I’m preparing for a busy fall, with Alaska Quarterly Review events (2 Fridays a month until April), a Zoom Find the Good meeting with the Kodiak library tonight, and Anchorage and Juneau November 3-8. If your group, library, school would like a Zoom (or real) visit, let me know– I’d love to stop in. My friend Don says my “superpower” is finding the good. I am not sure if that is true, but Lord knows we could use some positive energy in Alaska right now. Let’s think about ways to do this.
I’m also reading a book by my physical therapist Dr. Marnie Hartman and Niamh Moloney called Pain Science-Yoga-Life: Bridging neuroscience and yoga for pain care, to write a review for the Chilkat Valley News. (There will be a signing and reading by Marnie at The Bookstore October 22 at 5:30.) There is lots to take in, but one of my favorite lessons is the one about darts. The first dart Marnie writes, is the thing that causes the pain: you sprain your ankle on a hike– that is real. The second dart is what happens next: the fear. That isn’t real but can be worse for your healing or pain than the first dart, if it gets away from you. It’s that voice in your head that says: I can’t get home by dark— then the darts keep coming– I may have to go to Juneau for surgery, may never hike again, have to move into assisted living. DIE.
You get the picture. (The Covid years have made this almost second nature.) I am very good at the darts, in part because I have an overactive imagination, and we all know the second dart is where the stories begin. Still, they don’t all have to end badly (in your mind at least you can control that narrative. I will make it home by dark, rest, ice, compress, elevate that ankle. Swim instead of hike for a bit. If I have to go to Juneau I can see my daughters and grandchildren…)
It is a practice, as the yogis say.
Laughing at yourself is too– darts can be funny. Like my husband’s swamp-canoe- dead moose adventure– when I fired that pre-emptive dart: What could possibly go wrong? Nothing did. The guys had a great day, and we grilled backstrap for dinner on Saturday night. It’s not a good story, but I’m glad.
While I have your attention: The Haines Glacier Bear Boys and Girls cross-country teams both won the state small schools championship on Saturday in Anchorage, and freshman Ariel Godinez-Long won the girls race and Leo Wald was second in the boys race! It’s wonderful- for the kids,the school, the coaches, and our community- There will be a parade down Main Street today at 2:30 to welcome the victors home. Wear Glacier Bear green.
Finally, today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Alaska. I am so very grateful to live on Lingit Aani, and for my friends, neighbors and family, the Jilkaat Kwaan and Jilkoot Kwaan–the caretakers past, present and future of this beautiful land– Thank you. Gunalcheesh.