Adulthood has long been overlooked as a phase in human development. This is, in part, due to its implicit assumption of steadiness. Its shifting hues tend to be less dramatic than those of adolescence and elderhood, its moods less pronounced. Much of the time, we do the work of our lives, showing up for our common refrain while quietly learning to cultivate fulfillment on our own terms; our creative pursuits and revelatory practices often relegated to the margins of our daily lives.
We are exceptionally connected, balancing our digital and analog lives. We are so busy. There is so much to do. Who has time? Adults say these things in exasperation, grasping for affirmation or companionship in the midst of their grievances. But it’s true—to be in the human world today is to drink from a firehose of information. Plus, what depths are safe to plumb outside the sanctuary of a therapist’s office or a park bench with a trusted friend? The stakes of vulnerability are high. So high, in fact, that Brené Brown describes judgment as “the currency of the midlife realm.” By midlife, we are expected to have brought to fruition the aspirations of our earlier selves—to have reached a plateau of practicality and resolve. Cruising altitude, as they say.
Of course, we who inhabit or have inhabited the realm of adulthood know better. Inside the cornucopia of being human, spiraling inward from its bright surface, exist multitudes. Much like the tonal expressions of early autumn, the richer pigments of our psyche—previously concealed behind summer’s green façade—gradually reveal their layers to those who pay attention: ripening, sweetening, scenting the air with integration and maturation.
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Today, I am writing from the belly of a meditation retreat at Vallecitos, among the ancient, indiscreet ponderosas of Northern New Mexico. Belly is a phrase I favor mid-retreat because it refers to the tender middle, the bellows, the digestive center. For five days, however brief an expanse of unclaimed hours, I have sat with myself in a wooden casita outfitted with a kerosene heater, a writing desk, and a chipmunk who makes neighborly visits to the stoop.
There is a shimmer to this mountain valley nestled deep in the Carson National Forest—a million-acre, many-voiced wilderness. Everything breathes here. Cold morning dew washes the meadows; afternoon shadows sweep the valley. Here, the pines thicken into themselves, aspens become jittery and luminous as they dry in the breeze, and just beneath my feet, lichen and mycelium weave their storied logic.
Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish neuroscientist who pioneered studies of the central nervous system at the turn of the 20th century, referred to neurons as “butterflies of the soul”—tender, erratic, natural, and necessary.
Most days, I am like most adults. I move through a slurry of data and directives, my nervous system siphoning thoughts, words, plans, and presences. Most days, my neurons do not feel like butterflies. But the land’s knack is to shed and replenish, to dwell and allow and transform. A stone stays in place while the river glides over its surface, gradually polishing its form. I recall a beloved teacher once describing enlightenment simply as no more raw edges.
There is a choreography to these days of sitting, walking, sweeping, sleeping; the routine is a slow, scaffolded unraveling. Contingent parts within me make themselves more visible to the naked eye: the part seeking a reprieve from boredom—hello, gorgeous organic berries at breakfast!—and the part that feels alive with fright on an unlit walk at night. The part that is slavish to comfort and sensitive to nonverbal exchanges in the lunch queue. The chronic clock-watcher who would count the hours until I see my family again…
But also, there is a solitude I am befriending in my adult years—a creative and patient companion self. My nervous system grows almost amphibious here: reflective, tremulous, equilibrating like the surface of the alpine ponds of this valley. I imagine myself like the ancient city of Venice, which, during its pandemic-mandated reprieve from the normal throngs of tourists, welcomed dolphins back to its capillaried canals.
I move through the forest, only to discover the strange phenomenon of the forest moving through me. The trees pass sideways; sunlight pitches down in mosaics, glancing off the backs of leaves. I rest on the round body of a pine, and the sound of critters, once a polite backdrop, sidles forward: bluebird, fox, nondescript scuttle from the bushes. The entire canopy hums—at me, through me—a polyphony the writer Amy Leach might call everybodyism, an ensemble of selfhoods.
It is, if anything, a kind of organization I find myself settling into: organism, order—these words sharing root and logic. The fractal arrangements of life in the forest transmit glimpses of my body’s own sophisticated animal intelligence. Each muscle adjusts moment by moment to the terrain, dynamic and improvisational. The mind may imagine it stands apart—thank you, Descartes, for teaching us to narrate ourselves from above—but the world refuses such neat separations. Artificial intelligence, with its disembodied schemes, cannot meet moss or kneel to converse with mushrooms as we can.
In her evening talk, Erin Treat, guiding teacher at Vallecitos, serendipitously shares the opening line from The Famished Road, a 1991 novel by Nigerian author Ben Okri that won the Booker Prize: “In the beginning, there was a river. The river became a road, and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river, it was always hungry.” I think of this teaching as I move between stone and stream, insights replenishing from nowhere I can name. Dusk gathers, cliff shadows lengthen, and a presence stirs the forest, calling wandering creatures home.
Together, we are making sense of being human in an era of radical change. Your presence here matters. Thank you for reading, sharing, ‘heart’ing, commenting, and subscribing to The Guest House.
