On Not Losing Sight

The day was like a watercolor painting, everything softened and translucent, washed by the silvery light of a distant storm. I walked briskly and purposefully, uphill and down, overriding the ache in my leg, walking for the sake of my mental state, walking to get calm, walking to dissolve the border between myself and the landscape, walking for the balm of it. In time, the present grew plump with the past, but I rode the emotions that my memories carried to me, and eventually I found a state of neutral coexistence with the universe and walked on. 

A few days earlier, I had gone into the local mountains with my geologist friend and fellow teacher Donna Frost to visit our former colleague, Marc Kummel, affectionately known as Treebeard. His wife, Julie, led us down a steep gravel road to the canyon where we would find him. A sign said, “SLOW DOWN Photographer at Work” and there he was, taking pictures of insects. It sounds odd, but it’s one of the quiet, loving ways the man is bearing witness, documenting, tending to the planet.

A naturalist, musician, and general Renaissance man, Treebeard led groups at the Outdoor School near Lake Cachuma long before he began teaching at Dunn Middle School in Los Olivos, where his science classes involved fire and philosophy in equal parts. Many former students remember him best for his weekly after-school hike club, during which he led kids out into the wondrous world of nature, where they climbed mountains, splashed in creeks, and were shown the little miracles they might not have noticed on their own. It was pure play, a release from adolescent angst, and a form of learning that offered kids a different way of being, and I am certain it changed a few lives.

I learned a lot from him too during the years when I was lucky enough to teach at the middle school with him. At graduation ceremonies, he used to give a traditional “science experiment” speech in which he demonstrated a law of science which then became a metaphor for living life. The students liked it best when he blew something up, but I appreciated his less explosive presentations, such as the way he demonstrated the concept of balance using a broom and a walking stick. 

First, he showed how he could balance each of these objects horizontally by sliding his fingers along, correcting and overcorrecting, until the center of gravity was reached. Next, he balanced the broom on one end and balanced it again with the addition of a weight, first high and then low, subtly correcting and counter-correcting whenever the broom began to fall. It turns out that finding balance is a dynamic thing. Also, it was easier to balance when the weight was placed high.

“It’s like life and growing up,” Treebeard told the students. “If you keep your problems and worry too close all the time, and your goals and expectations too low, you can’t maneuver. You need some space. Expect a lot, aim high, but adjust your balance when you have to — that’s how it works.”

I have certainly found this to be true. And when I’m stalled or feeling precarious, I remind myself that I may just need to reposition, shift perspective, and give myself the space to adjust my balance, as it were.

But my absolute favorite of Treebeard’s experiments was a mathematical demonstration on probability and paradox and the unlikelihood of everything. There were perhaps a hundred people gathered at this graduation ceremony, and he began by considering the various paths and factors at play in our convergence and calculating the odds. 

“What’s the probability of all of us being here today for this occasion?” he asked. “How many separate events and decisions over the years does this moment depend on? That’s easy. Probability: zero. Absolutely impossible. And yet here we are.”

I think about this every single day. All of what is happening is implausible, even impossible, yet here it is, happening. 

And for me, what that means for the future is that anything is possible, including the most wonderful of outcomes…especially if we hold on to that realization and aim for the good. And plenty of folks are doing just that. It’s a hard time for our country and for all we hold dear, but our country is a collection of communities, after all, and even small local deeds have a ripple effect. In my own community, I know people who are delivering meals to senior citizens and stocking a local food bank. I know others who are tutoring kids or boldly speaking out against injustice. Treebeard is quietly documenting the fragile wonder of the backcountry, a small step toward its protection, and there are countless acts of diligence and kindness happening in any given moment.

The magnificence of the world continues to amaze me, even while the meanness breaks my heart. Let us keep doing what we do, following the thread, finding our lane, tending to our friends, grateful for the gifts, contributing what we can, and not giving up. 

I read an essay once about infinite hope, which introduced an Icelandic term, sauðljóst, and concluded like a little poem:

sauðljóst
It means, “at dawn when there is just enough light to see your sheep”…
Keep your tender heart and all that matters to you close. 
Don’t lose sight of your “sheep”…

Isn’t that a lovely concept? And isn’t that what we are all doing now, or trying to do? 

The rain has come.  Let us not lose sight of our sheep.