Life is Wide

My Great-grandma Emma used to say,

Life may be short, but it’s also wide.

It’s a shift in perspective – from focusing on limitations to exploring possibilities, from dwelling on obstacles to finding creative detours. Every day becomes an opportunity to begin again.

Her words invite us to embrace life’s boundaries while remaining open to its surprising richness.

My trail name is “Blissful Hiker.” With a name like that, you’d think I’d have no problem living great-grandma Emma’s “life is wide” mantra. But you’d be wrong!

It would take 5-million steps on my first thru-hike to figure out what Emma was talking about.

I learned that “life is wide” when I did one of the wildest things of my life. I walked the length of New Zealand.

Since the day I could stand on my own two feet and walk unassisted, I’ve taken adventure walks that grew over the years into hikes then multi-day backpack trips. As I approached middle-age, there finally came a time when I wanted to give a long distance thru-hike a try, one that would take months to complete and become a way of life.

Time was running out. I was well into my 50’s and I didn’t have forever!

For my experiment, I chose New Zealand’s Te Araroa – which means “long pathway” in Maori – because it exotic and n a place I’d never visited. It was also so far away, the likelihood that I’d quit or come home was very low. It was just too expensive!

My goal was to finish it, of course, but in addition to discover what what would happen to my body, mind and spirit on something so long that required all of me to commit.

The start of this 2,000-mile walk was at a place in the far north called Cape Reinga, a lighthouse perched on rocky cliffs above the “meeting place” of the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

“Reinga” has a double-meaning in Maori. It means underworld, freighted with all the mystery and sacredness of that term. But it also means “the place of leaping” where Maori spirits begin their final journey to the eternal.

I had no intention to leap or take my final journey! yet the metaphor wasn’t lost on me. I was taking a leap into something altogether new, a leap of faith.

That first night, the metaphors continued. I planned to sleep at a place called Twilight Campsite. Twilight also has a double meaning. It connotes not only the moment between sunset and nighttime, but also a general period of obscurity and ambiguity.

It really felt like someone was definitely trying to send me a message: All that lies ahead, Blissful, is unknown.

Helen Keller has this wonderful quote about risk-taking: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” But what I like is what she says before that sentence:

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.

We want to be secure. We want to be in control. We’re oftentimes afraid of the unknown. But a new body of research tells us that leaning into insecurity can end up making us more secure because we it makes us more adaptable, flexible and resilient.

We should’t avoid risks as risk taking can trigger beneficial neural changes, like heightened awareness, the ability to take in information, and the ability to remember and use that information. Risk taking can make our lives feel wide by offering us a smorgasbord of choices and helping us become more open to those choices.

On that first night at Twilight Campsite as the waves crashed on the beach and the sunset gave way to my first star-filled night in this new country, I contemplated the many miles ahead of me.

That’s when I started to understand what Emma was talking about, that moving out of my comfort zone and being willing to embrace whatever comes next, I would be given the chance to have a far more interesting life – not necessarily a better life or one where everything goes perfectly, but one that would captivate my spirit and widen my perspective.