On the Bucket List: Befriending Ghosts

Reflections on a fiftieth birthday roadtrip through the American Southwest

O Great Spirit

whose voice I hear in the winds, and 
whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me! 
I am small and weak, 
I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in Beauty, and make my eyes 
      ever behold the red and purple sunset. 

Make my Hands respect the things you have
      made and my ears sharp to hear your voice. 

Make me Wise so that I may understand the
      things you have taught my people. 

Let me Learn the lessons you have hidden in 
      every leaf and rock. 

I seek Strength, not to be greater than my 
      brother, but to fight my greatest enemy— 
      myself. 

Make me always Ready to come to you 
      with clean hands and straight eyes. 

So when life fades, as the fading sunset, 
      my spirit may come to you without shame. 

— Lakota Sioux Prayer

translated (and likely) written by Chief Yellow Lark 1887

No flat tires. Yes enchiladas.

In my heart it was a walkabout, in reality it was a four-wheel, four-state drive-about with my hometown bestie. She said, “Meet me in the Southwest, we are turning 50.”

So I met her in the Southwest so we could turn 50.

Elizabeth and I were born a month apart, in the same small town, in the same small hospital, maybe even in the same small bed. We were shaped by the same sunrises and sunsets, the same creeks, boulders, and merry-go-rounds, but our lives followed different external timelines: She went off to college, while I learned how to be a caregiver. She traveled the world, while I lived in an ashram. I got divorced from a mountain climber 5-years before she got married to a farmer. I was a single mama to a girl child and she bought a house with her husband and raised a stepson. Our orbits have expanded away from each other many times, but they have never left each other. We cycle.

So when she raised the conch to call me back, I bought a plane ticket and met her in Colorado Springs.

The Bucket List

All I had to do was remember my head lamp (couldn’t find it) and hop in her truck. She had half the backseat cleared for all of the rocks I would find and the inevitable mess I would make. She also had great snacks and a comprehensive bucket list to guide us.

I love traveling with longtime friends. We know what to anticipate in each other. We have walked through our respective side doors and back doors enough times to know where the comfort zones are and where the triggers are hiding. We know when to push forward and when to pull back. If we overstep, we adjust. With time we learn how to ask better questions, respond with more truth, and give better care. With time, we learn what love means.

When I begin a journey, I like to establish an intention for what I hope to experience, followed by a list of proposals that I offer up to universal ears. Intentions are ideas I want to be “in attention” with or “in tension” with — depending on what needs to play out. They can manifest as a way of being I want to acclimate to, a place to find, or a quality of person I want to meet. I might focus on something I want to leave behind, or welcome in. On the other hand, a proposal is more of a suggestion to the powers that be for ways of sending me recognizable “signs” to affirm my intention is being met. The “signs” I seek, engage wonder, and lend direction to the parts of me that might feel rudderless. Intention setting is an open-my-sight and free-my-mind self-soothing ceremony, a dedication to being dazzled by cosmic forces, and consumed by the hunt for anything that acknowledges my participation in the dance of seeing and being seen.

So, after being whisked from the Colorado Springs Municipal Airport by my friend in a long black dress driving a Tacoma, I scanned myself for the go-to ‘begin the journey’ questions. Guess what? There were no questions, no quests, desired resolutions, or special intention-wishes. Surprise! There was just me going for a ride; already complete in my experience by simply showing up. There was nothing to become that I wasn’t already, there was nothing to acquire that I didn’t already have. I don’t know and I don’t need to know was visceral, immediate, unmanufactured, and unexpected. With the assurance that there was nothing for me to do but just be, my back softened into the passenger’s seat, I felt held. There was no need to prompt the universe, because...

I am the universe.

Spoiler Alert:

We didn’t see UFOs, but I did have a dream about The Morning Star that made me cry. We bathed in the Rio Grande and watched the sun rise in Bandolier National Park. At the Taos Pueblo, in a cool dim room full of ghosts, we hugged a ‘Red Willow’ man, twice, he was missing one arm. We talked about whales and water and stood beneath three-dimensional dream catchers that he made with the hand that still remained. He was a good hugger for only being half there, and like a hungry ghost he took some energy, but he gave something too. A different view.

In the gift shop at Ghost Ranch, I bought the last wide-brimmed hat so we could look for tall rocks that pose as people, and petrified dinosaurs in the terracotta colored creek. The hat made my shadow look cool, so it was a win — and — it kept my face in the shade so I wouldn’t whine while tracing the trails of ancient cliff-dwellers and the great, Georgia O’Keeffe.

The high-desert is hot, and bright, and dry, but there is a Hanuman Ashram in Taos, and a Zen Center in Santa Fe, and there is cacti, and fry bread, and drinking chocolate, and ravens, and horizon lines.

New Mexico is fluid and magnetic and full of exceptional artists. There were many long pauses over turquoise jewelry we couldn’t afford, and my heart lingered over the meticulously hand-loomed blankets. But my favorite artist was a Lakota woman we met in Southern Colorado. She was one of about 6 vendors in the only square of grass at the edge of a lost-in-time-town. She enchanted us with tales of rocks that walk and rocks that talk. The ones that talk she turns into necklaces. Were we related?? Elizabeth bought a necklace for each of us for a total of 30 bucks. Who needs fancy turquoise when you can have a talking-rock? Mine was glued to my heart the entire journey. Leaving the rock woman at her table, in that place with no name, was like losing a loved one.

Speaking of loved ones…

I found one I had been missing in Arizona.

Did I bury the lead?

The second born son, the last born child, the third of three, shorter than the first, taller than the second, and the most likely to be cast as a character in the next installment of Star Wars: My brother, Jon.

He’s the elephant in the room I painted over with invisible crayons.

The Rebel, The Rival, The Radical

and The Resounding—

silence, too loud to discern

too quiet to ignore

and yet,

I did.

The truth is, I didn’t know I was missing him until I found him again. A family fracture I presumed too hard to heal, was held, by the Sedona Sky.

A drive to the top of the mountain, split the clouds, and washed the spiders out.

I blame our dead mom for this reunion. According to the psychic medium who channeled her spirit shortly before I accepted the invitation for this trip, mom had been orchestrating this peace summit for quite some time. The sentiment made me cry tears I didn’t know I had. Tears tell the truth. When I told Elizabeth about this supernatural situation, and the power of my mother’s love, it was obvious to her that we would go visit my brother and his family, on our 50th birthday tour de force. That was all I needed to hear to understand what I truly wanted: I wanted my brother back.

The gift of communion.

I didn’t need to “set” an intention when I hit the road with my hometown bestie, because the magic was in motion the moment I bought a seat on the plane. I was choosing something different, and it had nothing to do with all of the sites I would tour or enchiladas I would eat. Don’t get me wrong, every bite was food for the soul, and I loved every detail of the long ride home, but the real journey for me was about acceptance. Accepting there had been challenges, accepting there were ghosts, befriending them, letting ourselves see and be seen, loving the ones on the outside, just as they are, loving the one on the inside, just as I am. And mostly, accepting that a new story is ready to be set free.

I don’t think there is any birthday gift that can top a blank page.

Elizabeth shared a poem she was moved by on our drive to Sedona. She wondered if I knew it. As she read, I chimed in.

O Great Spirit…

It was the poem my dad recited in a theater production our family took part in when we were kids. He played a Chumash Chief. His presence on stage carried the weight of his entire lineage, a lineage that was also indigenous to this expressive land we now, ironically, call the United States. He silenced the audience with the power of his voice, and the fullness of his great big heart. They weren’t his words, but they were his feelings, and they entered me.

And they became me.

photo by Kerry Kehoe - thank you for taking me to your church.

In a few hours, I will have completed 50 years.

Is it less than half? Perfectly half? More than half?

It doesn’t matter.

The great adventure is making life whole, no matter how many parts we are handed or not handed. No matter how much is taken away or dissolved or hidden. No matter how much time we have left behind or have left to go.

As we entered Sedona, Elizabeth asked, “What is your intention for this reunion with your brother?” To which I responded.

LOVE

To Love, that is all.

My brother Jon is an excellent tour guide. He tells great stories, jokes, and is very knowledgeable about ancient people, rock formations, and he’s not afraid of a lot of rain.