A storm came to our town, and many of us have no power. It is only the fifth day, and it brings to mind all the people in Ukraine, the winter and war, their many weeks of no power, and our good fortune. I am up early as I write and it is still dark.

It was such an adventure driving home the night the storm hit. Each way I came the road was blocked by fallen trees and fire engines. Part of the forest had caught fire from an electrical wire, and the air smelled of smoke. Once the rain stopped, the wind had a low, ominous hum. Just as it is in the stories, each new route home was blocked. I abandoned my car and walked. Our driveway was plastered with branches. A white ash was severed and being held in place by a beech. Now, this morning, there is not even the hum of the refrigerator or the heater, or any of the modern blue lights that accompany stoves, routers and other appliances to interrupt the darkness. Only the delicious quiet of two candles and a flashlight. No sound of cars along the blocked road. And no wind. The stillness that accompanies loss of power. I can just now hear an airplane overhead.

Still, before we lost power, I was thinking about writing to you on the subject of “happiness.” This idea began with listening to Shankar Vedantam’s podcast, Hidden Brain, on “Happiness 2.0.” He was talking about the difference between spending money on things and spending money on experiences. Things can bring temporary pleasure and the physicality of comfort. Experiences vanish when over — one can only look back; it’s gone. But even with difficult experiences there can be something of deep value that continues to sustain you in memory.

Do you see how high up our fearless tree guy is? A white ash cracked in the storm and has been kept from falling on our house by leaning against a beech tree.

How are we sustained by memory? I will come back to this question, which led to a meditation this week on “support.” How do you find the support you need to do a certain thing? How do you break through the idea that you must do something all alone? What metaphor or image can you bring to mind that would give you a hand, let you feel accompanied? And when this happens, how is it that what you did can seem effortless?

I sat still and an image from my dream world emerged for support, but support can come from anywhere: an image, book, story, person, poem, phrase or song. An obvious part of this idea that I forget when I am “forging ahead” is that I need to pause and ask for the support. And wait. It is not as much a pursuit or effort toward something as it is an opening to what wants to come. Most often it seems such a long time before help comes, whether it is the muse or getting power restored. When you are asked to do something or face something you think you cannot do, how do you find the strength to make it through?

Dream image: *Guide in Gabardine* © Laurie Doctor

I look back and find how many times I have been carried. Whatever the experience of being carried is, it happens when I have forgotten all about myself. It happens when I am looking the other way. There is the feeling of being dissolved into something else. And for the first time I thought: Can it be that only in retrospect, in looking back at the experience, in memory, that we can know we were being carried?

This returns us to the idea of memory, and the value of investing in experience. The experience of being a maker is not only about being present, but is also a kind of remembrance, a dive inward to what we already know.

David Ray records in his poem that when Robert Frost was asked, toward the end,

do you have hope for the future? he said:
Yes, and even for the past, he replied…

This stopped me, the thought that hope is not reserved for what we want to happen, or even for what is, but also for what has already been. Robert Frost responding with not only hope for the future, but also for the past, is a thought that makes me pause with possibility. And even hope for the past?

A wise friend once said the past is not fixed you know. I am still unraveling this koan, but understand that with reflection, forgiveness, love and time, the essence of something that happened long ago is changed.

What image accompanies you when you need support? How does a memory sustain you? I’d love to hear from you.