Bobcat Tracks

It's quiet up here in Big Canyon, and warmer than it seemed down below. I walked for an hour up past Sidewinder turnoff, ate lunch, and found a sunny spot to promptly doze off in. The mud from snow melt proved to be way more of a work out than I had expected and I am gleefully now covered from at least knees down.

Unexpectedly not working this week has me quite off balance. Maybe I was off balance before, and not working just exacerbates and excuses. The moon is nearly full this week and it pulls at my heart not to be out there beneath it. I miss work in a very real tangible sense, full of longing and sadness and uncertainty and a search for meaning. I carry particular students with me in ways which I'm not entirely sure are healthy, and definitely not helpful. I carry the land with me though, so completely it is almost jarring at times to wake up in a bed.

I'm a firm believer in what Jason once told me long ago, that we are only given the challenges which we can handle. Part of my challenge on this whole grand adventure of moving out here and trying to make a life with this work is acceptance. Taking on the life that has been given to me, not necessarily the life that I imagine, and being thankful. Give in and drink the proverbial lemonade, so to speak. I think I was given this extra time for a reason. I think I've been hiding a bit in work and not really settling down here at home. I think by throwing myself wholly and completely into the job I've allowed myself to mask a bit of the discomfort I feel during off-shifts. I also think that partly because I've yet to settle on any sort of transition ritual from field to home I've been so far unsuccessful at differentiating the time and genuinely not so hot at disengaging.

Half the reason why not is upsetting has nothing to do with money. I was worried about spending two more weeks by myself. I'm still worried, but trying to make the best of it. I feel at times like there is so much missing from my Durango life that the hill is almost insurmountable. I miss friends, and conversation and intellectualism and music and challenge and community. I miss having reasons to leave my home every morning, not in the I'm depressed sense but in the I'm bored sense. I miss having people that will give me crap if I don't.

I think I was given these weeks to put my wellness plan into action. To have to disengage, and to sit with my discomfort on doing so. Change, yes, is unnerving, but I am so much better than this.