Flash Floods and Life
It’s starting to feel like this pilgrimage thing is becoming a permanent lifestyle. I am not sure how I feel about that. I teach about learning to treat life as a pilgrimage. I still have two more blog posts to complete the series of four that I started in December. But, the level of transition that I am dealing with is more than a little dizzying.
I am very fortunate to have an executive and life coach working with me as I negotiate the numerous changes in my life. This morning she was reading over my prep sheet for our meeting and she wanted to know why my practice of guitar and Pedal Pilgrim posts had disappeared. In recent weeks, after returning from the Camino, I had set an expectation that I would practice guitar daily and write blog posts at least weekly.
I knew why they had disappeared, but I took a moment to think of an analogy that I thought she could understand. I said, “If I was on the trail backpacking it would be like getting caught in a flash flood—the trail is washed out, my campsite is flooded and some of my supplies were snatched away in the violent rush of water.”
Then I described what this last month looked like. On January 9 I was transferring my website from one host to another. It was a disastrous transfer losing both the links that make my website visible to the public and unexpectedly losing my email service which ended in the loss of 2,500 old emails and the contacts that went with them.
And, we were just getting started! The Pacific Northwest was hit with an arctic airmass that shut much of Oregon down for a few days. I had registered for a four-day songwriters’ conference to be held at a lovely conference center on the Oregon Coast. I had spent most evenings practicing a couple of new songs for nearly two months. I was forced to cancel my reservation that I had made four months prior. It was a painful!
My car during the ice storm.
And, we were just getting started! I am renting my house out as an Airbnb while I work on this contract in Eastern Oregon. Five days into the ice storm my son texted me to tell me that pipes had burst at his house and he was contending with a house with no water and two young children. I reminded him to tell my renters (he manages my house) to use the normal precautions to keep pipes from bursting. He reported that my renters were already on top of it as one of them lived in Chicago and knew the drill.
Later that afternoon I got the call. Now my son was dealing with burst pipes at his house and my house. My house had flooded as pipes burst in both the bathroom and kitchen. 48 hours later things were under control again and I was able to return to troubleshooting my website and email issues. Two more weeks of tech professionals and I was finally able to put all the pieces back together again. Website is back up and email is restored (minus the 2,500 old emails).
But, it was like having a flash flood suddenly come crashing into my life completely disorienting me, altering my plans and tossing the pieces of my life around. It’s been almost two weeks since I put all the pieces back together again, but I am only now emotionally getting back on my feet again and returning to guitar and blog posts.
It’s funny to me how much this knocked me out of balance. When I was walking the Camino this past fall I didn’t carry the same set of expectations. In fact, part of doing a pilgrimage, part of walking the Camino, is to set aside expectations so that you open yourself to what is before you. Yes, there will be challenges, but you deal with them one at a time and then move on.
On the Camino I didn’t carry many expectations. On a daily basis I found myself assessing how strong my injured leg was, what the weather might be like, where and how far apart the towns were, and whether I needed solitude or connection that day. I didn’t go into the days with expectations; I went into them with awareness and responsiveness.
Leaving Yellowstone Park after torrential downpour, 2011.
In 2011, I experienced an actual flash flood on my first pilgrimage just as I was leaving Yellowstone National Park. I got caught in a torrential downpour in Yellowstone Park and by the time I started descending the mountain to exit the park little rivers of water were cascading down the highway carrying small golfball and baseball-sized rocks with them. The descent was slightly dangerous and showery wet. When I reached the valley floor a muddy, churning river filled with trees limbs was raging near the lodge where I took a break.
That night I found a motel room and began the process of drying out clothes, a spongy down sleeping bag, money that was nearly unusable and a phone that hadn’t survived the deluge. But I was fine. It was just part of the experience. It was one of the challenges that one accepts when embarking on an adventurous pilgrimage. I didn’t feel the same disorientation then as I did this time with my “flash flood” of one-after-another challenges.
Afternoon flooding, Terricini, Italy, 2014. “Just another day!”
I am thinking about the difference in experiences. On the trail, I come to expect and anticipate experiences like that. But somehow getting back to “normal” life changes my attitude. Challenges aren’t something that I consider part of the experience; they are unwelcome and uninvited guests. How dare you trespass on my life, seems to be my attitude!
It’s interesting to think about how much we want and come to expect control in our lives. Pilgrimages teach us that we don’t really have control over our circumstances. We only control our responses to our circumstances.
I find it interesting that with this blog post I am thinking, “Now I can get things back to normal.” Now I can pick up my guitar again and commit to weekly blog posts. I almost want to apologize for disappearing for a month.
But if I do that I have learned nothing. I don’t control the weather. I don’t dictate life. I don’t have magical powers.
Today I write. Tonight I will play guitar.
That is, unless a flash flood crosses my path before then!
Brian Heron
Cultural Innovator and Spiritual Pilgrim