Please Exit on Foot
Please Exit on Foot (tip toeing towards humility…)
Yes, but he still puts his pants on one leg at a time - Karen Parrot
This is one of those sayings that you have to picture in your head and then it makes some sense. Karen, my boss and the director of the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony when I was there numerous times and for a year as caretaker, came out with this saying one day. I just nodded and the conversation continued and later when I pictured what she had said it has stuck with me ever since, some twenty years now.
Climb Down Then Up
So, we don’t get to play angel. Certainly not in Karen’s book. No wings attached to help climb out of a difficult situation. Jump all you want, gravity’s got you. Some are fast afoot, some slow but they all will need to swing one leg in front of the other as long as they can. Supernatural stamina is only for those who might leap into their pants, or hover into them perhaps. The rest of us need to be ready to climb down for a while before we can guide ourselves up the other way. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Water Landing
You might hear rushing water ahead, but you still need to sit down in the boat. Row with one oar if you want to move towards the shoreline, and don’t keep changing your mind about one coast or the other. That sound of rumbling water isn’t going to fade now and swimming or walking ashore aren’t likely options either. Work together with yourself.
Banking into Light & Heat
In our daily witnessing of the path of the sun crossing overhead, we find comfort in its gracefully progressing arc. We can picture this kind of line but usually only as it is traced in the air above us. We watch ravens in a thermal glide across our field of vision, and there are lists of stories, legends, myths, theologies that portray our unlikely participation banking into light. And we mustn’t forget that the higher we get the hotter it gets. Just ask Icarus, “Hey, Icarus, do you still put your pants on one leg at a time?”