Out of the Canyon?

Well, I slipped a little. We belong to the REI co-op. For those who don't know anything about REI, it is an outdoor equipment store, and a potential problem for me. I love to be outside. I hike, bike, geocache, fish, you name it and I'm there. Some of this requires stuff, some of it begs for more stuff than I really need. But, anyway, we joined the co-op several years ago. As a member they keep track of what you buy and at the end of the year you get a dividend check that you can use in the store or cash in. We haven't bought much there this year, but a few friends and family used our number for their orders and the dividend was a little nicer than usual. So off to REI I went. I came back with a new Camelback backpack which I found for 50% off plus 20% off and with my dividend it was free, awesome...I thought. Carolyn didn't.

She pointed out that even though it didn't technically cost us anything, I broke our pledge. She's right. It wasn't used, at least it replaced something I had to throw out, but it wasn't really something we "needed." I was a little perturbed at first, but after a little thought, I'm owning up to a slip.

One of Carolyn's best friends was up for the weekend and all of our daughters (our 2 and her 1) were spending the day playing together. Wyatt and I decided to skip the estrogen frap and get outdoors. I strapped up my new pack (can't return it, honestly, I checked it out) and we were off to find a geocache that has eluded us for a while. It was a lot harder to get to than I expected.


We started at the bottom of the canyon where two forks of the American River meet and began our long trek out of the canyon. We went through many different types of trails and talked about boy stuff (millipedes, rocks, poop ;)) and struggle to the top where I took the picture above. Forrest Hill Bridge stands in the distance, it is the highest bridge in California and the 3rd highest in the US. It really is an amazing site. As I sat here tonight, looking at the pictures, I realized something.

We have, as some of our new friends have pointed out, been walking through this thing with our heads down. We've been focusing so much on not doing, not buying, stopping, reducing; but, we've lost sight of the whole reason we got into this journey. We began in search of truth and joy regardless of our material status. We wanted to forsake stuff for life. In reality, we've just replaced stuff with drudgery, or become so driven in the reduction quest that we forgot how beautiful this world is and how many pleasures are ours for the taking. We're not seeing the forest for the trees, so to speak.

Yeah, I slipped, there's no excuse for that. But, one step back helped me to see how far we've already come. It also is beginning to sprout a (hopefully) more realistic view of the purpose of simplifying. I think we're beginning to come out of the first canyon.