Transistor Radio Summer #5: Rocky Mountain High

"You might say he found a key for every door..." ~ John Denver

I grew up in Denver with the wonderful John Denver, his musical creations flowing through my days for years.  I can't remember the first time I saw John Denver at the legendary Red Rocks, but I know it was more than once.  I was surely listening to this song already in the Summer of 1973.  I play it often still.   It too is all about Awakening.

I tried to touch the sun a couple of times.  I took it into myself.  But I didn't need to take it in at all.  It was a part of me all along. 

Pedaling downhill

When I was a child, I lived on a hill in Colorado, but it wasn't just a hill - it was a gateway.

In that neighborhood, when you learned to ride a bike, halfway up a hill already, it wasn't long before you were riding both down and up hills.  I was surprisingly adventurous as a child, while sheltered too, a unique mix of a person even back then, a person who was and is me.  I gave a glimpse of this already in my rollercoaster post.

I'm not sure how long it took for me to realize that one could actually go very fast on that hill.  Climbing the hill was not easy.  I pedaled very, very hard, standing a bit as I pedaled, weaving back and forth, just to keep going.

At some point, I couldn't pedal at all.  I had to get off my bike and walk.  It was tempting to stop at that point, stop just part way.  I remember thinking sometimes "Maybe this is enough."  But I quickly learned after stopping a few times, it generally wasn't enough, so I learned to keep going, even if it was hard, walking my bike as high as I could go.

In this moment, I am there, at the top of the hill, a beautiful Colorado valley below, surrounded by mountains.  If I was wise (and I wasn't always), I would stop to catch my breath and appreciate the view, even if somewhat obscured by the houses.  But that wasn't the reward.  It was just the space to launch. 

And so I would start on my descent, a bit slowly at first since the hill was steep at the top, and I had to find a way to my balance.  This took practice.  I did this day after day.  The longer it took to find my balance, the less of a reward down below.  As soon as the wobbling stopped, I would start pedaling.  Not coasting, pedaling.  Pedaling not up hill, but down.  This too took practice, to know how fast to pedal, to know how much was too much and how little was too little, both in duration and rate of speed.  If you pedaled too fast, it was dangerous below.  If you pedaled too slow, it was pointless.

For some reason, I didn't worry about obstacles.  They didn't even cross my mind.  This is surprising since I wasn't always this person, this person on the hill, and I'm not always this person now.  Some people would say I'm never this person, and this story may surprise them.  That's why I'm remixing her today, remixing me, remembering who I am, pulling just enough forward, simply by remembering...

At some point, and I'm not quite sure when I knew it, it was time to stop pedaling.  If you did it too soon, that would lessen the impact.  If you did it too late, you had worked yourself out of the reward.  It was quite a narrow window.  Once you stopped pedaling, though it was possible, it was generally difficult to start pedaling again, as the transition could scuttle your balance, a very bad idea as the rate of speed increased.

There were no bike helmets.  No parental figure, my own or otherwise, yelled at me to stop.  I never crashed, not once, never on the hill.  If I had, I might have stopped altogether, forever (I sense that happened later, in a different way).  At one point, around the age of 12 or so, I did this almost every day in the summer, like a kind of meditation.  Nobody seemed to notice at all, as if I was invisible.

If I quiet my spirit and listen, if I quiet my spirit and feel, she is with me, this person, the person on the bike. The threshold - when it appeared - it was like breaking through a barrier, the speed of Light within reach.

The view from the top of the hill was nothing in comparison.  The freedom, the joy, the elation of flying - it was a glimpse of heaven.

Roller coaster

"It was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it." 

~ The Grandmother in the movie Parenthood

When I was a child, what was said to be one of the best roller coasters in the nation was only about 20 minutes away, though I had no way of knowing that fact at the time.  The legendary Mr. Twister.  My older sister somehow smuggled me on the ride at the age of 4 or 5, though that wasn't particularly wise.  It was her first time on the ride too.  She recalls being terrified, and she was quite certain her little sister was going to fly right out of the seat (as she was feeling much the same), and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

Sometimes feels like that long ago, sometimes feels like yesterday.

I remember that day, only to a point.  I don't remember much of being on the ride itself, except perhaps a distant memory of rising into the air, as if to fly away (and perhaps I almost did!).  One would think I would have been terrified, as this was quite a serious adventure, not child's play at all (a particular scene in Fatal Attraction comes to mind!).  But then again, I was quite a bold and precocious little child, always seeking adventures way ahead of my years.  Being the youngest by far in a large family can have that effect.

Something I do remember is how I felt after the ride, dazed to be sure, not crying and perhaps just a little bit sick, but what I recall most of all was this improbable, compelling desire to get on the ride again.

When the day came many years later when I was actually old enough to meet the height requirements, I would experience Mr. Twister again and again and again.  I couldn't get enough of the thing, despite the lengthy wait in line.  I seemed to get a secret delight from surprising friends with my unlikely personality, seemingly sheltered and tentative on the surface (often very true!), with a surprisingly bold and daring streak below.

Mr. Twister was rickety and loud.  You always swore the thing would fly apart altogether at any time.  As you slowly, slowly, slowly ascended the first hill, the steady clinking, clinking, clinking in the background, a tinge of regret was not uncommon.  Locked in now for every aspect of the ride, you actually knew not all of it was going to be entirely pleasant (some of the twists were rather brutal on one's neck!), but you had made the choice, and there was no going back.  Some people would leave the line at the last moment, but I was never one of those.  I was in for the duration.

At the top of the first hill, there was an astonishingly beautiful view, despite the nagging fear of the height.  You had only an instant to enjoy it.  Then a very tiny little drop, gentle as could be.  Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad.  It was a hill that soon followed which took your breath away, the one I somehow managed to survive at the age of 4 or 5, because you always rose out of the seat on that one, at any age.  I loved and feared the terror and exhilaration of that particular hill.  I think it was the only reason I went on the ride at all. The twists and turns after were just something to be endured until I managed to jump in the line again.

I don't ride roller coasters anymore, not at amusement parks anyway. Though tame compared to modern rides, knowing its unique allure, they tried to rebuild Mr. Twister in a brand new location, where the imitation model exists today.  I might step on that ride again some day, just to glimpse the original, but I can't imagine it could ever be captured in quite the same way.

The Depths

And though I attempted to evade it, here is what was really on my heart to write tonight...(even better, it's now the next day, so I can post two blog entries, two days in a row...)

"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean." 

~ Arthur C. Clarke

How often do we find ourselves splashing around in shallow waters, like children playing a game, when we are fully capable of exploring the hidden depths of the sea?  The shallows have their place of course, yet I yearn to know the depths.

I have toyed with this notion of learning to swim all of my life.  I used to be so afraid of the water, I avoided walking by the deep end of a pool.

I just happened to go to one of the only high schools in my city with a pool, a kind of curse for people like me.  In earlier days, they used to force every gym student to learn how to swim (an unpleasant memory of one of my sisters).  By the time I got to the school, you could take Dance class instead, so I managed to dance my way out of the requirement (though not the most coordinated, I actually enjoyed that quite a bit).

Most terrors are born in childhood when our trust is torn away.  I remember floating in a Colorado lake, right at the edge of the mountains at the age of 6 (Soda Lake it was called - I was told anyone could float in Soda Lake, and I believed them).  Not from a swimming family, a neighbor took us out one day.  It was absolutely wonderful, I recall, not frightening at all, floating looking up at crystal Colorado skies above.

Another day that summer, we went to a pool instead.  Soon I was floating again.  Then taken by surprise, someone splashed me with water and pushed me under (perhaps it was an accident, I feared it was a bully).   I can't really remember all that happened next, but I know it was scary.  No, I didn't drown (obviously!), though I thought I might.  I don't think the water was actually that deep.  But for whatever reason (and I always did have breathing issues), that was it.  One violation of trust and that was all it took.  I still occasionally splashed in shallow pools, but I didn't dare to float, not for many years.

In high school, ironic as it seems, I was a swim team assistant, though I escaped the pool in Gym.  Friends were on the team, including at least one I quietly admired a bit more over time.  I silently sat in an office above, behind the glass with scores in hand, typing away, rarely daring to even venture near the depths.

Then a day came in my 20's when I forced myself to swim.  My teacher was very, very clever, gently coaxing me into the water.  It took literally weeks to learn to float.  Nearing retirement, she had taught many frightened children and I suspect quite a few frightened adults.  First she held me in the water completely like a child, then as she slowly moved towards letting go, gradually handing me smaller and smaller inflatable objects, one day I found myself clinging to a single empty milk container floating in the water.  And realizing just how silly that was, I let it go.  Floating was easy!  And eventually I started to learn to swim...mostly... I was beginning to get the idea in the shallows, until I had to breathe - so still I feared the depths, as mastering my breathing eluded me.

Then the car wreck happened, the little truck utterly totaled on an isolated mountain road.  There were no cell phones, but people arrived to help.  I wasn't driving and it wasn't our fault, and we were mostly ok (a woman in the other car almost died, and that was where everyone's attention was).  I thought I was mostly ok anyway.  Or so it seemed.  Just to realize a day or so later I really wasn't ok, and I was in a neck brace, sling, muscle relaxants at night for way too long and physical therapy for a year.  The insurance company brought that to a rather abrupt halt (a story in itself).  The pains in my neck and shoulder and tingling in my hand eventually went away.  Many things heal in time.  But I used it all as a convenient excuse to stop the swimming, the depths out of reach once again. 

Around the time of my divorce, not long after my spiritual awakening, I decided to confront the depths again.  The only pool nearby was a scuba pool (surprisingly in Kansas), as deep as pools can go, pictures of lavish adventures at sea on the walls as you approached it.  My son was taking lessons there.  One day I decided to take lessons too.  It was a time of bold adventure, a time of facing fears.  This teacher was more demanding, not quite so gentle and patient as the first.  But I listened.  I finally learned to swim, mostly (even better than before).  Unfortunately, I never quite mastered my fear of the depths before we moved, though he made me swim over that gaping hole of darkness several times.  I did it as fast as I could, the breathing still elusive.  I could swim in other ways of course and breathe all I liked, but I didn't like swimming over the deep in the blind, always silently fearing something would pull me under, as it had long ago.  Even so, I did learn the joys of peacefully floating in the shallows.

One day, my teacher tried to get me to dive under the water from the surface (not from the edge, he knew I wasn't ready for that).  I literally couldn't do it, I was so buoyant (ironic to discover).  I think it might have made it easier to dive, to actually go there, to see it, to explore it, then it wouldn't be so dark.  But I couldn't.  Not in that pool.

Another day very near the end of my time in that locale, a substitute teacher assumed I knew how to tread water.  I didn't.  She coaxed me to attempt it anyway.  And I was amazed that I could!  It was easy.  It was much like dancing.  I defied the depths that day, laughing, dancing over the dark I feared - it was like a miracle.  The depths would never be the quite the same again. 

Soon my days in Kansas ended, and though I took just a few more swimming lessons by the ocean far away, the depths await me still.  I am a master of behind the glass...a window is open, the ocean breeze freeing me to breathe.  So I sit here typing while I look out to the waters...the depths call me to the Dance.  It's up to me to listen...

Surrender

The path of surrender is sacred ground.

It seems change is in the wind.  When I was young, I remember so vividly the power of the wind.  Every winter in Colorado, we would get Chinook winds off the mountains.  They were particularly strong in Boulder, where I went to college, with gusts easily exceeding 70 mph.  We walked to class anyway, and depending on the direction you chose, you were either resisting the wind or surrendering to its power.  

On the spiritual path, we like to believe that we can direct the wind that carries our lives.  And to a certain degree, I believe that is true.  Yet we also have much to learn about all that is possible.

There is a passage in the Bible that is far more meaningful to me now than it was years ago:

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." ~ 1 Corinthians 13:12

Seeing through a glass darkly is part of the Planet Earth experience.  I believe we set it up that way. 

Every path leads to our higher path, like tributaries of a stream.  It's a grand adventure to explore the many paths we see and even blaze new trails.  But when the winds of change arrive, and we know that this is so, if we simply surrender to its power, we can trust the Wind to carry us exactly where we need to go.