How to be a survivor

The sun is setting as we leave Sacramento. I am happy to see this day end, happy to be on an airplane heading home after this double gut-punch of a day. 

Morning started quietly, the golden California light spilling into our hotel room. We'd flown south to watch the Mariners play their last game of the season, and although we lost, we'd seen another MLB park, met up with some fellow fans, and enjoyed ourselves. 

With a few extra hours between our hotel checkout and flight, we planned to go to a movie. But first, breakfast. At home, I never have the TV on anytime close to breakfast and I don't watch cable news. On the road ... is there a hotel breakfast room anywhere in the United States without cable news? At least the sound was turned down as we saw grave-faced Las Vegas officials speak behind the headline at the bottom of the big screen: 58 dead and more than 500 hurt at a music festival. 

My first thought was of the woman we'd sat with on the flight south who was joining her brother and other family and friends in Las Vegas to celebrate his 50th birthday. My second thought was of the other violence at concerts and dance halls and movie theaters over the past decade, and how it's become almost routine to hear of madmen targeting people out for a good time. 

We stuck to our plan and went to the movie -- Stronger, about Jeff Bauman, the Boston Marathon bombing survivor who loses two legs and eventually gains a spine through his ordeal. Josh Ritter's yearning, determined "Homecoming" plays during the credits. I feel a little better. Then, as we leave the theater, Tom learns via an email on his phone that Tom Petty has died. Yet another dose of heartbreak -- and of course, I take it personally. 

Those of us who remain must wonder how many more senseless episodes like this are ahead of us. I say something to Tom about not feeling too sure how many more years of this world--as messed up as it is now--anyone might reasonably want to endure. 

And he says the perfect thing, the only thing. He says it's yet another reminder to be mindful and grateful every day. Of course it is. 

One of the most horrible things about Sunday's shooting was how it maimed 10 times as many people as it killed. These are the people who could reasonably question whether they'd rather be dead. Jeff Bauman had something to say to them via his Facebook page the other day: 

To those who lost friends and loved ones—I’m so sorry. I know there are no words that can bring comfort but please know that the world is behind you.

To the victims waking up in a hospital right now wondering how life will ever be the same... I know your pain. The most important advice I can give is to remember that healing your mind is just as important as healing your physical, visible injuries. It took me too many years and dark moments to realize that and it is so, so important. You will walk again. You will laugh again. You will dance again. You will live again.

Please consider making a gift to the Las Vegas Victims Fund. Support like this is what got me through-every little bit counts in the days ahead.

If you are reading this, you are a survivor. Maybe the key to living through times like these is, indeed, to give. Some will give money, others will share words or hugs or comfort. It all matters.

Southern California coast, October 2017. Photo by Julie Fanselow

Fall housekeeping

Last spring, after Seattle's rainiest-ever winter, I was done with rain. I never wanted to see it ever again. But then we had one of our driest, hottest summers ever.

So yesterday, when it rained much of the day, it felt sacramental. And especially at a time when people in other regions are suffering the after-effects of forest fires, hurricanes, and earthquakes, I will not begrudge whatever weather comes our way.

As much as spring always feels like a fresh start, so does fall. With our smoky skies cleared and our streets washed clean, with a new school year underway and baseball season winding down (giving me a little more free time since I am a seating host), autumn is one of my favorite times of year.

Today, I say farewell to two young women who have been staying in our Airbnb these past few weeks as they (successfully) looked for an apartment of their own. It's a challenge and an adventure to move to Seattle these days, so we were happy to give them a launchpad. We'll welcome our next guests in a few days -- but first, I'll enjoy the quiet of the space myself for a while.

Tonight, I begin a new session of the UU Wellspring curriculum I enjoyed the church year before last. I look forward to Wellspring as another opportunity for personal spiritual deepening, as well as the opportunity to walk now through next spring with a small group of kindred spirits.

I find that I blog a little more often during Wellspring, and I now have a little email subscription widget at the top right corner of this blog, if you'd like to see everything I write on here. (Don't worry; it'll still only be a post or two each week at the most.)

One more housekeeping note: I've been compiling a book-length collection of things I've written here and elsewhere over the past 25 years. It'll probably be out before the holidays, so watch this space for more news on that.

Wishing us all a lovely fall ...

Back to the future

Five years ago this month, I launched a blog called Carfree California. I'd moved to Oakland from Idaho earlier that year and was finally able to live without a car -- something I'd long dreamed of doing.

When I moved to Seattle about a year later, I retired that blog and started this one. I continued to live without owning a car for my first two-and-a-half years here. But last March, I surprised myself and everyone who knew me by going out and buying a 2002 VW Jetta.

I did it on a whim; I'd just grown tired of not owning wheels. It was spring and I wanted to take some road trips without the expense of rentals. I'd received a nice tax refund and I paid cash, so there'd be no car payment. Part of me felt guilty for selling out on my ideals. Another part of me said "what the heck." As our buddy Walt wrote, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

Fast forward to this week: I take the Jetta in for an oil change and 95,000 mile safety check. The garage calls me with very sad news: The car needs new front and rear brakes, plus a new timing belt and water pump. Ka-ching! After 18 months of spending little beyond gas and insurance, the true cost of car ownership has come due.

So what do I do? I've decided to let go of the car, but it's not a simple decision -- mainly because six months ago, I moved from Seattle to the suburbs, where I now live with my sweetie of four years. It's a lot harder to live here without a car, though not impossible. We have other vehicles in the household, there are bus lines, and I like to walk.

I don't feel like pumping endless money into a vehicle that's going to need many more repairs over its lifetime. And I have to admit: I'm trying to set an example that there are alternative ways to live. Many people view not having a car as deprivation, and after owning one myself for 18 months, I could easily feel that way, too. I get it.

But as I learned in my four earlier years of living without wheels, not owning a car is an adventure. I walk more. I see more. I spend less. I trade convenience for greater consciousness -- of the natural world and of my fellow humans.

Like many other things in life, it's not always easy, but with a good attitude, it can be pretty cool.

On a road trip last year in Idaho. 

Take time for the sublime

Eastern Oregon during the total solar eclipse, August 21. Photo by Rebecca Hom.

I keep thinking about the corona, a shimmering white ring around that perfect black disc. It looked like the eye of the universe, and afterward I wondered: What if eclipses like this happen every day somewhere, in some galaxy, but no one is there to see them?

Eyewitness. I'd seen photos -- and I'd made drawings -- of solar flares radiating from behind the moon's mask, but it was nothing like that. I'd read Annie Dillard's essay about the fearsome, fast-moving shadow she saw during the 1979 eclipse, and I was expecting something out of an end-of-the-world movie, but it was nothing like that.

Instead, we were draped in a blanket of incredible blue-violet, a shade I'd never before seen, which my friend Rebecca thankfully captured in this photo. (I didn't even try to get any photos during totality.) The corona shone over Eastern Oregon for a minute-and-a-half or so, then the show was over. It was amazing how fast it became daylight again, even with only a crescent sliver of sun.

Compadres

Of course, I want to see another one. Argentina in 2019? Texas in 2024? Who knows? But even if I never get to see another total solar eclipse, I'm grateful I took time to see this one.

I also know that for every grand spectacle, there is some small moment of Zen available to us every day. I'll remain watchful for those, too.

Inexpressible privacy, silent and unambitious

When I wrote my last post and linked to it on social media, a friend commented, "Very nice, lots to think about. Write more." And that could be taken at least two ways, right? Write more in one post, or write more often. Maybe both.

I'm not sure why I'm not blogging at least a little more often. A dozen years ago, as one of the nation's busiest political bloggers, I posted constantly. But these days, when I have something to say, I guess I want to let it echo for a while.

Speaking of echoes, something Henry David Thoreau wrote has been reverberating in my head all this spring. It's in his Natural History of Massachusetts, just a few lines from his comment ("Surely joy is the condition of life") from which I named this blog. He writes:

We fancy that this din of religion, literature, and philosophy, which is heard in pulpits, Lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe ...

Oh my. Can you imagine what Thoreau would think of the din vibrating around us today? He goes on to say:

... When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life -- how silent and unambitious it is.

Monet's pond, Giverny. Photo by Julie Fanselow, 2017.

Those two phrases. Is it possible in 2017 to live a private life? This morning, I'm thinking about one private life that ended a few days ago when a young Seattle mother was shot by two police officers she'd called on for help. Her life mattered. I changed my Facebook profile photo to honor her today. It feels like the right thing to do. I get that.

I have written before that I am weary of politics. I am weary of the din. I know that it's a marker of privilege that I can go weeks and months without publicly weighing in on the daily acts of violence swirling around us.

But by heeding the call to contemplate nature and sit with my spirit, to be mostly private and silent and unambitious as a practice, every day, I am able to cultivate the kind of calm I need to face the madness of our world.

(Read more Thoreau here.)

'We're all just walking each other home ...'

At the start of this post, my first in a long while, I want to pause and say thanks to a few people:

Thanks to the civil servants who are speaking out. Thanks to the journalists who are speaking truth to power. Thanks to the everyday people who are doing whatever they can to keep this great spinning world more or less upright amid a lot of wobbling.

My little brother in California is reeling today from news of the death of Chris Cornell, the musician who was only 52 when he apparently ended his life yesterday. My cousin is in an Illinois hospital awaiting further word on a serious medical condition. I wish I could hug my brother and hold my cousin's hand, but sending love via email has to do.

The quote at the top of this post is from Ram Dass. I love it, and I've been seeing it weekly on the emails I get from Terry Hershey (whose "Create Space for Grace" e-course I'm eager to start next week).

"We're all just walking each other home ..."

What a lovely thought when none of us knows the way. We may think we do, or wish we did, but we don't.

Delicious ambiguity, the Rev. Marisol Caballero called it in her post at Braver/Wiser yesterday. She wrote:

The longer I live, the more I am taught he same lesson, over and over, by wildly different circumstances: the more I expect the unexpected; the more I roll with the punches of life’s tragedies and revel in life’s joys and victories; the more I give in to the reality that I am not as in charge of and cannot plan as much of this life as I would like, the more I can fully experience and even come to enjoy the deliciousness of my journey’s ambiguity.

Embracing and even enjoying ambiguity. Creating space for grace. These are the things we are called to do in this moment -- that and reaching out to people we love, however we can, to assure them they are not alone.

"Sequence" by Richard Serra, SFMOMA. Photo by Julie Fanselow, 2017.

One day at a time

Today is the first full day of the Trump era, and marches are happening all over the world. I applaud and support the efforts, and the me of five, ten, or fifteen years ago would have pulled on a pussy hat and been in the throng.

I understand the impulse toward protesting in the streets, but here's what I plan to do instead today and every day during these next four years: pretty much what I've been doing the past four years. How can I live every day in a way that defies the times in which we've found ourselves?

I'll try to be useful. My partisan days are behind me, but I'll look for opportunities to plug in and live my values. Yesterday, I volunteered with the Human Rights Campaign for a financial planning workshop at Year Up, which gives young adults life skills training.

I'll live large with a small footprint. At yesterday's session, we talked about how to plan a car purchase. The two bits of life wisdom I brought to the table were "ask yourself if you even need a car" and, if you do, whether you can pay cash for something that'll get you around without getting you into debt.

I'll seek out as much art as I can, in museums and on the streets.

I'll listen to music, and play some, too.

I'll take long walks.

I'll be a conscious consumer. I'll carefully curate my media consumption.*

I'll be as mindful as I can, and I'll try to be as kind as I can, too.

I'll love and be loved.

I'll believe in the long arc, even as it sputters two steps backward in our nation's journey. I'll be grateful that I live in a city and region where civility and progress continue to be our path.

* Here are a few people whose work I find to be inspiring, positive, and "worthy of my valuable time," as my sweetheart likes to say (and he anonymously tops this list):

updated May 2017 ... feel free to use the comments to suggest other sites that help you stay grounded 

Austin Kleon
Braver/Wiser from the UUA
Chris Thile
Krista Tippett and On Being
Sabbath Moment from Terry Hershey
Seth Godin
Leo Babauta and Zen Habits