When my next climb got canceled at the last minute last week, I hustled to make new plans. There is no time to waste staying indoors with a record-setting drought across the West signaling another alarming wildfire season upon us. But all of my regular adventure buddies were out of town. Go alone or find someone new?
There are risks either way.
Last summer I faced the same challenge and expanded my capacity for the unknown. One spontaneous weekend, a recently met, Brazilian friend-of-a-friend introduced me to the Central Cascade mountain range. We backpacked into one of the most idyllic places I’ve ever been tucked away halfway up Mount Jefferson. Rolling meadows of wildflowers beside a chain of clear lakes and raging creeks. All made even more dramatic by hiking through miles of burned-out forest to access the Eden-like park. Six weeks later as multiple mega-fires raged around it, my heart melted to imagine it being destroyed. The area is currently closed and the status is unknown.
Last week, I trusted the universe again, putting the call out to my outdoor network and found a trail mate. So, a new Brazilian friend and I headed down to Duffy Lake beside Three Fingered Jack in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness. On the way home, we even stopped at the same hole-in-the-wall brewery in Salem, Ore. It was deja vu the entire weekend. Except for everything that had changed.
Last weekend was my first time back in the area since the 2020 fires.
Coming out of a rest stop bathroom in one of the small towns along the way, I looked around confused. There was so much empty space. I noticed a chimney across the street. Just chimney, no house. And then it hit me: No house. I remembered last year we used the bathroom at the store above the marina. The store that was above the marina. No town.
Driving along the highway deeper into the woods, green alternated with black.
We spent the weekend deep in conversation and came to the same conclusion: There is a sense of perspective in nature that fades as the trail turns to asphalt.
In the towns, the ashes of people’s lives seemed unnatural and tragic. In the woods, skeleton trees of former burns seemed cyclical and regenerative.
The difference is what I’ve learned since last summer.
A simple, yet profound reframing: Letting go versus letting be.
There is suffering in letting go because there is an attachment. To the expected, to certainty, to the known.
Nancy Bardacke eloquently describes how:
Our entire life can revolve around trying to avoid what we don’t like and clinging to what we do like…It’s totally human…we cannot control everything, and there is no way we can prevent external circumstances from bringing us some things we don’t like, but we can turn toward the difficult or unwanted and find a way to let it be.
“An important element in acknowledging and eventually coming to terms with things as they are is letting be.” Bardacke explains, “it means you will have skills for giving yourself the best chance to get what you want, to work with that which you may not want, and to come to terms with the way things actually unfold.”
The unexpected, the uncertain, the unknown.
There is no pressure to transcend the discomfort, simply allow it to be uncomfortable. Like a tree burning as the flames leap by.
Or my first time skinny dipping in the wild last summer on that trip near Mt. Jefferson. Feeling so naked and exposed, I sat in the water on the edge of the lake near big rocks. Right on the edge of my comfort zone.
Yesterday morning the lake beckoned. Walking all the way into the water without anything on, I felt like just another part of nature. Me, the lake, the rocks, the snakes, the birds, the trees, the mountains—simply being.
The reward of letting go is moving on.
The reward of letting be is discovering what’s on the other side of the unknown.
Peace.
And possibility.
May you allow it all to happen this week.
Love,
Jules
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