I've always been a big fan of the great outdoors. When I was very young, my family spent a lot of time camping, fishing and hiking in the mountains around our home in Boise. When I got a little older, those trips became less frequent--but I started spending hours on my bike, long evening hours spent riding around the southeast side of town. This was long before the Ipod (or even the Walkman), so I just enjoyed the relative quiet of being alone on my bike. I come from a loud family; quiet time was hard to come by.
When I went away to college, I spent lots of time between and after classes hiking around the university's arboretum. I didn't have a car on campus, so I walked everywhere I went. But even when I went away to graduate school in Kansas and had a car at my disposal, I walked more often than I drove. Driving is stressful; walking is peaceful. I made good use of that time and did a lot of writing in my head before I sat down to put anything on paper. I slogged through a lot of snow, but I also kicked through many beautiful autumn leaves. I never thought about whether to walk or drive; I walked unless a mile on foot seemed impossible, as it did some sub-zero mornings.
One of my earliest memories of time spent with my husband Mike was the time we spent in Idaho when I brought him home from Kansas to meet my parents. My dad took us on a long drive through the mountains to look at the damage done by a recent forest fire. Eventually, we wound up at Redfish Lake. I remember standing ankle-deep in the lake with my mother, looking for pretty stones on the lake floor. I looked back over my shoulder at my husband, who was standing on the shore and staring at me.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said. "You just look like you belong here."
It made me irrationally happy to hear him say that. I felt like I belonged there, at the foot of the Sawtooth Mountains, and I was glad it showed in some perceptible way.
Lately, as I've started running outdoors more often than I run on the treadmill, I've been thinking about how much comfort I take from being there. Few things make me feel as content as taking a long walk or a good run on a beautiful day. I think this is something I learned from my dad--who was not a walker or (heaven forbid!) a runner, but who spent most of his time working outdoors, in his garden or in the yard. I helped him build the fence that still stands behind my parents' house one Saturday when I was in grade school, without being asked to do so, because I liked being outside. And I loved being with him.
My dad is nearing the end of his life. He's 83; his health is failing and his memory is fading. The last time I was home, for my niece's wedding in October, I worried that he wouldn't remember who I was, since I live so far away and don't see him often. He seemed to know me, though--until he turned to my mother at one point and said "That Mike's wife sure is a nice lady."
It made me sad, of course, to realize that (if only for a moment, until my mom reminded him) my dad didn't know I was his daughter. After I'd moved past that initial sadness, though, I realized that I'd been given a gift. My dad had just made a purely objective assessment of me, and it was entirely positive. He had nothing to gain by saying I was a nice lady; he didn't know he'd had a hand in raising me, so he wasn't giving himself credit for a job well done. I imagine there are very few people who have an objective sense of how their parents feel about them, and I'm one of the lucky few who does.
I think, too, this is nature's way of helping me get used to the fact that the people I love won't be with me forever. My dad is still with us in body, but the person he used to be--the man who knew everything there is to know about making things grow, who taught me how to bait a hook and mark a trail and build a fence--that person just isn't here anymore. He's lost somewhere inside the body that's been left behind in his place.
I've spent some time crying about this, but nature is giving me time to get used to the facts: my dad is not my dad anymore. I'm a middle-aged woman with half-grown children of my own; I don't really need a dad anymore. What I do need is a little time to say goodbye to one of the most important people in my life, and that's precisely what nature is giving me. Rather than fearing the inevitable, I need to recognize that gift and accept it with gratitude. Far too many people never get the chance to say goodbye.
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