When I first began the study of martial arts as a young woman, I expected to be challenged to face my fears and learn new ways of moving. I didn’t expect to relearn skills I’d gained as a toddler – like how to stand on a smooth surface.

Not as simple as it sounds. There were things to consider like weight distribution, and how the outside edges, heels, and balls of my feet connected with the floor. From there, that connection radiates through tendons and ligaments, muscles and bone, through sturdy ankles and soft knees. Hip and shoulder angles, and every muscle in between, head, chin, and eye focus – everything I had taken for granted from when I first stood by holding onto the edge of the coffee table – had to be reconsidered.

It was necessary to learn to stand before I could learn to move.

This has been a year of tremendous change. Some have been life milestones – our move to the mountains, a son off to graduate school, a daughter and grandson moved away to start a life with her fiance, and another daughter gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. But there was also a slip on the ice that broke my wrist and tailbone, herniated a disc, and led to severe sciatica. Friend and mentor, Sam Hamill,  passed away in April, and a dear loved one was diagnosed with cancer.

Still, there’s work to be done – clearing out twenty-two years of accumulation from our suburban family home and, in our mountain home, clearing our land of fire hazards and stacking wood for the coming winter.

The land here starts from Pan Handle Creek and climbs up the steep mountainside. It’s strewn with moss rocks and granite outcroppings, the picturesque marriage of tectonic plate activity and receding glaciers. A ravine zigzags along one edge, a favorite path for moose, deer and elk. The scourge of mountain pine beetle has left dead trees in its wake – some still standing, some fallen or cut in sections and stacked here and there over the land, their branches lie tangled beneath the undergrowth or in large piles of slash. Fire tender. Living trees sprout from cracks in jagged granite.

My husband and I have pulled sixteen pick-up loads of slash off the land this summer, hauling them to the slash depot where they can be safely burned. We’ll keep at it until October when the depot closes. With my injury, I step carefully, but once I get going l pull my weight.

There is a quiet alertness when moving slowly over uneven terrain. I hear the creek, and the wind rustling the aspen leaves, the low symphonies of birds and insects. Between the colorful lichen-covered stones, wild flowers and berries nestle; there are small holes dug into the nooks and crannies, sheltering mice and chipmunks – tiny worlds I might have missed jogging up the hill to the next slash pile.

As I take in these worlds, my thoughts slow down. Snatches of music and poetry, Sam’s and other’s, wind their way through the rhythm of my plodding boot-falls. Worries recede, replaced by gratitude – for another day of sobriety, for this dazzling world, for the opportunity to share it with this man I love.

Finding my footing on uneven ground is a gift.

 

Copyright © 2018 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.