I Worried

“Ruby” 8″ x 8″ (circa May 2020)
Acrylic and Mixed Media on paper adhered to cradled board.

“I Worried” by Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

I am a worrier; it’s my natural inclination. I’ve laughed many times with/at Fear, one of the five emotions (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Envy) creatively depicted in the Pixar movie, “Inside Out.” But it’s an embarrased, knowing laugh, the kind of laugh that admits, yep, Fear, I SEE you. I UNDERSTAND you. I FEEL you. Of course, I’d prefer Joy as my default emotion, waltzing through life with my glass always more than half full. Unfortunately, that is not me. My glass is not half empty, yet I live in perpetual fear that it could be. Therefore, it was fortuitous timing when I happened upon the words of Mary Oliver (above), my favorite poet, in the days before Art and I were to leave on our 3-week trip to Nepal. I had been worrying, A LOT! My worry-ometer was on overdrive! Our itinerary included touring all 7 UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Kathmandu Valley, trekking for 10 days in the Himalayas to Annapurna Base Camp, and spotting wildlife in Chitwan National Park. You can imagine, I was one big mess of worries:

Will we be safe?
Had I packed enough/too much? (like is 4 bottles of bug spray quite literally overkill?)
What if there is an earthquake? Or avalanche?
Will I find food that’s safe to eat and water that’s safe to drink?
Or will we (inevitably per my pre-trip reading) get sick?
Will we be able to see all we hope to see (temples, mountains, tigers)?
Can my 60-year-old body trek for 10 days at that altitude? (or, like Oliver, “am I going to get rheumatism”)
Will my over-stuffed, down sleeping bag keep me warm at night?
Will I let Art down?
Will we encounter a fire swamp with R.O.U.S.’s? (My apologies for the 2^nd silly movie reference, “Princess Bride.” However, when I reach Code Red-level worrying, all sorts of ridiculous thoughts inhabit my mind, especially at night.)
Am I crazy for saying yes to this trip? Or just crazy? (no need to answer)

Yet there I was, sitting in a lounge in the Washington Dulles airport, waiting for the first leg of our journey, a 13+ hour flight to Doha, Qatar, worrying. If I’m being honest, I was positively worn down by my fears, battered and frayed, a shell of the confident, positive, joyful person I strive to be (see the monkey photo below for an apt depiction of how I was feeling!) What to do? I pulled my trusty travel journal from my backpack and began to write, purging my emotional detritus, my worried thoughts, fraught with the fear of impending doom, onto paper. The physical process of writing, of descending down the stairs into the dark and scary basement of my anxieties, thus exposing them to the reassuring light of day, never fails to reset my nervous system into more constructive thinking. By putting pen to paper, I regain the valuable perspective Fear has hijacked (airport pun intended!) Thankfully, journaling once again navigated me through my wallowing in pre-travel panic to Oliver’s very same conclusion. I could see, in those words reflected from the page, my worrying had also “come to nothing.” I didn’t give it up (I wish!), but I re-committed to not letting it stop me, not yet.

As I age, I find myself increasingly succumbing to the gravitational pull of my perceived comfort zone where, following Newton’s First Law of Motion, my body stays at rest until acted upon by some outside force (my husband, in the case of this trip). I all too easily get stuck in my patterns and my routines, my inertia. However, looking back over the arc of my life, one thing I see for certain, is the most magical moments I’ve experienced have all occurred outside the confines of my cozy comfort zone (see figure below). At 60, I’m not yet willing to sacrifice the magic for the perception of “safety.” Having written myself again, in the airport, to this realization, I put down my pen and “took my old body” onboard the plane to fly through the night. I promised myself I would go “out into the (next) morning” with curiosity rather than fear.

Three weeks later, on our return flight home, between the glass of champagne I drank and the 4 movies I watched, I wrote again. This time I journaled of our experiences: of the indescribable beauty of the Himalayan mountains; of the wholehearted devotion of the Nepalese people, who seamlessly weave either or both Hinduism and Buddhism into all facets of their lives; of the ancient, ornate temples tucked into every nook and cranny of the Kathmandu Valley; and of the wildlife of the Nepali Terai (tigers and rhinos and peacocks, oh my!)

Now, sitting once more in the safety and security of my living room’s recliner chair, the epicenter of my comfort zone, I write again. In these words, I reflect on moments of both challenge and awe; I retouch memories that shimmer with magic; and I remind myself that, despite my worries, I went out into the world:

mind open
eyes open
heart open
“and sang.”

Below: Diagram from Stephanie Losi’s Risk Musings Substack