Do you ever feel like the only thing more difficult than getting the answer is figuring out what your question is? I do. Most days at least one thing is weighing on me, and I’d like to talk about it here or anywhere, but in my own journeying that thing remains themeless and difficult to define. Except for yesterday when lightning somehow struck me twice, the same subject being voiced at both my yoga class and my meditation class– impermanence. And there-in I’ve found my question for the week or for a lifetime– how to find ease when the world and honestly are own minds are never more than one day the same.

So far I think it has something to do with faith. In the path you are on, even when that path seems backwards or terrible, especially when that path seems backwards or terrible. I certainly arrived in Jackson riding on some crazy faith, but also riding a trajectory of confusion and doubt as to whether or not I was doing the right thing with my life.

And to be very honest with all of you and with myself, I still feel that way. But it helps to consider that maybe I’m still supposed to. There are so many factors in life that could never be still. When I attempt to take refuge in considering what my life would be like if I stayed in Chicago, I can’t exactly. Because even if my job were the same, my apartment were the same, even if I still walked these 10 places and went to these 10 coffee shops, I would be different. Because each day I am.

And that’s when the grace can be found in living in a place that is also wonderfully and transparently different every day. Yesterday was a dream state, every branch and blade of brush was crystalized from dawn until dusk. Just existing in any of it felt surreal. But that only occurred because for two days prior, a dense fog hung in the valley, like an oppressive white mud. And prior to that we had our first huge snow dump of the season, about 4 feet. When all the snow slid off the barn and formed a wall behind my car, I sure felt differently about Jackson’s level of dreaminess.

All this merely a measurement of the impermanence Jackson shows in seasons. There’s also the perhaps greater impermanence shown in so many spirits here. I heard that in Jackson the entire population of people my age just about turns over every 3 years. On a positive, that makes it a wonderfully receptive place to arrive. No one bats an eyelash to hear that I quit my job and moved across the country without knowing anybody, because that’s what they did too. But on the challenging side, it can be virtually impossible to make any plans in this town, folks always abiding so determinedly by their free will. Even businesses close down on occasion for “powder days” i.e. when the skiing is too good to miss.

So then there really is no where to find consensus then in faith. Faith bearing no religious implications, but rather just the inherent patience and wisdom in our own hearts. People always say “this too shall pass”, and they mean the bad stuff will come to an end. But if we’re honest, its just as true the other direction. The good stuff passes too.

So whenever the trees are like sparkling diamonds, let’s appreciate it. Whenever shoveling snow becomes an iteration of your Wyoming nightmare, attempt to appreciate that too, make it a measurement of your steel-cut perseverance. Appreciate when you find new places and new friendships, and appreciate when in the absence of them you have to find yourself.

Moment of Gratitude: Because nothing stays the same. And, gloriously, neither do we.