luck

Attention and Luck – Day 297

Posted on by Lisa Weikel Leave a comment
Copperhead Visitor, top view – Photo: L. Weikel

It Pays to Pay Attention

Living near rocky outcroppings, forests, and hiking trails, Karl and I have seen a fair number of snakes. It’s sad, but most of the snakes we see are young Eastern Milk Snakes that have been squished by cars as the youngsters try to cross the road near High Rocks. Yes, I realize that sounds specific, but for all our walking, the dirt and gravel road that leads to High Rocks is unquestionably a death dealer for a lot of snakes.

The other day, Saturday to be exact, we came across a Milk Snake that we initially thought was another casualty of cars driving to High Rocks. I’m pretty vigilant about removing from the roadway any dead animals we might encounter because I don’t want carillon eaters (mostly Turkey Vultures and Black Vultures, but Crows like to grab snacks if they have a chance) getting hit while feasting.

Assist – With Caution

I say we ‘initially’ thought the snake was a casualty – but I make sure (before engaging in my shifting-the-body-to-the-berm efforts) they’re dead before messing with them. This particular Milk Snake was not discernibly squished anywhere, so I proceeded with caution (even though I was pretty sure it was a Milk Snake – and they are not venomous). With a gentle nudge of a stick, it scooted off the roadway. But I did manage to snap its photo before it headed into the grass.

Milk Snake – Photo: L. Weikel

I’m familiar with Milk Snakes because they resemble Northern Copperheads, which are venomous. In fact, Copperheads are the source of the most bites in Pennsylvania, although luckily, those bites are very rarely lethal – just really painful.

I say ‘just’ extremely painful – but I can assure you, I have absolutely no desire to experience such a bite.

Luck Plays a Part, Too

It turns out that Copperheads, while being the snakes that produce the most bites, do not tend to be aggressive. Rather, almost all bites are a result of a person stepping on one or accidentally touching one.

This reinforces my initial assertion that it pays to pay attention.

But I’m here to tell you that luck can go a long  way as well.

Witness this serpent I encountered yesterday: I was trudging up the hill back to our fire pit and lost my balance. At the very same moment as I struggled not to fall forward, my brain registered what I was seeing curled amongst the leaves at the very edge of the grilling area:

Copperhead visitor, hanging out – Photo: L. Weikel

I’ll admit it; I freaked. I don’t know how I managed to stumble yet remain standing enough to dodge tumbling right onto it! I was lucky. That’s all I can say. Lucky that I was paying attention and lucky that my center of gravity was such that I was able to catch myself.

Move Along (Please!)

Of course, since Karl was laying another fire (and was probably freaked every bit as much as I was – because he’d been walking around very close to it and had not seen it), I felt we needed to move it. We welcome the message that serpent brings (to shed that which no longer serves us), but we didn’t need the messenger in our faces any longer than necessary!

Knowing it was alive, I found a very long branch with which to nudge it out of its slumber. It was not alarmed in the least. In fact, it hung around, basically showed me where it lives, left our company, returned a while later, allowed me to take its photograph from a couple of different angles, and then retreated again to its home amidst the massive rock wall.

Here are my photos. Theme: My September Encounter with a Copperhead:

Copperhead heading into its home – Photo: L. Weikel

As you can see, it was much longer than expected, based upon how deceptively compact it was curled up within the leaves!

Returning to visit again – Photo: L. Weikel

Well, for whatever reason, I can’t get the photos to propagate the post. So…you’ll have to imagine what s/he looked like all stretched out. Maybe tomorrow!

(I had to write the paragraph above because the photos would not upload. I’ve gotten them embedded now, so those of you reading this via FB or later on my website – after those receiving this via email –  should be able to see the photos in all their…um…glory!)

(T-814)

39 Years and Counting – Day 229

Posted on by Lisa Weikel 6 Comments
28 June 1980

39 Years and Counting       

I look at that post title and, just like when I had my birthday back in March, I think, “Wow. How did we get here?”

Birthdays and anniversaries. Markers of the passage of time.

Karl and I were married at 10:00 a.m. on June 28, 1980. And lucky for us, at 10:00 a.m. on June 28, 2019, we were sitting together on a rock that juts into the flowing waters of the Tohickon Creek.

Transported from one sacred place to another in, what only in retrospect, feels like the blink of an eye. The living of it sometimes felt like time was moving ever so slowly; so slowly that it felt like yearned-for change would never actually happen. And other times, the living of it felt like the rug, the very fabric of our lives, was being pulled out from under us. Irrevocable, instantaneous, radical change.

At Karl’s Gathering – Photo: Ellen Naughton

Through these past 39 years (and more, actually, since we met three years earlier), the one constant in my life has been Karl. Through education achievements, career changes, sudden death of a parent, depression, births of children, longer, more prolonged sicknesses and deaths of parents, spiritual discoveries, soccer tournaments, track meets, musicals, graduations, disappointments, college admissions, Siberia, initiations, sudden death of a(n adult) child, weddings, joys, walks…

It’s been us.

The loneliest times in my life have been when there’s been discord between us. Those were the times when I most deeply questioned everything.

Gratitude for the Luck – and the Choices We’ve Made

Given the particular professions I engage in, I’m acutely aware of how much work it’s been for us to remain a true, working partnership and best friendship through thick and thin. But I’m even more aware of how lucky we are. So much of what we’ve endured could have easily torn us asunder. But each of us, at critical junctures, chose to stay. We chose to talk. We chose to take a walk instead of storming out and staying away, perhaps pouring our souls out to someone other than each other. We chose to listen.

We chose to forgive. We chose to have compassion.

We also, as one friend reminds us every once in a while because she simply could not believe it when she ran into us laughing and joking in the parking lot of our local grocery store – chose to enjoy crazy things like renting a carpet cleaner to steam clean our rugs together.

“It’s the little things,” we said, laughing at how odd we must’ve seemed.

I do so very much love those little things we share. And the big ones. But most of all, I’m grateful to have Karl sharing them – all – with me.

At Tohickon Creek – 28 June 2019 – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-882)

Lucky 77 – Day Seventy Seven

Posted on by Lisa Weikel 2 Comments

 

Lucky 77       

I don’t know…this seems like it should be a ‘lucky’ post, don’t you think? The seventy seventh one?

Not only is it a multiple of 11 (let’s hear it for the 1111 Devotion, folks, the reason we’re all here – or at least the reason I am), it’s also the year I graduated from high school. Which kind of jump-starts me to thinking about my birthday that’s coming up in a couple months.

For some weird reason, I’ve been thinking about it lately. I’ve found myself literally reminding myself that this birthday will be different. Not on the outside. Not with respect to anyone or anything outside of my little old self.

But the very fact of it is already different inside myself.

Approaching 60

It’s strange to think that I’ll be turning 60. Of course, everyone surely feels this way when they get here. And when they continue to be lucky enough to reach further societally-acknowledged milestones. I realize I’m not unique. Unless you count those who don’t reach this number. Or won’t. Ever.

It’s weird for me to think that I’ll be turning twice the age Karl was when he died. I’ve had twice the number of years to experience life, although I am quite confident that he encountered many situations and had a myriad of scares, adventures, and opportunities (for good and for ill) that I may never have (or would never seek out). And that’s true in spite of the fact that I’ve had more than the average bear’s chances to do some wild and crazy shit.

In fact, I sometimes wonder if my willingness to recount some of the adventures I had spurred him on to take some of the chances he did. Probably.

Was My Approach to Life a ‘Contributing Factor?’

And there have been moments, usually when writing in my journal and perhaps reflecting on how I see or perceive other people and how they react and respond to their kids, that I’ve asked myself if my parenting should or could have been a substantial contributing factor to his early death. (Not that I’m saying it was ‘my’ parenting. To be clear, it was (is?) mine and  Karl’s – one thing we strive to always be unified on is our approach to raising our sons.)

What I mean by that ‘contributing factor’ musing is that in listening to others and how they respond to their kids’ dreams and ideas, I’m often genuinely surprised by how outlandish my instinctive responses seem to be in comparison.

I’m all about gathering experiences.

Which is probably why I am so attracted to living a shamanic approach to life – the essence of which is based in one’s own unique experiences.

There were at least a couple of moments in the eleven months that I was in Europe when I was 17-18 years old that I could easily have died. In a few, I could have been killed accidentally. In a couple of others, I was simply lucky that the glint in a few people’s eyes didn’t turn into something deadly. I even knew it in the moment of each occurrence.

Learning Through Experiencing

Knowing I’d been lucky in those times that I surely was, though, didn’t make me swear off adventure or unique opportunities. But I know that that knowing  served to hone my instincts. I distinctly remember realizing that the little niggling edge to the wildness I’d seen in someone’s eyes might next time be a ticket to horror.

A couple of times I knew on some level I’d been given a lucky break. You can’t count on them happening every time. You can’t even count on them happening twice. But you can learn from them. You can reflect on what that situation taught you to avoid next time.

I honestly don’t know where my philosophy of life came from. But I’ve always known I wanted our sons to never say no to an experience simply out of fear. Out of intuitive caution? Yes. An assessment of risk that said in their head and heart, “That’d be dumb?” or “That’s a risk not worth taking?” Yes. But due to generalized fear as a result of other people thinking it was a crazy idea or it was something they wouldn’t do? No way.

I know Karl pushed his edge. I know he did things that pushed the edge of his fear, sometimes going too far and paying the consequences (or getting lucky) and other times because he had thought it through and considered the experience worth the risks. And I know he had stories he wanted to tell me – but was waiting until the ‘right time’ to tell. I regret I’ll never hear them; and I regret he never wrote them down the way I asked him, repeatedly, to do.

Regrets?

There’s the chance, I suppose, that Karl (husband) and I could have tempered Karl (son’s) ambition for adventure. No. That’s incorrect. We could have, possibly, attempted  to temper his ambition for adventure. But I truly believe that if we’d spent our time trying to talk him out of things (or more likely, threatening, cajoling, or forbidding), we would have ended up either repulsing him right out the door without encouraging him to be smart when choosing risks, to use his brains and his instincts and his intuition, or we would have broken his spirit and condemned him to a life of mind-numbing (and illusory) safety.

So no, I guess I don’t regret the way we’ve encouraged our sons to approach and live their lives. And if the way we raised them resulted in Karl living the life he did in his 30 years and dying the way he did? I have to rest in my core belief that a life lived full on, as they say, is a life worth living.

Wow. How did I get to this by beginning with a comment about the number 77?

(T-1034)