Esperamos

The Winter Solstice is as good a time as any for lowered expectations, don’t you think? Sunrise today, 8:47 am. Sunset 3:07 pm. That’s 6 hours 22 minutes and 29 seconds. Our Vitamin D nadir. 

Last year on Winter Solstice I was beautifully surprised by a “luminary” ski on Montana Creek. This year, we have very little snow, plus I know someone’s planning this thing, so I’m not likely to go; I’d rather carry the glow of last year’s memory. 

I didn’t set out to write about surprise, exactly, but maybe I did. (And maybe that’s why I write at all—to tend the little surprises that occasionally come up like fish through an ice-fishing hole. Maybe this blog keeps one or both of us from ice fishing. Apologies if reading it is a lot like watching ice fishing.) 

Let’s face it; the universe is rigged for low expectations, and that may not be such a bad thing. (We have the gift of four extra seconds of daylight—and they may even include a snowflake or two—tomorrow.) In my last post, I wrote about the expectation of fresh deer or other animal tracks after the snowfall. Disappointment came in the form of one porky. 

The next day, with no fresh snow and absolutely no expectation of deer tracks, I saw that a nice deer had signed his way across the trail and up the mountain. I was reminded of a spring morning years ago when bro Dave and buddy John and I were out before work trying to nab an elusive (and delicious) spring king salmon. We were pushing our get-to-work timeline to the last second. Finally, when Dave said, “I think it’s time,”  on the word “time” two beautiful chrome kings struck and made us blissfully late for work. (We’ve tried that trick a thousand times since then.)

As every fisherman or deer hunter knows, the point is often you have to stop trying, lower your expectations, change your focus, disengage from the quest, and maybe invite the chaos to happen. I’m sure that happens in love and other arenas where I tend to be even less successful than I am as a deer tracker. 

To make matters worse, the writer Brené Brown minces expectations into two: “stealth” (unexamined, unexpressed) expectations versus “expressed” expectations. And the kicker is that both are the onramps to disappointment. “Disappointment is unmet expectations. The more significant the expectations, the more significant the disappointment.”

Luckily, my old go-to Pema Chodron backs me on this lowered expectations project. In fact, she even helps me to gift wrap it (thus relieving me of some of my late-Christmas-shopping guilt, too). 

“The way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face to face.  When we feel resentment because the room is too hot, we could meet the heat and feel its fieriness and its heaviness.  When we feel resentment because the room is too cold, we could meet the cold and feel its iciness and its bite.  When we want to complain about the rain, we could feel its wetness instead.  When we worry because the wind is shaking our windows, we could meet the wind and hear its sound.  Cutting our expectations for a cure is a gift we can give ourselves.”

Pema chodron, _When things fall apart_

I’d like to say the dog at my feet, who just let out a disappointed sigh that I’m not quite ready for the morning walk, could be my teacher in this approach. But I know her disappointment. 

I’m more inclined to go with the Spanish (who seemed all too ready to meet the iciness and bit of winter with surprise — and very poor heat systems) when I lived in Spain. I love the fact that the verb “esperer” can mean “to hope,” “to wait,” and “to expect.” I appreciate that messy “no pasa nada” sort of blend that takes the edge off of expecting. 

Years ago, my fourth grade students and I queued up for what was sure to be a cheesy tour of an old gold dredge in Skagway, Alaska. “What’s the first thing you need for gold mining?” Charlie, the tour guide asked. 

Students shouted “A map!”  “A shovel!”  “A gold pan!” and the like. 

Charlie (who hadn’t read his Pema Chodron, but still…): “You’re all wrong! It’s HOPE. And Hope is FREE! Follow Charlie.” (Maybe I should have named Cedar Charlie.) 

It’s 8:34 am, and just about past head-lamp light in the woods. By my reckoning, Cedar, I still have time to twist this brood into some kind of conclusion. Brown suggests we enlist a partner to be our “expectation checker” to make sure we don’t set ourselves up for disappointment. (She also suggests disappointment is an opening to to allow us to really connect with one another on a deeper level. That sounds a little heavy for the Solstice.)

You ready, partner? Esperamos, I guess. At least we’re not going ice fishing.