a LIGHTer aura

I recently spent a restorative holiday in Vancouver, BC, that involved several romps up and over rocks along pristine trails in lush mountains among trees that touched the sky. I didn’t watch the news, even once. After I returned home, walking on the treadmill, I listened to Trevor Noah mention on his podcast that someone had once suggested to him to try to ask questions he wouldn’t typically ask and to think about things differently than he typically would. Both experiences affected my musing.

Minneapolis looks like a different world from the one I left. It happens here if you go away during the volatile shoulder season. This time, the city changed from spring to summer, which means everyone is outside and enjoying outdoor activities. The city pulses with people. Before I left, a sprinkling of folks were mostly dodging in and out of homes and businesses unless it was the weekend, when a few people dressed in shorts tolerated cool air, eager to find their running legs. The animals are out now, too. They’ve had babies and the babies are grown some. Before, through binoculars, I could see only fuzzy hawk heads stretching for food. Now, I count at least three or maybe four babies in the nest flapping their wings, ready to try to fly.

I love the challenge to think differently. My husband isn’t too far out from retirement, so we’ve been mulling over the meaning of that for a month or so. It caused me to think tangentially, like what it means to suddenly do what I want with each day, until I expire (which feels curiously soon). What would I do with that freedom? And why the heck haven’t I been doing more of what I want to all along? Why would I waste so many chunks of this epic experience on distractions?

In the mountains of the Vancouver area, a Pileated Woodpecker chiseled into a tree growing at the trail’s edge. When we walked ahead of it, the woodpecker flew alongside me and my writer hiking buddy before stopping to drill again, then flew ahead and stopped again. It didn’t seem at all bothered by us. I told my surprised buddy that it was because we carried unthreatening energy.

I’ve been wondering if Minneapolitans are tapped out of certain niceties. Even though it’s summer now, no one is looking me in the eyes as they pass me on neighborhood walks. It’s like I don’t exist. But it was a traumatic winter and many of us are suffering from political depression. Certain days feel how I imagine readjusting to daily life after a short war would feel. Walking for a latte yesterday, I remembered the suggestion Noah mentioned and when I started to think about what could go wrong in a day—politics, war, violence, personal injury—I decided to pivot and think about what could go right: a writer friend signing with a book agent or having an essay accepted for publication; a low-income family getting the house of their dreams; someone solving the issue of microplastics in a way that would be immediately and successfully implemented; a person discovering a treatment that alleviates the pain they’ve been experiencing for the past year.

As I walked back home, a person smiled at me and a mom strapping a tiny baby to her chest did, too. And then I briefly chatted with a friendly worker I hadn’t seen since the ICE occupation here. Yesterday, I saw a story about teenagers in India who figured out how to remove microplastics in water. From my condo window, I just noticed a hawk floating above the trees, soaring on thermals and maybe feeling something equivalent to, “I’m doing it! I’m flying!”