The Wild Outback

I could not have imagined that one of my first posts of the year on this newly resurrected website would be in response to the sudden death of a friend. But isn’t that the way things often go? One moment someone is fully in your midst, and in the next they have abruptly disappeared. This was Dian. She was always hard to hold onto anyway, but I never expected this vanishing. And yet, she is still very much here.

Dian was a part of the landscape of life on this ranch, one of those people who choose to be here, whose souls over time interweave inextricably with the sky and the sea and the trees. I admired her from a distance because she was a fascinating being…a hybrid of hippie and gypsy in colorful scarves, lean and sinewy and weathered into a work of art. I watched her dancing with her granddaughter, and wandering the beach with her little dog Auby, and tirelessly laboring for the things that mattered to her. What mattered were her family, her garden, the bees, the ranch, the planet. (And wounded warriors too. ) She was opinionated, unscripted, at times outrageous and exasperating, but always authentic and breathtakingly present, and in her own way magnificent.

I know she was a master of yoga and massage, but she had a past and stories I know nothing about. “This is a woman who literally lay down in front of a bulldozer to protest the building of a liquid natural gas terminal near Point Conception,” said one of her oldest friends. “You cannot believe what a force she was.” But I do believe it.

In the early 2000s, driving on a road she took daily, she was hit by another vehicle and nearly killed. It was miraculous that she regained her mobility, but she also inherited a host of ongoing problems, and she forever after dealt with physical pain, insomnia, the aftereffects of trauma, and visits to specialists for MRIs, new therapies, and aspirational solutions to insoluble issues. She figured out her own ways to cope. She simply would not let pain own her. She rode it out. She pushed herself beyond what seemed possible.

And that is why Dian became my friend. When I was deep in the abyss, she recognized my suffering. She saw me as no one else did, and she reached out to me and helped me, for she was a healer and a teacher, perhaps above all. She became my big sister for a while, understanding and protective. Once she came to my house and I lay on the carpet while she did “body work” on me––she didn’t call it “massage”––and I cannot describe the power and precision of her hands and arms and even feet. It still seems a mystery to me, but it was as if she had extracted a burden from me and replaced it with light. I think now it took a lot of effort and strength for her to do this work, but she also bequeathed me with tips and tools for ways to calm myself, learning to observe instead of giving my body full reign over my mind. Tricks maybe, but I call them gifts. In my personal vocabulary, “Dian” became a verb that means to live to the fullest and work very hard despite discomfort, exhaustion, and pain. To this very day, when I push through a challenging stretch, I say that I am ”Dian-ing” my way through it.

“I have found personally that my toughest moments were the ones that brought me the most insight,” she wrote, “not only into my self but those with whom I spend my closest moments, and I have grown beautifully. I have crossed a desert of pain and hopelessness, and not always gracefully, but like that ugly duckling, my time has come at last, and I am a swan! I know there are tough days, but there are many more good, and I live those fully. There are some things I can no longer do, although I have done my best to try, but I have stretched my wings and found a zillion new avenues to travel that I never would have known existed without having had my chain yanked!”

And in words I have kept like scripture, she continued:

“My dearest, you have had your chain yanked. Thank the universe that you have been given a chance to live more fully and with more gusto, taking chances you never thought you would, because now you will grow an inward strength you never knew you owned. Yes, you will heal, and yes, there will be times of great trials for you physically, mentally and spiritually, but with each assault you will rise to the occasion, and you will soon understand that maybe this freak little tumor saved your life more than you know right now.”

And Dian was willing to be my friend as the journey progressed. They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Dian had been there in the background of my life all along, but now the moment had come. I was ready to change, and how lucky I was that she was willing to walk me part of the way to my newness. We got together occasionally, but we talked mostly via email. I could see from the times of her emails that she was often wide awake at the bleakest hours, and yet, the physical labor she did in the daytime was prodigious, and she often pushed herself to the point of exhaustion, exhilarated by it nonetheless.

“It turns out that life is how we look at it, and how we respond to twists and turns, some of which are scary,” she wrote. “Often we are frightened that we will never be the same, but thinking back, was the same the best that life had to offer or just a controlled flight that we had learned was safe to make? Or is life the wild outback with beautiful new vistas, scents of unimaginable delights and possibly finding oneself doing what we thought was impossible but is now a new passion? The birthing process is not easy, as you know, but one of my teachers once told me that a child born through a long labor was much stronger because they fought for life. That is you now, you are going through your own labor, and you will come out of it stronger because you know you can endure these next contractions…You will heal. It will take some time. But you will learn to adapt and adjust.”

Among her passions was beekeeping, which she mentions in many of her emails:

“Today I work my bees, reprieve in work is a saving grace for me, loving every minute of silence and being outdoors on a beautiful day.”

She invited me to join her:

“My bees need my total attention right now. These early rains have really stepped up the game for me. Every hive needs to be gone through and frames need new wax...if you want to check out the process some time let me know. I have extra protection if you feel you would like it. I would enjoy a visit sometime. Maybe we can walk the beach!”

Somehow the visit never happened. We didn’t even manage to go on regular beach walks. I cannot entirely blame myself––life sweeps us into its currents, whether major or mundane, and optional niceties are bumped to low priority and fail to materialize. And Dian was busy and elusive. But I do wish I had been more persistent.

The last time I saw Dian, we verbally reaffirmed our friendship. We acknowledged that we hadn’t managed to make our lives overlap much, but we knew our bond was real. I told her that she had changed my life, and I would never forget it. I’m glad I at least said that, never suspecting that she was drawing so near to her vanishing.

Too soon. Too soon. But so it is. I am told she was in her garden, with family nearby, in this place she loved so well. Her soul has passed the Western Gate, and her essence is here, in the very bones of this land, and I will never forget her, or the wisdom she imparted.

One of the lessons is, don’t keep postponing. Another is to be brave and love fully, even more than you imagine you can.

And choose the wild outback. Let us choose the wild outback.