It's been a hard few days...real hard...and when that happens I sneak off to one of my favorite places in my town:
a redwood grove.
California redwoods are slow growing and have no business being in my part of California.
They are coastal.
I'm not.
They don't like heat.
My summers routinely have 100 degree days.
Every single one of these redwoods is an outrageous miracle.
They didn't get the memo that this isn't their habitat.
That's because they were tenderly planted by people who should have known better.
People who didn't listen to the odds-makers.
Why not have a redwood grove in Davis?
So, in the late 1930's a band of renegade redwood lovers, planted and watered and BELIEVED IN the redwoods...
BELIEVED IN the beauty of this dream.
They kept at it until the impossible happened.
Voila!
90 years later we have a redwood grove in the middle of the central valley!
Every time things feel heavy...or discouraging...or impossible...
I make my way to the redwood grove and find comfort in this tiny grove of impossibility-made-real.
I soak up the beauty.
I imagine the people who took the time to plant and tend the baby redwoods so long ago.
I thank them.
So, as the past few days have been careening and I watch Republicans choose themselves over our country...and watch a rude, despicable person lead our country...and watch with fatigue at the vendettas and the grievances from a man who has literally everything...I come to the redwoods.
I decide to make it a Daily Double.
I'll see your Impossible-That-Is-Real and double it...
calling my son, who the world deems intellectually disabled, AT HIS COLLEGE.
Yes, just like those people in the central valley heat who planted redwoods,
some educators planted another incredible impossibility:
college options for those with an intellectual disability.
Who does that?
Who believes so much in dignity and equity and freedom that they build the impossible??
The same kind of people who plant redwoods in Davis.
The kind of people who don't listen to the nay-sayers.
The people who know that the long odds are worth it.
The people willing to do the work.
The people who tend so carefully to the people that the rest of the world overlooks.
I called Patrick, my 20 year old with Down Syndrome...and he didn't pick up.
College life is like that, you know.
He's busy.
So I continued my walk and looked up.
Redwoods have soft bark...it's thick and tough but springy to the touch...it's a bit of magic...
a reminder that just because you're big doesn't mean you can't be soft too...
and redwoods have incredibly durable, beautiful wood underneath that bark.
So softness is no indicator of strength.
As I am walking, my phone rings...with Facetime.
My 20 year old is smiling and joyful.
Turns out: college is pretty awesome.
He's doing his laundry.
Folding clothes and chatting.
Laughing and smiling.
He's got his friends close by...
they share stories with me of what's been going on...
filling in the details of the little bits I hear about Patrick's days.
It's so ordinary that it takes my breath away.
I'm staring at Patrick's redwood grove of Impossiblility-Made-Real.
When Patrick was born, all the outside world told me were the things Patrick was not going to be able to do.
College?
Are you kidding?
That didn't exist.
As I held tiny newborn Patrick, my obstetrician told me what a gift it was that Patrick would be living with me for the rest of his life.
Implied that he would be a very large lamp in our living room.
Going nowhere.
No one told me Patrick would have dreams of his own.
Or thoughts of his own.
Or opinions.
No one - that I knew - imagined a world where Patrick would be a vibrant adult.
But somebody did.
On the other side of the country, a group of parents and a group of educators created a program where an independent, supported adulthood could begin.
They planted it.
Tended it.
Ignored the non-believers.
Voila!
College for people with disabilities.
Why shouldn't people with disabilities do their laundry with friends?
Why shouldn't people with disabilities attend college?
Why shouldn't they imagine a life with a solid job, a group of friends, and supported living?
Of course they should.
So today, I'm sprinkling the world with two stories of POSSIBILITY.
With enough tending, redwoods can grow in unlikely places.
With enough tending, people with Down Syndrome can go away to college.
In a cosmic way, I think that the redwoods and Patrick at college are intertwined.
There's no doubt that living in a place where the impossible really does exist
helps to nurture other crazy, out-of-bounds dreams.
So, know that the impossible IS possible.
If you're lucky, you might even get a call.
You might witness the ordinary routine of laundry being done far away...
with smiles and chatter from friends.
You might learn the perfectly boring details of what your son had for dinner...
or what he's doing this week-end.
You might be graced with the little details of life.
That we all know aren't little at all.
You might be privileged to see a life that is an outrageous miracle.
Made possible by those that believed in the impossible.
Grateful doesn't cover it.
