Fog enveloped us as we emerged from the house this morning for our walk.

Fog isn’t very common here in Northern Illinois, and when it is present, it isn’t usually very thick or long-lasting. For me, it’s a pleasant diversion from the other, more severe, winter weather that we experience.

I grew up in Northern California, where fog is so legendary that it merits at least two Wikipedia pages, “San Francisco fog”, and “Tule fog”.

My childhood summers in the San Francisco Bay Area were filled with fog. It rolled in during the late afternoon and stayed with us all night, until the morning sun burned it off.

My great aunt lived in the central valley of California, where there was a dreaded fog called tule fog. This thick and dense fog was so extreme that it was known to cause multi-car accidents of over one hundred cars. We used to say that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face in tule fog, and that wasn’t far from the truth.

Fog makes it hard to see, for any distance. It is difficult to know where you are, or where you are going, when you are in fog.

This morning, as I walked through the fog, I thought about the times in my life when I have felt like I was in a fog about where I was, or where I was going in my life.

This has happened a lot since I have had my own business. Both inner and outer factors are frequently shifting, and these affect the growth, vitality and direction of the business. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a fog about where I am and where I’m going with my business.

During these times in my life, I have typically expended a lot of time and energy trying to find my way out of the fog that I was feeling, or trying to see clearly in the fog. In California, fog was so common that we all had strategies that we used to find our way around and through it.

One day, recently, as I was struggling to find my way through the fog that I was feeling about my life, a question suddenly occurred to me: What if, instead of trying to find my way through the fog, I just waited until the fog lifted?

When I was growing up, if the fog was really bad, we just didn’t go anywhere until it lifted. It was too risky to venture out in it. If things needed doing, they just got to wait until the fog lifted, unless it was an emergency.

So, I have recently stopped trying to find my way when I feel like I am in a fog, trusting that the fog will lift in its own time, and I will then move forward with clarity and ease. Of course, this is going against the grain of everything that our culture teaches us about pushing through, at all costs, to get to the other side.

I don’t know how this will work, but I do feel like this is what the fog came to teach me today.

How do you “be”, when you are in the “fog times” of your life?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is warm and sunny today. After many cold, cloudy days in succession, this is a welcome change.

At midday, I walk down the driveway for my walk, and I’m immediately aware of the warmth of the sun on my jacket. Even though it is only the beginning of winter, the sunlight makes me feel really good, like I do in the springtime, when everything is waking up.

I can feel myself waking up to everything around me: the bright blue sky, the glistening bits in the snow, and the big chunks of snow that are falling off tree limbs and roof lines, as things are just beginning to melt.

I turn onto the road, and there is a breeze blowing in my face. It’s chilly; it comes directly off the snow-covered farm field across the street, and it wakes me up too.

It is like I see more of the landscape when the sun is bright and the air is crisp. The birds that are feeding on the seeds at the side of the road are more visible than they are when it is dark and grey. The silhouettes of the trees are clearer against a clear sky.  Red berries stand out against the skeletons of the bushes.

I also interact more with my environment when it is clear and sunny and bright, than on those days when I’m hunkered down against the grey. Everything is in high relief, like a picture that has very sharp resolution.

All of this is an invitation to wake up, to my walk, but also to my life.

As I breathe in the crisp air, I just feel very grateful and alive, and I wonder where all of that vitality goes when it is darker, and more grey. I renew my commitment to feel awake, alive, and aware, when I’m out on my walks, especially during the long, grey winter ahead of me.

Aliveness and vitality are everywhere. It is just that sometimes I have to look a little deeper and wider to see them, and engage with them.

What wakes you up?