NEPAL, Mustang Valley – I am at 10,000 feet in the Himalayas learning how to survive the coronavirus – and no, it’s not what you think.
But it is important. Very important.
An old woman near me climbs up an impossibly narrow, rough-hewn ladder made of nothing more than branches. Still, she has the grace and nimbleness of a much younger person. As she moves, she doesn’t just teach us wisdom that reaches back to the ancients. She lives it.
Understand, this wise woman has weathered things far worse than the coronavirus. She has witnessed the rise and fall of nations, mass starvation, unspeakable violence. She lives in a world nearly always without, or with very meager, electricity, with no grocery stores or hospitals.
Yet she does more than endure. She finds joy.
At the same time and a half-world away, many of us allow ourselves to be ensnared in a never-ending flow of digitized coronavirus information, no matter how insignificant, no matter how repetitive.
We become obsessed with the most minor news as if our lives depended on it. We feed on repetitive and repackaged information like opioid addicts. Yet with each new iteration, we make our fear loom ever larger.
We (or people we know) hoard bread, milk, eggs. In just a matter of weeks, we have created a culture of, “I got mine and you’ll have to pry my cold dead fingers off my toilet paper before you’ll get it.”
Still, we seek no escape. After all, we tell ourselves, there’s a global pandemic.
But this woman who lives in a remote part of the planet known as the Mustang region in Nepal knows better.
Instead of worrying about hunkering down inside as California Gov. Gavin Newsom advises seniors – and more and more areas are in total lockdown mode and perhaps rightly so – the old woman focuses on what’s important.
I’ll point out that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of press time, doesn’t advise us to shutter inside unless sick or infirm. Instead, CDC tells people of all ages to avoid gatherings, maintain social distances of 6 feet and exercise. Me? I walked to the grocery store the other day, alone.
Nearly every day, the old woman climbs a series of stone steps, ascends the ladder and soaks in the breathtaking beauty that surrounds her. Sometimes she focuses on the flowing river below. Other times she watches the gossamer-like spindrift blowing off the world’s highest peaks. And on days like this one, she watches the curious people who come to her valley for spiritual nourishment.
My bones tell me that the old woman also delights in the tiny flowers that somehow manage to bloom between rocks, that she is filled with amazing memories while surrounded by friends and family. But to be sure, she knows that to live in the moment matters most.
After all, that’s when new memories are born and, hey, let’s agree it’s also the only way to safely get down a ladder.
As she heads down, she grips the ladder with strong, practiced hands and gazes at me with a steady eye.
We both know I’ll follow her with less grace.
A special time
As awful as the coronavirus is – and yes, it may be a very long horror show – the disruption of our daily routines has another side. It offers a unique opportunity to reassess, to inject new vigor into our lives, to ponder the wonders of our planet, to think about our global connectedness.
Consider your recent visit to a grocery store. You already know that the virus prompts us to greet old friends as well as people we’ve never met.
The virus, too, humbles and reminds us that we humans share the same basic DNA. Whether we’re in Kathmandu, Kalamazoo or Kern County, we get sick the same; we die the same; we heal the same.
Instead of obsessing over every new scrap of news about the pandemic, this is a time in which we should gently remind ourselves just how short and precious life is. We can choose to shut down or we can choose to thrive.
Through adversity, even tragedy, we triumph together.
Before the old woman heads for the ladder, she turns toward a cold, stiff breeze and looks over the vast Mustang valley as if it’s her first time. Here, the term “Mustang” has nothing to do with fast Fords or wild horses. Instead, it is a word first spoken so long ago that it comes from a time when time didn’t matter.
A Tibetan word, “Mustang” translates to “Plain of Aspiration.”
In the midst of the global pandemic, the power of “Mustang” is especially fitting. Instead of facing the future with despair, we can gather ourselves and consider the virus with ambition, achievement and hope.
We face it with “Mustang.”
Sitting atop this woman’s roof, I look toward a giant massif known as Dhaulagiri. At 26,796 feet it is the seventh highest peak in the world. The meaning of its name? Beautiful, white, dazzling.
I suck in thin air and follow the old woman down the old ladder. The wood is knotted and gnarled. Yet it also is as smooth as polished brass.
Climbing ladders aren’t just good for wood. They’re good for humans, too.
Keeping perspective
I am in Nepal to mountain bike and after I say goodbye to the old woman, I attempt to pedal across a very long, very narrow and very high walking bridge made of nothing but cable and steel slates.
But the wind howls, the bridge sways and I walk my bike. Snow flurries whip past by the time a newfound friend and our guide arrive at our destination farther up the valley. Soon, there is a full-blown snowstorm. With zero heat, my room is freezing and icy drafts make the curtains flutter.
The accommodations aren’t what was planned or promised. Still, we have a choice. We can either be victims or we can be something else. So we laugh because, in truth, this is just nuts.
Early the next morning, villagers take to their roofs to scrape and shovel off 8 inches of heavy snow. Speed is critical because melting snow destroys their mud roofs. But instead of grumbling, gentle snowball fights and giggles ring out across the rooftops.
A shaved monk in maroon robes uses a circular rattan tray as a shovel. When he spots me, he comes over and presents me with a round cake of snow, grinning and joking, “Happy birthday!”
Of course, we’d all be way better off without the coronavirus. But that isn’t our new reality.
So let’s keep things in perspective. Go for a walk if you live in a non-lockdown area. And if you don’t, open a window and bask in a sunbeam. Listen to the birds. Look at the clouds, the moon, the stars. Feel the wind and think of the “Mustang” spirit.
We’ll get through this.
