Tent-Bound
No one told me it would come to this—
Tent-bound with a full life of songs and heartbreak.
Just outside the zipper door,
thunder’s convincing accusation:
Am I beyond the reach of love?
I’ve been lost for a while,
tiptoeing in someone else’s boots.
The trail undefined,
the end remaining out of sight,
knowing only from here to there.
Cresting midlife’s great divide,
an inventory I take.
The path that led to here—
a dress rehearsal,
a preamble—
only now am I equipped for the
liminal edges of this frontier.
Adjusting my bearing,
dressed in alpenglow,
the new horizon
awaits my arrival,
calling down sweet reverence
to be the lamp unto my feet.
When will I know the weight of my glory?
A Few Reflections on My Poem
Recently, in Grand Teton National Park, my friend Carl and I spent the day with Irish poet David Whyte. From the stage, we listened; then we walked, hiked in silence, and shared stories of attentive aliveness.
I jotted down a few of David’s riffs:
- I think we write to be deeper friends with the world—to be better witnesses.
- Good poetry is language against which we have no defenses.
- We write to help people participate, to be here. Along these axis of difficulty, it’s 50% goodbyes and 50% hellos, as we learn to be equally present to both.
On our way back from our hike around Jenny Lake, I asked for David’s advice on a poem I penned while tent-bound in a rainstorm deep in Colorado’s Collegiate Peaks Wilderness. His generosity flowed from the front seat as I scribbled down his thoughts:
- Keep me in the tent. That’s powerful imagery.
- What divide are you crossing? Midlife? Looking into your past?
- That phrase—too clichéd.
- This word, change it to “…” to keep the rhythm of the flow.
Would it be too much to suggest that Tent-Bound is co-authored by David Whyte? I’m smiling as that will be the story I tell my grandchildren 😊.
No one told me it would come to this—
Tent-bound with a full life of songs and heartbreak.
My life’s been marked by 1’s (excruciating lows: “I can’t believe this is my life”) and 10’s (exuberant highs: “I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS MY LIFE!”)—with plenty of bouncing in between. I’m thankful I didn’t know what the future had in store. I’ve shed my share of tears over deep, unspeakable pains, yet now I find myself in awe as joy becomes the foundation of my everyday reality.
Just outside the zipper door,
thunder’s convincing accusation:
Am I beyond the reach of love?
Like the Psalmist repeatedly wrote, we’ve all wondered if our prayers—our cries for help—are just bouncing back, “GOD, are you avoiding me? Where are you when I need you?”
I’ve been lost for a while,
tiptoeing in someone else’s boots.
The arduous process of becoming ourselves sounds so simple and intuitive. I hold dearly to Lao Tzu’s wisdom: “Be who you really are and go the whole way.” A straightforward idea, yet it calls us to walk a challenging, beautiful path—one that includes getting lost and sometimes playing it safe by imitating others. When I’m lacking the courage to go the whole way I end up-tiptoeing in someone else’s boots.
The trail undefined,
the end remaining out of sight,
knowing only from here to there.
Navigating uncertainty is both exhilarating and incredibly exhausting. When my life’s path is undefined-which it often is, the destination hidden, and the next step the only one visible, it can feel destabilizing. Yet, the invitation is to keep risking, keep trusting the whispers of the divine- and to keep going -taking the next step.
Cresting midlife’s great divide,
an inventory I take.
The path that led to here—
a dress rehearsal,
a preamble—
only now am I equipped for the
liminal edges of this frontier.
I’m fifty-two, and crossing midlife’s great divide is my reality. Everything I’m experiencing—the career stretch, my work in the world—feels like frontier territory.
The new horizon awaits before me-way over there. My life to date, all of the 1’s and the 10’s and everything in between, a dress rehearsal, a warm-up for the transformational edge of this chapter.
Adjusting my bearing,
dressed in alpenglow,
the new horizon
awaits my arrival,
calling down sweet reverence
to be the lamp unto my feet.
David spoke of a conversational intimacy with life:
“We have a great relationship with horizons, with a far horizon in distant view. The ability to go from here to there. The edge between the known and the unknown. The edge—inner edge (of my growth) and outer edge of frontier (the unknown). The person you’re wanting to become—the need to be present to the way I’m not ready, uncertain I can become.”
This summer, while pursuing my life quest to climb Colorado’s fourteeners, I had these lines from Gregory Alan Isakov’s “Stable Song” on repeat as I drove across the San Luis Valley.
Remember when our songs were just like prayers?
Like gospel hymns that you called in the air
Come down, come down, sweet reverence
Unto my simple house and ring
And ring
As a kid, I remember the church potluck dinners at the fairgrounds building in Bishop, CA—paper plates, Styrofoam cups, and shuffling through the folding-table assembly line. Just before the meal, we’d call out gospel hymns like prayers, inviting the Life of God to dwell within our simple lives-And ring.
When will I know the weight of my glory?
The weight of glory: A CS Lewis phrase about how we all carry this inner “weight” or burden—a deep desire to be truly known, accepted, and valued by God in the most meaningful way possible. When will we know, believe it and live from that place?
Perhaps it’s as my late mentor Craig McConnell claimed, “there is a grace in this life that we’ll never know the fullness of our glory nor how big a pain-in-the-ass we are.”
Friends, I invite you to take these questions for a walk—perhaps around a lake, through a forest, along the lakeshore, or across a field.
Who am I actually in the world
How are you showing up in the world you inhabit?
The Horizon (awaiting me)
In the distance, what horizon is emerging for you and awaiting your arrival?
The Edge (of my growth)
What growth edges keep recurring for you? Notice where difficulty and your over-efforting appear.
The Frontier (the unknown wilderness)
What is the space of uncertainty, where all you have are questions?
The Person I’m Waiting to Become
Without a full answer, consider this: inside the chrysalis during a butterfly’s metamorphosis, the caterpillar’s body breaks down into a nutrient-rich “imaginal soup,” where imaginal cells build the new structures of the butterfly.
What’s in your imaginal soup right now?
Keep going,
Aaron
Post Script: photo descriptions
- The “magic ticket” Carl discovered in a newspaper box. Empty of newspapers, but this lone ticket beckoning our adventure to commence
- Field Notes – The National Parks Series are my favorite notebooks: 3-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ (89mm x 140mm)
- Journal notes from our morning workshop with David Whyte, Jackson Hole, Wyoming
- Tent-Bound draft, handwritten while waiting for the daily rain showers to pass. Earlier in the morning, we’d summited the Continental Divide, and I shared David’s poem “No One Told Me.” with my buddies
- The day after our failed attempt to summit The Grand Teton, winter dust and rime ice decorated her summit
- No One Told Me, by David Whyte — my jumping-off line for my own poem, Tent-Bound
- Carl and I telling stories we only tell our friends
