Category: Passages - trish hermanson

So What's the Point?

2/2/2018

My heart always aches at estate sales, especially when I knew the owners.
Colt and Monette were pioneers in our neighborhood. Now treasures they accumulated over a lifetime are selling for a pittance. Everything parceled out - like the days of their lives.
     We sift through Colt’s tools. He was a rocket scientist back in his day, a neighbor mentions.
     I didn’t know that.
     Monette was a counselor at Columbine High School who saved students at the shooting, someone says.
     She never talked about that.
     Wasn’t it just yesterday they were here? They were frail, but I never imagined their being gone. Then Colt passed. And shortly after, Monette followed, as quietly as a falling leaf.
     We come upon her pottery collection in her kitchen. I buy a terra cotta mug and walk back home, thinking about the neighbors I thought I knew - but didn’t really.
     In my kitchen, I sip tea from Monette’s mug and glance around. Some day, Duane and I will drift away like falling leaves. All his tools and my collections will be up for sale for nickels and dimes. Folks will wander through, searching for bargains.
     So what’s the point of living anyway?
     Definitely not in treasuring “stuff.”
     I take another sip from Monette’s mug and picture the smile on her wizened face. I wish I’d made the time to know her better.    Because that’s what matters - prizing people and the God who made them.

Why I Play Hurt

9/29/2017

A woman I know took a high-speed tumble on a mountain bike. She’s grateful she’s alive, not paralyzed, and that therapy is increasing her strength so she can maneuver a street bike now. But she’s mourning that she’ll never be able to engage in extreme sports again.
I get that she’s grieving over what she’s lost, and I won’t go into an "organ" recital of all that ails me compared to her. I’ll simply welcome her into the Fellowship of the Fractured, the cadre who have learned to do what we can. To withdraw from what we can’t. Whether we’re hamstrung from physical, emotional, or age limitations, we smile through our pain. We try not to embarrass ourselves in a world that values vitality.
In a stretching class I attend, the teacher warned, “Don’t do anything that hurts.” The man next to me chuckled. “As if I can do anything that doesn’t hurt.” I relate to that. Those of us in the battlefield of compromised health are pros at playing hurt. We are richer for our adversities. We’ve discovered that gems such as compassion, patience, and gratitude are mined in the darkness of pain.

What It Takes to Become a Classic

9/15/2017

I couldn’t help but admire this Ford F1 parked outside a barbecue smoke house near our home. The only things holding it together are rust and memories.
When this model rolled off the assembly line, it provided wheels for my parents’ generation that was piecing together lives after World War II. The sprightly pickup first hauled drivers on dirt roads, then interstates, then clogged beltways. It’s taken travelers uphill and down on stock market rides. It’s watched passengers transition from mainframes to desktops to smartphones. It’s moved people from matchbox houses to McMansions and back to tiny houses.
Somewhere along the way, this particular truck lost an eye and turned into a stumbling Cyclops, struggling to read the road ahead. What a ride it’s taken on its way to becoming a classic. What a ride it’s been for all of us who carry rust on our fenders and lots of memories and are trying to read the road ahead in confusing times. But if we keep bumping along life’s highway, maybe we, too, will someday earn the title of classic.

What It Takes to Cross the Finish Line

7/15/2017

Never mind that I’m running the wrong direction. I finished the race, didn’t I?
Actually, no. At this event at Bear Creek I was a spectator and crossed the finish line without running the race.
Which got me thinking about the big questions again. The questions I ponder more these days because I’m in that stage of life in which I wonder why my mother is staring back at me in the mirror. I ask myself: Am I running the race I’ve been given to run? Am I moving in the right direction? Am I encouraging fellow runners along the way? When I’ve had missteps and stumbled and fallen, have a gotten back up and pressed on? When the race is finished, will I explode with gratitude for the journey?
Important questions. Because at some point we all cross the finish line.

Croutons...
Chew on these seasoned bits for a little hope and humor along your highway.

JOIN ME ~ I’ll send brief, occasional posts to lighten your backpack. We're on this journey together.

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