Jade and I went up the mountain one night, for no reason at all, except to see what we could see. I had my camera along, because I always have my camera along, but we also packed a pair of puppies with us, some wool gear for when the air turned cold during the nightrise, and the good and comfortable company of each other.
I love Jade. She’s one of my best friends and to make matters even more excellent, she and her husband (a smokejumper, also, and a true surrogate brother to Robert and I) bought the house exactly next door to ours here in Pocatello. We call it the compound and it has been one of the most special experiences of my adult life to have good friends so near every moment of the day. Most mornings, Jade and I have coffee together. One of us brews a french press and strolls around, through two gates, through the raspberry patch, past the grapevines and into the companionship of the other. We pour our cups of coffee, add our milk and when the weather was warmer, we would sit on porch steps in the sun and simply talk for a couple of hours. It is such a glorious way to wake up to the day in the loving company of a best friend. She is a painter and leatherworker, among other things, and shares my studio space with me. We share dinners, watch movies, give each other seeds we have harvested from our gardens and lend or borrow a lawnmower back and forth. There is an understanding between us that stems from being girls, creatives and fire wives. Jade’s little family is an extension of our little family and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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I was having some body work done by my massage therapist a couple of months ago and she asked me what my life mantra was. The actual word “mantra” isn’t part of my daily lexicon so I was stumped for a moment and then I told her I didn’t think I had a mantra. So she rephrased the question so I could better understand and find a true answer. She asked me if there’s a phrase I live by on a daily basis. Here’s what I said:
“Yes!”
That was my answer to her as well as the phrase I have been living by for the past year or so. When I get asked to do something, to be involved in something, to go somewhere, to spend my time a certain way and if the situation will involve our friends or family or a really unique life opportunity, I try not to think too hard about it. I let myself respond as reflexively as possible. I simply say, “Yes.” Then I do my best to make the commitment work.
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I realized something a few years ago after nearly working myself to death (which is relatively normal, small business takes your EVERYTHING — so does full time creative work) building The Noisy Plume: life is short. It becomes more and more apparent to me as I watch my grandparents in the twilight of their wonderful lives, as I watch my parents age, as I see our siblings and friends having babies and growing the next generation, as I see the lines of a life well lived begin to pepper my face. I’m not going to live forever. Neither are you. I am concerned that when I lay in the quiet of a failing heartbeat on my deathbed that I will regret how much time I spent worrying, how much time I spent on my computer hitting a “like” button, how many days I sacrificed making memories with the people I love on the land I adore for a small job I didn’t pour my heart and soul into. When I realized all of this, I decided to say yes as often as possible to the people closest to me, even if there were 100 unanswered and festering emails in my inbox, even if I was straddling a deadline in the studio, even if I was running late on photo submissions for freelance work — I started setting those things aside and doing a better job of living for love, living for the love of life, living for the love of experiences.
More often than not, this makes me a terrible business woman, an incompetent emailer, and let’s face it, the volume of work coming out of my metal studio has slowed to a dribble — part of that has to do with an energy shift in my work. I’m doing more freelancing than metalsmithing at the moment so the decrease in productivity in the studio makes perfect sense. But I digress. Let me tell you something, I have had such a wonderful year here. I have traveled extensively. I have explored and adventured. I have spent time with my best friends, I have made new friends, I have learned so much about them, about myself, about the world, about nature. More often than not, I have allowed myself to catapult in any direction on any given day and the freedom has changed who I am, taught me who I want to be, and fortified some of my relationships in wonderful ways. This has been a year of living for me! It has been grand. I want to serve my friends and family as energetically and commitedly as I have served my small business over the years. I want to pour myself into them and make memories so that when I walk towards the light at the end of the tunnel someday, I’ll walk in a soft cloak of assuredness that I lived this life well and served my people with a whole heart and my full attention.
My sister Caroline, on Robbie’s side of the family, pointed out the flip side of all this “yessing” I’ve been doing while we were with our family clan at Thanksgiving in San Diego last week. She pointed out that no matter what, saying yes to something means saying no to something else, even if you don’t say the word. And she’s right about that — no is a byproduct of yes; we had best make the word and the commitment count.
Make it worth it every time you say “Yes.” I think it’s the best way to live without regret.
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When Jade and I went up the mountain that night, we went up the mountain for no reason at all (which is sometimes the best reason of all) except to be in the company of each other, to ride in a delightful 1966 Dodge Powerwagon, to laugh at the puppies with us and pet their soft ears, to talk, to enjoy the silence when we didn’t talk, to watch the sun set and the moon rise. We went out of love for each other, love for life and love for the word “Yes.”