Sidecountry Living

“We should act as if the universe were listening to us and responding; we should act as if life were going to win. We should act as if we were celebrating a wedding; we should act as if we were attending the marriage of responsibility and delight.”
(“Talents and Virtues”)

This is what I love about Philip Pullman’s work. The contrary, stubborn, idealistic, eyes-wide-open way he insists that our purpose is to love the world. We, his heroines, heroes, and readers, must resist all signs of the contrary and love the world. Not blindly, but consciously. Especially when the world does not seem to deserve it.

As I read this accidental essay over, out loud to myself on a crowded plane flying homeward from my home, I realized I may need to explain what kind of love I mean:

The love of exploring and of letting things grow, is how I mean. Of watering and cataloguing. Of naming stars and observing molecular structures through a microscope, and running to the lake to swim in the rain while everything feels gray and still.

“Our purpose is to understand and to help others understand, to explore, to speculate, to imagine — to increase the amount of consciousness in the universe. And that purpose has a moral force. It means that it is wrong, it is wicked, to embrace ignorance and to foster stupidity.” (“The Republic of Heaven”)

The love of asking what’s this and why and does it have to be this way.

I think that seems like a fine kind of love. It’s as Carl Sagan said — we are a way for the universe to know itself.

Mr Pullman and I are both atheists. I’m strongly influenced by a high school obsession with Existentialism, in which there is no divine meaning.

If you’re unfamiliar with Pullman’s work and philosophy, it’s important to know that the Republic of Heaven of which he speaks so passionately is not a religious one. There is no divinity to be found there because we do not need one. Instead, the Republic Lyra and Will and Pan and Keirjava strive to create (and that I think _we_ should strive to create) is one that is kind, joyful, wondrous, and deeply humanist.

I love his work deeply.

—

A great many things have changed in me and around me. Recently in particular. But this has been a project of years, of eternity. It is a project that will continue for years, for eternity.

I am moving toward joy.
May I never abandon curiosity.
I am moving, always, toward love.
Even when I abandon it.

“[T]he challenge remains to be answered: to reclaim a vision of heaven from the wreck of religion; to realise that our human nature demands meaning and joy just as Jane Eyre demanded love and kindness (‘You think we can live without them, but we cannot live so’); to accept that this meaning and joy will involve a passionate love of the physical world, this world, of food and drink and sex and music and laughter, and not a suspicion and hatred of it; to understand this it will grow out of and add to the achievements of the human mind such as science and art.” (“The Republic of Heaven”)

I am un-building, brick by brick, these walls of fear and anxiety. I am un-building the Puritan shame and horror of pleasure. I do this with your help and the help of my dæmon.

As I move from the place I am to the place I will be, I am building, brick by brick, the Republic of Heaven.

While, yes, I’m doing it, it cannot be done alone. I do this with your help, because we are connected to each other through the Republic and to the very universe itself.

Mr Pullman explains this better than I can, tired from so much change and travel and worries both real and imagined.

Love is that, too. Connection to another and the universe beyond. Joy is that. That is what I mean when I saw I walk toward joy.

I don’t expect to be happy. I’d like to be happy. But that doesn’t seem to be a goal worth achieving. So, instead, I move toward joy. A feeling of contented connection. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll explain that better someday. Maybe these aren’t the words I mean at all. Maybe I will regret sharing them before they were ready. But I’m tired now.

I’d rather go back to daydreaming with my dæmon.

So I’ll share them, these kneaded words not quite risen. Do with them as you will.

I named my dog after an explosion – for the flash of light, a sudden brightness, that occurs when one of the stars in a binary system syphons matter off of the other. The rapid fusion of hydrogen causes the brightening of the star, visible light years away. This is called a nova.

I named my dog for a star, but Nova has given me the sunrise.

She and I went for a run. We went for a little over two miles before she started to lag and I turned us toward home.

Once we got in the door, I refilled her water bowl. I set out her kibble. Then I stepped through my morning. Small talk with a roommate. A hot shower, finger combing my hair. Through it all, I felt light, bright.

I never used to feel this way so early in the mornings. But I feel this way now.

Not every day, of course. Some mornings the sound of her tags jingling at 6 am elicits a groan as I drag myself, dizzy from sleep. This usually happens when an upset stomach or too much water has her waking me up at midnight, 3 am, 4 am.

But it’s anything, anytime for her.

Mornings aren’t so bad when I spend the first hour with no one but her. Her and me and the sunrise to the east and the alpenglow to the west and the neighborhood foxes glaring from the scrub line.

And the rabbits, of course. They are Nova’s favorite part.

Thank you, Nova Pop. You rescue me every morning.

Above is the video. Below is the final version of my script. I did a pretty good job of remaining faithful to it. Enjoy.

In Utah, there is a place called Goblin Valley. It is a forest of hoodoos – pillars of sandstone and silt that tower above you.

My friend and I slipped into the valley as the park was closing and the stars were rising. We were looking for the entrance to Goblin’s Lair – a slot canyon, a crack hidden among the hoodoos. We didn’t find it. Instead, we got lost. For hours. In the dark.

This is important: When I was little, I was afraid of the dark. But lost in Goblin Valley that night, I took my friend’s arm and said – Look at the stars. That one’s mars. It’s in retrograde. Do you know what that means?

–

We found Goblin’s Lair the next morning, under the desert sun. It is a gaping hole in the ground that marks a drop of 90 feet from ceiling to floor.

And there I was, standing at the top. My back pressed against a hoodoo. Shaking.

My friend sets the anchor. He hands me the belay device – but it’s one I’ve never seen before yet alone used and I am shaking too hard. I can’t even focus my eyes. So, he sets it up for me.

He starts toward the edge and I am standing there, watching him back up and I can’t hold it in and I said – wait. I’m afraid of heights. You might have to talk me through this.

He looks up and without hesitation says: I will not be able to talk you through this.

–

I have learned something about being afraid, because I am always afraid. Fear stands at my shoulder, just beyond my vision. Or it stands before me, an ominous hole in the floor.

Here’s something else I know. I hate the phrase “face your fears.” It’s an old cliché and it’s a dick thing to say to someone whose fight or flight response has gone so out of whack that they are frozen in place. It’s not for anyone to say when you are frozen in place.

Besides. How do you face something you can’t see?

–

Remember. I’m afraid of heights, and I am standing at the mouth of a precipice.

I hear my friend’s voice shout off rappel, I’m looking at the pillars. I’m thinking – I could walk out of here. But I decide that the only way out is down.

I attach the belay device and I lock and unlock and lock and unlock and lock the carabiner just the way I locked and unlocked and locked the doors of my house when I was a child.

And I move toward it – I move toward the hole that is a metaphor for a thousand other fears.

But I do not face it. Oh hell – no I do not face it. I get on my hands and knees. And I crawl. Backwards.

I refused to look down. I refused to look away from the sandstone under my hands. Until I was no longer pressed against the wall. Until the rope took all of my weight. Until I was suspended in the middle of the cavern.

Hanging there, I looked up. I looked down. I looked around.

And it was beautiful. The light illuminated the cavern from above and made the walls glow as red as Mars.

–

There are things that you do not have to be afraid of, but you are afraid of them anyway.

Someone asked me recently if I had finally learned to avoid the things that make my heart pound and my head spin.

I had to laugh because the short answer is no. The long answer is of course not.

Because I can’t imagine what my life would be without dropping cliffs on skis, descending too fast on bicycles, asking him out on a date, or standing in front of a crowd, speaking my own words for the very first time.

Fear, I find, is as alluring as it is repelling.

Move toward it.

Not all of the time. Not every time.

I could make that rappel for the same reason that I can stand here tonight – because I appear to  retreat. I go home and I sit in my safe house and read my safe books and whisper safe words into the leaves of my plants for days. Weeks. Once I did this for months.

Then, when I’m ready. I go out. I do this as often as I can. Even if I have to get on my hands and knees. Especially if I have to move backwards.

Do this.

Because, as e.e.cummings wrote, even stars walk backwards. Even Mars, god of war, appears to move backwards. That’s the definition of retrograde.

∆∆

To read the original blog post that inspired the talk, go here.

To read my initial post-Ignite reflections, go here.

(Photo by Ignite Boulder.)

I have done something remarkable – in the sense that it should be remarked upon. In the sense that I must remark upon it.

Do you remember the story I wrote this summer, What I Know About Being Afraid (Or Mars in Retrograde)?

Well. Now there’s a sequel. And it’s on video.

I was invited to speak at Ignite Boulder and share that story with the crowd. Because it was a crowd. 880-some odd people. A sold-out venue. Plus who knows how many tuning in over the live stream.

I am excited to share this with you. For now, I want to share with you some thoughts – both my experience and a small part of what this experience means to me.

(The complete YouTube video is up! Watch it – and read the script – here.)

Four days ago I stood on stage. It was my first time speaking on a stage. It was my first time speaking into a microphone.

I stood before a crowd and I began to speak, my voice quivering.

“In Utah, there is a place called Goblin Valley…”

Of course, it was scary to stand up there. As with most things, the anticipation is worse than the actual event.

Past speakers told me that I would ‘black out’ once I stepped on stage. That I would go into a kind of strange trance. That didn’t happen, and I’m glad for it. I was gloriously awake. Eyes wide open as I looking at the dark, featureless shapes that made up the crowd.

Thank goodness for the blinding glare of the spotlight. Thank goodness I’m no longer afraid of the dark.

When Justin volunteered me to be a speaker, my immediate reaction was to feel deeply flattered and a bit embarrassed.

Since when have my words held any merit?

Since when have my stories been anything more than a deflecting joke to tell at parties?

I thought about saying, no thanks. I thought about saying, no way.

Since when have my words held any merit?

Since when has a story of mine been anything more than background noise?

Then I remembered Mary Malone.

In Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mary Malone speaks what is, perhaps, the trilogy’s most important line:

Tell them stories.

This sentence inspires Mary to tell a story. And that story sets into motion the events that would save the world. You’ll just have to read the books. They’re really quite good.

When I was young and small and painfully shy, Pullman’s words told me that the most important thing you can ever do is tell them stories.

I am older now. Bigger. More confident, but still not the kind to try to grab the spotlight.

On that stage, I had five minutes to tell a story. Maybe, just maybe, someone in the crowd needed to hear it. Or if not in the crowd, then someone will stumble into it online. They will hit play and they will hear the quiver in my voice and it will echo something inside of them. Then we will shake together even though we have never and will never meet.

A career coach asked me how I wanted to be remembered. I said, “That I tried. That I tried really, really hard to make things a little better.”

So I stood on stage and told the story of Goblin Valley. I told a story of a small fear in the hopes that it will remind you (and me) that the same rules apply for the big ones. The micro in the macro.

And maybe… for someone… it helped.

∆∆

The personal is political.

Each step you take, each breath you breathe.

Your actions will speak louder than you will ever be able to scream.

I’ll remember this, too. I promise this to you. I’ll scream, yeah. But I’ll do more, too.

For a long time, the Bukowski quote in my About page read thus:

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Let’s do this.

Together.