Resilience.

Despite our fervent wish that the pandemic is ending, it is apparent that the crisis is hardly over, and not waning at all in some parts of our country.  I've been thinking a lot about resilience.

I am reminded of this every day on my walks here in Northern New Mexico.   I am incredibly fortunate to be able to hike on virtually unpopulated trails within a 10-minute drive of my home.  And I know that without those daily walks I would be much less resilient right now.  Being out under the sky, in the vast high desert landscape, helps to put the news in perspective.  Sometimes it's good to feel small.

On these walks I notice the little wildflowers that are starting to bloom this time of year. Talk about resilient!  These tiny plants survive blazing sun, fierce winds, and near-permanent drought conditions.  Their colors pop against the subtle greens, grays and tans of the surrounding earth and grass.  They persist, endure, and show off their beauty whether anyone is there to see them or not.  I am enchanted by them and have taken hundreds of photos of them in the last couple years.  I hope to turn them into a large tapestry someday, when I have the mental bandwidth for that.

Here are some of my favorites from recent walks:

Those of us with more than a couple decades behind us (and let's be honest, that's most of the readers of this blog, right?!), have had other times in our lives when we've had to dig deep for strength and endurance we didn't know we had.  There have been times before this when the script I thought I was writing for my life was snatched from my hands and put through a shredder.  I was forced to acknowledge that I didn't have the final edit on my script at all.  Somehow then I learned to switch from saying the lines I'd memorized, to doing improv, all day, every day, for months and years.

This is another of those times.  We did it before; we can do it again.  Dig deep, stay healthy, and find joy in improvising, my friends.