tend + play // play + tend
It’s incredible to me, that these strong bodies we inhabit, my own along with these precious places, on this magnificent planet, get to interact in such big and embodied ways.
The first few times that we went surfing in Nosara I was so struck by the opportunity to experience nature in such a dynamic and powerful way while also reflecting on how, just a few days prior and 2,500 miles away, I had been experiencing nature in an equally playful, albeit completely different way. One flowing with the tides and the other flying on skis. It’s incredible to me, that these strong bodies we inhabit, my own along with these precious places, on this magnificent planet, get to interact in such big and embodied ways. This planet is jaw-droppingly gorgeous in hi-def. It’s a big huge blessing to get to meet that beauty with my own form and I do my best not to take it for granted.
More and more it occurs to me that the most important thing I can do is care for these bodies, all bodies, in big and also mostly small and daily ways. I don’t really need much. I don’t even really want all that much. But I do want to enjoy the vitality I am lucky to have, I want to interact with the world in which I get to live in loving and playful and intentional ways.
All of this asks for my ongoing and continued attention and care. This looks so many different ways and takes a unique form for all of us, but I think I can see more and more what it means to me. We can’t play in it if we don’t tend it. And we won’t care to tend it if we lose sight of how to play. So like everything, it is a lot of yes/and. Being curious enough to try and humble enough to adjust and hopefully in doing so meet in that perfect sweet-spot middle where board meets wave or ski meets snow or whatever your preferred substrate/vessel happens to be. I wanna take good care. Of my body, and my body’s bodies, and of the parts of this planet within my very direct and immediate range and reach. It stretches out pretty far from this one point in time and space. I want you to take care too. However you are able and however you are moved.
More and more I consider this oddly shaped five acres on a hillside, part clear and over half wooded, as the piece of the planet in my direct care and as such my responsibility and privilege to restore and keep fecund and generous for generations. I think about the soil and the root life; the water that runs over and through; and the vegetation that ebbs and flows with the seasons. I think about how what I put in needs to match, and then some, to what I take out, and how this effort to build up the life of one small part has implications that stretch further even than my big imagination. Maybe even all the way to that wave on a coastline preserve where the balance of turtles and their ocean home may stretch all the way back to me too.