Lean back.

I drive toward the river, recalling  indoor meetings with coffee and Persephone croissants. I love the sugar, but this new habit of walking meetings offers its own sweetness. I am captivated by what is unfolding before me, nature’s reward for leaving my phone behind. “You think that’s good? Wait till you see this,” she seems to say. I am amazed by what is here, the grandeur of this background story. Not one, but two bald eagles gaze down on me as I round the bend, and my mouth opens in awe.

Along the river, humble willows seem shy with their late season offering -- a rich red from deep within -- color that will not dry up and flutter away. The Snake River is relentless in pursuit of my attention -- no current the same, countless dazzling sparkles in every glance, the blue-black water that sends messages into my bones: “The path will bend and curve. Go with, not against. You are part of something bigger.” I wrap up the last meeting of the day in a shadowed corner of the Elk Refuge, sky pouring a warm pink bath over all below, a velvety gray buck, hooves whispering through the brush. Another pair of bald eagles, maybe mom and eaglet.

Like many in our country, I can so easily miss all this…by deafening news reports, polls, dark money, and spiking COVID cases. Masks emphasize the furrowed brows, constant mental agitations about “what if?” and “then what?” There, too, go I.

There is such relief in the quiet moments, when I remember to let them happen. There is strength and fortitude right here in the background of the Tetons. It feels good to lean back into that good notion. A book title comes to mind, one from years back. Lean In was a bestseller for its advice to women to “lean in,” do more, raise hands higher, and lots of other things easily said by someone with more chefs, nannies and minders than I have pairs of skis. (And I really like to ski.) Fortunately, the river worked its magic on me, and different words arise: “lean back.”

Lean back.

Forget about all the things you aren’t doing enough of, can’t control. Lean back into those who came before us -- family, mentors, RBG, grandparents, Mary Oliver, Jesus, Shakespeare, Harriet Tubman. There is wisdom in the tracks of those who have suffered and worried, lost and failed, and ultimately survived and prevailed and triumphed. Lean back into the truth of things, that human beings no less human than you have survived hard, hard things.

Forward motion, ambition, and achievement have a cult following in our culture. Ahead, we always charge, and I am more guilty than the average. So it is no small thing to practice leaning back. Lean back into the things that we know to be true and steady. The beauty of our surroundings. The trot of a loyal dog. The rubberband-like circles on the healthy babies in cart after cart at the grocery store. Those things can support your weight if you let them.