Comments on: Wild and precious life http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/ Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:38:01 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Jennifer http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/comment-page-1/#comment-96 Jennifer Sun, 02 Mar 2008 01:50:06 +0000 http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/#comment-96 Exactly! Understanding the way I’m not letting the possibilities in. And, you’re probably right about the other fear thing – certainly I believe that most of my problems stem from some fear or other, and with people – the fear of rejection in some form. But for me it Feels like the real disconnect comes in because I think that most other people do NOT feel that stuff you are talking about – like seeing the possibilities and striving for what we want. Maybe they see the precious part, but not he wild part. Mostly I think they used to see it, but they have so long ago given up on the idea that they have forgotten (tried hard to forget) the reality of it. And I hate that they do that. And that’s why I feel separate from them. But maybe that’s a story I tell myself - because really I know we are not so separate. But I think there is some reality in that story. Exactly! Understanding the way I’m not letting the possibilities in. And, you’re probably right about the other fear thing – certainly I believe that most of my problems stem from some fear or other, and with people – the fear of rejection in some form. But for me it Feels like the real disconnect comes in because I think that most other people do NOT feel that stuff you are talking about – like seeing the possibilities and striving for what we want. Maybe they see the precious part, but not he wild part. Mostly I think they used to see it, but they have so long ago given up on the idea that they have forgotten (tried hard to forget) the reality of it. And I hate that they do that. And that’s why I feel separate from them. But maybe that’s a story I tell myself – because really I know we are not so separate. But I think there is some reality in that story.

]]> By: Kelley http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/comment-page-1/#comment-95 Kelley Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:52:13 +0000 http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/#comment-95 Jean, I love your stories. You really take me there. Thanks for giving me a lovely warm afternoon with peanuts and beer and the beautiful young men. Jean, I love your stories. You really take me there. Thanks for giving me a lovely warm afternoon with peanuts and beer and the beautiful young men.

]]> By: Kelley http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/comment-page-1/#comment-94 Kelley Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:48:29 +0000 http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/#comment-94 Jennifer, I do think Meyer was right. I think we are all like that. I think that the biggest thing that keeps people apart is the fear that we are the only ones who feel the apartness, that everyone else is in on The Big Secret of Being a Grownup and will, I don't know... laugh at us? Feel contempt? I don't know. But I do know how damn scary it is sometimes to just be real in the world and to let the beauty of it come in. Because with the beauty comes the understanding of possibility and then, of course, the understanding of all the ways I'm not letting the possibilities in.... I don't know if it's possible to always have guts all the time. I certainly haven't figured out how to do it yet. Jennifer, I do think Meyer was right. I think we are all like that.

I think that the biggest thing that keeps people apart is the fear that we are the only ones who feel the apartness, that everyone else is in on The Big Secret of Being a Grownup and will, I don’t know… laugh at us? Feel contempt? I don’t know. But I do know how damn scary it is sometimes to just be real in the world and to let the beauty of it come in. Because with the beauty comes the understanding of possibility and then, of course, the understanding of all the ways I’m not letting the possibilities in….

I don’t know if it’s possible to always have guts all the time. I certainly haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

]]> By: Jennifer http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/comment-page-1/#comment-93 Jennifer Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:33:22 +0000 http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/#comment-93 I too have those feathertip moments sometimes. Mostly lately when I am outside. I tremble and marvel at the possiblilties that are somehow there; the sheer beauty of it. My fear is that I won’t have the guts to always keep trying to get the things I want; that I am wasting my ‘one wild and precious life.’ I look around me and think that I am alone in this pursuit -- thinking that few around me feel this way. Too frequently I drift from that state of beauty and possibilities and doing and into that place your buddy Trav talked about (in one of your Trav excerpts). “I seem forever on the edge of expressing the inexpressible, touching what has never been touched, but I cannot reach through the veil of apartness.” Could it really be true that we are all like that (as Meyer responded to Trav)? Everyone? Surely not even mostly everyone….. ? Fortunately for me, I get to read these posts on your blog and I feel a little less alone in this deal. I too have those feathertip moments sometimes. Mostly lately when I am outside. I tremble and marvel at the possiblilties that are somehow there; the sheer beauty of it. My fear is that I won’t have the guts to always keep trying to get the things I want; that I am wasting my ‘one wild and precious life.’ I look around me and think that I am alone in this pursuit — thinking that few around me feel this way. Too frequently I drift from that state of beauty and possibilities and doing and into that place your buddy Trav talked about (in one of your Trav excerpts). “I seem forever on the edge of expressing the inexpressible, touching what has never been touched, but I cannot reach through the veil of apartness.”

Could it really be true that we are all like that (as Meyer responded to Trav)? Everyone? Surely not even mostly everyone….. ?

Fortunately for me, I get to read these posts on your blog and I feel a little less alone in this deal.

]]> By: Jean R http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/comment-page-1/#comment-92 Jean R Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:33:05 +0000 http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/#comment-92 Yes, Kelley, appreciating: especially when one play's hookey from duties real or imagined. Now I've taken the afternoon off from my mother's backyard. I drifted out of the Scottsdale public library to find the parking lot full and people streaming toward green green playing fields. Spring training: Giants vs. the Mariners. Now I've just been sprawled in the grass behind left field, liking the sounds of it all: Lemonade lemonade likeyergrandmamade...cold beer COLD beer peaNUTS. I marveled at the about -to-break-through-the-skin sensuality of the young fellows on a high school baseball team watching the pros together, looking cool in their shades and white game pants smeared with dirt earned by sliding. And toddlers. Lots of toddlers staggering in the small shade of their parents' team caps. When a bat breaks a collective whoa! rises out of the bleachers as if the joint lung of the whole place had been wacked. Yes, Kelley, appreciating: especially when one play’s hookey from duties real or imagined. Now I’ve taken the afternoon off from my mother’s backyard. I drifted out of the Scottsdale public library to find the parking lot full and people streaming toward green green playing fields. Spring training: Giants vs. the Mariners. Now I’ve just been sprawled in the grass behind left field, liking the sounds of it all: Lemonade lemonade likeyergrandmamade…cold beer COLD beer peaNUTS. I marveled at the about -to-break-through-the-skin sensuality of the young fellows on a high school baseball team watching the pros together, looking cool in their shades and white game pants smeared with dirt earned by sliding. And toddlers. Lots of toddlers staggering in the small shade of their parents’ team caps. When a bat breaks a collective whoa! rises out of the bleachers as if the joint lung of the whole place had been wacked.

]]> By: Kelley http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/comment-page-1/#comment-91 Kelley Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:45:28 +0000 http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/#comment-91 It's lovely to hear more news of your mother. And to know that today's wincing is more rehearsal than reality. That's another kind of good fortune. I went to boarding school in New Hampshire -- beautiful sprawly wooded campus, a real wonderland. I loved it. I had so many moments of breathlessness at just being there... I went back for a reunion about five years ago, and overheard another Middle Aged Graduate say to his family, "You know, I never realized when I was here how amazing it was." Your stories of your mother make me feel the same way I did at school -- that sense of appreciating and embracing what one has, of knowing right in the moment when a thing is good. That's the counterpoint to all that wanting... It’s lovely to hear more news of your mother. And to know that today’s wincing is more rehearsal than reality. That’s another kind of good fortune.

I went to boarding school in New Hampshire — beautiful sprawly wooded campus, a real wonderland. I loved it. I had so many moments of breathlessness at just being there… I went back for a reunion about five years ago, and overheard another Middle Aged Graduate say to his family, “You know, I never realized when I was here how amazing it was.”

Your stories of your mother make me feel the same way I did at school — that sense of appreciating and embracing what one has, of knowing right in the moment when a thing is good. That’s the counterpoint to all that wanting…

]]> By: Jean R http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/comment-page-1/#comment-90 Jean R Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:31:01 +0000 http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/wild-and-precious-life/#comment-90 "like being brushed with a feathertip, a soft fleeting understanding..." you write. I watched my mother methodically crunching the leftover fortune cookies, making their surreal orange brittleness into tiny chunks, crunching them into bits without breaking the plastic wrappers. At first I thought I might be witnessing the next dance of brain cells dressed in old age: how hands reach into tasks that make a dimly remembered sense, but before the task completes, other brain cells flood the moment with other realities. I looked away, breathing through my heart's wincing. But later in the day, I see she's put those fortune cookies outside on the patio by the big frying pan we use as a bird bath.. The plastic is torn open. I see a tiny strip of paper in the cookie crumbles. A curved bill thrasher, edgy with nest-building urgency, swipes the fortune and flies away. What fortune would you be lucky to build into your nest, I wonder. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT, BUT WANT THINGS SO FIERCELY THAT YOU TRY TO GET THEM. That'll do. “like being brushed with a feathertip, a soft fleeting understanding…” you write.

I watched my mother methodically crunching the leftover fortune cookies, making their surreal orange brittleness into tiny chunks, crunching them into bits without breaking the plastic wrappers. At first I thought I might be witnessing the next dance of brain cells dressed in old age: how hands reach into tasks that make a dimly remembered sense, but before the task completes, other brain cells flood the moment with other realities. I looked away, breathing through my heart’s wincing. But later in the day, I see she’s put those fortune cookies outside on the patio by the big frying pan we use as a bird bath.. The plastic is torn open. I see a tiny strip of paper in the cookie crumbles. A curved bill thrasher, edgy with nest-building urgency, swipes the fortune and flies away. What fortune would you be lucky to build into your nest, I wonder. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHETHER YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT, BUT WANT THINGS SO FIERCELY THAT YOU TRY TO GET THEM. That’ll do.

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