Appreciating Our Journey (+ Ourselves)

sometimes life,

when you look ahead

is a

long

endless

gray

expanse

sometimes in those moments,

the best, most important

first

step

is to recognize where you have been

where you have come from

the huge

courageous journey

just to get

to standing

right where you are

I had the incredible honor of putting my feet into the grandest of canyons this past weekend. This video was inspired by the long descent down a switchback section of South Kaibab Trail. It may be hard to see this in the clip above, but above me, as I reflected on where I had come from in the previous 15 minutes, is a winding trail of people dotting the trail. A reminder of how much work I had done just to get to where I was standing.

A few more pics from the adventure to share, hoping they inspire and inject beauty into your day.

Beauty in All Directions!

After 14 hours of running, the last 4 of which was a constant uphill (Bright Angel Trail) being greeted by your family and friends at the top is an amazing gift!

p.s. If you need more Grand Canyon beauty in your life today, click here for a similar blog from 2022.

Close to Home, Far Away

It was a warm day for Wisconsin in March. Thus, I proposed to make the meeting with colleagues at the Oneida Nation Community Health Center an outdoor one, a walk-n-talk type of meeting.

As we strolled along, I heard something faint and familiar. I couldn’t quite make it out and had just about forgotten it when I heard it again, slightly louder this time.

A unique, guttural, bugle call that can be heard 2.5 miles from its source.

The sandhill cranes were here!

I am a big fan of these birds, waiting each October for the first sound of their calls. Squinting as I look up to find the source of the noise, as sandhill cranes fly quite high in the sky. I imagine their thousands of miles journey to make it here, often arriving in a state of severe malnutrition. Then, over the next months, choosing my runs and hikes to maximize chances of seeing sedges (a group of cranes) of these majestic beings as they congregate along the Rio Grande. Finally, the sad good-bye as we hit February and the cranes make their way north again.

So, it was in this context that hearing the cranes as we walked, some 1400 miles from Albuquerque, brought a joy to my heart.

I am sure that to an ornithologist, there is nothing profound about what I experienced.

To me, it was life teaching that the cycles and patterns of our world are so much bigger than us. As New Mexicans say our sad goodbye to the cranes each February, the northern states get to welcome them back. And the birds don’t care about any of it. They are just following their innate intelligence about where they belong at a given moment.

It was life reminding me (us) 

        that we are always closer to the 

                places and spaces 

                        we know as "home" 

                                   than we think.

The 2 above pictures were taken by Mark Krasberg, a photographer friend of mine.

A minute of cranes for your visual and auditory enhancement

Ollie's Odyssey

Our puppy is named Oliver. Loved by our children from the second they used their puppy faces to beg that we adopt him last summer.

High energy, loving, and playful would be good ways to describe Ollie. Our son took the job of training him as his mission and has gotten Ollie to eat slightly less ravenously and to occasionally follow a command (as long as food is involved).

Suddenly,10 days ago, Oliver became quite sick. He couldn’t stand and seemed confused. The high energy was gone. Then, a seizure. More followed.

All of us struggled seeing him suffer. Those same eyes of our children that had begged for us to adopt him were now filled with tears.

After a few ER trips, it seemed that Oliver’s kidneys were failing and we decided to “surrender” him to the ABQ Animal Welfare Department (AWD). We said our good-byes, doing our best to comfort each other.

Cut to yesterday.

My wife Shannon, looking to for closure, contacted the shelter to verify that Oliver had been euthanized.

Suddenly, I get a frantic call. “It looks like Ollie is alive! He just went up for adoption an hour ago.”

Now, on a technicality, Shannon was not allowed to adopt the animal as she was the one who surrendered him. But I was free to do so.

That is how we met Arline Gregoire. She is one of the many amazing volunteers at AWD. A retired teacher, she now volunteers in an almost full-time capacity to support the animals that come through their shelter.

She came to the lobby, and hearing that I was looking for Oliver, she described him. “Knows his commands, sweet dog. His bad habit is that he likes to jump on you as a greeting.”

Yep. Sounded like the right dog.

Aline had spent a lot of time in the preceding days caring for Ollie as his kidneys improved and he returned to normal dog things (eating, pooping, sniffing, scratching). She brought Oliver to us and got to see the elation on our faces. 

Ollie, who we assumed was in doggie heaven, was alive! 

A shout out to all of the Aline’s in this world, people who go out of their way to bring goodness and healing to others.

A shout out to all of the people who work and volunteer at AWD.

Thanks to them, Ollie gets to eat, poop, sniff, and scratch some more.

A picture of Aline with Oliver before we brought him back home with us.