Noreaster Hercules had everyone up in arms about a possible snow day. Students kept asking. “Do you think classes will be cancelled?”

My pragmatic response dulled hopes, but aimed to offer a solution to the inevitable dashed expectations. “Don’t expect a snow day, so if there isn’t one you won’t be too resentful, and if there is one, you’ll be surprised!”

Lessen expectations.

A difficult task.

Constant challenges holding on to expectations deadens synchronicity. Although striving to let go of them, I always fall short. Left to my thinking (a dangerous place), I am constantly confronted with wrangling through the mire of persons not acting the way I expect them to act, leaving myself on a ledge, forced to let go.

Tonight at a pleasant dinner, I spoke with another country and western friend, who enjoyed the Green and White Mountains as much as I do. He mentioned that loving those hills lies deep within one’s being, and I understood. Drawn to the tree on the mountaintop, like a gravitational pull, the mountains seem to have no expectations. The only needed action would be to choose a maneuver to navigate the slope.

I did not always know how to find the right path. I all too often focused on the way my foot deliberately manipulated between the rocks and sticks. I intently watched my steps, carefully choosing what I perceived as the steady ground, while striving for the perfect footing and balance to stand just right or move deliberately graceful through the woods.

Compulsively holding tight to the way my leg moved forward than back, pushed me further away from accepting just what my foot was capable of doing on its own. If I lost my footing, I cursed the ground, or blamed externals for something that had no real intent to do harm to me.

I never accepted that I chose that path, that I forced my foot to do what I expected should be done. I forfeited responsibility for creating any skewed ground. Too much effort kept me from the ease of the path where the water flowed.

The more I meticulously watched myself and others, while trying to take the perfect step, the less my steps were effortless or right. Not until I let go of making things happen, did things begin to happen.

A lifetime of mistakes have passed. Now, moving through the glades seems easier when I let go and ride my path where the water flows.