A Long December

Each year on December 1^st, my friend Nathan and I race to see who can wish each other a Happy December, and remind the other that we can now listen to A Long December by The Counting Crows as much as we want for a whole month without shame. Nathan and I met during autumn of my sophomore year of college, so it seems we have been at this contest for a decade. Last night I received a message from him, which in the past would have been cheating since it was not quite December 1^st in either of our time zones, but considering that I had completely forgotten for the first time ever, I had to concede to his win.

Me at 19, Julie & Joe, Nathan at 18 --- the inception of my friendship with Nathan.

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Yesterday I rode my bike to the beach, maybe three or four miles from where I live. It is all downhill on the way there, and then a steady, sometimes steep climb back to the ranch. As I was climbing, I was thinking about how many hills of much greater stature I climbed on a bicycle just over two months ago. Granted, my dear friend Christen was behind me the whole time yelling obscenities at the woman who wrote our guidebook or to Angela Lansbury who could not have possibly ridden her beach cruiser on the hills of Highway One around Mendocino on Murder She Wrote.  I admit that Christen’s banter made the hills go by easier. Still, post bike tour, it was clear that our leg muscles were considerably stronger than when we began, and we were both excited to transition to our mountain bikes and continue riding. My new rural life has not included  much bike commuting, and only an occasional mountain bike adventure…so today’s climb was a good reminder that if you don’t use it, you lose it.

Me & Christen towards the end of the bike trip, having t-shirt/no jersey day along Tomales Bay.

During my time on the beach, I read a few pages in A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield, a book on meditation and spiritual practice that I am just beginning to explore. This was a part that struck me:

Spiritual work requires sustained practice and a commitment to look very deeply into ourselves and the world around us to discover what has created human suffering and what will free us from any manner of conflict. We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open.

If we do a little of one kind of practice and a little of another, the work we have done in one often doesn’t continue to build as we change to the next. It is as if we were to dig many shallow wells instead of one deep one. In continually moving from one approach to another, we are never forced to face our own boredom, impatience, and fears. We are never brought face to face with ourselves. So we need to choose a way of practice that is deep and ancient and connected with our hearts, and then make a commitment to follow it as long as it takes to transform ourselves.

I am reminded that all of life is a practice. This is something I have believed for a long time, but not something I have necessarily put into action. The things I care about in life require practice to keep them good and to make them better. Sometimes this means working to love someone well that we are naturally inclined to love. Sometimes it means baking the same scones over and over until they are divine. Sometimes it means freeing ourselves from carrying a particular burden – which is almost never a one-time deal.

The Long December practice is one of staying connected to an old friend. We don’t really care anymore about listening to the song. Last year this contest sparked a series of letters between Nathan and I about what we were facing in our lives and our wrestling with truth and meaning and ideas of God. It was a discipline of deep listening and responding, and sharing a part of ourselves with each other we hadn’t asked to see in a very long time.

As I was riding up the hill, I thought, “If I did this every day, this would get easier.” It is also true that it would be more difficult on certain days, sometimes simply because of the possibility of boredom in trudging the same known path. It could become the struggle to see or feel something new. It could also be frustrating if my lungs and legs didn’t build in stamina as quickly as I think they should --- the same way I rush myself along to be something new and perfect and somehow arrived, almost immediately after discovering a new way I would like to be in the world. What kind of unfair monster am I anyway?

It is a practice every day to be the person I want to be, and I am realizing that it is acceptable to focus on one thing at a time. Not only is it acceptable, but maybe it is the only way I will ever arrive.

What is something you practiced today?