Letting Go of the How in order to Have
When my family and I moved into a brand new house in mid August 2020, we were pretty elated. The house was precisely what we had envisioned, as we had written out, feature by feature years in advance. Lots of space, lots of light, and dripping with beauty. It was also right next to the woods, a trailhead starting just beyond our driveway. Exactly as I had hoped.
As we would discover, it also lacked a few things I didn’t know I needed to include on that “perfect new home” list, but hey, you live and you learn.
The trail from our house moved through a thickness of blackberry bushes and dead or dying Ash trees before quickly making it’s way into your typical magical NW forest: ferns, fir trees, lush greens and beauty. The view from my kitchen window featured blackberry castles and dead or dying Ash trees. Technically, it’s the woods, and there are often owls and wildlife, but it’s not quite the accessible beauty that lies just beyond.
On a hike one early September day, I thought about how lovely it would be to have the forest next to the house be less blackberry, more fir tree: healthier for forest creatures, lovelier to look at, and about a thousand times more fun to play in (blackberry thorns hurt going in and HURT coming out). As impossible as it seemed, I created for myself another vision of what I wanted. A wish. A mockup. That the portion of forest next to our house would be as healthy as the forest above. And as soon as all the worries about how that would happen, I moved them all out. I decided not to fret about how it would happen, and as well, not to worry about IF it would happen. I removed myself from the outcome and just let the wish be.
If there’s one thing the pandemic taught me, even by then, it’s life is a whole lot easier when you stop trying to control it.
That fall, my kids spent tons of time outside. School was still remote, and we did lots of our learning outdoors. I got to know some of my neighbors well enough for them to openly share their thoughts and opinions with me (whether I liked those opinions or not). One day, we got to talking about the forest beyond the house, and they shared that the city has basically forgotten it exists. I thought of my wish, my vision of trees and ferns, and decided not to let their picture invade my vision with doom and gloom. However, I couldn’t fault them for their point of view either. Portland at that time was definitely experiencing issues, with many folks ending up houseless. Trash, tents and paraphernalia lined highways and formerly safe neighborhood streets and city leaders seemed slow to take any action.
One frosty November morning weeks later, our dog Sunshine woke us up, growling and barking out the window. My adrenaline pumping, I cautiously peeked through the curtains, silently eyeing the trail and whomever might be on it. Instead of an intruder or a mountain lion as I hilariously expected (my neighbors pictures making their way in afterall), I saw a dozen or so people in orange reflector vests, cutting back blackberry bushes, treating them with spray, and cutting down the Ash trees that were in danger of falling. Astonished, I threw on a pair of leggings, flip flops and a sweatshirt (the customary costume of all pandemic moms), made my hair look sort of okay, and dashed out the door to talk to them. “Are you …cleaning up the forest??” I asked wide eyed, and bumbling over my words. I hadn’t yet had water, let alone coffee.
“Yup, and we’ll be back sometime before February to plant some trees”.
I stammered some kind of thank you and hurried back inside, amazed by what was happening. As I made my way through our sort of “pandemic normal” morning routine, I was mostly dazed by what was happening outside in the woods. The blackberry thickness, starting slowly to become the beautiful, magical, healthy NW forest that I had envisioned and wished for.
A few months later, the same team returned and planted over 500 baby Douglas Firs. They arrived weeks later than they promised, so, even though my mockup had started to come in, I had to once again let go of the how, of the outcome, and just let it be. We had a big snow late that winter, which had gotten in the way of their plans to plant, and they experienced a staffing shortage which held them up even more.
This summer, I was chatting with the same neighbors. They still had the same story, that the city will never do anything about the blackberries. Confused, I asked if they hadn’t seen that they’d all been cut and treated, and that there were a bunch of saplings. “They’re tiny and hard to see, I guess”. My neighbors were the ones to be astonished this time, that they hadn’t seen the change, that they hadn’t noticed there was something else, something new happening. Their old picture still clogging their vision.
It was magical to watch as they rubbed the old image from their eyes to see something new, to have something new right along with me. The magic of havingness is that it’s not all for you, that it can be for everyone too, in ways you can’t plan for or control. Their wish may not have been for a more beautiful forest outside my house, but now they have more faith in the city they once loved and had given up on, and that might very well have been their unspoken wish.
Sometimes, you have to let go of the how. Of all the reasons why not. Of all of the pictures and beliefs in the way of what you want. You have to let go of the outcome and just let it be. And maybe it will. Just be.
