writing – Jaime Alexis Stathis

AND THIS IS HOW IT IS

Last night I posted a picture to Instagram and Facebook with the hashtag #welovenighthikes. It’s true—we do love night hikes—but the hashtag could easily have been #welovewhatevergetsusthroughit.

Wondering what’s fair play in social media is a valid question and a worthwhile conversation. We criticize those with piles of unfolded laundry as the backdrop as much as those with nary an item out of place. We criticize those who whine about how hard life is on them as much as those who gloat about being #blessed and #grateful. Sometimes we are those people and sometimes we hate those people.

I have a diverse group of friends and posts in my feed run the gamut from “Look at us going from skiing to surfing in one day!” to “Can someone bring me a bottle of wine and a sandwich?”

Finding the balance on social media is a slippery slope. I’m not sure I understand why we care, but I know that we do. I’d estimate that over 50% of my Facebook feed is news and information, which I love because I mostly get what I signed up for, but it’s overwhelming and I don’t have time to actually read it all. I read very few articles in full, and the rest I skim for the gist before saving the link for the ubiquitous “later” and, well, you probably know the rest of that story.

Like many of us, I show up mostly for the pictures both to post and to peruse.

After I posted the night-hike picture I wondered if it was fair as a stand-alone photo. It was and it wasn’t. A photo is not a film, and a single shot is not a documentary; that’s the thing about any kind of expressive art: it allows for interpretation. And while deriving personal meaning is the beauty in art, it can also be the downside. We’re all free agents here.

Some people (maybe the ones asking for wine and sandwich delivery) look at social media photos (maybe of the people in the members-only lounge at the airport en route to or from a beach or a mountaintop) and they only see the smiles and the wide-open eyes and not the delays or the diarrhea or the fits.

And this is how it is.

I have to say that last night’s hike was crucial to my mental health. I’d had a headache all day. I’d gone to the gym, ran a few errands, walked Lucky in the park, and gutted the crap out of my closet. Nothing had helped the headache, and the headache got in the way of my writing, and then I was just grouchy because I wasn’t using the day the way I’d wanted to. I’d failed to meet my expectation of myself and it was nearly crippling.

I’d also slipped on the ice as I was getting into my car outside the post office and saved myself from hitting the ground (thanks, Pilates) in a way that has my deep abdominal muscles feeling shredded today. Because I’m no stranger to adding insult to injury, I came home and spent some time pulling half-frozen dog poo out of the melting snow. I cleaned out the fridge and the pantry and the linen closet. I cursed myself for saving this or that. I wanted to go for a hike in the sun, but there wasn’t any. It was starting to get dark and I knew there was one last-ditch option for saving the day. I needed that hike.

The truthier, extended version is that I shed some tears on that hill last night. I ran into a guy with his dog, a dog who attacked Lucky and sent him rolling backwards on his bony, old-man spine a couple of months ago. I confronted him about the attack, and although I’m a proponent of dogs running the hills unleashed, when he described his dog as a rescue who is “unpredictable” it boiled my blood. He told me he was sorry, and I’d say the exchange was overall positive, but my takeaway from the encounter was a reminder of was how damn fragile life is and, well, unpredictable.

With that man and his dog heading back down to town, Lucky and I had the whole mountain to ourselves. I kept him on his leash because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him in the dark and I blasted some of my favorite songs and sang my heart out for no one to hear. I ran, I cried, I lost my breath, and I dropped to my knees. And I felt a lot better. Toward the end I let Lucky off his leash, confident he’d stay with me in the bluish light of dusk, and I took a picture of him because sometimes it’s hard to see where we are when we’re in the thick of it. I needed to shift my perspective.

I saw where the city lights roll right up to the mountain and the companion I’ve had for a long time. I saw a truth that I always end up seeing, that life can be both heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time.

I returned to the cleaning when I got home. I skipped dusting and vacuuming in favor of culling toiletries and tea. I cleaned out as if moving, which I appreciate both in theory and in practice. In my last blog post I wrote about how content I am to be here—and that’s the absolute truth—but then there are those days where I want to be anywhere but here.

Here is relative. During the years I was near constant motion I felt an exhausting weight whenever anyone asked “where do you live?” If my car was near I could point, because it was obvious with a glance that there was a lot of living going on in there, but sometimes I had no props and was reduced to using my words. Sometimes I’d give a long-winded response of explanation and excuse, but then I discovered a better answer. “Right here,” I’d say, pointing to myself, “I live here in this body.”

Because “wherever you go there you are” is true whether running away, moving toward, or sitting still.

My heart has this edgy feeling right now as if poised to spring into action. I might not have one foot out the door, but I’m light on my toes like a boxer or tennis player. I’ve moved so much and gotten rid of entire households several times over, and although I’ve felt tinges of regret over handing over some items I can say without hesitation that I haven’t actually missed any of them.

I hadn’t felt compelled to read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, but I visited a friend last weekend and found myself thumbing through the book. I knew the theory, but hadn’t put it into practice until yesterday when I asked myself over and over if various items “sparked joy.” If it wasn’t a quick yes then it was a no and into the giveaway bag it went. It’s a process, though, and there are a few items remaining on my hit list because I have to do some deep digging to figure out if I still need them in my space and if they spark joy or, it’s opposite: regret.

I never got around to the vacuuming or dusting, but my house felt “clean” in a deeper way than if I’d wiped surfaces and stuffed unfinished projects into drawers and closets. By the time I went to bed my headache was gone and I got the sleep of all sleeps. I could’ve gotten up earlier than I did for writing, but made an adult decision not to beat myself up over that one. Luckily there’s also a book called The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck so in the spirit of balance and riding that slippery slope like a wave…

“Sing your song. Dance your dance. Tell your tale.”

Last week a video went around of Ash Beckham’s TEDx talk about how she responds to kids who want to know if she’s a boy or if she’s a girl. She explains that it’s confusing because her hair is short and she wears boys’ clothes, but that she is, in fact, a girl. She breaks it down: “You know how sometimes you like to wear a pink dress and sometimes you like to wear your comfy jammies? I’m more of a comfy jammies kind of girl….”

If you missed that video, here it is: Coming Out of Your Closet.

Ash’s talk wasn’t about gender, pink dresses, or jammies. It wasn’t even about homophobia or about coming out of “the” closet. It’s about the fact that we all have closets, but “We are bigger than our closets and a closet is no place for a person to truly live.”

She says that a closet is really just a hard conversation, and that we can’t compare our “hard” with anyone else’s. “Hard is not relative. Hard is hard.” In my case right now, hard is taking care of my grandmother who suffers from both hoarding and dementia, and for some people hard is the fact that I’m talking about it.

My honesty’s been met with minimal resistance, though I know that vulnerability and honesty make some people uncomfortable. But I also know this: other people’s discomfort has nothing to do with me. I’ve done a lot of work learning how to accept and own my truth, and though it was hard I’m coasting down the other side of a life spent minimizing my truth for the sake of other people’s happiness, which is basically an Acela train to frustration and unhappiness. That way of living does nothing to foster authentic connection between people.

Over the years I’ve also learned a few things about truth in writing, with my favorite being that “The more intimate and personal the detail, the more universal the story becomes.” {That’s me quoting myself. I wrote that when I was just starting to become a braver writer, and the blog post it came from is here: WE TELL OURSELVES STORIES.

Laura Munson (a writing mentor and role model of mine) is a courageous writer who wrote a book about her marriage falling apart and her reaction to it. Before she had a book she published an essay in the New York Times’ Modern Love column, and you can read that here: “Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear.”

Laura told me (as she will anyone who asks her) that a person can write about anything if she writes with compassion. It’s true. I wrote with compassion about my experiences taking care of and cleaning up after my grandmother, and I was rewarded with an overwhelmingly positive response. People wrote to me and said, “Me too.” They wrote and asked, “Why didn’t you ask for help?” “When can I come?” and “How can I help?” I didn’t have any good answers except that asking for help is scary, it makes us vulnerable, and we worry about meeting resistance.

Friends wrote and called to make sure I’m okay, to offer respite, and to commend me for both my willingness to do this hard work and my grit in talking about it. Some readers forwarded my post to friends and family who work with the elderly as nurses and therapists, and then those people reached out and offered their support. Some of these people were strangers until suddenly they weren’t, and I wept with gratitude for those hands and hearts extended in my direction. It was intense, but it felt good to allow people in to my world. I was validated and shored up by people who might not even know me if they passed me on the street.

Other folks were less thrilled. Some asked my mother if she’s mad at me for flinging open our closet doors, but she wasn’t. My mother is the person most worried about the contents of my memoir-in-progress, yet when she’s been questioned about my two recent blog posts she did something incredible: she defended me. My mother acknowledged that she’d be the first person to call me out if I’d written anything that wasn’t true, but that I’d written only the truth and that she was proud. If you know my mother you know that she adores me but doesn’t let me get away with much.

There’s a built in liability befriending a writer (in particular a nonfiction writer), but for some people there’s an overlap that is not a choice, and that’s with family. A family member called my mother to express his anger over my sharing of our family’s stories. He couldn’t believe that my mother wasn’t mad and was even more dumbfounded that she wasn’t trying to stop me. Some of the stories I told are old ones but I told them not as a rant, but as reference points to my present situation. My present situation caring for my grandmother and the ensuing story does not happen to be this angry person’s story. As far as I can see his hand has not stretched out in my direction.

I listened patiently as my mother recounted the hard conversation she had where I was pummeled for telling the truth, a truth that is also hers. She’s glad I’m telling the story because she knows how lonely it can be inside a closet, but for my mother there was an additional element to the hard conversation and her hackles went up: someone was attacking her baby.

I’ve hit the pause button on my life to help my family of three, and although I wouldn’t have it any other way it’s not without sacrifice. Unfortunately the angry family member failed to recognize either my benevolence or my hard work. He made my grandmother’s story about him and criticized my content for one reason: my truth made him uncomfortable.

My mother brought up as an analogy Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, a Pulitzer Prize winning tragicomic memoir (um…thanks, mom….) that is basically required reading for Irish-American New Yorkers. Of course he’d read it, but didn’t see the connection, and said to my mother, “That’s different; that book is about his family.” My mother said, “Yes. And?….”

He responded, “The difference is that Jaime is writing about my family.”

Oh. My. God.

“It’s her family too,” my mother said, because after that what else is there?

In Angela’s Ashes McCourt wrote, “Sing your song. Dance your dance. Tell your tale.” Certainly there were plenty of people who opposed his truth telling, but it didn’t stop the book from being crazy successful and widely received by those who also believe that closets are no place to live. McCourt had fairly late in life success, but taught writing and gave his students the best advice: that they are their own best material.

Our stories do not exist alone, and they intersect with the stories of the people whose lives coexist with ours either as a result of biology or through choice. In my recent “brave post” I mention my mother minimally (it’s really a story about my grandmother) and the only thing that could be considered a slight toward my mother is when I mention that I summon the courage she lacks. But what I said is true and she knows it. Any shame she might have for not being strong enough to do this on her own pales in comparison to her gratitude for my strength to put into motion a plan where there previously existed only a downward spiral. My mother has never been in denial about my grandmother’s illnesses, she just wasn’t able to step back and see the way through (and eventually out of) it.

Even if my mother denied my truth, would that make my observations of my experience off limits? (If you say yes you can private message me and so we can talk about it. Or we can talk about it here. Your call.) It’s just like what Ash Beckham says about hard: we can’t compare our hard to someone else’s hard just as we can’t compare our truth to someone else’s. It just depends on which side of the fence you’re on, and I happen to be on the dirty side.

I like the dirty side of the fence just as much as I abhor living in a closet. I know that mental illness can be an uphill battle, and I also know that not talking about mental illness doesn’t make it go away. I’ve done some research in books and in real life (too much, probably), and I’m 100% certain that not talking about it makes it worse. Silence can be deadly. If you don’t believe me ask anyone who’s lost someone to suicide, depression, addiction, or a combination. Ask someone if silence helped when they worried about whether a loved one was going to use or while they waited for someone to show up alive after they’d disappeared. In silence.

After my blog post last week a few people shared an article with me that was published in Slate. The title is “Nobody Brings Dinner When Your Daughter is an Addict.” It’s amazing. Please read it.

Sure it’s hard for people to ask how it’s going with my grandmother, but the brave ones do, and many tell me about their struggles. One friend wrote about her fear of talking about her family’s mental illness and thanked me for my honesty. She said, “I hope someone is bringing you dinner,” which is just as good as someone actually doing it and the perfect antidote to the stones being thrown by people who aren’t offering anything but fear dressed in a thin veil of judgment.

I’m not wavering on my position to tell the truth nor have I even considered backpedaling out of it. Here’s why: for all the people who aren’t hearing what I have to say there’s a hundred who are, and that number has the potential to grow exponentially as one says to another, “Read this; It might help.”

I’m not delusional in thinking the sharing of my story can change the world, but I know that real change happens one person at a time and that I’ve helped more than a few. One said that enabling is a “lonely place to live,” and another told me about her experience with family mental illness and “trying to minimizing the consequences of her behavior and picking up the pieces of her actions.”

What we’re saying to each other is “We’re in this together; I’ve got your back,” and this more than counterbalances the haters. Dr. Brené Brown says, “Don’t try to win over the haters; you are not a jackass whisperer.”

Brené Brown’s been on my hotlist for a couple of years, and in her now famous TED talk on shame she said this:

If we’re going to find our way back to each other, we have to understand and know empathy, because empathy’s the antidote to shame. If you put shame in a Petri dish it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in a Petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive. The two most powerful words when we’re in struggle: me too.

She also said,

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive….“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

If that’s not gorgeous i don’t know what is.

Closet’s are not as safe as people think. Sounds, words and thoughts can creep in there, and those dark places aren’t as hermetically sealed from the light as the closet-dwellers believe them to be. I don’t know what makes people think closets are safe. It could be shame, guilt or some other emotion masquerading as anger.

Denial is the first stage of grief, and it’s followed by anger. We circle through denial, anger, bargaining and depression until we eventually reach the blissful place of acceptance. Sometimes a person gets to acceptance then takes another lap through the list because life isn’t always (or ever) as easy as having a checklist. The path to acceptance isn’t always (or ever) linear.

Truth challenges. It stretches. It pushes limits of comfort and safety. I know that some family members aren’t angry, but are instead sad about what I’ve written about my grandmother. It is sad, but sadness can’t erase reality. You know what helps? Yeah: empathy.

My mother and I are in this together and we’re in deep. The best part—because I’m a silver-lining kind of girl—is that my mother and I are cooperating and working together in a way we never have before. We’re living under one roof and barely fighting because we have something bigger to deal with than the pettier stuff that’s ruled us for too long. The woman who’s been most afraid of my truth is actually embracing it, and that’s a beautiful thing in the midst of a messy situation. But here’s the thing: I wish it wasn’t necessary for my mother to defend me.

There’s a very good chance that the (closet-living) people who need to be reading this aren’t. Maybe they’ve written me off, maybe they don’t care, or maybe my presence hasn’t even reached their closets’ radar. I have no control over that, just as they have no control over what I write. I also have no control over any debriefings my mother might receive over my actions, but if anyone has a problem with me it would behoove them to talk to me about it directly otherwise it just might get my Irish up.

The “angry relative” interrogated my mother, and asked her if I’d interviewed my grandmother and then wrote about what she’d told me in confidence. It was nothing like that. My grandmother and I have conversations like we’ve always had, and like a lot of the best conversations they happen spontaneously. My grandmother’s concept of time and reality is altered now, but occasionally she’s able to really be in the present and I cherish those moments.

Maybe it was sitting in a kitchen where generations of our family’s women have prepped and cooked meals. Maybe the cup of tea steaming in front of her triggered something. Maybe the act of peeling of an orange sparked a memory. It’s impossible to know what triggers my grandmother’s reminiscing at this point, though I know that when she’s ready to talk I’m ready to listen.

We value our time together, and when it’s just the two of us she opens up more than in a group because in a group she tends to space out. It could be because she can’t hear everything or because she can’t keep up with the pace. When it’s just the two of us in a quiet room talking directly to each other our hearts engage with each other’s more specifically.

Our conversations and sharing make her happy, and the other night after our good, honest talk she made up a little song and sang it to me, “I’m so happy I could dance all night.” We danced a little then I helped her into some cozy pajamas, because it’s life’s simple acts that are the most challenging to her these days. I poured her a glass of milk, got her into her recliner with a blanket and turned on the television. My Mimi is definitely a comfy jammies kind of girl.

(The) Potential (of No)

Emily and I decided on “potential” as our topic about two weeks ago, and she streamlined it into “The Potential of No.” I wasn’t sold on the “no” part at first, but have had a lot of time to think about it, and to be honest I’m not sure I’ve come up with much. But here’s what I have: there’s as much potential in no as there is in yes.

It sounds so cliché. So plagiarized. So familiar, right? Didn’t someone come up with this already? Well, I’m sort of guessing not, since a Google search for “the potential of no” came up with a odd sampling of results, none of which speak to what I’ve been thinking, which is this: a no is sometimes a yes.

There’s as much power in saying no to something as there is in saying yes, because, like my last post about the many variations on light and dark, we can’t know one unless we know the other. It’s like knowing what you don’t want is practically as clear (and in some cases more straightforward) than knowing what you do.

I want to believe that the book I’ve been ~~busting a nut over~~ writing has potential, but that sure is vague. Yes, I want it to have the potential to succeed when so many books don’t. I mean, I want people to buy it, read it, and if I’m lucky, think about it. I want it to have the potential to make a difference in someone’s life, though I know that at the heart of the matter it’s made a difference in one life—mine—and that potential alone just may be enough.

(SIDEBAR: On the topic of enough….Dr. Brene Brown says the two most dangerous words we can say are “not enough.” I honestly think that if everyone in the world watched this there would be an epic shift in how we treat ourselves, and therefore others. Here’s THE LINK to a four-minute, life-changing video.

As an adjective, potential is a win-win situation, defined as having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future. I say win-win because everything has the potential “to become or develop into something,” but I’ll add a kicker: it might not be what we wanted or intended and even worse, it might not be when we begged/pleaded/bargained for it. But it will be something. It might even be (gasp!) failure, though failure too has the potential to…..ok, you know the story by now.

Perhaps this is why we often attach adjectives to potential as a noun, as in unlimited potential, undeveloped potential. It’s why the word itself has as many positive connotations as it does negative, because one thing leads to another to another to another to another. I’m not a scientist, but this is all about about inertia, kids.

Too often (by me) the word potential is followed by “for disaster.”

This is not a photo of Lucky looking out at the water that I forgot to crop the chair out of; this is a picture of a chair-colored caterpillar. Now I know, the caterpillar is perhaps the most overused symbol of potential that we have, and I know I preceded the photo by talking about disaster, and what in the world is so disastrous about a caterpillar? Nothing, obviously. I’m not bound for the institution…YET…But I’m sitting here thinking about the intense book editing I have ahead of me the next few days and about potential and there’s a friggin’ caterpillar there to remind me that it too is in the middle.

{Trust me: when you start thinking about potential you can’t stop.}

But the potential for disaster part is really about the fact that the camouflaged caterpillar reminds me that this is about the time of night when the porcupines come out and start acting like they own the place. Given the fact that I have a rascal of a dog, I am, as they saying, flirting with the potential for disaster. I ~~should~~ could go out to the garage and try to locate a pair of pliers just in case, or at least make sure I know where the emergency vet is though even though I already know it’s a good ninety minutes away. I’m alone, and that could be a long drive for the two of us so really I ~~should~~ must do whatever I need to in order to avoid this potential for disaster.

I got used to being alone last winter in New Mexico, and now, with modern conveniences such as telephone and Internet, I’m technically much less alone than I was then. So I’m comfortable leaving room for more allowing, though even then I allowed Luck to gallivant at night even when I knew he was running with the coyotes and there was a damn-good possibility he’d eventually encounter something he couldn’t handle. But he didn’t, so I won. Or I lost for the needless worrying. Hmmm….

Even when I wasn’t alone—when I was with friends in Rhode Island—Lucky gave me a run for my money and once stayed out all night. So now, in Maine, somewhere between those two scenarios, I’m pondering what to allow, because the more I allow the more potential there is for the dog to potentially get quilled.

So I don’t allow him off the deck after dark, but I do allow him to stay on the deck when I go inside for tea or to use the bathroom. So there’s a risk there, but he might confuse my absence with permission. Am I allowing life to develop (which it will anyway regardless of my fight) or am I risking the potential for disaster? Is there a difference?

But here’s the thing on a bigger scale: when we deduct allowing (and not just the risky kind) we diminish the possibility of potential.

And allowing, I think, is where it’s at.

A few days ago I went for a run on a trail that made me feel like I was in the Blair Witch Project. This was not an out-and-back trail, nor was it on an open hillside (like my daily hiking/running trail in Missoula), nor was it along the ocean or following the double yellow line. It was a serpentine mess in there that required keeping a constant eye on trail blazes. In this case the blazes were either white or yellow—two different trails snaking around—and all I really wanted was to not think. I just wanted to move without having to pay attention or keep track of anything. Really what I was doing was earning another lobster roll, but that’s a different story…

In the thick woods you can convince yourself that you’re lost and have completely misplaced the trail you were just standing on because all you see in front of you is an enormous slab of rock. But if you turn your eyes up and scan the trees the blazes are there to guide you. Finding the blazes on the trees gives a person the confidence to keep going; not finding them can be paralyzing. Knowing where to look and keeping calm is key. There’s so much potential for a situation to turn either way, and here’s the sucker punch: it’s ~~kind of~~ ~~more-or-less~~ totally our responsibility.

Huh.

But really, the potential for the upside of potential—the getting found instead of staying lost, the triumph instead of disaster—boils down to this something simple and elementary: pay attention.

I went on a boat trip this morning to Monhegan Island. It was supposed to be a beautiful, ninety-degree day, but at 8:00 am it was cool and foggy. I wore jeans and a long sleeved shirt with a vest, knee socks and sneakers on my feet. I packed a down jacket and knit cap, but also shorts, a t-shirt, and a brimmed hat. I packed sandals and a rain slicker. Yes, all this for an eight-hour excursion.

I used every single thing I brought with me. I was prepared for the potential that the weather forecast was correct, but more than that I was prepared for the potential for change, and if I had to set my heart on believing in one thing in the world it might be in the potential for change.

Now, I’m back at the house generously loaned to me for writing, and I’m sitting on the deck. The temperature is still hovering around eighty though the sun is down, and that caterpillar is still giving me the stink eye. I’m starting, again, to think of the potential for disaster.

I’ve given myself a tremendous gift lately of time, and with that time I’ve been able to allow my life to unfold. I plan some things in advance, but most I leave to chance. This would not work for everyone, but it seems to be working for me though it isn’t without intense, incredible (personal) responsibility.

I’ve given myself the task of not only writing a book, but also of rewriting it, now for the second time. That’s three times for the non-mathematicians out there. That’s a lot. Trust me. It means, in practical terms, that no matter what else I’ve been doing, I’ve also been constantly, incessantly thinking about writing. You should see all the text messages and voice memos I send to myself; it’s b a n a n a s.

But sometimes I say no to writing. I give myself permission to go on a boat ride or to read the great book I can hardly put down. When I go out for my nightly lobster roll I might, instead of bringing a notebook to the picnic table, just simply sit and observe. I allow the potential to strike up a conversation with a stranger or see something I might otherwise have missed

So. As it turns out, we can’t talk about potential if we don’t also talk about permission.

I addition to three seasons worth of outfits, I also packed my iPad in my backpack today for the day-trip to Monhegan Island. I planned to find a nice spot to sit and write. I planned to write this blog post there, instead of tonight. But I never took the iPad out of my bag, and only even considered taking it out one time. I walked, took pictures and talked to people. I learned about a not-to-be-missed country fair that I’m now going to hit next Friday morning before I head south.

Near the end of the day I was walking back toward the ferry dock and I saw this huge cocoon. I have no idea what insect larvae hatches in that beast, but I found the mass impressive:

I wasn’t sure how I felt about this blog post about potential being driven by the metaphor of the caterpillar, and now, the cocoon, impressive in size or not. But in the midst of the writing, I decided to play it safe, and I went to the garage to take a look around for a pair of pliers just in case, and on the way there I saw in the driveway a beautiful, dead butterfly. I wasn’t sure it was dead at first; it looked too perfect.

So I found the pliers, put in a load of wash and came back out. Still there, still dead. So I did what any normal person would do: I brought in inside, put it on a piece of paper, and took a photo of it.

I did not make this up. Honest. I swear I didn’t spend the day looking for the caterpillar, cocoon, and dead butterfly just so I could find some way to talk about potential, but there they were for me to see. For me to pay attention to. It’s a confirmation that, as always, what happens in real life is better than anything we can imagine.

And by the way, locating the pliers was simple, though I doubt I’ll need them. But I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do right now: as impressive as it is, I’m not going to go take pictures of the lightening that’s going on outside. Instead I’m going to do this: I’m going to give myself permission to get in bed and read. The sun will rise tomorrow on a new day filled, as always, with potential.

Here and There. Same or Opposite?

Almost two months ago I posted (as part of The Striped Shirt Review with Emily Walter) ten photos with ten words to describe each one. Some of my photos blasted full, brilliant colors, but a few were black and white with a splash or just a hint of color. Those were my favorites.

Since then I’ve been writing a lot, but also taking copious pictures of all the places I’ve been as I’ve traveled deep down memory lane during my fortieth summer. Some of the stops were intentional and some just happened; as with any journey this one has been juiced with surprises. There’s been some light and dark to each place, to each moment.

I’ve taken photos of amazing sunrises and sunsets with that color that seems too beautiful to be real. That indescribably pinkish-orange enhanced by blue and purple sky, green grass and trees. I love those images—the capture of the moment between night and day—but mostly I’ve been drawn to the frames that capture light and dark together, not just the instant before and after.

It’s the contrast I adore. I love the juxtaposition and how one begs and threatens the other: consider me.

I like thinking about reference points and natural duality. For example, you can’t know hot if you don’t know cold and you can’t really hate something unless you’ve also once loved it.

The light and the dark need each other, but sometimes I need something concrete to assist my absorption of the abstract. For me, my light and dark images confirm what I already know and feel: there’s black and white to everything, there’s sun and there’s shadow, there are two sides to every story. There’s yin and there’s yang.

Shadow doesn’t exist without light; life doesn’t exist without death. Treetops grow toward the light, while roots exist in the dark. When a tree reaches its highest point of growth—its full potential—it falls. Its death becomes life.

Let me not mince words: it’s pretty fucking amazing.

Every single one of us has light and dark within us. For some the darkness is deeper, the light more outward, but it’s there. It’s always there to be discovered.

A friend of mine died the other night in a sunny part of the country almost to the minute that a baby was born to other friends in a place full of light, but where darkness is slowly creeping in. As I received the news I felt simultaneous grief and joy as both tragedy and hope filled the small space of my heart. At the same time, which is about enough to make a head spin and a heart lurch.

Almost two years ago I eulogized my grandfather and ended with a quote from Eckhart Tolle. “Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth.”

There are some things that don’t have exact opposites. Like home, which I’m currently without. The thesaurus tells me the opposite of home is foreign, but I’m not convinced. As I’ve traveled it’s been interesting to see what places just feel right and which do not. You see, I’m currently in the market for a new home, but I’m not so much interested in rushing things so I just kind of go here and there visiting friends and family as I finish writing a book that is giving as much a sense of home as the most comfortable bed and well-stocked kitchen. As much as familiar photos on the walls, a constant view out a window, a toothbrush that isn’t in perpetual motion.

One thing that I know is that even when I’m in a place that feels calming and comfortable and “good,” it doesn’t mean it’s the right place for me to stay. Or maybe it does, and I’ll eventually circle back.

One place that recently impressed me was Provincetown, Massachusetts all the way out on the end of Cape Cod. I don’t at all want to live there, but I’d like to visit for the rest of my life and here’s why: the place is full of joy. It brims with acceptance and love.

Provincetown is known as an LGBT summer destination, so a lot of the riff-raff is kept out. Provincetown is remote, so most people aren’t going to make the trip out there just to hate on a population they don’t approve of. The result is incredible. It feels safe. It feels happy. It feels like the kind of place where you just want to walk the streets until your paws wear out, which is what Lucky and I did.

What follows are twenty-four photos of light and dark. Most of them were taken in P-Town, but a few were taken in other parts of Cape Cod and in Maine. There are twenty-four photos because twenty-four is a multiple of six, and I’m currently obsessed with six. Each photo gets a six-word caption.

What’s with six? Well, five years ago I heard about the six-word memoir project, and I played a game where I asked everyone I ran into what his/her six word memoir would be. It was a fun project, but at the time just for sport. Since then my love affair with six-word memoirs has grown and became a structural device for the many-word memoir I’ve been writing. My title has six words, every chapter title is six words, and six-word memoirs are scattered about.

So. Twenty-four light and dark photos with a six-word memoir for each.

A closed shop; one man working.

The Pilgrim Monument. Tall, proud, bright.

Ambience is everything. Shine a light.

Art above and below street level.

Books beg me to buy them.

Lit windows, doors, steps an arch.

The light and dark are neighbors.

Lobster. Every day. Every single day.

The ocean at Truro was angry.

There’s always room for one more.

It looks closed yet still open.

Date night is a beautiful thing.

A dead tree full of shells.

The dock in Portland. J’s Oysters.

Parts of Maine offer one kind.

I wanted these. Forgot to buy.

They sold antiques but now BBQ.

We pierced ears here in 1989.

Where I sit today thinking, writing.

Fishing boats, sailing boats, lobster pots.

Light and dark in a harbor.

The brightest Light that I know.

Where the water changes direction. Love.

Hands down. My favorite photo ever.

Learning is Winning

Yesterday was a good reminder. I was reminded of patience, joy, trust, fun, and the thrill of learning something new. I went to my first SUP (standup paddle board) Yoga class. I’ve been on a paddle board a couple of times—on a pond—but despite a dozen years in a state with some of the best rivers and lakes, I never learned much about wielding a paddle. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed many long river days, but was content in my role of handing out snacks and beers.

There was another first-timer at the class, and while she focused intently I mostly spaced out during the demonstration. She did some on-land paddle practice, and positioned her feet properly on the board while I gazed at the horizon and spied pelicans. The fact of the matter is, I acted like I knew more than I did and exhibited something akin to false confidence. I’m more than aware of my tendency to do this in various arenas, and I could say that historically that behavior hasn’t served me well, but the truth is I’ve found greater success (I think…) in acting “as if” then wondering “what if.”

But that’s a different story….

The Gulf of Mexico isn’t known for its waves. As far as Florida is concerned, the surfing is on the Atlantic side, but there is surfing here too—mostly during hurricane season and cold fronts—but occasionally the wind is just right and we get a little swell. Yesterday was one of those days. Ok, swell might be an exaggeration, but we had some rollers.

The three seasoned SUP yogis had been cruising around on their boards for a while, and when it was time to go I pushed my board into the water, hopped up on my knees and started to paddle. The instructor’s voice came behind me, “You’re a natural!” Then I laughed, tried to stand up, and fell. The other newcomer, who I later learned is a yoga professional, took her time getting started. I don’t know what she was thinking, but I guess it had something to do with wanting to feel confident on her board so she’d be better able to practice the poses she knows so well. Me: I just wanted to get the party started.

Jill Wheeler is the wife of a high school friend of mine and the leader of the class as well as many others she offers through Wellfit Institute. She offers wellness coaching, therapy, adventure travel and workshops. She’s definitely a badass with a wide smile and infectious exuberance. You get the immediate sense that some of that will wear off just by being near her, and after ninety minutes playing in the water with her I can confirm that it’s true.

She wrote a blog post recently about her last month which included running the Boston Marathon and witnessing from close range the events there, then she went straight to leading a group of women on a Kite.Yoga.Love Adventure Camp in Costa Rica. After that she was home briefly then off again to yoga teacher training in Mexico. {And I thought my last month was exhausting. Perspective is an interesting thing. But here’s the real thing: it’s useless to compare ourselves to other people. Absolutely useless. The other new student and I took different approaches to the same thing, but in the end I think we had equally fun and satisfying experiences.}

Jill wrote:

Getting to Costa Rica was both a blessing and a curse. Good to be away from the trauma and drama, but hard to be away from my daughters. It was the first time I didn’t feel ready to shine as a leader…but I put on my big girl panties and planned not to miss a beat. I am really good about digging deep and pulling it all off, often at my own cost….I realized…how inspiring am I going to be if I am not leading by example and getting into that salty bay to ride, splash and play? How can I hold back and expect others to face their discomfort?”

Many of us connect to ourselves through nature, and Jill and I both fall into that camp. We don’t necessarily do it in the same ways—she’s more of an athlete, while I’m more of a feel my toes in the sand and the water on my skin and the wind in my face kind of girl—but sometimes there’s sameness in the difference and we both know one thing to be true: nature and movement are what help us keep it together when things seem to be falling apart. Or, in a more perfect world, what we use to prevent the seams from coming undone.

I have never in my life been as challenged as I have been writing this book, that has a new working title recycled from a previous (unfinished) book: NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR. I joke that I’m the toughest boss I’ve ever had, and I’m not even close to kidding. I’m relentless, ruthless, critical and sometimes downright mean. I have everything I need to be successful, yet I still sometimes manage to get in my own way. If I had a choice I probably wouldn’t work for me.

I have a solid 96,000-word draft of a book, and a perceptive editor who gave me some terrific advice and a decent road map that I can use to guide me in my rewriting. He seems to understand me and suggested I do a quick rewrite. He didn’t say it in these words, but the implication was there: Don’t agonize. You’ve got this.

Sometimes I sit in front of the computer twirling my hair, and I wonder why my mind spins in a million directions as if I have nothing to work with, as if I’m starting from scratch. I worry if I have too much material and what I can do to skim some off the sides and create a more manageable manuscript. I worry that I’ll never get this done. I worry about what happens if I fail. I worry if I suffer from a Jonah Complex, or a fear of success.

The psychologist Abraham Maslow said of the complex,

“So often we run away from the responsibilities dictated (or rather suggested) by nature, by fate, even sometimes by accident, just as Jonah tried—in vain—to run away from his fate”.

I came to Naples for cutting, revising and adding a few additions to the book. I didn’t expect to like the place, but have been pleasantly surprised by the nature here—the proximity to The Everglades, the Gulf, the abundant wildlife—yet I struggle with some fundamental things about the place. If I’m being real here, and that’s the point, my struggle most likely has more to do with the rising tide within me than with geography, but it also has something to do with being able to connect to a place, and this place is so, so different from the Rocky Mountains I’ve called home for most of the past dozen years. So we change perspective a bit: big whoop, right?

Yesterday it was clearly time to dunk myself into the water. It was time to learn something new and to connect with the nature that’s here. It was time to feel like a ten year old. The summer between my junior and senior years of college I moved across the country alone to work on my thesis project. I chose Hood River, Oregon (for a magazine internship) and learned to windsurf while I was there because it was available and because I tend toward a “When in Rome” attitude.

Learning to windsurf in a world-class location known for its cranking wind has built in challenges, so most people learn to windsurf in places like Aruba where the water is warm and where you can beach start. You need a wetsuit in the Columbia River, have to watch out for barges, and the only option is to water start in deep water. The result is that you get tossed around a lot and do a tremendous amount of face planting. But one thing is true: there’s a much greater success rate (with anything) if you focus only on what you’re doing, and keep your mind off how you look or if you’re doing something wrong or what’s for dinner. The bonus of a wetsuit: you don’t have to worry about wedgies. {There is always a silver lining.}

I found immense joy in that “mind vacation” as a twenty-one-year-old, and I hoped that I could tap into it again as a thirty-nine-year-old. So finally, yesterday, I took Jill up on the offer to join her SUP Yoga class. And here’s the good news: it worked.

It absolutely exhausted my body, which I’d taken to the gym the night before and given a run for its money. I didn’t realize how fatigued and muscle-torn my quads and shoulders were until I was on the board paddling, but after a few strokes I forgot. I also forgot about the stress of writing and focused on the simple act of moving through water and balancing on the board.

I’m a decent yogi because I have natural flexibility, but I was not given the gift of balance. Strength yes, balance no, but the only option is to work with what we’ve got. Yoga on a moving object was not going to come easy to me—I knew this—but every time I fell off the board I smiled inside and out because I knew it was a direct result of will and effort. And sometimes, despite those things, we fall. Hoisting myself back on the board time and again I was glad to have the strength and will to do it. I didn’t get hurt, though I did bump and bruise a knee one time. The reason: I tried to stop myself from falling when I should have just let it happen. Lesson learned: submit a little.

I’d cried on the way to SUP Yoga and on the way out, but I didn’t cry during. I’m going to quote Jill again, “Nature has a way of just being without attachment to outcome, without apology for being real. Nature levels the playing field–for everyone.” I’ll add that nature and learning something new in the constantly changing environment of moving water levels our internal playing fields. Taking this lesson off the board is the next challenge, but if we can then we’re definitely winning.

I didn’t go back to SUP or yoga or even the gym today, but after writing this morning I did go back to the beach with a friend to read, rest and reconnect. It’s good for my writing and I’m getting to the point where it’s not necessary to apologize for doing what I know will work, when sitting in front of the computer and twirling my hair for too long clearly doesn’t. Learning is winning.

Jill took a picture of me trying to get up into Urdhva Dhanurasana (AKA wheel or backbend) on the board, and then another one of me after Shavasana (AKA corpse pose), the only yoga pose I never forget the name of. It’s the one where you lie back, let it all go, and experience gratitude.

Shame is a real crippler, and embracing it does nothing but breed more of the same. On my journey of trying to feel less of it I choose disclosure as the antidote, so here’s a picture of me either on my way into or out of wheel (does it matter?) and another, sitting happy, Buddha belly and all, at the end of the session, fresh out of Shavasana.

Namaste.

White Girl Problems

The other day I was riding down a ¾ mile boardwalk in a stretch golf cart, sitting next to my friend, Ned, with his girlfriend Kim a seat away. We chatted as the cart whisked us through the mangroves to a long-waited Missoula reunion beach day at the Waldorf Astoria’s beach.

(NOTE: We all miss Missoula. Everyone who ever lived in Missoula and moved away misses that special valley city. We can hardly talk about it sometimes, though we do. When I walked into Ned and Kim’s apartment they were streaming Tracy Lopez on the Trail 103.3. It’s almost enough to snake the wind out of our sails, but with the promise of a $5 Veuve Clicquot happy hour we kept the canvas taut.)

“I’m so happy to be hanging out with you guys today,” I said, “Mostly because I want to see you, and partly because I don’t have to think so much.” I didn’t want to think about writing or where I’m going to live or if I’ll be a gypsy forever. I also didn’t want to think about which beach to go to, where to park, or where to potentially have happy hour, though I never do that because I’m mostly alone which I added to the list of things I was glad not to think about.

Then I laughed, “I really have some white girl problems, don’t I?” Ned suggested a sitcom based around my WGP, and it didn’t sound like a bad idea. I have a good life. It hasn’t always been easy, but a lot of the complications, difficulties, and quandaries I’ve encountered have been of my own creation, which have been mostly fueled by a fear of boredom.

Fear of boredom is a real thing. I Googled it, just a second ago, because I highly doubted it could be a real thing. But it is and it has a name: Thaasophobia. And a definition: fear of boredom, fear of being idle. It’s real, people.

Now, I don’t have a full-blown version of this phobia—I don’t actually have heart palpitations and sweating and shortness of breath—but I don’t exactly sit idle much. I manage my phobia by keeping my brain and/or my body in constant motion. The idea of a movie marathon makes me nervous, and I can barely sit through a television program (unless it’s HBO’s Girls) without doing something else. Folding laundry, filing my nails, anything but just one thing.

There’s just so little room (or excuse) for idleness in our modern lives. While waiting anywhere from twenty seconds to five minutes we do not have to just sit and breathe. We can facebook, text, email, check weather, check stocks, and shop. We can plan, punch items into calendars and plot the next umpteen years of our lives. We forget to just Be. Here. Now.

I have no tattoos, but I’ve thought that if I were going to get one that’s what it would be: Be. Here. Now. (My mother is one of the biggest fans of this blog, and I know she’s among the first to read this, and I will say that so far I’ve abstained from getting that reminder on my person but if I was going to it would be at the top of my neck up around my hairline. We’ll just have to pray (if I got it) that I won’t go through a head shaving stage or get cancer and lose my hair during treatment. But seriously: if I lose my hair to save my life I hope that a tattoo will be the biggest WGP that we have.)

Anyway. Here’s the thing: I’ve never been bored. I attribute this mostly to intrinsic loves of reading and observation. I started reading early and I’ve never stopped. A boyfriend once teased me for traveling always, everywhere, with a book and a booklight. Now I have an iPhone and an iPad and I will never, ever run out of things to read. People watching is one of my favorite past times, and I’ve never been much of a bird watcher but I’m not dead yet.

There’s just no reason to be bored. But there is a damn good reason to stop all this multi-tasking and perhaps find more joy and value in uni-tasking. I’ve never been diagnosed with ADD, but I have a lot of the symptoms and also managed to unconsciously develop some of the coping mechanisms.

I can do a lot and I can also do it fast. When I worked in office environments a million years ago I usually was able to get more work done than was expected in half the time, and that left a lot of time for emailing friends, shopping, and chatting with my favorite co-worker of all-time behind the closed door of our office where we worked as researchers. When the door was closed folks knew we were busy “researching” and/or discussing marriage, the absence of, and places we’d traveled to and still longed to see. We ate apples and did squats and we laughed; we were very busy. Massage was a great career choice for me because there are no shortcuts: an hour massage is an hour massage. Simple. Plain. Coping.

I wrote a 96,000 word book-baby in three months, and now I’m working hard to edit that baby into having some walking legs, and I think there’s a good chance there’s been a bit of a post-partum situation going on so I’m doing something new: I’m being gentle with myself.

Today I announced on Facebook that I was going to reward myself FIRST by going to the beach, and then could write later. Of course I couldn’t just sit on the beach (!!!) listening to the mullet fish bodies slap the water. I couldn’t just watch the egrets and sand crabs. I tried, then I Googled “Do egrets burp” because I swore I heard it and the answer was yes.

What I did do on the beach was read. I read in my chair but was *this close* to a shoulder injury so mostly read tummy down on my towel and have the stinging back to prove it. And the reading made me feel okay about the writing break because, as Stephen King said in his seriously awesome book ON WRITING:

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

Perhaps and I could have or should have gone to the beach sans phone, sans book, with only a towel. Maybe one of these days I’ll give myself a true break. Maybe I’ll go to Thassos, the northernmost Greek Island. It’s in the Aegean Sea, geographically part of Macedonia, and once ruled by the Turks.

The wiki on the island lists the communities that have over one hundred inhabitants, which leads me to believe that there are lots of small towns where a girl like me could enjoy a cup of coffee, a book, and some people watching. The island produces honey, olives, olive oil, wine, and goat/sheep products. {I could live there.}

The beaches sound delightful. Some have lots of pines, some white sand, some turquoise blue swimming holes. There is camping as well as restaurants, bars and nightclubs. There’s quiet and there’s life. There’s honey and wine and goat cheese. {I could live there.}

There are monasteries and archeological sights and a folklore museum. Painters, poets, authors and scholars lived there. Hegemon of Thassos is from there. He “transformed the sublime into the ridiculous” by slightly altering the words in poems; he’s known as the inventor of parody. I mean…seriously…I love him. And don’t make me say it again, but don’t try to stop me: I could live there.

Or at least visit. The island is rich in history, resources, and minerals. For goodness sakes they mine calamine there, which has been the official skin soothing lotion of my life what with my allergic reactions to bites and the poisonous vines and pretty much anything that can sting and/or inflame the skin. It’s occurred to me on more than one occasion that perhaps my highly reactive skin is a symptom of my overactive brain. It’s a possibility for sure, and let’s just say: my skin isn’t nearly as reactive as it used to be.

In the meantime I’ve poached a picture of the Giola swimming hole on Thassos, and will go for a sunset run with Lucky dog and dream about international travel. I’ll ponder the possibility of going for a run without music, just to hear the sound of our feet and breath. Just to Be. Here. Now. without ink on my skin to remind me, without the thumping of bass in my ears to keep me going (and pretending that I’m still a teenager). And that, today, will be my biggest White Girl Problem.

Getting (t)Here

I’m getting there. With this book, with this life, with my attitude shift which is often two steps forward and any number greater than that steps back. It hurts. It’s uncomfortable. It threatens to undo my seams and send my stuffing about the room. But as I always say to my massage clients, “Change hurts whether it’s physical or emotional. Positive change requires a stretch from a smaller place to a bigger place, and even change in the right direction can be uncomfortable.”

Taking my own advice remains on my list of important things to do.

I have a million things I want to say about my arrival in Florida, but first I have to talk about getting here.

My departure from New Mexico was bittersweet. I finished a solid draft of my book, which was what I went there to do, so even though it isn’t ready to print, I have to admit: mission accomplished.

To say that I was blissful upon completion is an understatement for the elation I felt. The event coincided with meeting up with Todd, an old Missoula friend, who I’d only seen once in three months. Despite us both regretting the absence of each other during my time in Taos, I consider it to be a blessing because the man is intoxicating. With the addition of him to my daily life I might not have accomplished the mission and might not have felt the joy of completion and a whole bunch of other things that wouldn’t have made the reunion what it was. Timing is everything and serendipity is beautiful.

Truth be told, I was ready to leave New Mexico several weeks before I did. The spring winds kicked up and I felt like they wanted to blow me out of the state, but I hung in there, hard as it was. Wind is an agitator not only of the earth, but also of the people on it. Wind tends to affect mood negatively, but that depends on the season, the person, and where you’re starting from. Remember what I said about change? Yeah, winds of change. But with over 96,000 words in a single document with chapter numbers and titles and all that, I started to look at the place differently.

My cabin walls no longer seemed to be caving in on me. Dust blew in and out of the cabin and covered me, my stuff and the dog, but I knew I’d only have to clean it once more: on the way out. Nights on the town seemed like a good idea and not something that would derail progress. I started to say “yes” a lot more and I liked the feel of it on my lips. I laughed, I flirted, I soaked off three months of sitting at my writing table into the hot springs.

My conversations transformed. I started to have a different story to tell my friends, neighbors, and Winda, the postmaster, who was sometimes the only person I’d speak to on the longer, lonelier writing stints. Instead of “Still working…” I was able to say with confidence, “I finished!” I realized what I’d known all along: these people were rooting for me. These people who I knew mostly peripherally were on my team, wanted me to succeed, and gave me hugs, smiles, and high-fives.

Many times I felt like a burden to these people because I felt like a burden to myself. Pent up from tapping keys I’d erupt into lengthy conversations about anything just to get some sort of exchange going to help temper the one sided conversation going on between me and the endless pages in front of me. But as my departure loomed I discovered something: I hadn’t been as much of a pain in the ass as I thought I’d been. They told me they’d miss me, that I’d helped them, that I’d been there for them when they needed someone to talk to.

Angie, the caretaker at the farm who soothed my heavy landing, gave me a handmade card (a classy one, not a crayon drawing) and a gorgeous (also handmade by her) mug that fits perfectly in my paw. It’s interesting: I received a mug on arrival from my childhood friend Rich, and a mug upon departure from Angie, a true angel. Is it too cheesy and/or contrived to say that my cup runneth over? Perhaps. Do I care? No way!

Eric and Elizabeth, the owners of the farm, gave me a lovely send off though I’d only known them for a couple of weeks as they’d been in Ecuador all winter. It doesn’t do them justice to say they’re groovy people, and Eric told me he liked “meeting my energy” and hopes I’ll return to San Cristobal. I stopped on my way out for one more hug from postmaster Winda, who wished me safe travels. “Stay in touch,” she said, “You know where to find me.” I asked her for her P.O. Box number, and she laughed, “Um. That’s not necessary. I can find me.”

I left the day before a snowstorm hit the area and even before I got to Oklahoma I could feel it. I felt it between my teeth and in my eyes in the form of dust blowing around in sixty mph winds. The sky was blue but you could hardly tell.

The day was righted by a stop at this ridiculously adorable cafe swathed in one of my favorite colors:

Because I had the encounter with the elk on my way to New Mexico, it felt appropriate to set my sights on Elk City, Oklahoma for my first night on the road on my way out of New Mexico. It was a bad idea, but I didn’t know it until I arrived in town to find that La Quinta, my goto dog friendly hotel, was booked. Apparently Elk City is having an oil boom and I didn’t get the memo.

I ended up at the Motel 6, where they gave me a discount for not being an oil worker. The entire motel smelled and sounded like men away from home, and my room had linoleum floors. A quick finger swipe on the tub determined I would not be taking a bath, and would be wearing flip flops in the shower. Elk City doesn’t believe in good coffee, so I wouldn’t get one of those the next morning until I got to Oklahoma City.

My destination that day was Hot Springs, Arkansas, childhood home of Bill Clinton. I’d always wanted to go to Hot Springs. I attempted it once when my (now ex) husband and I drove cross country in 1999, but a snow storm made us change course. As we sometimes know things that don’t make sense, I knew i’d be back. As soon as I dipped off I-40 and into Arkansas I was in love with the state. No joke.

After three months in dry, arid New Mexico it was love at first sight. My hair, skin, and cuticles seemed to come back to life and I rolled the windows down and inhaled what can only be described as freshness. I’d been disappointed in Oklahoma that I ate a Starbucks egg-white wrap a few miles before seeing the all you can eat fried catfish sign, but all was righted when I found a place that served me pulled pork, beans, coleslaw and catfish. I washed it down with my favorite road trip guilty pleasure: Diet Dr. Pepper on lots of rocks.

I drove through the Ouachita National Forest (put it our your list) as the sun was going down, and took lots of pictures, but my favorite is of the best travel companion ever doing what he does best: loving life and striking a pose.

It wasn’t the way I planned it, but we pulled into the town of Hot Springs at dark. I drove the strip before finding the historic hotel I’d already picked out because it’s downtown and dog friendly plus has the added bonus of a restaurant with a dog friendly patio. I wasn’t hungry (obviously) and the place didn’t strike me when I pulled up, so I drove up the road to make a u-turn but instead stumbled on the Happy Hollow Motel, which looked like my kind of place. Serendipity: I love it.

This was it the next morning:

I rang the doorbell for the owner and he checked me in—fifty bucks!—and gave me a basket of goodies including a few kitkats and leftover-from-Easter malted eggs. While I inhaled those, Lucky played mayor in the parking lot of the motel we’d be staying in for exactly twelve hours.

He found David Sydnor sitting on his porch. It took David and I about three exchanges before we discovered that we’d both spent the last three months writing books, me in my cabin, he at the Happy Hollow. I promptly took a seat and we talked for a good long time. I wanted to walk Lucky around town, but David and I had a few things to talk about first.

He runs a carriage company in Memphis and claims to have “the only barn where you can find diamonds and manure.” His claim to fame is his intricately decorated Mardi Gras carriage, which is one of the main characters in his book, his favorite grey horse another one.

He told me a true story about how one of the crystals fell off the carriage and landed in the lap of a nine-year-old girl who was going in for a serious surgery the next day. He told her the crystal bead was an angel tear, and when she went in for surgery she refused to let it out of her hand. The doctor obliged and broke protocol, wrapping surgical tape around the girl’s hand, securing the crystal to her palm.

After the surgery her first question was, “Where’s my angel tear?” They unwrapped her hand and the crystal was gone. The story goes that the angel tear went to heaven and the little girl got to stay. With my jaw dropped and eyes wide, David excused himself and came back with a red crystal in his hand for me. “It’s my last one,” he said, “and I want you to have it to keep you safe while you travel.” I strung it on dental floss and hung it off my rearview mirror next to my Northern Lights crystals from my deceased friend Corey’s mom, the crystals that I’m certain kept me safer than not when I t-boned the elk in the middle-of-nowhere Colorado.

Here’s David with the binder that contains his book, pictures of his horse (I can’t remember her name!) and the famous carriage.

Pumped up from my time with David, I explored downtown Hot Springs and it didn’t disappoint. Lucky and I walked for almost two hours, while I chatted with Charlotte and got caught up after my winter of being mostly sans telephone. The town is beautifully illuminated at night, and it felt good to move through the humidity in shorts and a t-shirt. I didn’t get to go inside anywhere, but walked by the Gangster Museum of America, several old bathhouses and dozens of shops and eateries from another era. I spied my favorites—hear no evil, see no evil, smell no evil—in a store window and went back the next day to buy them for the Florida house without knowing how perfectly they’d match my mother’s color scheme.

Bad weather was coming, so I didn’t have time for a soak before heading off to Memphis, but I filled up my water bottles at the spring. And again, I’ll be back. I just know it.

It’s a good thing I stocked up on water, because let’s just say my time in Memphis wasn’t focused on hydration. We whooped it up. Bridges, my long lost soul sister, drove over from Alabama and we stayed at her parents’ house which recently sold. Things are getting packed up, and I’m quite likely their last house guest. Honored doesn’t do it justice, nor does it do justice to the hospitality I was shown by Bridges and two of her longtime friends, Marla and Monte Claire.

Bridges greeted me the way any good Southerner will—with a cold beer and a spell on the porch—then we had to move my car around back. No room for Bridges in the front seat? No problem! Lucky made room….I love the joy in this photo.

We got ready for dinner, and I joked about being “under coifed” for the south. No problem! Bridges just happened to have a “bump it” (among many other necessary things) in her purse and hooked me up. Anyone can take a trip to Memphis, but not every Yankee can get shown around by three natives. We didn’t cruise Beale Street—apparently that’s for tourists and kids—but hung out in midtown and had what Bridges had promised me a month earlier: a “bigtime.”

Monte Claire’s sincere interest in my book broke me open, and Marla told me I was “a blast,” which given a couple of drinks on both ends and her accent I mistook for a moment as “blessed,” which threw us into hysterics. Goodness gracious, Memphis lived up to it’s reputation as one helluva fun town. {thank you, ladies…}

And a solo shot of the demure and mysterious Marla:

We capped off the night in a taxi that Bridges had make a stop at Crystal, her favorite late night greasy spoon. Crystal is one of those things that seems like a good idea at the time, but the next morning not so much. Just to confirm there’s not a lot of shame in my game, here’s me getting down with a burger in the back of the cab.

Our driver had the patience and goodwill to take me on a middle-of-the-night tour of downtown, which Bridges and I repeated in the morning, which included drive-bys of the Orpheum, Sun Studios, and a pit stop at Gus’s Fried Chicken, my last request before driving into what would turn out to be a day of solid rain and near misses with tornados.

I was sad to say goodbye to Memphis when we were just getting started, but I know I’ll be back. It’s a gorgeous town with an incredible pulse. It looks like this:

I can’t promise you a “bigtime,” but really, you should do yourself a favor and visit that historic, gracious, beautiful city.

There’s not much to say about the rest of the day except that I was glad to be driving a Subaru with new tires as I hydroplaned my way through the South and into the panhandle of Florida. I used my earbuds and talked on the phone much of the way to good friends who entertained me with stories so I could focus on something other than my fear of being swept up in a tornado.

I hit Florida soil that night where I ate my first Waffle House meal, and the next day arrived in Naples where I’ll be hanging my hat through most of June. There’s only one fair way to describe my first few weeks in Florida, and that is to say that it’s been one awesome reunion and surprise after another.

But that’s another blog post….thanks, as always, for showing up and being a part of my journey. Big love to those of you I know, and those of you I don’t know yet.

Check the Weather

Most of you reading this know that I’ve spent the past eleven weeks mostly alone. I socialize, on average, twice a week for a couple of hours, though I’ve had a couple of runs of five days where it’s been just me, Lucky and writing. {Note for the future: that’s too many days alone for this girl. I find myself easier to be around when i’m bouncing off people.}

I live ten miles from a cell phone signal, so on the days when I haven’t left the cabin I’ve often not had a conversation with anyone (besides the dog) unless I’ve gone to the post office. The post office is the only constant in San Cristobal, and is just a mile up the road. The first night I was here I was told there’s a bit of cell service (though not for me) at the post office, but couldn’t find it because it doesn’t look federal, and is more or less a lean-to attached to the postmaster’s house. And I confess: I’ve occasionally jotted off a postcard just to have a reason to go there and exchange a few words with Miss Winda Medina.

Last week there was a welcome shift, and I got to do a bunch of talking when my dear friend Emily visited from Missoula for five dreamy days. During that time we drove a lot because the spaces between pin dots on the map are large in these parts, but in all that windshield time not once did we listen to music. Not the radio, not a CD, not even the song I couldn’t stop listening to before she got here.

Let me be clear: We talked almost constantly, but didn’t make noise just to fill space. We welcomed silence, contemplation and awe, but a few breaths later we’d be breaking it down and expressing our thoughts out loud before they’d fully formed in our heads.

We got deep into breaking it all down. I love the way so many conversations started with, “I’m asking you this because I know you’ll tell me the truth…” I can’t think of a worthwhile topic we didn’t touch down on, but in the end our conversation hopping left with us dozens of unfinished thoughts.

When we weren’t talking we were eating. In the beginning we forgot to take before pictures of the beautiful food, so ended up with only clean plate club photos like this one:

Before we cleaned the Weiner schnitzel right off the plate we had the coldest ski day I’ve had here. It’s easy to believe March would be warmer than January and February, but it’s not. The winds kick in and make March feel like the coldest month of the winter. No joke. I’ll pass on sharing the photo of our frozen faces. Oh, what the hell. Here it is:

The next day we explored town, but it was too cold to walk much so we drove back roads and swooned over the light that hits the earth a little differently in these parts. Even when the sun is diffused through clouds there’s an illumination that makes a person feel there’s a gaggle of assistants with flash diffusers, reflective umbrellas, monolights, and strobe lights. We rushed out of and back into the car for this one:

Cold weather can be a blessing, because if we’d be able to be outside we would have, but instead we scored at a consignment shop. Emily got a blazer she’d been searching for forever and I got a vintage Italian merino dress and coat set. Ok, truth: I also got a couple of muumuus and a lime green pair of Dr. Scholl’s. Hello, Florida! {Emily says I really rock a muumuu, and I say she should wear short shorts year-round. This is friend love. Clearly.}

Then we had one of the best meals of our lives at El Meze. Mussels, collards and bacon, melt in your mouth pork belly……each bite better than the last. This is where we embarked on a serious run of fabulous meals. Ok, I should back up to mention that our waiter at El Meze was both Michael-Franti-hot and sweet. Worth noting.

We asked at El Meze for a brunch recommendation, and were told to go to Aceq, but found out they’re no longer serving brunch. We did our due diligence and even though we didn’t like the name—Dragonfly Café—we agreed that hippies make good coffee and baked goods, and a wait is usually a good sign.

We sat outside in the sun and wind (yes it was cold) and drank coffee while we waited, then we were seated in the coveted window-seat nook. Reward for our patience? Possibly. We lounged in that heavily pillowed, sun drenched slice of heaven while we drank mad cups of coffee and ate a ridiculously good breakfast based around homegrown eggs. Lucky, lucky girls.

After brunch we hiked down to where the Red River meets the Rio Grande and relaxed in the sun on a rock in the middle of the river. We talked about a lot of things with the water rushing around us, but one of them was that some people will never get to experience being on a rock in the middle of the river and wouldn’t even think to put it on the option list. {sigh} People: it’s an option. EVERYTHING is an option.

We’d left a message on the answering machine regarding a dinner reservation at Aceq, but it’s complicated when you don’t have cell service and as soon as you leave town there’s no way to get a call back confirming or denying anything. I know: It’s all so backwards, and it’s been interesting living “old fashioned” this winter.

We’d already made reservations in town, but Emily said, “Let’s drive over to Aceq and see how it looks and if we like what we see we’ll find out if we can get in.” We hit cell service on the outskirts of Arroyo Seco, right before we reached Aceq, and at 5:55 the message was, “Hi Jaime, We’ll have your table for two ready at 6:00.” Obvi it was meant to be.

{Note on “obvi.” At some point in the midst of all this eating, talking and adventuring we managed to watched the entire first season of Girls. The girls say obvi.}

We don’t know how it happened, but Aceq managed to beat El Meze. We had brussels sprouts, spicy lamb ribs, and the best friend chicken either of us have ever had. Our socks were blown right off. Yes, we talked through the meal, but mostly to say, “Oh . My. God. This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” No photo will do the décor or farm-to-table food justice, but I’m not kidding foodies: put ACEQ RESTAURANT on your bucket list. (I’ve already been back!)

All that eating, walking, and getting deep into the marrow of life inspired us, though it’s hard not to be inspired by all of the artists who’ve called New Mexico home. Our highlight was the Georgia O’Keefe museum in Santa Fe, but we popped in quickly to the Mabel Dodge Luhan house which offers “supportive solitude for creative reflection.

The lineup of artists who were guests of Mabel is unbelievable (Georgia O’Keeffe, D.H. Lawrence, Ansel Adams, Martha Graham and Carl Jung, etc.) and the spark and motivation set into those walls oozes right out. Of course, it could have been the light. Seriously, the house is on a hill and the sun was setting and light streamed through impossibly large windows that are positioned in such a way that just screams: someone really knew what they were doing when they built this place….

A workshop was going on, and the group was finishing their dinner but didn’t mind us poking around. Emily and I had flashes of thoughts and dreams for the future and it can be best summed up by this story of a friend of mine.

Years ago a guy I knew kept having run-ins with the law. I don’t know exactly what kind of trouble he was getting into, but he kept finding himself wearing the orange suit, sitting in front of the guy in the black suit. One day he said to himself, “I want to be the guy in the black suit.” And just like that he decided to go to law school.

{Translation: We can read the books and attend the conferences, but we can also write the books and teach the conferences. A plan was hatched….Because it was so unpredictably cold here, but intermittently sunny, we checked the weather a lot. So much it became a slogan for the visit. I think CHECK THE WEATHER will be a great name for a collaborative book and/or a workshop. There’s so many things you can check the weather for in addition to actual weather….}

Writing is serious business and it’s hard. It requires solitude, but it’s not the one person job I once thought it was. I’m lucky to have people in my life who empathize with this, but Emily’s a writer too, and she knows the struggle in a more intimate way. Thank goodness for friends like Em…. I’m grateful she was here to experience the remote cabin where I’ve been living with it’s terrible water pressure, it’s washboard access road, and it’s incredible silence.

She really gets it. She’s aware of how hard it was for me sequester myself away for a winter of writing. The choice to go was hard, the decision to stay almost harder. She knows what it’s like to face the blank page, the shitty first drafts, and the compulsion to do this this thing that can lift you up as deftly as it squashes you.

We spent her last day and night in Santa Fe and the Georgia O’Keefe museum was the first thing we did and our favorite. We were lucky enough to be there during Annie Leibovitz’s “Pilgrimage” exhibit in addition to getting to view O’Keefe’s paintings. We walked through the museum with our arms linked around each others, but before we did that we sat and watched two short films. One was an overview of O’Keefe’s life, and the other about her homes in New Mexico.

I loved everything about the museum, but the highlight was—no joke—the videos, which I realize sounds silly, but I loved seeing her face and body in action, hearing her voice, and doing the math.

Yeah, the math. Emily and I did a lot of math in that theatre, and mouthed numbers to each other with eyebrows raised and hearts light. O’Keefe and Stieglitz didn’t get married until she was thirty-seven, she spend her first summer in Taos when she was forty-two, and she didn’t move to Ghost Ranch until she was forty-seven. We also discovered that the art she did when she was younger was Not. Very. Good. But as she got older and traveled more it got (obviously) a lot better. Still-lifes and lighthouses did not bring out the best in Miss Georgia. Sun bleached bones and impossibly blue sky and flowers on a huge scale did.

So we did that math and it confirmed what we already knew: there’s plenty of time. So we can sink our teeth into that. While we check the weather.

I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do. – Georgia O’Keefe

I Love

Last Sunday I completed another ten-day Master Cleanse, and let me tell you: It’s not just a physical and cellular detox, it’s a deep emotional cleansing as well. I cried some of the sweetest tears of my life on the last night. Good stuff. I’m working hard on my book—the final push before I leave here—and wasn’t sure I’d write a blog post this week but I couldn’t help myself from writing a list of what I love right now.

I love my Taos writing group at SOMOS, who so graciously accepted me into their group and don’t judge me for just passing through. I love their stories, their writing, their insights; I love their honesty, compassion, and grace.

I love my neighbors. The one who offers me lettuce from the greenhouse, the one who meets me outside when I arrive home because it’s been a week since we’ve seen each other, the ones who have me for dinner, the ones who are never too busy to ask how my book is going, the one who sends Lucky home when he’s running amok.

I love that dog.

I love that although my nerves were ravaged after killing that elk they have righted themselves, and I love that I now see the fifteen-mile drive home from town as a thing of beauty and not a thing to fear.

I love that I got new really bright headlights out of that mess.

I love gratitude.

I love that I’m not nearly as judgmental as I used to be, and I love that means I’m also judging myself less harshly.

I love that the only constant is change.

I love the coyotes that won’t let me go to sleep and the rooster who won’t let me sleep in.

I love that we’re never farther than one sleep from a brand new day.

I love choices, options, and free will.

I love putting one word after another and creating a book that may or may not help others the way I hope it will, but which is helping me just be removing it from my insides. {cleansing.}

I love my friends and family.

I love hanging clothes on a clothesline, clothespins clipped to my hem and stuck in my mouth. I love how a simple action connects me, despite geography, to my grandmothers and their grandmothers. I love drying myself with stiff, line-dried towels and how that feeling takes me back to being a kid at the beach with my Mimi.

I love that the more things change the more they stay the same.

I love what I realized yesterday: That Missoula was a wonderful place for me to “grow up” because you can be whoever you want to be in that lovely valley, and you can grow into the person you’re meant to be. I love that I feel like Taos is the same—anything goes—and that in reality we can be whoever and whatever we want to be wherever we land. I love that geography is not the big limitation, ego is.

I love that I finally discovered a deodorant that smells like coconut.

I love that after years of being mostly on the giving end, I’ve been receiving weekly massages here in Taos and don’t feel that I need to apologize for it. I especially love that last part.

I love possibility.

I love that I’ve gotten to a place in my life where I can look at the people who’ve hurt me with compassion instead of anger, and wish for them health, healing and wellness.

I love floating in oceans and I love doing handstands in swimming pools. I love hot springs. I love water.

I love that I’m looking forward to taking my high-desert parched skin to the Gulf of Mexico for hydration and salt-water therapy.

I love that the next step isn’t as intimidating as it was a month ago.

I love hope.

I love that story I read last night about the doctor who cured criminally insane patients by improving himself. He did this by looking at the patients’ files and repeating, “I love you.” I’m sorry.” It worked.

I love life’s limitless possibilities.

I love the power of words.

I love the power of thoughts.

I love the power of love.

I love you.

Levi and Amanda: My Newest Old Friends

I was going to write about the amazing church I went to last Sunday, or how much I love driving into San Cristobal, off the pavement, past two cattle guards and over a narrow bridge and I’m home.

I thought about writing about how much I love making a fire for myself, even when it’s a multi-stage act of prayer, because I feel like after all of my years of longing I’m finally getting a titch of my Little House on the Prairie dream. Or about how I actually love how my phone doesn’t ring at the cabin and I wonder (and worry) about how I’ll ever go back to all the noise and chatter.

I considered about writing about my new writing group and how I can’t believe now—after three weeks—that I ever doubted it would be a good thing for me. They tell me my writing is engaging, snappy, confident and—my favorite—honest. I adore these people for their passion for writing, their compassion for others, and their stories.

But I ~~decided~~ had to write about Levi and Amanda.

There are the people you know forever—they make your heart tick and skip and weep—and then there are the people you know for two days. My friend Geoff recently embarked on an ambitious project to write tributes for sixty-seven people (in four days!) who meant a lot to him and who’d influenced his life. The second line of mine is, “I thought I knew all the people I wanted to meet.”

I love it. Sometimes I think I ~~hardly~~ don’t have time to visit and spend quality time with all of the people I already miss and love, how could there possible be room for more? But then I meet Levi and Amanda.

The first morning I was doing my usual—drinking coffee and sitting outside in my favorite early morning spot of sun—when Levi popped out of his cabin. I knew people were coming in to the cabin next door, and quite frankly, I wasn’t excited. Will they be loud? Obnoxious? Irritating? I’ve become protective of this space and my routine in it. I enjoy the quiet.

But I liked Levi out of the gate. He’s a farmer in Maine, and has a CSA. He farms land that his grandfather, who came from Holland to Maine in 1950 to build boats in Bath, left to him. Grandpa’s name meant “beekeeper” in Dutch and he lived up to it. Levi’s business cards for Center Pond Farm boast a honeybee, and though he doesn’t keep bees yet it’s in the farm’s future plans.

I appreciate Levi’s tribute to his grandpa, and his connection to the past; none of us would be here without them. Fact. Levi’s only been farming for three years and this year is the first time he hasn’t had to have a fulltime job off the farm. I barely knew the guy yet I told him I was proud of him.

Levi and I did a lot of chatting before Amanda emerged and then I got to hear her story. She works at a foreign exchange student organization; she didn’t study abroad herself but there was an interesting story why and it came full circle for her. This is a story she’s told before, but it wasn’t tired or worn out: it was authentic, just like her.

We connected immediately on my adventures living in Honduras and my “full cultural immersion” experience which I boil down—because I’ve told the story before too— to bullet points: I started a business, bought a house, and dated a native. She laughs.

I get one laugh and all of a sudden I’m doing standup at open mike night. I take a few risks, it’s going well, then something comes out of my mouth unfiltered, “The ranch supply store in Missoula has a sign that says, “Behind every successful rancher is a woman who works in town’” and as the words come out I felt then leaving but couldn’t stop them. I saw stars and hoped for the best. At least they’re only here for two more days. How much could they hate me for two days?

“Ha! Can you get me one of those?” Amanda asks, Levi laughs, I’m in the clear.

We talk and talk and talk. But they have sights to see and I have writing to do. We part. I saw Amanda briefly that evening as I was leaving to go meet a friend and they were walking down to the fields to watch the sun set.

The next morning we chatted again, this time like old friends catching up. “What happens if you don’t finish your book,” Amanda asked, just like an old friend who can get away with a question like that. I paused, caught my breath, “It’s just not an option,” I told her. “I plan to finish it here, but if it’s not here it will be somewhere else. But, really, I’m going to finish it here.” Like a friend with a stake in your happiness, Amanda told me she has no doubt I’m going to finish it, especially because it sounds like a story the world needs to hear and I’m obviously compelled to tell it.

Can you say girl crush?

They had a busy day of activities and I had a long list of errands before my massage and writing workshop. I loaned them yak trax and ski poles for their hike, and told them to just leave them next to my woodpile if we didn’t cross paths again. I wondered if it was goodbye, but we just offered “See ya later. Have fun!”

Williams Lake, where Levi and Amanda went before they went back to the hot springs in the gorge of the Rio Grande and to check out the earthships.

I got home after nine hours in town. I really try to maximize the trip whenever possible and I actually made it through my errand list and to my appointments on time. On time. If you know me then you also now believe in miracles. The only thing I didn’t have time for was taking Lucky for a proper walk, so he crashed the workshop. He was naughty for an almost eleven-year-old boy. He sniffed everyone (one woman had a biscuit in her pocket), snuggled his face into everyone’s lap, and put his chin up on the table between each of us. He drank from the toilet (my fault) and acted like a pup. “Don’t make eye contact with him,” I finally said; he’ll settle down. And he did:

My propane heater was on the blink, and after so many hours away the cabin was freezing. I was hungry and had a screaming headache. And then there was a knock on my door. I wasn’t sure if I should be scared or irritated; I wasn’t expecting anyone at 10:00pm. “Hello?” I said. “It’s Levi,” he responded. Oh. Thank. Goodness.

I opened the door and he had arms full of eggs, butter, half & half and a lighter—all welcome, useful things. “I love butter!” I squealed, “I put it on everything.” {it’s true.} He laughed. He came in and we chatted about their last day in the area. They really sucked the marrow out of this place hard core and I loved hearing about it.

They were getting up at 4:00am to drive to Albuquerque for their flight back to Maine, so it was time to say goodbye. “I’m going to miss you guys,” I said, sort of out of nowhere although the truth is it came from my heart and as hard as it can be to speak from a place of vulnerability it’s usually worth it.

We hugged and Levi said, “We’re going to miss you too!” This surprised me. I mean, I’m here, often alone, tapping away at this keyboard sometimes for days on end; it makes sense I would miss my friendly, temporary neighbors. But they miss me? Some wacky writer girl who gave them a few tips? But I’ve been on the vacationing end, too, and I get it.

I don’t even have a phone at the cabin and sometimes the only voice I hear is my own telling Lucky how cute he is and how much I love him and within our three hundred square feet it gets old—I can say with certainty—for both of us. Our outside world is big. We walk, we run, we feed chickens, we turn our faces to the sun. But the fact is: I get hungry for conversation.

Levi and Amanda were a distraction, but a very welcome one. I enjoyed the exchanges and hearing something first thing in the morning besides my clicking and myself.

“Come visit us in Maine,” Levi said, “We have a guest room…” And I trust he said this knowing I don’t really have anywhere to be and don’t (physically) have any idea where I’m going. “Awesome! I’d love to get to New England this summer and I’d love to get my hands dirty. I’ll help out on the farm!” {despite the headache and the hunger and the frigid cabin I really did speak with all of those exclamations.}

I didn’t have a chance to tell Levi and Amanda about my inner Wendell Berry, who was my first real writer-crush. Laura Ingalls Wilder was my first, but I was just a child then. Berry is a standup guy. He is a poet, essayist, farmer and human who I admire for his willingness to speak up on controversial issues and I’m grateful I got to shake his hand once at a book event in San Francisco. But anyway…I didn’t tell Levi and Amanda that. Amanda had already friended me on Facebook that morning, and Levi had given me his honeybee business card. This was surely not the end.

These are not friends for two days; these are the friends you know for two days and hope to know forever. As Amanda said, “I’d really like to continue this conversation.”

Oh me too, new friend, me too. We have lots to talk about.

Me. Unedited.

The other day I was all sorts of a frazzled mess, but mostly it was the good kind. I was possibly over caffeinated or excited about this book that I’m finishing (and finally not “just” writing), or a little nervous to go skiing again. Maybe it was all three. A trifecta of nerves = lovely.

I met a friend for a pre-ski lunch, and on the way there I listened to all of my favorite songs and (dangerously) glanced at my best friend in the rear view mirror, but when I got there I actually got horizontal on the bench we were sitting at in a moment of ~~pathetic~~ dramatic despair. Our server peered over the bar at me and raised her eyebrow; I sat up. I ate, I drank, and I tried everything to calm myself—including not stop chatter-boxing—but the nerves, they just wouldn’t settle.

On the chairlift I described myself as a spastic out of control toddler, then downgraded myself to an infant in need of a swaddling. My friend is something of a saint, and he told me to breathe and assured me that I’d feel better when I got my skis on the snow because the movement and meditation of skiing would take my mind off all of the baloney that had gotten me into my tizzy.

“Look up at Kachina,” he said. “Those lines on the right are super steep, but over there on the left—you’ll be skiing that soon.” I suggested he was out of his mind, but his smile and laugh said no. When we got off the chair he told me to pose in front of the peak for a picture. “You’ll love it,” he said “When you ski it this will be a great reminder of when you thought you couldn’t.”

It’s just an incredible thing when your friends believe in you more than you believe in yourself, and whether I ski up there or not (I’d gamble that I’ll hike it regardless, being the lover of uphill battles that I am….) what this really boils down to is faith. Faith in ourselves and each other to be just a little bit better tomorrow than we are today.

And I believe this is what it’s all about: embracing the courage to be yourself when it can be scary, bravery to be yourself even when that self isn’t exactly what you’re striving for. Because we’re all works in progress, and the unedited versions of ourselves are ~~usually~~ always far better than any mocked up, phony version. As I always say: Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

So here I am with my butt stuck out a little too far, smile a little awkward, stance totally goofy. But this is child’s play compared to those pictures I posted last year of learning to surf with my rash guard hiked up and belly out and my face all “woah.” Oi.

P.S. In the coming days there will be a part 2 to this: My love-hate affair with skiing.

Slowing Down. For Real This Time.

In far too many of life’s circumstances and scenarios I’ve viewed the thing as a marathon and not a sprint. I’ve gotten hurt, sprained an ankle, or arrived where I didn’t even want to be.

I’m slowing down. This is not a race, but it’s also not a dress rehearsal: it’s just life. Though there’s everything and nothing “just” about it.

I’ve sprinted through writing the book I’m working on now and others only to be left with jumbles of words and chapters and a mess so thick it’s difficult to wade through. So here I am, slowing down.

I write and I go for runs. I take full days to explore both the outer landscape of this new place I’m calling home right now, and the inner landscape of myself in this place.

I’ve been going for daily three-mile runs on a road with few cars and every day the scenery is a little bit different. With snow or without, with bright sun or twilight, with Gwen Stefani or George Jones to sing me up or down the hills.

I pause to take pictures, to tell Lucky I’m so grateful for his presence, to soak up every blessed moment.

I was going to title this post “Slowing Down,” but my memory kicked in. Did I already have a post with that title? I was partly correct; the post I remembered was called “Slowing Down. Sort of.”

So this one is different: “Slowing Down. For Real This Time.”