Too much, too fast

It was a few weeks ago, but things have been so frantic that it feels like yesterday. I went to get donuts for my lab. I love the Provo Bakery, and their day olds are about the best deal in the county. The weather and the traffic signs conspired to teach me a lesson. I've forgotten how to stop.

From covid to Utah Lake to Great Salt Lake and back again. Things have been too much and too fast. I feel that it is so important to say yes when opportunities come up to advocate for our community and ecosystems. But it has been hotter and heavier than I can sustain.

My friend Greg has been a real savior for me this winter. We have been trying to get out and ski at least once a week. Earlier this month, we tried Greg's crazy idea to ski all four faces of Baldy in a day. Fueled by my mom's nut mix and mandarin oranges, we created a giant infinity sign as we looped down and up each face.

The descents were thrilling and extremely varied, but the long slogs back to the top felt the most important to me. They forced me to slow down. I wasn't feeling well, and I was climbing slow. I had to take the time to breathe, listen, and see.

Every climb was different. The same precarious and permanent mountain. Such diversity in the light, forest, and snow.

 

Unlike the snow-blasted stop sign, the mountain's lessons were more subtle. Like most important lessons, it wasn't clear what the mountain was trying to teach me. What parts of the parable applied to me, and what parts to my mountain of unfinished tasks?

I resolve to do less and to do it slower. There are so many people here to help. With better planning and coordination, we can protect what needs protecting without a wake of avalanches and debris flows.

 

I'm grateful for your patience and friendship. Thank you for your forgiveness and vision.

O Star (the fairest one in sight),

We grant your loftiness the right

To some obscurity of cloud –

It will not do to say of night,

Since dark is what brings out your light.

Some mystery becomes the proud.

But to be wholly taciturn

In your reserve is not allowed.

Say something to us we can learn

By heart and when alone repeat.

Say something! And it says "I burn."

But say with what degree of heat.

Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.

Use language we can comprehend.

Tell us what elements you blend.

It gives us strangely little aid,

But does tell something in the end.

And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,

Not even stooping from its sphere,

It asks a little of us here.

It asks of us a certain height,

So when at times the mob is swayed

To carry praise or blame too far,

We may choose something like a star

To stay our minds on and be staid.

Robert Frost, 1916