A moment of gratitude

Yesterday, during a rousing game of take-away at the gym, I found myself perfectly balanced in a hands-free half split and a wonderful gratitude struck me.

I should back up; for the uninitiated, take-away is a bouldering game where someone invents a route and each person to follow has to complete the same route but with one less hold. The resulting routes increase in both difficulty and hilarity. I’ve seen many variations on the game, but that’s the gist.

So I’m balanced in a split and I’m trying to eliminate the hold necessary for the next move. Doing so involves a hands-free hop, which is strange and probably would never be necessary outside of the game. By some miracle of breath-holding and competitive determination, it goes. Falling back on the mat, laughing with a combination of success and absurdity, it crosses my mind that I’m grateful for my exact weight and exact strength. Grateful for the unconscious communication between my toes and my eyes and for my body, precisely the way it is today.

Cheers!

In the Pursuit of Joy

Three cheers for this blog that sits here patiently while I routinely neglect it.

Life has returned to a cadence since we came back to California after the wedding. I work with young men now, all of whom are interesting and clever and so very strong. At least once every shift, I find myself belly-laughing. I’m a little bit closer to being outside all the time since my shifts are filled with pick-up games of basketball, running through our field (Big Green), and the occasional walkabout (in which I or another staff follow someone who has become so dysregulated that they can’t handle being inside and they run outside).

My adventures have been small recently. I struggle with acknowledging their value when I have had such exceptionally grand experiences. Reality: I moved to a not-so-grand place. Reality: I physically can’t drive two hours every day in order to get after some awesome objective. Reality: I don’t like doing 90% of my adventures solo. THIS IS ALL OKAY. I climb every week in the gym. People around here climb, so that’s what I started doing. I’m climbing 5.10 indoors! I walk the dog a few miles around the river every day. I see birds and hear the creek and smell the forest perfume. My ashtanga yoga practice is a very wonderful part of my life. Things are good!

Today I finished physical therapy for my damaged rhomboid/separated ribs/bruised scapula, which has been quite the recovery. Background: a San Francisco apartment stairwell attacked me this past October. My climbing has gotten better alongside the physical therapy and I’m excited to ramp up my hiking and skiing now that I’m cleared. I even did an avalanche clinic which was AMAZING. If you are considering taking one, definitely do.

Looking back on this year, I haven’t pursued anything big–no big hikes, extended backpacking trips, summits, or goals. I think it’s sort of been a recovery year. Recovering from a bachelor’s degree is definitely a thing. I think recovering from the expectations I heaped upon myself also became a big deal as the year wore on. I’m ready for some big stuff. I’m stronger than I’ve been in a long time and I feel really fired up.

The biggest challenge for 2019 will be not comparing myself to anyone else. Someone else climbed a mountain? So what. Someone else is leading 5.11s? Cool. Someone else is working in this amazing location? Big deal. Comparison is the thief of joy and I’m not about to let anything steal my happiness.

That being said, I need to stop prioritizing other things over my happiness. This is easier said than done. I realized far more recently than I care to admit that I am ALLOWED to put my joy first. I can be direct about what I need. The most obvious example of this is the conversation Matthew and I had recently where I explicitly said, “I need to move out of California.” I didn’t waffle over his career or talk about being willing to stick it out, as I’ve been doing. I asked for exactly what I needed. And Matthew, being Matthew, listened to me.

In conclusion, it’s been a beautiful year full of that quiet subtle beauty that I’m learning to recognize. And I’m moving forward in the pursuit of joy.

Enchanting October

Since the end of July, I’ve worked overtime every week with a group of young women who have been passed through the system and slipped through the cracks. It has been really really hard. After the third straight week of dealing with verbal insults, threats of physical harm, and constant tests of will, I was pretty much done. I have one of those personalities that attracts defiance, I guess. Before my last week of work prior to a two weeks’ vacation (more on that next), the suggestion was made that I switch over to working with the boys program. Without having to think, I said yes. I’m hoping that this is a better fit.

It turns out, my new schedule gives me four days off and I’m hoping for a lot of powder chasing, summit attempts, and dog-Thew-snugs.

Two weeks ago, Matthew and I drove out to Colorado in one 16-hour, 1013-mile-push. Normally, we camp in Utah but we were too excited. Friends and family slowly trickled in from all across the country, throughout the week. On Thursday night, I sat on my dad’s balcony in a circle of my closest friends from kindergarten onwards. Matthew and I made eye contact mid-laugh and I was absolutely struck with an indescribable happiness. The next day, we got married. It was perfect and wonderful and I will be reliving the day forever.

We married ourselves in a valley with pines like a cathedral over our heads, surrounded by our loved ones. Beside us, a finger of the Eagle River burbled and behind us, Sheep Mountain sparkled. As we finished the vows we wrote together, a few snowflakes made their way to the ground, despite the late afternoon sunshine. I left my hair wild and we got our shoes dirty. A friend played guitar and sang “This Must Be the Place.” A lot of us cried. Magic.

After the wedding, Thew and I spent a week driving around the Rockies, hiking, drinking, and playing card games. I savored the snow, freezing rain, frosty mornings, and piercing blue sky. We loved on the Wasatches, Wind River range, Tetons, the Sawtooth (Sawteeth?), and the nameless mountains scattered across Nevada. Further North, this time of year, the sun never reaches the middle of the sky. Instead, it traces chord across the top third. It is absolutely enchanting. Being married is also enchanting.

Coming back to the perpetual summer of California from cold fall weather is hard and probably related to seasonal affective disorder. As always, it’s one day at a time with me, except now I’m doing it with the best husband.

I’ll leave you with some wise words from Friend Aidan—
“You carry the gentle spirit of autumn with you, and it won’t be long until your mountains welcome you home again.”

We moved to California

The blog has been dormant for the last couple months as I’ve been making a lot of huge adjustments in my life.

Matthew and I moved to California so he could pursue a job in product development for a company that makes flash memory. We now live in a little two bedroom apartment (which we have all to ourselves!) in between the western foothills of the Sierras and the Central Valley. Heck is it hot.

To get outside, I either need to go out before 8am or wait until after the sun has set. The temperature soars into the triple digits pretty reliably by 10 and the radiant heat from the ground creates a sort of hot wind I’d never experienced before. Three-ish hours to the west (depending on how many other people also want a reprieve from the Central Valley toaster), the Pacific Ocean is cool and misty. The beaches are long and framed by impressive cliffs, the result of erosion and tectonic plates and a lot of geology I should probably educate myself on. Two hours east is the beginning of a lot of interesting Sierra goodness. It still gets hot up in the granite playground and the traffic sure sucks but nothing beats glaciated lakes, soaring thunderheads, and the orange glow of a sunset against a few choice summits.

In all seriousness, California is a gorgeous, gigantic place. Unfortunately, it is also very crowded and very expensive. Permitting for the backcountry, even day trips, is often hard-to-impossible to get with less than three months’ notice. This puts me in a somewhat strange position in terms of my identity. I’ve always seen myself as something more than a weekend warrior–a weekday trail runner, a Tuesday morning summit-reacher, a whatever you want to call it. Living in Boulder afforded me the really incredible gift of midday hikes and bike rides in between classes, and early morning runs in the shadow of the flatirons. Sometimes after class or work, Matthew and I would pack up snacks and head up the canyon behind our apartment for some R&R.

So where am I now? The luxury of spontaneous hiking plans all but disappeared when we moved to California. As it turns out, a lot of my self-perceived identity revolved around the person I am when I am outside. Moving to California entirely because Matthew got a job there suddenly stripped me of my identity outside of “Matthew’s Fiancee”. I love Matthew and I am committed to our life together–moving to California was the right choice for our family and our relationship. This leaves me feeling kind of confused.

I should say I almost have a job. I’m waiting on a few more phone calls and then I will dive (with joy) into explaining my next career move, but I’m holding off until it’s official. If anyone has any advice on meeting people our age (of which there aren’t many), or any thoughts on how identity changes as our lives change, I am all ears.

Also keep your eyes peeled for some updates on hikes, weekend trips, and new recipes.

In gratitude, in uncertainty

I graduate from college tomorrow with a degreeinneurosciencespanishandprenursing at 1pm. The last word I wrote for my undergraduate exams was “kühlschrank”, which means “refridgerator” in german. I am entirely uncertain on how to process the last three and a half years of earning a degree I won’t use. At least its finally snowing outside.

Matthew proposed last Sunday and I said yes. I see the next sixty years of my life–our life–stretching out before me like the best promise in the world. This next milestone in our adventure seems arbitrary, like picking one tree out of the forest and saying, “this tree, this is *the* tree”. Our life together is not a series of stepping stones, increasing in magnitude–our life together is a quilt. Thew adds some, I add some. We started creating the foundation I built my dreams on before I even realized what we were doing. Matthew probably knew what he was doing, he’s very intuitive like that. “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible”.

Aidan, on the other hand, is moving out on Friday and there is nothing in the world to make you feel things like your College Roommate™ trying to figure out which spoons are theirs. I feel this gratitude beyond words for someone sharing all of these pivotal moments in my life with no fanfare. For picking me up when I needed a ride home, for sharing hikes and tents, for our errand days, for the rule we never vocalized about sharing meals as often as possible, and for accepting me without pretense or obligation.

I keep trying to scare off this lump in my throat with laughter.

This evening, I worked my last shift at the climbing gym that employed me for the last year (and been my place to blow off steam for the last three). It seems fitting that my last experience as a student should be a closing shift at the job that gave me permission (?) to pursue what excited me. As I turned off the lights, “Send Me on My Way” played and it felt right. Onward.

So I guess I took three and a half years’ worth of credits (122, to be exact) and most of what my learning happened entirely outside of a classroom. I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for my parents, my friends, Matthew, and for this place.

I’m ready for some chilly desert living. Send me on my way.

RnR

Let’s talk about RnR. I just took a recovery weekend because I’ve spent the last eleven weekends backpacking. I love getting after it outside more than anything, but the reality is I can’t do anything outside if I don’t take care of myself inside.

I spent some quality time with the cylinder of pain (read: foam roller), did a lot of yin yoga, and I got a pair of 800-fill down booties since winter is coming and my feet are always cold.

Finally, there was time to clean the house, sort through gear, and listen to my favorite Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young record (So Far, in case you’re wondering). I burned my favorite piñon incense, and hung some artwork that has been laying around.

(To be fair, I probably could have been more peaceful but there was a 4-mile hike to be had, I had to buy dress clothes for job interviews, and little errands I had to run. I’m not good at recovery days, but I’m really trying to get better.)