book comes to mind: Grandma Gateway Took a Walk.  Grandma Gateway was a fine old woman who had had enough of the beatings and mistreatment.  In 1954 she decided to venture down the path she had seen depicted in National Geographic, the good ol’ Appalachian Trail.  Her first attempt was unsuccessful, but eventually she made it several times in her canvas Keds shoes and an old shower curtain to sleep on.  She also knocked on a lot of doors, and they let her in.  At any rate, check it out, literally and figuratively!

My case is nothing like that.  It doesn’t even involve a guy or romance or anything.  But that’s what I did.  I packed my stuff into my backpack, my daypack, my fanny pack and hand carried my snorkling gear through and out of the woods, homeward to civilization.

I had started something I wanted to finish.  And I usually do… finish.  Eventually.  If you saw the number of handwork/sewing projects scattered around the house—or books at various stages of reading, you’d beg to differ that I finish what I start.  Yet, even those eventually get done.  So what if they take years?  It’s heartwarming to dabble away at things when you have something nearby to do—something that suits your fancy.

When someone attacks your character there often comes a time when you stand up for your honor.  Being understood does not come from having common interests or beliefs.  Being understood is all about being yourself followed by acceptance of being yourself from others.  When someone has choked you into cautiously tiptoeing around them, perhaps for years with you hoping… not that they’d be your friend, but that they would accept you, honor you, “get” you, value and respect you, there usually comes a time when you realize that you can and should always be yourself.  For me, that time had come.

You may never get what you want and deserve from that person.  Perhaps they are even actually incapable of seeing and accepting you as you are. You are, however, good enough.  However, some people measure the world by the control they place on it, using a personal paradigm and springboard from which to leap using a code you may never crack.

When someone attacks your character because they believe the good things you do and say or email are “disingenuous” and that your style and personality don’t fit in, that’s when a (giant) light bulb goes off and you can take the hint.  It explains why you were never encouraged to lead or instruct or provide any ideas that might be considered.  And that’s it.  The door closes and you find yourself presenting your backside.  (Not literally, of course, though some might!)

And if by chance at the moment there happens to be no door, and if by chance the other side of the tent flap is the woods, you might very well find yourself walking through them.  You know, the woods that just a few hours ago literally had a large bear walking nearby.  Those woods. 

My walk through the woods in this instance was very short.  It was nothing like what Grandma Gateway did.  The rhythmic crunch of my boots on an old dirt road presented a cadence I could wrap my mind around.  I would have liked it to be measured in miles and miles, hours and hours.  Maybe to daylight.  But it wasn’t. 

After letting people know that I was going, my walk landed me in the car in a parking lot and after a few deep breaths I set out for home.  Once there I sat in the garage for a long time, literally numb.  I felt personally offended.  I had never heard of someone being accused of basically being too nice.  And I mean, if your personality and style don’t fit, isn’t someone basically saying change or get out? Well, while not perfect, I’m way past darn good enough. Just saying.

I sat there feeling, yes, personally offended but incredibly strong at the same time.  If nice is not what fits in then I really don’t want to be a part.  So I sat there with puffy, teared-up eyes and heavy heart wondering what had just happened.  While in my tent minding my own business at 11 o’clock at night, I was asked to get out to get blindsided by the first line. “I don’t know how to say this but your personality and style don’t fit.” If I didn’t fit in then it explained a lot about why I had never been encouraged to lead or instruct and why I had felt so good working with others for 2 days in other groups than I had in the last 2 years.  When someone says your personality and style don’t fit, you can take a hint.  But it hurts.  It was extremely hurtful.  And I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get over this.

It was a weird way not to finish something.  For Grandma Gateway, finishing what she started, her marriage, that is, could have meant staying with it, through to the end.  The death do us part idea.  But finishing what you start can also be an abrupt, final end to something you will not be engaged with.  Aka, tolerate.

Until I was poked I didn’t even know what I had been tolerating.  Had I been pussy-footing around hoping that I could make a difference or fit in?  I realized that I had actually felt totally intimidated in many ways.  I had become totally scared to do anything in many ways.  If others are constantly ridiculed for making mistakes, it does not inspire one to act. 

There was a “feather that broke the camel’s back” in this instance, as the saying goes, and when it landed what was so surprising was that I hadn’t even known there was a camel for it to land on.  I had been so willing to do everything possible to be supportive and kind, generous and forthcoming for so long.  However, when my character was dishonored, that was it: the discerning moment.

When you find yourself walking in the woods alone (and I hope you do) I hope you, too, hold your head high.  Just before I ventured out I opened my phone and saw a text “sitting” there glaring up at me.  It was strange because it was after midnight.  Someone had texted a news article to me.  There was a picture of someone we knew.  He had been hit and killed by a hit and run by an elderly person. I closed my phone and put it away.  My foot brushed up on something and I realized the sole was coming off one of my well-worn boots.  There wasn’t much charge on my phone, but I had a flashlight, and my headlamp was buried somewhere in my backpack far away from where I always put it when I shoved it in there in a moment of desperation.  Opening that tent flap felt like sitting in a rowing skull casting out away from the dock into the blackness of the wee hours of the morning until you could get the other oar into the water or flipping backwards into water the color of oil until you turned on your underwater flashlight. 

Find your rhythm and march to your own tune.  You should never be prompted to feel bad for being yourself.  If you are a good person who is courteous, kind, cheerful, etc., you should never be expected to change. Find kindness and live up to that standard even if it means daring to do the right thing.  When all else seems to be failing, choose honor.

Now I’m not saying that all of your convictions are necessarily honorable just because they are in your library of beliefs.  I’m not saying you are a good person just because you try.  But if you know in your heart that you are a good person, and someone questions that, don’t change for them.  People do not need to understand you or be anything like you for them to value and respect you.  Surround yourself with people who honor your differences, listen to your ideas and protect your back.

Respect is something you may not be able to earn from some people.  And when you can’t, and when the feather floats down unlocking the door that separates hope and intent from bitter reality, it’s time to put on your hiking boots—even if you notice that in your haste you didn’t strap them on properly.  Even if there could be a bear or some other unknown out there that you have absolutely no control over.

I have had the honor of being surrounded by people who would literally die for me.  Military members, medal of honor recipients, friends and family.  I remember thinking, “Why do I like all of these people so much?”  It’s because when someone respects you that much, there is no greater love and acceptance you can feel. 

I stand and watch our flag while others talk, one fold at a time, remembering all the friends I have lost serving their country.  I think of the dignified transfers I have witnessed, the mothers accepting flags from caskets.  I have been blessed to be in the presence of so many honorable people. 

Yet we are a nation with imperfections.

We have a past that should never be forgotten or denied.

Some harbor vile veins of bias.

We blame guns rather than people.

Riot instead of educate.

Turn off rather than engage.

We don’t dare to find the cadence a broken boot or shoe can make.

Stand up to injustices.

We’d rather smell the roses than plant seeds.

Poison our bodies and our animals and our plants and grains of earth than allow the sun to rise and set on purity.

Take me to the ocean.

To the desert.

The sea.

Take my hands and let them labor.

My lips to speak truths maybe no one wants to hear.

Say them anyway.

Listen with ears unchoked by self- consumed ego.

Take me to the mountains.

The rolling prairies.

Touch the clouds.

Sift the sand.

Not to find where you are going, but where you are.

It is time to take the reins.  If someone is unwilling to accept you as you are then do it for yourself.  Your load my seem over-burdened, but it is light.

Yes, let your mind rest when confusion sets in.  You are good.  You are whole; no other being alive needs to confirm it.  Your heart sets you free.  Soar and take flight.