Notes Along the Trail

I just returned from a week visiting my brother and his family in Alabama and Tennessee. While I was away the world fell apart again.

While I was hiking in the beautiful foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and walking through the small cities that cater to tourists, the terror began in Israel, the atrocities unleashed on civilians and families, in their houses and small towns near the Gaza border.

While I was immersed in the countryside and community life of northern Alabama, sharing family stories with my brother and sister-in-law in their comfortable farmhouse, enjoying the produce of their gardens and grapevines, Israel mounted its revenge, bombing the Gaza Strip and cutting off food, water, and electricity to the millions of civilians living there. The horror escalates – for Jews whose family members and friends are among those killed or kidnapped, for the families of the reservists called up to fight this brutal, possibly long and expanding war, and for Palestinian families, oppressed and deprived of freedom and human rights for the past five decades, now defenseless and terrified, unable to escape the destruction and death.

Erin Boyle, whose Tea Notes blog can be found on Substack, wrote this week about tending to her body's need for some repair, while "holding those caught in the middle of these battles in my heart."

As someone in the midst of taking the time to ease my tension and soothe my discomfort, to give gentle care and deliberate attention to these soft and sacred parts of me, I thought of the women who have been kidnapped and raped and killed in the course of the last few days. I thought of the women lying in wait for air strikes, without food or electricity or water. I thought of the people—women and non-binary and children, especially—who will be, and always are, the collateral damage of war. – Erin Boyle, Tea Notes, Oct. 10, 2023

Now that I'm back at home, I'm grateful for the time away and for the return to my own routines and rituals, the daily rhythms that help me to stay centered and grounded, which really means, in control. Then I think about the Israeli and Palestinian mothers and fathers, with every bit of control over their own lives shattered, terrified that they can't protect their children, and with no way of escape.

And I think about the people in Ukraine, living in the midst of war since February 2022. I cannot imagine their lives now, the courage it must take to get up every morning and live another day. What routines and rituals have they created? I know that children continue to play under the worst circumstances, and so do some adults. I wonder, what would I be doing? More usefully, perhaps, I wonder what I can and should be doing now.

When the war in Ukraine was one week old, I wrote in my journal about my efforts to restart my website and blog, a project that was starting to feel trivial as well as confusing and discouraging. I wrote, "My purpose here is mainly to encourage women, including myself, to live as well and as strongly as we can, no matter what age we are. I write about some of the elements I believe to be essential, namely, to move our bodies, and not just move but to intentionally strengthen our physical selves; to play – that is, to have joy and search for it, to strengthen the joy "muscle" (which in me is particularly weak); and to learn, every day something new, to pursue knowledge for any reason at all that appeals."

All of that remains true, yet I'm still figuring out what this blog is about. I show up on this page, most weeks, carrying whatever is true for me at the moment. I hope in some way to connect with others like me, who see life as a journey with no destination, rather like a trail through forest or desert, sometimes over rocks and boulders, fording streams, with strenuous climbs that feel endless and mercifully peaceful sections of wide, flat forest floor under a green canopy.

As my journey so far has given me the luxury of an easy trail, however rocky or steep it might seem to me at times, I also have a responsibility to help those whose journeys are devastatingly hard. Now, I look for organizations and people who are providing real relief in places of dire need, so I can connect with them and contribute to their work.