Finding a portal to possibility

Late last year my bed completely collapsed as I sat down to put on my shoes. Collapsed with a bang just like they do in the cartoons. It was the fourth, and what I decided right then, last time it would collapse. The jury rigged bolts by the moving guys from a number of moves had become both stripped or had broken inside the frame, so I took the bed apart and set the pieces in the hallway. I put my box spring and my mattress on the floor.

I thought it would be an inconvenience to have my bed on the floor. Instead, it was an elixir.  Sitting on my bed on the floor I was instantly transported--I am nearly forty years younger, I am just out of college at any one of my first few apartments, when all I had was a futon on the floor and a milk crate as a bed side table.

The amazing thing is that when I say “I felt young again” it was as much a sensation as a mix of feelings. I felt the way I felt, I could see the world through the lens I saw through then. It was an experience of virtual reality except it was actually very real for me at one time and the physical experience of being on the floor brought it all back in living color and surround-sound feelings.

It was such a strong reminder that our physiology at any given time can be such a strong force on our psyches—in every real sense our physiology is our psyche—and the complete shift in my worldview by merely viewing the world from the floor brought this point home.

As I sat on my bed on the floor I noticed a couple of big things. One is that I was flooded with contentment. At twenty-two I didn’t need much. I was happy to be out on my own and didn’t notice or didn’t care that I didn’t have much. I didn’t care that any furniture I had was picked from the trash. I had a job, I had a place to live, I had friends, and that was all I wanted. And that same feeling of having all I need came flooding back. Adulthood is filled with responsibilities and each new responsibility is often connected with needing more and more resources whether it is time or money or people. Sitting on my bed on the floor catapulted me back to the reality that you can experience abundance in very limited circumstances.

And the next feeling that washed over me was the feeling that the world is full of possibility. At twenty-two I had no idea what I was going to do for the rest of my life, but nothing was ruled out. It is an expansive feeling like looking out at a wide-ranging landscape. You look over the whole horizon wondering where you want to walk to. And really there is no pressure to go anywhere at all: just the freedom of looking out with the ability to wonder can be enough. And sitting on my bed on the floor I suddenly had that same experience of expansiveness and possibility.

These two big feelings: the contentment of having all I need and the feeling of expansiveness and wonder combined to create a really powerful energy, an energy that made me feel like I could do anything I really wanted to do. At nearly sixty I know that everything isn’t really a possibility—and I am actually much more settled in who I am than I was a twenty-two. But the energy I had then was great—and getting reacquainted with it was an amazing and surprising gift from finding myself on the floor with broken bed pieces at the start of a day.

There’s a psychological term for this feeling of nostalgia --the reminiscence bump –the strong vivid memories we can get of our youth and especially our early 20’s. There are many theories for this but the strongest is that this is a time of life when we are forming our narrative—when we discover through our experience who we are. Which is why it is so powerful to not only remember it—but remember it vividly—with full feeling.

So, if you are feeling like you could use some of your youthful enthusiasm or hope, or if you would like to tap back in to the part of yourself that once could operate with a sense of wonder, instead of certainty—if you want to travel back through a portal of possibility, you need to find your own version of my ‘broken-bed-time-machine.’

Maybe you never slept on a futon on the floor. But maybe you went barefoot, or drove with the windows rolled all the way down with no particular destination. It might be a certain kind of car, or drink, or a certain view or sitting in the bleachers watching your favorite sport. Or maybe it’s your favorite music that takes you back when you hear the song. Or maybe it’s a special place where you get a sense of possibility. When I need to reconnect to the possibility in myself I go back to my college campus and sit in the amphitheater where Dr. Maya Angelou was our Class of ’87 graduation speaker. She sang, recited poetry and stated clearly that there were big problems in the world – problems like racism, sexism, ignorance and hatred, saying that there needed to be people to take those problems on. She paused and then asked, ‘Will it be you?’

You don’t have to wait for your bed to break to find possibility. You can seek it out. Whenever I need to find the feelings of possibility, passion and purpose again—when that battery needs recharging-- I drive out and sit on the grass seats -- and I argue with myself, the world and the problems as I see them until I am reminded of the possibility for change that I once felt.  

© 2025 Gretchen Schmelzer, PhD

For some inspiration, two sources of Dr. Angelou at Mount Holyoke College graduation 1987

Instagram

Newspaper

The Temple Builders

The Temple Builders 

The temple builders

are mostly tired I think,

not visionaries,

so much as laborers.

Moving one stone at a time

with calloused hands

and long ropes—

using strength and

leverage and hope.

One lifetime,

one corner,

one stone,

is not the scale

we aspire to.

We want the finished temple

before us at the end of the day.

We want to stand back

and admire our finished work,

certainly not our daily labor,

one simple stone.

It isn’t some higher calling

that gets them up each morning.

No, it is the old woman

who lived through

the dark years, the dark days,

when no temples were built,

except deep, deep in the heart

where they could not be found

or destroyed.

She knows,

though they do not,

why they must build the temples,

shifting them out of their hearts,

and onto the soil,

one stone at a time.

In morning dark,

she rouses them without apology,

for she knows

that without them

the temples will crumble

and be buried in the hearts

of those who have

carried them for so long.

Now is the time for labor,

she says,

and she hands them

a pail of rice.

This has built temples for centuries,

she says,

and she doesn’t mean the rice

Someone must hold the vision,

she says,

and she doesn’t mean the temple,

or at least not the whole temple,

but the single stone

they will move today.

© 2025 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

Looking for Light

In December my friend and I sat in the car in the dark and the cold looking out over a migratory bird sanctuary in Fairbanks Alaska waiting to see the Northern Lights. It was -28 outside and the car fogged up with us sitting there. We stared out over a frozen lake. We were so hopeful, but we in the end didn’t see them. We were there too early in the night. And maybe they wouldn’t have appeared anyway. We saw some beautiful stars and perhaps a planet. But no aurora.

Looking for light in the winter in Fairbanks makes sense—as the sun rises near 11 am and sets near 2:30. The long darkness make any light you see more special.

And anyway—isn’t looking for light—in any of its forms—something that is just programmed into our souls? Lights in the windows, lights on the trees, starlight, candlelight, the light in someone’s eyes.

Last week was the lunar eclipse—and I found myself searching for the light again. A lunar eclipse is both: light and dark—and the weather report said that it would be clear where I was so I set my alarm—hopeful again.

It was dark, and really cold at 2 am, and I threw on a coat and boots and headed outside. I couldn’t see anything. I walked toward the street, and up the block a bit. Nothing—in any direction. It occurred to me that it was cloudy. There weren’t even stars. There would be no lunar eclipse sighting.  

Disappointed, I went back to bed.

It’s ancient, and primal this love of and search for light. It means there might be fire and warmth. It means I can see and know the way.

It’s so hard to remember that Northern Lights are actually always there even if the conditions aren’t such that we can see them. And last week the lunar eclipse was there even if I couldn’t see it myself. When you can’t see or feel the light, it’s hard to remember that the light is still there.

On rainy travel days, I forget that the sun will shine when the plane suddenly breaks through the clouds. In the same way that I can forget on days when I have a lot of grief or darkness, that those feelings aren’t forever, I forget that the clouds will break—and sun will shine though again.

And sometimes when we can’t find light within ourselves that spark needs to come from others around us. Or from art, music, poetry. From something that makes you smile or laugh.

And I think we forget that regardless of whether we can see the light, we can be that light or spark for others. We can remind them that the light is still there.

On that dark night in Fairbanks with so much hope and no Northern Lights—we didn’t get the lights from the outside we were seeking. But we got the light of friendship and good company. We got the light of laughter at our relentless hope.

Sometimes you can find the light. And sometimes you can bring the light. And sometimes it is enough for you to be the light by simply be being good company in the dark.

© 2025 Gretchen Schmelzer, PhD

Middle Aged. New Born

Middle-aged. New Born

Look! I have ten fingers and ten toes!

Isn’t it exciting?

I am a woman born anew. 

For years I have thrashed

in the seas of cruelty and hatred

in a boat that finally

and mercifully

cracked.

And now I am shipwrecked on a new land.

It is quiet. There is peace. And I am here.

Middle-aged.

New Born.

Oh, how new parents crow over their newborns!

They beam over each hand and foot and

coo with each yummy roll of flesh.

All these riches! All of these things to love!

And maybe I appreciate the miracle even more

looking at my hands and feet,

to find myself still whole,

still capable of beauty and love.

Still able to reach, and kick and cry and laugh.

Today it is my turn to pick myself up

and hold this new born sense of wholeness

against my heart, breathing with her as she rests.

Now I can look at her beautiful face as she sleeps

knowing I have all I need: just love.

Love of the simple fact of having

ten fingers and ten toes.

Love of the simple fact of being whole.

© 2025 Gretchen Schmelzer, PhD