“I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world - present and in awe.” -Anne Lamott
This time last year I was enroute to Minneapolis to empty out my storage unit and drag all my personal belongings back to Colorado in a tiny U-Haul trailer towed behind my minivan. This was the last step in a long process; my official return to the San Juans.
The previous summer I had spent three months driving around the country trying on mountain towns like Goldilocks tried out beds; Vermont, Washington, Oregon, Northern California, too small, too big, too smokey, too high desert, too temperate rain forest, too… NOT the San Juans.
I’d long ago decided that the Western slope was my home, but I accidentally took a three year hiatus in the Twin Cities. I didn’t mean to stay so long, but I just kept not leaving. And then Covid happened and before I knew it I’d put down some roots. But the mountains never stopped calling.
I’ve been trying to put my finger on what it is about this area that draws me in like no other. My body feels different here. These mountains are a balm.
Over the last few years, the scientific study of “awe” and its effect on mental health have repeatedly found their way to me through books, podcast, and research papers.
“Awe is a positive emotion triggered by awareness of something vastly larger than the self and not immediately understandable – such as nature, art, music, or being caught up in a collective act such as a ceremony, concert or political march,” said UC Berkeley psychologist Dr.Keltner.
When we experience a break from what our brains register as the mundane and enter into an experience of awe, our bodies respond on a physiological level. These mountains and forests are my daily escape from the mundane. The feeling of being so small in such a vast landscape is visceral. I am changed at a cellular level. And these changes are paramount to my mental health.
I don’t know what it’s like to want to die, but I do know what it’s like not to care if I go on living. Family memebers’ attempts at suicide or the threat of, have paralleled my personal narrative since I was five years old. By some point of grace, I have managed to stay on “this” side of an invisible line I imagine, dividing a here and a there. I don’t want to cross the line, but I have found myself very close on three occasions in my life.
Over the years I have gathered tools to help me through the rough spots. Getting into nature has become a non-negotiable. City life was a detriment. Moving my body helps. Running. Hiking. Yoga. Listening to bittersweet music connects me to my core. Frightened Rabbit’s “Footshooter“ plays on a loop in my head. Writing helps too. Organizing my personal narrative helps my brain make sense of situations, and gives me distance to have empathy and compassion for an experience that isn’t often available in the moment.
I’m also lucky to have a few good friends who really see me. When you find yourself lying on your best friend’s living room floor because you have to literally ground yourself, and she places the television remote and a chocolate bar on the carpet beside your rib cage, and then directs your attention to the hall closet and says, “The vacuum is in there if you need it,” you feel understood in a way that wells up inside you. If you’re able, try to be this type of friend to someone else in your life. Those tiny gestures make an enormous impact.
I’m no good at small talk. It makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable. But if you ever need a safe space to express something that feels too big or too heavy to carry by yourself, or if you need someone to hold your hand, literally or figuratively, while you go somewhere safe to do just that, I am here.
That I understand. That experience I know. You are not alone.