(Glacier Peak)

Feeling lousy? Look up. Literally. Preferably at the sky. But it works indoors, too, especially if you’ve been frozen in a head-down position looking at your phone or tablet, taking in the news. Set the device down. Look out the window. Look at a picture on your wall—ideally at eye level or higher—of someplace or someone or some bit of art that you love. Can you feel your mood change?

 I remember hearing about the power of looking up from my brother-in-law, who is a high school teacher. This was several years ago (maybe he or one of his colleagues had come across this 2016 article in Psychology Today by research psychologist Colin Ellard), and I am always grateful when I remember this little trick, because it works. And we are going to need every little trick we can think of for the next four years.

 A few weeks ago, my good friend Anne (with an E, unlike me) had eye surgery to repair a hole in her macula. I stayed with her for the first few days, as she got acclimated to the strict rules she had to follow for five full days after the surgery. The most important part of this regime was to keep her head in a downward-facing position for 50 out of every 60 waking minutes. She rented a massage table and a massage chair. The chair turned out to be more comfortable. But even when she got up for those few allowed minutes per hour, she had to keep her head down and her gaze directed at the floor. She was allowed to sleep on her side, but had to wedge a pickle ball behind her to keep from rolling onto her back.

 After about 24 hours of all of this, Anne said something interesting: she had not anticipated the kind of emotional memories that looking down at all times would trigger. Shame, for example. Or depression. That instinctive feeling of wanting to avoid eye contact.

The biggest stories during the first hours and days after Anne’s surgery were about Elon Musk’s “muskrats” (as Robert Reich likes to call them) breaking into the federal government’s personnel management and payment data base, and about the shuttering of USAID. Because Anne had to look down, we were following the breaking news on our separate devices and having conversations that consisted of exasperated moans and words like “ohmigod” and “unbelievable.” It did not help to be stuck in a downward-facing position.

I, of course, was not technically stuck in a downward position. I popped out for a sunset walk and wound up buying some Girl Scout cookies from a scout who had set up a table on a pathway near Anne’s condo. I drank in the pink sky, but even more, I drank in the human contact with the friendly scout and her beaming father.

When I came back inside, Anne was on the massage table, her iPad resting on a box below her face, watching Rachel Maddow interview former UN ambassador Samantha Power about USAID. I sat down on the floor and scooched up next to the massage table. I needed to take in all the bad news together, side by side. For at least a few minutes. Before my neck cricked beyond repair.

Claire at Buck Pass, Glacier Peak Wilderness

In the Psychology Today article, Ellard quoted neuroscientist Fred Pevic, whose research has shown that when we look up, especially at distant vistas—at “extrapersonal space”—we are waking up the part of our brain that is “strongly activated during religious experiences, meditative activity, dreaming, and probably any kind of artistic or creative activity that encourages us to reach beyond the bounds of nearby time and space into the infinite and eternal.”

My daughter Claire and her partner Xander know that. They have spent much of the past nine summers in the high country of the Cascade Mountains, maintaining and building trails for the United States Forest Service. It is hard physical labor. It is also the best medicine ever, Claire will tell you, for your mood or mind or spirit.

Taking a break during logout on the Buck Creek trail. Photo by Xander Demetrios.

But this week, Claire and Xander and nearly every one of their USFS colleagues got those now-infamous termination emails: “The agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the agency would be in the public interest.”

What petty, cruel Trump-speak. And of course, coming from Trump, it’s also not true.

These are the sucker punches that make me want to curl up in the dark. To not look up at anything.

view from my window: January 2025

But I am lucky. I can’t not look up. Every morning, I drink my coffee next to a big window with a wide-open view of the sunrise over the rooftops of our neighborhood and the Cascade foothills. Sometimes, I can see Mt. Rainier. This time of year, the mountain is often blanketed in clouds and rain, which will be interrupted by maybe five minutes of that stunning pre-sunrise periwinkle blue, and accessorized—though not every day—by a fleeting sash of pink. Which of course is easy to miss if you’re looking down.

Do my early morning Looking Up sessions help me get through the day? Absolutely. Will they help me survive the next four years? I believe so. Will Claire and Xander land on their feet? Without a doubt.

Clearing old-growth downfall with traditional tools in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Photo by Xander Demetrios.

Will our beloved trails and mountains and forests suffer during the Trump years? Also without a doubt. As will so many places and people. USAID.gov is now a blank page, by the way.

Packing in supplies for the 2024 Shoofly fire in the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness. Photo by Xander Demetrios.

So do what you can. And look up when your can.

Your heart and soul, and your neck and shoulders, will thank you.

Claire and Xander on the Icicle Ridge Trail