Too Much Drama Before My Morning Coffee

Blue Skies and Butterflies...

2010-02-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

I officially miss summer.

Vision Fast, Truth Telling

2009-07-31T13:25:00.001-06:00

Its slowly getting dark, and I am afraid. I am sitting in the south gateway, inside the medicine wheel I've built for myself behind my shelter in this aspen grove. Its been raining on and off today, and the damp chill is doing nothing to make staying awake and upright more appealing. I brought nothing except a lighter to make fire, and it seems like tonight is not the night. Its taking a lot of willpower not to just crawl into my sleeping bag right now and get warm, mercifully turn my brain off for the day. I'd like to make it until at least three stars in the sky, same as we tell the students. My feet are pretty cold, and I keep catching myself starring enviously at my citronella candle, burning next to the alter with the last wisps of Utah sage.

A ho, great spirit, I'm calling on you. Oh great spirit, what else can I do. Please open me up, so I can receive, please open me up so I can believe. Oh great spirit, I'm calling on you.

I pray tonight for patience, for courage, and for faith. I pray with all the love in my heart, with all the compassion I can muster, and with the strength of all my ancestors, living and dead, who I ask hold me on this journey tonight. Bless me teachers, be compassionate, for I have troubles.

I keep forgetting that I'm fasting, and semi-automatically reaching out for my p-food. I haven't been that hungry yet, and haven't really had a full meal since Thursday lunch at the office. My only worry so far food-wise is just not having the calories to help keep me warm, and soon not having the energy to move around much to get warm. I meant to eat dinner last night, but the sweat was so crazy intense I kind of didn't have it in me by the time we finished around midnight.

The sweat was strange--thermodynamically, physically, socially, emotionally. Each of the two rounds started out super super hot, and quickly. Then they got intense and beautiful, with lots of music and prayer and a lot of various personal commitment and discoveries. I felt awkward, self-conscious, and uncomfortable sitting mostly naked and sandwiched between Evan and Nicholas. I think the greater truth is I'm not really comfortable naked.

The lower the light, the thicker the mosquitoes.

I don't remember much of the first round, besides it was really long and cold by the end once we ran out of water to pour. I know I was pushed, and said some pretty crucial things for myself, but I don't really recollect the specifics.

The greater truth is in the second round. One that even thinking about writing down on paper makes my body contract and cringe involuntarily. And my mind swivel around looking to see if three stars have appeared magically to free me from this task for a little longer. Sadly, no such easy way out quite yet.

I lay sucking dirt for a while and stewing, while everyone else either seemed to be having these wonderful transformational experiences, or left the lodge in apathy, impatience, boredom, or disgust. I felt for Emily, who got into this huge emotional argument with Nicholas, and then got so worked up she had to leave. The whole time though, my head was telling me how stupid and minor the conversation felt, and my heart kept screaming at me that I had big things to say. I opened my mouth and the greater truth sort of fell right out into the naked darkness.

The truth is I think Noah raped me, that night at the end of freshman year. Given how my body is reacting to the admission, with flashbacks and nightmares and shakes and a whole lot of numb disbelief, I judge it to be true and real. And my vision quest full of darkness and demons got a fair amount larger and deeper last night. I feel a little bitter for it, and a lot of fear and curiosity. I never wanted it to be like this, never wanted rape to be something I identify with, so I convinced myself it wasn't true. That I wanted to sleep with him that night (I did), and that I was in control of the situation ( I wasn't). The truth is I was wasted, drunk and high, and he was sober. The truth is I don't remember if I said no, and I certainly didn't fight very much. The truth is it hurt, and he kept going. Kept going 'till my sheets were bloody the next morning and my neck was so bruised I wore scarves for more than a week following. The truth is I blame myself for baiting him, for putting myself in the dangerous situation in the first place, for not fighting enough, and for lying to myself for five years.

Darkness and Light

2009-07-21T09:58:00.003-06:00

Tuesday again. Wilderness therapy has officially ruined Tuesdays for me. I think its funny, I remember this feeling from long ago, I remember the emptiness in my stomach of wanting to sit down and write, and not finding the time and space to do so. I remember this from way way back--in the pink room at Tailcoat, which must have been maybe third or forth grade. Its weird to me how pieces seem to keep falling together, how long lost reminisces which I never even imagined are conspiring to bring me here to the precipice of this journey. I think its also funny how strongly I'm fighting it, how fervently I keep searching out for others to dull the edge of the mayhem I feel, for answers, for direction, for prayers, for protection, ultimately all things I am quite capable of doing for myself. I mean, I just googled "vision quest advice". Yesterday I spent a couple of hours at the bead shop in town making myself a talisman necklace, with the help of our local crystal magic lady. I want so badly for someone to show me the way, to reassure me that I will come out of this with certainty and grace. I want some concrete reminder and explanation, I want somebody to give me the faith and acceptance which I lack.

In so many ways my life has been leading me here for very much longer than this last month. I've been coming to realize how much I sleep through, and what a profound affect that has on my existence. I realized a bit of the greater role of my exhaustion I remember junior or senior year at L&C. How the more depressed I'd get the more I'd simply pass out, turn off. And then the more I'd fall asleep, the more coffee I'd consume, the more caffeine in my system, then the worse I'd feel. Even then though I never realized the sort of greater metaphorical implications--I want to be a woman who is awake--to the world, to myself, to opportunity. It goes back so much further than college, too. I remember middle school dances, being so uncomfortable that I sat on the stage, put my head down and went to sleep. I've always sort of prided myself on my abilities to fall asleep whenever and wherever possible, though now I wonder if its the healthiest of hidden talents.

I'm worried I'll just sleep through the quest. That the weight of hours and the dragon breath of my demon travel partners might just prove too overwhelming and I'll just seep the day gone for the sake of the passage of time. I don't want to waste this experience, I want it to be thick and meaningful, yet I question my physical ability to stay conscious and present when the truth of life is so draining.

I remember reading some of Bill Plotkin's book for that ecopsych class, way before I knew anything about Durango. I remember reading about his first vision fast before starting AVI, and thinking "why in the hell would anybody ever do something like that?!" I am trying to take comfort and some solace in the synchronicity of this experience, how blatantly and clearly it seems that I am supposed to be here, doing this thing. My fears are large and diabolical, and I kind of want to just go and get it over with right now. I know I have the physical endurance to make it through, its just the mental and emotional stamina that I question.

Looking to my darkness still feels really counter intuitive. I spend so much of my energy and will doing the work so as not to be so sad, fighting off all that dark with all the light I can summon. Purposefully looking the other direction, intentionally moving towards that sadness instead of away from it feels like a betrayal of sorts, an abandonment of the battle, a resignation to suffering. I am coming to know that in fighting to get and be well, to pull myself out of that heart wrenching dark space I began to ignore that it ever existed. My greatest fear in life right now is being that depressed again. It scares me so much that I've glued my eyes shut to the reality of it, ignore the possibility of it, and have forgotten the balance inherent within such darkness. I want to face that fear not with the hopes of vanquishing sadness forever, I don't believe that's possible. I want to learn to coexist, and in doing so open myself to a more full expression of emotion without fear of getting overwhelmed.

I take myself to the woods, both the polished and the tarnished. I take my compassion, my curiosity, and my sense of adventure. I bring stars for perspective, my hands for company, and my feet for grounding. I bring my hopes to the woods to birth and hopefully some demons to put to rest. I bring even that persistent fluttering in my chest yelling...

Vision Fast, the Beginning

2009-07-16T09:44:00.000-06:00

If I could right now, I'd say to myself to sit down, stop distracting myself, and chill the fuck out. My black whole which this swan is circling timidly is all of these emotions that I don't ever stick more than a toe of myself into. Because any emotion invites them all, and that opens me to the sadness and anger that I sense so often boils just below the surface. The undertone that I feel everyday is just enough for me to fight against. My worry for this journey, this adventure is that I can't resign myself to experiencing all of those things, that I don't have enough faith and acceptance to make it safe to go there. Any emotion it seems like is so thickly tied to depression. I know this is supposed to be about going to those dark places, but I can't help but be afraid to let down that final wall. I've known those dark places, that dark almost killed me. I don't trust that I have the tools and the support and the knowledge I need to venture there, and to find my way back.

Straight Joyful

2009-06-27T09:20:00.001-06:00

I'm feeling so much joy in this moment. Joy to have slept for more than ten hours last night, to have woke up to sunshine and clear skies after days of rain, joy to be sitting in the sunshine in a meadow full of wildflowers watching elk. And a whole lot of joy and giddy energy for this group of girls right now, all light and committed and hilarious. I left last night to go on break and they were teaching each other breakdance moves. My heart feels excited when I think about the possibilities, and also a little apprehensive when I think about the inevitable crash that will come.

On my mind I'm finding the vision fast, potentially moving to the boys' group, another intake in a few days, our little miss F, and the giant rain cloud slowly gathering off the eastern horizon. I think if working through the winter taught me how to sit with being anxious about cold and dark, then this summer will teach me about cold and wet. Right now the incessant storms leave me with a sense of foreboding and anger, but it also makes me realize the metaphor in it, how very literally the sun will come out again tomorrow, even if I'm pissed off and cranky in the meantime. We are laying over here today to manufacture some kind of wannabe solo experience, and I am still avoiding thinking about my own. Much less the suggestion that maybe I think about a shift into other groups besides the ladies. I mentioned to Ellen how lately I've been feeling resentful of the folk I know working with the guys or the adults for what I perceive as an easier work experience. The reality is, I'm resentful because we've had such a rough go for the last couple of months, and I get angry when I hear about others easy time of it. I've never worked elsewhere really, so a lot of my resentment happens because I don't really have any knowledge of the ups and downs of the other groups. I also don't really know how to handle my reactions to the tough groups of kids, I tend to internalize too much and get way too caught up in the outcome that I want and imagine rather than the process. I'm just not convinced how leaving would teach me any of those things. Though judging by how frightening the prospect sounds in my brain and in my heart right now, it would probably be a good thing, or the right thing.

Future Talk

2009-06-03T18:10:00.000-06:00

Its Wednesday and this adventure is slowly winding down. It is both wonderful and super strange. I'm really glad the weather got a bit less fabulously awesome in the last couple of days, otherwise I'd really start questioning why on earth I ever left this place. But its cloudy and cool today and pretty humid, enough of a reminder of the last five winters to make me appreciate Colorado and Durango's 300 days of sunshine a year.

It's not that I miss Portland (I do), but being here after being away for so long has definitely clarified some things that I want in my life. Or, at least whatever turns into my next step after Durango. And I guess the heady realization that there will be a next step after Durango, Durango will not hold the next step itself. My next life will involve public transportation and culture. And I will be involved in culture. My next life will be closer to water, though I wonder how much I'll miss the desert when it's not part of my life. I'll bike regularly and use my car pretty exclusively for weekend adventuring. I will feel that I belong in the next place I live, not like I'm just blending in with the tourists and the transient college kids. There will be opportunities to use my languages, and affordable ways to learn about new things in my next life. There will be better bookshops and libraries and room for life outside of work and work folks. I will feel like I'm engaged in the place and in the process. There will be striking views and striking people. There will be things to do and access to wild places. There will be lots of green in my next life, or at least lots of wild and natural space. I wont feel so isolated.

Public Health

2009-05-30T18:01:00.000-06:00

What is the draw?

I want to be doing more multicultural stuff, but with some real meaning behind it. More than just on paper, more than just general race/ethnicity relations with no teeth and no backbone besides just good intentions. I think public health is at the very core--social work. Health care, or inadequate access to it is terrifying, and a huge financial and sociocultural burden. Even more so if the hurdle is linguistic or cultural. Health just seems so much more concrete and basic, fulfilling a basic need on the way to more global understanding and harmony. I think mental health access even more so--and all the more culturally complex. I see that I mean every day even at Open Sky--how inaccessible even our program is if you are anyway outside of what they conceive as the cultural norm.

When I imagine myself years down the road I imagine having worked abroad with refugees, and then being back in the states somewhere doing community development work in public health in some capacity, serving diversity and multiculturalism. I picture being a case worker for someone like Catholic Charities, working hand-in-hand with individuals and families. I picture using other languages and cultural background and experiences to make myself more accessible and appropriate. I picture myself living and working as part of the community, most likely and realistically a Spanish speaking one. I see myself living in a town probably bigger than Durango, with access to culture and to wilderness.

Homecomings of Sorts

2009-05-28T16:49:00.000-06:00

I spent another beautiful, albeit relatively sleepless night last night tenting next to the Rogue River, just inland from Gold Beach into the Siskiyou National Forest. A pretty awesome compromise, scenery wise anyway. I am beginning to loath my tent, as every night lately that I've used it I'm kept awake by incessant flapping. I usually just throw the rain fly over pretty halfheartedly and call it good in the name of mosquito killing. But I got up three separate times last night to secure the damn thing. Bivy-ing is so much quieter, but I'd forgotten that the magical land of ferns and 64 shades of green is also the magical land of insects. So flapping, plus the first round of lumber trucks and boats at about 5:30 made it another early/late morning. I wake early then argue with myself/doze for five minute increments for another couple of hours and its halfway to lunch time all of a sudden.

It always fascinates me how returning home, wherever and whichever home that may be, brings up all this desperate need to project myself and appear different than when I left. Bigger, more advanced, more mature, more together. Most definitely with better clothes and a stronger sense of self. Today this meant sitting in the car and plucking my eyebrows in the rear view (as it often does with impending arrival for some reason). Only a wee bit horrifying because I am sitting in such a beautiful place surrounded by hundreds of miles of more beautiful places on my way to a supremely beautiful place where people love me. That my insecurity can be so profound that this shall be how I shape what they think of me. Not the books that I've read and loved or the places I have seen or the shape of my adventures and my heart--but the shape of my eyebrows. It makes me wonder what I am trying to hide, and whats the worst that can happen.

I think deeply forget everything that I've accomplished and witnessed as time passes and the space between widens. I forget so easily what I learn--I think that's a big reason why I cling so steadfastly to writing down my days in my bones. In the last year since I left Portland I learned about being afraid. I learned that my fear is perpetual, and sometimes I manage better then others. I learned that it can be a good measure of my inspiration and spontaneity--being outside of my comfort zone so necessary and so counter--intuitive. My fear can also be a great measure for exhaustion and complacency--when my stomach stop twinging I get into trouble like at Birch Trail. I learned I can stick to a dream even if I'm not instantly good at it, that some things can click on the 378 try instead of the first or second. I learned a lot about communicating directly, and about how conflict avoidant I am. I learned about how much it rattles me when things go unresolved. I learned I love been a dirtbag but I'm probably not destined to live out of my car anytime soon. I learned to say and instead of but. I've learned to love the desert, and smalltown living, and that I crave big water and culture all the more and even still. I've learned that people will surprise you infinitely, and most often the ones who you thought would be in your life will run the other direction, and the ones who you mourned may just stick around for awhile.

Shit, shit shit shit shit too much coffee makes me feel like my heart is going to combust. Silly buy one get one free mocha-deals, why yes, don't mind if I do. Oregon is making me feel sort of sensory overloaded anyway, I mean they have MOSS here, like grow from the ground green cushy fungusy moss. And old-man's-beard. I had forgotten such things even existed. So strange.

I'm almost to Lincoln City, chilling out at some highway wayside and taking a quick breather. The closer I get to Portland the more overwhelming it suddenly seems. I kind of want to stay another night by the coast and postpone more people time. I really like stopping wherever I fancy and staying and exploring as long or as short as I like. Being in charge and responsible to and for no one is a great and long dreamt about experience. I think I may come back out and spend another couple nights on the water at the end of the week.

Torn

2009-05-27T16:30:00.000-06:00

Breaking temporarily this early evening at another roadside beach just shy of Crescent City far too breathtaking to pass by. The redwood drive tried to steal my heart but I have a long way to go in the next couple weeks before satisfying my thirst for big water. I'm torn even right now over paying big money to camp beach side in some state park, or driving inland for cheaper on the National Forest.

It still fascinates me how intimately I associate feeling any emotion strongly with wanting to sit down and write. Also, it's still a little mystifying to me how that's my only signifier for experiencing emotion--the certainty that I'm freaking out in some direction, the stirring in my gutt and the squeezing in my throat, and the almost overwhelming desire to sit and spill it all on pen and paper. It took me a couple of hours of driving today to figure out exactly what my emotions were connected to, after Ellen called and told me that two of my girls ran away last weekend and still haven't been found. This has never happened before at Open Sky. I felt instant panic and fear, as waking up and finding students gone is up there with all of my worst nightmares, if not the worst professional one. I felt a bit of vindication and relief, as I'd predicted exactly this with those very girls going down when I left last week, and really really really glad I'm not there to manage the aftermath. I feel sorry and concerned for staff going into that mess today at changeover, and for those involved from the get go. I feel a bit perplexed and challenged by the outcome, and my attachment to it--curiosity and my perpetual need to have everything wrapped up and packaged in the end are doing battles in my mind right now. Its feeling hard to be away from the rumor mill in Durango right now, and I am pushing myself to set it aside for later and not get involved.

This coast and the color make me want to write poetry.

Road Trip

2009-05-26T15:52:00.000-06:00

I'm feeling a bit intimidated by writing this week. Even sitting on a totally empty Pacific beach, next to the ocean I've so been craving like a drug these past couple of months. I kind of feel like I have nothing to say. Or worse, that I don't have the powers to say the things that need to be said. I know I can already feel my pulse slowing down just sitting here, and my mind quickening with the possibility of all the big and wonderful things in my heart. I love the way my breath sort of subconsciously matches the ebb and flow of waves breaking with the halfway joyful primordial recognition that I have been here before. My next life must have water in it, and more than the misbegotten half memory of past millenia.

Things I am realizing this adventure, again or for the very first time are so many. That I miss adventuring. That I am just a little bit lonely. That I crave intellectual stimulation. That I embarrass far too quickly. That I really miss riding buses and trains and other such sundry things like getting harassed by homeless people on city streets that wreak of piss which reminds me of Russia. That I walk way more than the average person. That I am avoiding my dream of working with refugees abroad by convincing myself that its not feasible. That I am really scared of grad school and in particular going back to the NW because of the chances it will make me again perpetually gloomy and forlorn. That I'm secretly really intrigued by the UW Seattle program combining Peace Corps, Social Work, and International Public Health. That thinking seriously about a career in mental health freaks me out given how much even just Open Sky is affecting me emotionally. That I am still feeling so torn between the parts of me that need to be outdoors like I need air to breath and the ones that need language and culture and conversation. In that sense I'm no further than I was a year ago.

If it comes down to a choice between Seattle and the world or New Hampshire and the wilderness I may just choose complacency and say neither and fuck another hard decision.

The percolating plan--for the sake of calming my fiery mind--work another year for Open Sky, at least another winter and fulfill my commitment. Start applying for Peace Corps, searching for grad schools, applying this winter for fall 2010. Do year one for MSW/MPH (maybe more, depending on MPH application). Start Peace Corps service in South America fall 2011 through 2013. Complete grad school 2015ish with MSW and Master of Public Health. HOLY SHIT I'd be 29. Craziness. That's so intense to even imagine the rest of my life in that manner. It kind of makes me feel better though, even just thinking about those intentions. I want to travel more, but more than that I want to be abroad again in a more meaningful way. I cant in good conscience be a dirt bag till I'm 30, the lack of purpose will begin to make my heart heavy. But I also can't be trapped inside again like I was through much of the last five years. I will suffocate like a bug.

High Country Impressions

2009-05-14T15:43:00.000-06:00

Colorado feels a whole lot different than Utah did. None of that creepy undertone, no halfway other presence hiding just around the next juniper tree. Less apprehensive and solemn. I think I'm going to really miss the ruins in the sage. And I'm certain I'm going to miss the sky and the perspective. This base camp feels kind of cramped in that sense, theres no where to see the sky or the mountains.

Highlights of yesterday evening include getting lost trying to find the bearhang (yes, we do that now). I led a decent CAIG, of relatively low virtue, and that was it. It feels weird to be stepping up and straightening out a little, and actually doing stuff in the shadow of no one. Nice.

New Horizons, Maybe.

2009-05-13T14:17:00.000-06:00

I suppose this is a good way to start off the shift, awake, done, and chilling out with time to spare this morning. Paul should be here in a few minutes, and in the meantime I'm just trying to slow down my brain a bit and convince my heart that yes, it really and truly will survive this shift. It seems so counter intuitive to be going back, I'm fighting a lot of my fight or flight instincts right now.

I want to set some intentions for the week, as effort to calm my heart and sooth my mind. I intend to use the morning time for myself at least twice this shift, hopefully more. Even if I'm exhausted, and think that sleep would be more beneficial. I will advocate for breaks on some sort of consistent schedule, and for myself when needed. I intend to be gentle with myself this week, and to accept and forgive the emotions that I'm experiencing. This will happen through art, writing, and conversation.

It's 6ish, tonight, and I am potentially lost at the new Colorado base camp. Not lost exactly, I would just be uncertain which direction to run in a hurry if I needed to. Which is a little unnerving. We've been here a total of maybe four hours, and right now the week feels like a long one. I've already managed to trigger two ladies pretty good. It feels heavy here, or they do anyway. Heavy and hard and burdened. Just putting up the group shelter here today took hours, and everything is an argument. Its making me kind of wonder whether I have a week of them in me right now. I feel worm down and on the verge already, mere hours in.

I do this to myself. I do this to myself because I hate shying away form the challenge. Well, I love it, but hate myself for it. I do this today because showing up is infinitely more admirable than conceding. I do this today, with most of the bravery I possess. Because it makes me tired and worn about and even so I know that I showed up and I am making an attempt. I do this to myself today as an act of forgiveness. Because last shift out was terrifying and exhausting and that cannot be the strongest image I have of being out here. And because I must forgive myself for feeling terrified and desperate and overwhelmed. I do this today because I know in some buried corner of my brain that the banal conversations I have tonight with these girls serve some greater good. Because ridiculous tonight may lead to meaningful tomorrow.

I do this to myself because I have a heart capable of holding some burdens bigger than myself. I do this to myself because today and all days I am human. I am human and anything greater or meeker shall be forgiven.

Roll call...

2009-05-09T11:22:00.000-06:00

I'm worried today, and embarrassed and awkward and more than a little bit ashamed. I hate that I'm having this conversation again, I kind of hoped that Keven would be the last one. Or Noah, or to some extent Jack. I hate that getting pissed drunk seems to be the only way I can connect physically with a man. At least the sex itself is no longer what makes me feel shameful, it's the drinking. I feel bad that now I may have to go back there and break this boy's heart. And that I didn't really know his name. I feel angry, when I think about how many times I've ended up in this predicament (3? Ok so it seemed like a lot) and how much I end up victimizing myself. I keep sort of wondering what the missing piece is, what I am doing to be attracting the wrong kind of people in the wrong kind of places. Or maybe the right people in the wrong ways. I feel like I'm better than last night. I regret not just having the evening end as a crazy night out with the girls. Now I'm left with way too much drama fodder for my relatively unoccupied brain.

I've been sitting down by the river for a couple hours now just zoning out. I'm kind of dreading heading home a little bit, wondering if he'll be there and I can't just laugh this whole day off as another one night stand. I'm sure the girls will understand, I'm just not sure he will...

The Day, The Meltdown

2009-04-21T19:18:00.001-06:00

Last night got real bad real quick. I struggle to even write about it, only because I'd like to keep my head out of the experience. Or keep that judging analyzing part out of it anyway.

What I know is what I experienced. Feeling tired and used up, drained before grad dinner. Talking to Heather briefly about C, her mentioning whether C reminds me of myself. Sitting down to dinner with the girls, feeling awkward and not quite successfully managing to flip the switch and turn back on. Wanting desparately to just sit each girl down and tell them exactly what their problem is, or smack them. Wanting desparately to get up and run far away. Walking up to the top of the parking lot, running into Derek and Addi on the way to the hospital, walking back down toward the meadow, feeling like a wave rising from my stomach that stalled in my throat. Walking across the burm and my vision tunelling and my heart racing. My breath speeding up, and knowing I needed to be on the ground. Lying on the far side of the burm, holding on with my fists in the dirt. Alex calling on the radio, startling me. Picking myself up, heading back towards Cleo, making it as far as the trailhead. Stopping at the bottom, feeling crazed and physically frenetic. Holding on to a juniper with two hands, bowing over heaad down. Climbing into the juniper itself, wedging my butt and torse up into the branches. Starring, overwhelmed, trying to conjure all of the saddest things I could imagine, trying to cry, looking to release some despair, feeling stopped up. Craving some company, willing Heather or anyone to come walking down the trail, then when she did feeling simaltaneously grateful and embarrassed. Talking to me, and tears finally welling up. Not wanting to look at her, feeling ashamed and totally certain. RElenting, walking and talking and loosing track of where I was. Sitting in her truck for awhile, talking and fighting to control my breathing. Another radio call, answring hesitantly, and transparently, hoping desparately to magically hide how upset I was from the timbres of my voice. Feeling selfish. Slowing down fianlly. Being annoited, and trying to talk my way out of the freak out. Hours passing in conversation, then Emily appearing, looking worried. More shame. Swallowing my pride, telling her the abbreviated story while she walked me back up to Cleo. Listening, glazed, as she tried to reassure me, and retaining approximately every third word. "I'd be worried if this DIDNT happen to you"... Alex appearing in his underwear, realizing it was way later than I'd thought. Attempting to play things off, Emily starring me down and keeping me honest. Telling Alex I'd got overwhelmed. Moving my bed off the platform, hoping nobody would realize. Laying down finally by the fire, exhausted, but not sleeping for eons. Watching the stars change color, and the sky brighten. Giving up about daybreak, getting up to stoke the fire, sitting down attempting to meditate, ending up just starring through the flames. The awkward how am I doing questions, knowing the monumental previous night and fine falling far short. Waiting for the question, wanting to be asked secretly, and not wanting the awkard explanation, being horrified and angry when they suggested that I ask to leave the field. MOre shame and embarassment. The girls waking, "Oh, Peggy's back" breaking for the morning. Meditating mostly succesfully by the grad medicine wheel, lying in the sun in shivassena pose, feeling ground again. Wanting to flee, deciding to fess up and ask. Walking back to cleo, falling into breakfast prep, natural., Wondering what I had left in me. Wondering if I could go there for another day, knowing I could suck it up physically though doubting my emotional stamina. Wondering how stoicism serves me, feeling pulled in all directions.

And that was sort of it.

So Over It

2009-04-20T13:34:00.002-06:00

I hate tarping students. I hate Mondays at base with therapy and I hate the lethargy I feel looking at the whiteboard with so much to get done. My fantasy lately, has been just lying in my bed for like two days straight watching bad TV on my laptop and eating soup. Not even real food, soup like Progresso from a can. I think I'm rapidly reaching the end of my endurance for working through sick. I'm over it. I'm tired, tarping kids makes me sleep like crap. Particularly C, she totally puts me on edge. We put her on run watch last night after she tried to blow me off while taking her to the bathroom. Sort of an instinct more than anything else. I'm proud of following through on those instincts lately, but today and last night more repulsed by the results.

I feel blah and pissed off. I imagine I feel blah because I'm mentally drained and physically tired, which keeps my emotions from going anywhere thrilling, or very far at all. In the future I hope I can take better care of myself physically so as to more strongly experience whatever comes up emotionally. I imagine I feel pissed off because I sense I'm being manipulated and have my defenses lower than normal for being ill and tired. The particular students that I'm pissed off with or about I can't voice my frustrations to either, which makes it seem bigger and worse than it actually is. In the future I hope that I can use my anger and frustration therapeutically, and better learn to let go when I can't do so.

South Style

2009-04-19T13:25:00.000-06:00

I'm feeling frazzled and worn out. We bumped C back up to high suicide watch this afternoon on the way back to base. I'm not even involved directly this time with her, and even I feel manipulated. She seems to enjoy the whole process in some sick sort of way. It seems like shes testing us, saying that we're not taking her safety seriously enough with the modified watch and she was going to hang herself with her shelter cordage last night but she fell asleep first. It's like, "You guys don't love me enough, so I'll just go and kill myself now..." or at least thats how I took it. Pretty tiring at any rate. She seems so wrappedup in being crazy, it's almost become an identity stronger than any others for her. Any divergance, fun of any sort, n o matter how brief takes her away from that sense of self. I guess I'm triggered by the passivity, and a little annoyed to still be playing this game. She's overwhelming.

Other than that I guess its Sunday and I'm making it through. I'm having a hard time putting the work into building rapport with this new crew of kids. I've made some connection or atleast had an extended conversation with almost everyone, which I'm proud of. Staffing dynamics have been the biggest challenge for me this week, even more than just feeling physically shitty. Alex and me aren't clashing, but we are definitly not clicking, and I'm finding that hard to sit with. Chris I'm just intimidated by and want so badly to please it's tremendously off-putting. And Torrey just hasn't been around. I miss Kara's south energy a lot...

Face-off

2009-04-18T17:00:00.000-06:00

Lurking just downwind should not be considered a break by any means, in any form. I'm physically dragging though emotionally and spiritually buoyed. We made it up to Cougar's Crossing this afternoon in great form. I'm proud and excited to have survived my first real sitter stare-down, and had a big part in ending the stale mate. Jo got pretty close to breaking on the haul up from Old Base Camp, and threw a hissy fit at Alex. She was still on directions after a talk we had at lunch where she told me she didn't care if she rejoined the group or not and didn't give a shit what any of the girls thought and anytime she looked like she did it was all fake. And a lot of crying. I want to believe I made a connection in that moment, I figure at the very least it seemed to be authentic her, but I don't really trust that tie. She strikes me as somebody who uses people for the sake of not being used first. At any rate, after blowing up at Alex and refusing to move halfway up this pretty epic climb, when I went down and talked to her she got up. I don't know if I was the magic or not, but I was expecting to get a great big fuck you and anything more was just bonus. I'm always petrified of those decision moments when I call a student's bluff, and am constantly amazed when they don't challenge me. If I were them, I'd challenge me, and push me hard.

It's been a strange balance of weird dynamics so far this shift. Definitely different with just me and Alex, for the most part. I'm having a hard time both being supportive of him and taking more initiative for myself. There seems to be a big disconnect between those two intentions that I wasn't expecting, which kind of rattles me. I think he has a hard time stepping back and letting go of control even just a little bit. When I have taken steps to assert myself and show some confidence, he always seems to show up or step in somehow. I feel like he doesn't trust me, and that's irking me a lot. And then he mentions feeling tense around me, which I actually was pretty surprised and taken aback by. We tried to discuss it this morning, awkwardly, but just sort of talked each other into a knot. Now I sense just some simmering weirdness which I don't deserve, and don't know what to do with. I want to know as part of a team that I can be depended on just as much as I lean on others, and not sensing that makes me feel anxious, defensive, uncertain, and just a little invalidated. (There it is again, that never feeling good enough)

Should be another awkward feedback session in the morning. I'm happy the weather has shifted, we have no one on directions, we're headed back to base tomorrow, we get four staff back tonight, and can take real breaks. It's Saturday almost over the hump, I have a cold and am not totally psychosomatically ill. The sun is setting on mostly clear skies, and the next two days should be pretty mellow.

Famous last words.

My body is feeling full in the head and my nose is chapped raw. My mind is sleeping, my heart is uncertain, restrained, and ambitious. Like I've got a lot to prove. My soul is observing.

Here's Hoping...

2009-04-17T16:56:00.000-06:00

Breaking, sort of, another evening at the Gallery. Alex and me plus five angry females went on a bit of a challenge day hike today, and now the wind kicked back up and he put of of the ladies on directions for sharing food. They know better, and I kind of just want to smack 'em. Two staff, one on safety watch, and two on directions is kind of an unnecessary lot. So I'm hiding in the juniper next to the kitchen eating chocolate and wishing it was more than Friday. I think I made myself sick again, unwittingly, from stress about the move and exhaustion after four shifts in. The last two days have been super foggy for me, and headachey and nausea and lightheadedness and vertigo. I'm not totally convinced its all mental, but at any rate no fun and no good for the job. I'm tired and two more shifts before a break right now seems pretty insurmountable.

Here's hoping the wind shifts and the weather breaks so the next six days are sunny and warm as promised...

The Truth, Take One

2009-04-13T20:05:00.002-06:00

I'm angry, like proverbially, and I don't know why and where from. I'm angry with my parents for showing me that thoughts trump feelings and the only way to be is calm and collected and in control. I'm angry that my Dad told me he doesn't believe in unconditional love. I'm angry with Noah for sleeping with me even though he knew that I was piss drunk. I'm angry with my brothers and sisters for screwing up and leaving me to be the good child and the successful one in the traditional sense. I'm angry that no one listened to me when I told them I was sick and didn't want to be alive. I'm angry that I've forgotten how to write with soul. I'm angry that my mother allowed me to parent her, and made so many excuses for Dad's rage. I'm angry that he has always been so volatile, and that I see so much of myself in him. I'm angry that I can't forgive my family. I'm angry that I've made myself invisible. I'm angry with Jack for using me, and Chris for not having enough guts to love me. I'm angry with Dad for getting sick, and for telling me I had to get published and find love before he dies. I'm angry about not being trusted and not trusting myself. I'm angry that I've been an adult since grade school, and now don't know how to get loose without drugs and alcohol. I'm angry that I've chased color from my life. I'm angry that I'm so afraid, so perpetually. I'm angry at all the people who look past me unless there is something to gain from me. I'm angry that I'm so refined that I can't cry, can't drum, can't write, can't scream with wild abandon. I'm angry that there is never good enough. I'm angry that somewhere somebody told me I was fat and ugly and I believed them. I'm angry that my life is in pieces, dichotomized, and right now I miss the smart cosmopolitan parts. I'm angry that I don't know how to be nice to myself. I'm angry that I can't say no, and my boundaries are weak and easily circumvented. I'm angry that I am so often afraid.

I'm scared so much of my day that I think I've learned to ignore what it feels like. I'm scared I won't find love. I'm scared I will be found out as a fraud. I'm scared that I don't deserve to be here. I'm scared to be abandoned, and that I won't find the connections that I crave. I'm scared of the next adventure. I'm scared that I won't have enough, financially, physically, spiritually, emotionally. I'm scared of the blank page. I'm scared of not knowing, of not being able to make everything make sense. I'm scared of not having a plan or six. I'm scared when I camp by myself. I'm scared of falling short, of having nothing to say, of doing the wrong thing. I'm scared of forgetting, languages, experiences, past lives. I'm scared of displeasing. I'm scared of settling. I'm scared of being overwhelmed. I'm scared to death that one day I will wake up in the morning and not want to be alive again, and that I won't realize what has happened. I'm scared that I am not strong enough to keep myself well. I'm scared that my brother will drink himself to death before I ever really know him. I'm scared of open space that can't be filled. I'm scared of confrontation. I'm scared when I think about what will happen after Open Sky. I'm scared of limbo, being stuck and in between. I'm scared of loosing control. I'm scared of the things I can't just explain away. I'm scared to give feedback. I'm scared to show people how I feel. I'm scared to tell others that I love them, scared to get burned. I'm scared that if I don't learn I'll never get what I want.

I want wild abandon. I want color and fire and passion and boundlessness. I want adventure, and I want fearlessness. I want sunshine, and I want to be outside. I want to be part of community, I want to know where I belong and that I am part of something. I want handwritten letters and long train rides. I want to know that I am loved and that I am enough. I want to love myself and believe it. I want to be comfortable being compassionate, more than being fair and just. I want to look beyond the book. I want to know what my greater good is, and how how to ask for it. I want to wake up in the morning and be grateful. I want a love that is nurturing and genuine and challenging and comfortable and open and that I don't question. I want to be grounded, to own myself, and to know that I am doing good work for the world. I want thinner walls, so that I learn to not take everything so personally, and so that I feel safe and secure. I want to feel at home, no questions. I want to allow myself to dance, to yell, to make music that no one has ever heard before. I want to be barefoot. I want to know who I need, and who to let go of. I want to skip the head more often, and go straight to the heart. I want to grow my own food. I want to travel more, and learn from the cells outwards. I want to know that I am using myself to my utmost capacity. I want less apathy, and more excitement. I want to terrify myself so I know that I am doing the right thing. I want a plan. I want to fly by the seat of my pants. I want a dog. I want right now to be enough. I want a story to occupy me. I want to play more music unabashedly. I want better posture. I want to be giddy and ridiculous. I want to not worry about money. I want to find a way to travel, to live abroad again while making money. I want game. I want to not want. I want the stone between my heart and head to go away. I want to reach out, and have my challenge returned. I want to be inspired and inspiring. I want to embrace the next big adventure. I want to not be afraid anymore.

At Home Where There Are No Houses?

2009-04-11T16:20:00.000-06:00

Apparently its that time of year again where things are opening and closing in all directions. So strange that winter has passed, yet the freak snowstorms seem to continue biting me in the ass. Even stranger that I graduated from college eleven months ago. I'll be in Portland almost one year to the date. The time of year where I get restless and reckless and overdramatic, rather habitually.

Currently wrapped in housing drama, as per usual. I am totally torn philosophically, at this point over even finding my next place or not. Paul put the seed well I should say watered the seed already in my own head of just saying fuck it and committing to full time vagabondery for the summer. I'm frustrated with the process of selling myself to potential home-mates, don't like the place I'm seeing, and can't afford the places I covet. Between May 1 and July 1 I only anticipate sleeping in town for about 14 days, as opposed to the usual 15 nights per month.

I am intrigued and repulsed simaltaneously by the idea of elective homelessness. I'm intrigued by the adventure of it, physically. I often feel loss and let down after coming home from the field and moving indoors. I feel that emotionally more than physically I think, way less grounded, motivated, and purposeful. I have this fantasy about the adventure of it, waking up in my tent someplace beautiful, being forced into all the ideal parts about work without the stress of it. Reading and writing and doing art and being free and rooted all at the same time. The reality I'm sure is far from it. I'm attracted to saving money, $40 a month for storage versus $400 something for rent. I have this theory that not having a room to come home to might encourage me to expand and engage my support systems, and to seek out the people/places/things/attitudes I want as part of my life. Towards my own greater good. I'm attracted to simplifying, at least for a little while, and living out more of my wanderlust instincts.

I'm not sure yet how much of this freaking me out is new and wise terror, and how much is my usual fear of the unknown and new trying to strangle those outer impulses. I know I am very attached to having my own space, some niche somewhere that is mine to return to. I know this helps keep me grounded and relaxed. I know that depending on other people makes me uncomfortable, and that I put a lot of stock in being in control. I know that my brief stint homeless in the fall stressed me out a lot. I know that most of my off shift life lately revolves around baking, napping, watching too much tv, hiding, doing too much internet, and other such associated vegging out. These are all things that would be challenging without a home base.

The part I can't place in a particular column is how different I am since October. I'm scared of doing all of this and committing to the gypsy life because couch surfing in October was really hard for me. I'm grateful for the lessons I learned and the people I met, particularly the ones about trusting that the universe is well intentioned and puts me where I am meant to end up. The thing is, I am so much more grounded than I was in October. I know people in town now that I can fall back on, instead of trusting in the goodness of strangers. Work is so much less overwhelming than it was in the beginning. I wanted to write less crazy, not the case. I just handle the crazy better. The weather even would be more easy going. I'm scared though, because even so I don't know if I can do it, emotionally and spiritually...

The One You Write Home About

2009-04-07T15:18:00.000-06:00

Tuesday afternoon and I am feeling drained after saying goodbye to our three grads and their families. The ladies just left to meet Norman for a bonus meditation session, and though I'd really love to go sit for a while I'm aware that I am at that precipice point of no return for not quite needing a break but not having enough energy to be solid for another 24 hours. Tuesdays are a tease, without a lot to do and it still feels like we should be outgoing instead of heading out on expedition again. I am doing better staying engaged and in tuned and engaging, but definitly stretched at this point.

Grad was intense. I always want to be the one they write home about, the one that was both memorable and to be missed. To get that in the face from three separate families was powerful and really special to watch. I really appreciated having that piece of closure for my own sake, validation and continuing inspiration. Watching them with their families was like the final payoff of how many months of hard work. The three of them were all so happy, it made me sad or them to think about how hard life gets once they leave here and have to fend for themselves without us asking incessantly how they are feeling. Sad and excited and curious and so very hopeful. I'll truely miss Trace for her smile and perpetual goofiness, Nadine for her optimism and convictions and bravery, and Orange for her laughter. It will be a truely different group now in so many ways.

I am feeling antsy and lethargic in my body. My right temple is starting to tinge, and the inside of my thighs have rubbed raw. My mind feels like its clenched tight, like a face looking into bright sunlight. My heart is stressed out, and wound up. My heart is filling up towards my throat. My heart feels uncertain and warm and open, all at the same time. My soul is angry and ambivalent.

Empathetically Insecure

2009-04-04T14:24:00.001-06:00

All I've wanted for the last few days was the moment to sit and write for a while. That, and a break in the rain/wind/snow. and now I have both, and I can think of little consequential to say.

The biggest thing coming up for me this week so far is how much not being in the know annoys me. I mean, or I gues currently I mean when the staff team staffs up without me. Its not even the not knowing whats going on that bugs me the most, but not being included. It makes me feel insecure, and unworthy and stupid. It brings up feeling unwanted and not trusted and undesirable and overlooked. I had brought this feedback to Alex last shift and mentioned it to Kara as well, so I challenged myself this week not to bring it up. Not to flip out hen I dont know whats going on or what the plan is, to make a more visible effort just to rool with it as I go. Sort of as a challenge to see if I could do so, not ask a bunch of questions for the sake of including myself. And to challenge myself just to be uncomfortable and feel all of those things.

No snow this morning, but frigid. Colder than I've experienced out here for a couple of months. I am wearing all of my layers and then some. I slept in everything for the first time since early January, and was pleasantly warm all night. To think it was 75 degrees last shift, and I debated retiring my deep winter sleeping bag for the season...

Solos ending this afternoon makes me a bit anxious. Mostly because I'm tired and thinking about kicking back into gear makes me more tired. Those transports on the way into work really sapped my energy. I'm sitting here watching the surise wishing I had a cup of coffee to warm my hands and my heart.

The other big field emotional thing that keeps coming up for me out here lately is how much the helpless almost entitled ones seem to get under my skin. I'm trying to figure out why. I find it exasperating, particularly when they've been here a while already and are privy to a lot of our tricks of the trade, yet still aren't doing for themselves and freak out unless others are taking care of them for them. Jo is a great example, or atleast the most current. I have a hard time showing empathy when shes not using the tools we've given her to be succesful and take care of herself, and is still suffering. I'm having a hard time connecting into why she is that way psychologically and experientially, where her basic goodness lies. I think I am such an independent person, and have always been expected to take care of myself and the people around me, --all those kids who have never had to do something hard, never had to do something for themselves just piss me off on a personal level. A little bit of jealousy and far too much self-righteousness. Where I should be compassionate I am instead frusterated and angry. I never had a chance or an opportunity to be whiney and demanding and taken care of, and I guess atleast on some level I resent her for that. I need to remember that a lot of her that frusterates me are the same patterns coming through. Helpless is anting attention, medically manifesting emotions is in someways the same. Wanting attention and not knowing the right ways to get what she wants. IT fits the whole messy divorce, super immaturity, boy crazy physicality part too. Patterns like throwing hissy fits and refusing and trying to charm her way through things that aren't working so well here any more. I'm sort of using her to practice my goal of showing more compassion this week. I've done it a lot before too, once I know I'm being triggered by a student I often redouble my efforts to work with them, just to get through it and proove to myself almost counter suggestively that I can find that connection and be somewhat productive, even when I'm uncomfortable. I did it with Cris, never got there with Sam, did it with A, and now Jo. On the hike in to White Rock she freaked out panicked again, like she did all last shift. At one point I got down next to her as she's doubled over crying and couched her through one of Norman's breathing excercises, and still managed to find that boundary line of "yes, OK, now we have to keep moving." Then again his morning, I was checking her feet on the first solo round. THey were legit cold, so I put them on my belly for awhile. I think usually I would just have got frusterated before and scoffed. I'm curious to see what afefct showing more compassion audibly and physically has.

It's late afternoon now, and I am shitting on top of White Rock looking out on mountains in all directions and just feeling so very blessed in this moment that being out here is my job and my life. I had good talks with Nadine and Andi this afternoon after pulling everyone off solos, and the sun finally came out. I got space this morning and this time now, and am feeling way more grounded than these past couple of days. I am liking the balance of the last few shifts out, where I can both totally loose myself and forget what day it is, and also be excited to go home and do good things. I feel good about my week when I can hit Sunday or Monday and not be strung out frenetic exhausted. Working with Marie adn Kara has been fabulous. The high point that I'll remember for awhile was our food party last night once we finally put Cate out on a modified solo and had the kitchen to ourselves. I introduced the both of them to peanut butter chocolate torts. The peanut butter was super runny and dripped from both ends like crazy and for awhile the three of us were eating the same tort at the same time and laughing so hard it hurt.

I'm still working on the part about how I show my compassion out here question. I haven't come up with any great easy answers. I know I am compassionate when I can empathize genuinely with a student when they are acting a certain way and keep myself in check. I am compassionate when I can touch into my emotions and respond, instead of react. When I can balance the behavior with the old pattern and intent--see past what to the probable why, without getting my personal stuff to cloud the picture.

A work in progress, I am.

Monday Again

2009-03-30T14:10:00.000-06:00

Monday again, and I'm wondering what I have to show for it. I'm learning that for me to feel recharged by the time I head back to work its not enough just to not do stressful things. I have to also do be proactive about doing relaxing things. Last off shift was such a binge of self-care happy fun time though, I think anything smaller just pales in comparison. I have baked a lot, and slept a crap-ton, but mostly I've just procratinated and watched a lot of bad TV. I am stressing preemptively about moving again, in less than a month, which seemed like a long time until I factored in the whole work week schedule thing. So in theory I am moving in about twelve days.

I'm wondering about underscoring my feminine this coming week, how to do so, and what it would look like. Not feminine in the fro-frou frilly sense, but more in the extra compassionate softer sense. The part that can love 'em up without feeling guilty, that can hold boundaries compassionately, as Alex likes to say. I'm trying to figure out how I show compassion, how I can demonstrate that softer side.

Villian-ess

2009-03-24T13:51:00.000-06:00

I don't think I like being the new supervillian. It's bringing up a lot of my need and perpetual desire to be liked and for there not to be tension. And my propensity for conflict avoidance like hardcore. I want to just immediatly go and do whatever I can and whatever I need to so that Trace and Karla aren't pissed at me. It makes me second guess my choices and my actions, like maybe they're on to something, like I have wronged them by challenging them, though I know thats the insecurities talking. I need to just sit with being uncomfortable, sit with knowing their is tension and conflict without running to make it all go away.

The last night in the field, and even with everything thats gone down, I'm feeling pretty good. Capable, confident, calm even. New home girl got delayed (slash went pyscho in Denver and wasn't permitted past security in the airport) so we are suddenly shooting to move again in the morning, and meet her halfway through the day. Hopefully at Cheer Up already, even. I'm tired, but not almost dysfunctional wasted tired. I'm excited to be headed home tommorow, but not completely possessed by the thought or weighed down by the process of getting from here to there. I feel more in control over my emotions and responses than I have in the field in the past, which is remarkable given what day it is. I feel rejuvenated and excited too, about the prospects of building a working relationship with Emily D, after a couple of quick chats in the last few days. She saw me in top form today, both working with Andi in a joint session, and then taking and reflecting feedback from students and doing art in a group. I'm looking forward to meeting with her to finally finish my pathway stuff on Thursday, instead of dreading it.

It occured to me yesteday at somepoint, how rarely I feel truely calm and serene. It amazes me sometimes how much of my life is/has been run around being anxious and not realizing. It is hard for me even to pin down the physical feeling attached to calm, foreign enough that I have to think hard to match body to heart. I feel sad and a little bit disappointed and regrettful thinking about how much time and good energy I devoted to feeling frenetic and unbalanced, how much my anxieties and insecurities painted so many potentially meaningful scenes. And curious to see if I can call up some inner stillness in the future, on shift and off. Or how to do so, I suppose, more than anything.

So Much Drama

2009-03-23T13:45:00.000-06:00

Shortly, because it's late and I am suddenly drained. Karla took of this evening, right about when I got back from break. My heart and head are still spinning. Alex and I chased her, sort of, 'till Heather and Chris the FM showed up. I feel scattered and shaken and anxious. Nervous and uncertain about how to approach her now. Like I failed somehow. My body and heart feel heavy. Anxiety is creeping in to take the place of this evening's adrenaline rush. And we've got a new homegirl coming in late tommorow night on a high suicide watch...

Bohdi is drumming late into the evening, and I kind of wonder whether they have this much drama...

Light on the Outside, Still on the Inside

2009-03-23T13:03:00.000-06:00

They tell me springtime in the desert means wind like crazy. Right now the air is so thick with dust and sand that the blue sky above has taken on a grey brown haze like a curtain two miles out. It is warm but the incessent bowling breeze tricks me into thinking its month colder than it wants to be.

It's been a stupid giddy couple of days, in the best possible way. I'm sitting in the sunshine outside of the staff tent drinking hot chocolate. I feel warm and accomplished in one of those moods where I could sit and stare and sip my tea for hours on end and feel entirely content. My body is feeling stretched and worn out. My upper back is tight, and my face is hot. I feel like I've been slouching for too many days ina row, probably the case. My mind is slowing, not nearly so frenetic as the past couple of days. My heart is opening and so very content to be knee deep in this experience. I feel accomplished in my heart and proud of the work I've done this week, and the work I've helped to facilitate. My heart feels endless and boundless and infinitely wise. My soul feels present, like some sort of flamboyant parrot just chilling on my shoulder, taking it all in stride.

I can hear Avatar rocking out on the wind, and bits and pieces of so many conversations floating from so many directions. I feel so happy and proud to be a part of this crazy scene right now, and so committed to making the small and crucial inroads in so many lives. This is what its about for me, even when the weather is shitty and I'm exhausted and somebody is screaming about hating me and wanting to die. I will one day hear the flapping of prayer flags, so many layers of them, in my dreams. I will step beyond my insecurities and anxiety and know without question that I am good and this work is good and that I can connect to the small flame of goodness in all of us without getting lost in my head or my shortcomings.

I'm proud of myself so far this week for so much. I've brought a lot of light energy, of fun ridiculousness without going overboard and without getting angry and frusterated first. I'm proud of myself for bringing concerns to Alex appropriately, not just convincing myself that they were invalid and just a matter of me being uncomfortable and insecure. I'm proud I didn't stuff it in and let my frusterations fester before getting angry enough to snap. I'm proud of the work I did both with Andi and Karla this week. I'm really happy that I didn't get intimidated by Karla's isolation or moods or vocalizing her desires to hurt herself. I'm so stoked to have actually stuck to my goal of listening more than speaking, and to have seen it pay off big time with the both of them. I'm proud that I trusted the program this week, shut my mouth, and did my best to stay out of it. Low and behold, every time I had some burning desire to say something or contribute something and decided to sit with it for a while longer, some student managed to come forward and make the point way better and more impactful than I ever could have.

My two biggest goals for the week were to be light on the outside and still on the inside, and to make art. I think I've done a pretty good job with both so far. Light and still look like calm and playful and fun externally, while remaining grounded, balanced, focused, and serene I guess internally. I haven't really gone to that frenetic angsty place yet this shift, it's been nice and way more relaxing. And more fun. The ridiculousness with out all the work in between I guess. Mandatory happy funtime, and Kara being her fabulous self really helped too. As did art, and the perpetual fear of coming off shift feeling as emotionally worked as I did last week. That and my crayons. I think they did the girls more good than me, which is totally fine. I am finding the drawing and coloring sort of calming. More than calming, I am appreciating the release, and the different sort of processing required to put shape and color to feelings. More, "What would this look like," rather than "what would this mean?". So much less taxing.

Brink

2009-03-20T12:56:00.000-06:00

Cottonwoods are creepy. The long end to a very long day and I am trying to fathom the back hike about tho happen to get out of this canyon and find water. My body hurts, my knees are throbbing. My mind is racing and so far past impatient the word seems far from adequate. My heart is impatient and close to the surface. I feel that in my body like bile rising quickly in my throat, a tightness in my chest, the tea pot close to boiling over. My soul is antsy and refusing to settle into my body.

I think secretely I enjoy the falling close to the brink, freaking out a wee bit then drawing back from the precipice. I particularly enjoy in a sick kind of way getting super frusterated and pissed off, then tipping over into that magical realm of ridiculousness and pure giddy abandon. Like tonight, when faced with no choice but the reality that I had to rally somehow, adrenaline I guess kicked in with the exhaustion. I got wicked silly, and things were somehow OK again. I'm grateful for that last unseen and unexpected pool of energy and the good mood adrenaline and endorphins managed to smack me into.

Union

2009-03-17T12:48:00.000-06:00

I finally felt that glimpse of union this morning, the spontaneous rising and exhalation doing yoga at sunrise. Like my uprised palm could actually pull in some of the energy peeking over the eastern horizon. And my quaking muscles some how called out for all the awareness and intention and courage that I've been craving. I am so on when I step paying attention and start just listening, being. And yet the pause required, that intermediate breath required to wipe clean the state also raises all my walls of inadquacy and insecuirty. I want big broad unafraid sweeps of color and fire and torrents of words to pour forth, and instead I am mired in tepid streams and strains of muted blues and golds, which creep around corners eyes first.

I seem to be holding my breath.

Thundersnow, Again.

2009-03-07T11:31:00.000-07:00

It thunder-snowed for a while on us this morning, while coming down from Shangri La. In the moment it kind of pissed me off, with a deep sort of foreboding. We were lost, sort of, one canyon up from where we expected to be. I was feeling pretty rundown, and failing miserably at engaging the new girl, Karla, in any sort of conversation. But in retrospect, thunder snow is...awesome and humbling and really kind of epic.

I'm feeling almost lonely tonight. Closer to homesick than lonely, I don't quite yet have a good word for it. I can feel almost physically my insecurities sneaking back into regular conversation, triggered in part by watching Alex and Kara staff up together without me a couple of times. I'm sure all kind of innocuously, but it always just freaks me out a little bit, like they are talking about me oh my god they must not trust me they don't respect me I'm doing a poor job. I acknowledge the absurdity of the thought process, and am at least acting out less in response to it. Feedback days always put me a little on edge to begin with, and particularly today the slow realization that this is day 8 for me, with another three left to go puts me more vulnerable to down talking myself than normal, or than I'd like to be.

Good lord I am going to have to pee like crazy shortly. I just made a thermos full of hot chocolate (and some cappuccino powder mixed in...fuck) that while exceptionally calming I have a sickening suspicion might keep me up for a while. I've been sleeping really well this shift, like often entirely through the night instead of waking up every coupe of hours. Its been a really nice change of pace, and I'm sure no small part of why I have been so positive and had so much energy lately, compared to past shifts.

It's frosting. It feels like forever since its been cold enough to frost out here. Utah in the springtime is officially weird. We go from warm enough for lizards and tee shirts to snow and frost in like a day and a half. Awesome.

I had an interesting conversation with Nadine this afternoon. I kind of wasn't banking on it actually going anywhere, given here propensity to brush things off. Then suddenly later on when we were doing dinner and an intro group for Karla, she described her challenges here as building a better relationship with herself, so she can have better relationships with others. It was sort of a sha bam kind of moment, either that or she was just parroting what she thinks I want to hear...I had asked her straight up what she's doing here, after reading her 2 page paper thing about when she was at her best all around how her life was on the up before she came here and being here is a big miscommunication with her parents. Getting along with others and being way hard on everyone and herself was sort of the answer we came to, but I didn't expect to hear it from her mouth so openly. It was a cool moment for me, to feel like a one-on-one actually went somewhere useful.

Tonight my body feels hunched and bent. My left foot is asleep and I'm finally starting to feel the chill in my legs and across the back of my neck. My tongue is leathery and burned. My neck and upper back are tight. My mind is antsy and quick, going in no particular direction. My hear is heavy tired, not heavy sad. My heart is longing and confused what for. My heart is tranquil a bit, and already a bit anxious about whatever is coming next. My soul feels a bit placid, hanging out on the edges just taking it all in.

Hapy Clam Sesh

2009-03-06T10:54:00.000-07:00

Breaking tonight after a particularly draining day from Little Easy up to Shangri La, where Cleopatra is again pioneering, the first Open Sky kids to every grace this patch of crypto. It was a head draining experience to be walking sweep all day behind Andi and Trace bitching incessantly about damn near everything. They started to really drag me down after a while, then all of a sudden I'm like hey wait a minute--I've got centering skills too.

The crazy thing was where my head then went. I tried just blocking them out for awhile. Then I tried imagining calming things, like the ebb and flow of the ocean. Then I just started imagining things that made me giggle, that's when things really got interesting.I think the first thing that flashed through my mind was Dad dancing like an elephant. The next thing unfortunately was Jack, just pissed me off more for awhile. Then I settled on Charlie doing his happy clam thing for a while, which got me up most of the last side canyon (there were several). Then we hit the road for a couple more burly uphills, and thankfully I got some of the ladies singing ridiculously, and we were almost good.

Then we actually made camp on top at Shangri La, and the simmering tension finally came to boil in an actually awesome and fairly appropriate kind of way. Christy laid it all out there straight up and just asked to the group why they're all negative towards Alex. We finally had an open and relatively honest conversation and I was stoked. I couldn't have staged it better if I tried, and I've been plotting for days how to facilitate the discussion. I love it and rarely trust wilderness to work, and when it does in such a vivid and straight forward way its really exiciting for me.

The one thing I said today that I'd really like to take back was from our discussion actually. I said that if you can't say whats on your mind in this safe space here where we are paid to listen to you, how on earth are you ever going to do so in the real world. I wish I hadn't said the part about being paid to listen, true or not. It came of I think as excessively callous, and was pretty unnecessary. I wish I hadn't got into it at all today with Trace either. I hadn't realized how basically oppositional she can be, and that she was in a foul mood to begin with. Every little thing I asked of her was than a huge struggle, and I got wrapped up in wanting the last world before I realized what was going on.

I'm really proud of myself today for not getting bogged down in a bad mood, still feeling sick-ish, and generally low energy. It was really cool to see Olivia get excited about leading a hike and to actually hear her voice for really the first time. And to see Christy stick her neck out and start calling people out on their shit. Even Nadine I sense is getting down near scraping bottom, and to see her have to draw on reserves she didn't know she had was sort of the perfect end to a rough afternoon. I'm proud that I didn't let the negative energy totally take control, and managed to rise above.

My body is cold, my upper back is sore, and my stomach feels a little queasy. My big toes hurt from the cold and not yet fresh dry socks. All the scrapes on my hands and fingers sting a little, and my chest is heavy from coughing. My mind is calm. My heart feels excited and tired and a bit giddy. My soul feels a bit distant. Not quite absent, just far from grounded in my body.

Ghosts

2009-03-05T10:42:00.001-07:00

I can't get over how weird it is to be seeing my own footprints in the sand. I'm off this morning, sitting into the wind and remembering all the ghosts of students gone before at this site. And remembering me before at this site, which is almost as weird. I'm leading that same hike down to Little Easy in a bit, which was my first hike I lead on my first expedition in October. The one where I fell of the end of the point, and where we ended up in that sweet side canyon that looked like Seaworld. So bizzare.

I'm trying to check in with myself and not getting very far. My body is cold, particularly my big toes. My face is still tingling from the GABA. My mouth tastes like paper from all the snot dripping down my throat. The tops of the insides of my thighs feel raw. My quadriceps are tight and a little sore. I'm hungry. My mind is moving slowly and also quite quickly. My mind is moving slowly but my heart is apprehensive about leading this hike again, and trying to tell my mind to move quickly. My heart is also feeling excited to be getting to know new people, and to see three students transition today. And curious to watch how the girls continue to develop and work with each other and a new student through the rest of the week. My soul is feeling a lot of gratitude for this beautiful place in which we find ourselves, looking out over the canyons and mesas and mountains still snow-capped.

Breakfast time. Man I need to meditate. Or take a nap. But probably meditate...

Medicine

2009-03-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

I got a bit of my own medicine today, it was kind of perfect actually. A bunch of the girls had been hardcore bad triangulating about my staff team Monday night, before the new staff showed up. They had some pretty strong words and feedback, which they refuse to share. Then all day long everything we do, they have some little snide comment directed passively towards us. It was really hard to watch. It made me feel stuck in the middle, awkward and uncomfortable, just like me trash talking other folk does for all who have to listen to me. It sucked.

Back bivying at Avatar Point tonight, trying to stay out of the wind. Headed maybe to Little Easy tomorrow down in Squaw, but we'll see. We have a new girl suddenly on Saturday, so the whole plan will probably change. I made Nadine cry this morning, while she was telling me about her boyfriend beating the shit out of her regularly. It was a pretty intense conversation...in the best kind of way.

Last Page

2009-03-02T20:34:00.000-07:00

Today and the ending of this book feel like the start of another season. There is green where I haven't seen green in a while, and red and blue and gold. I feel the turning of the circle this morning, and very much the return of light. It seems just a little awkward to be so grounded in this present out here after putting on such a shitshow back in Durango for the last couple of weeks. I'm a bit apprehensive about encountering Ellen and Emily out here in a few days after the performance I put on for them this week. All I can say is I'm human and I'm trying and I do almost as much work out here as my students do. I think thats always my greatest asset out here--my ability to learn from my experience and move forward.

This has been such a monolythic and memorable five months of my life it almost seems a bit absurd to try and pull it closed in half an arbitrary page. I remember driving in and seeing the tips of the Rockies for the very first time from halfway across Kansas. I remember being homeless and my first Durango snowfall. I remember the aspens changing, carpooling, and the hot desert breath on the back of my neck. I remember holidays celebrated far from home but far more soulfully than many I've experienced in quite a while. I remember hope and disappointment and almost heartbreak. I remember breaking through with Cris, goofing off with Marie, having that first conversation with Sara off Avatar point, watching Amy come around on that beautiful hellish nighthike to the Big Easy under the almost full moon. I will remember sparing with Kate, being struck dumb by the strength of Vanessa's will and laughing with this new crew. I will remember the sunsets in mid-winter, the panic darkness brings, and the joy of the almost unexpected sunrise the next morning. To the next sunrise, sunset, and blank page that awaits.

The Ice Flow

2009-03-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

Five out of six girls got aftercare news today. My heart kind of breaks for them. I can't at all imagine the sinking reality of being sent away for additional years at a time. I go back and forth a lot out here about the necessity of what we're endeavoring to do--like if these parents had stood up in their kids lives and set good boundaries would they still have ended up here? These kids have been failed by so many people and things, even their own biology oftentimes...It becomes an almost chicken and egg scenario. Were they destructive before the world seemed to turn against them, or did they become that way once things got rough on them? A lot of these girls have lived way too much life for their age, then they get sent here and its like falling through ice into water. We work them back to the surface during their time here, back from the depths. Getting sent to aftercare is like then getting stuck on the ice flow, moving out to sea, you're still on the surface but marooned and drifting in a whole new universe. I believe in this work so strongly that sometimes it can be hard to relinquish any hand in the journey, and fairly excruciating to remember there are so many other players in the decisions besides from simply the wellness and well being of the student.

Magic, and Various Stages of Disarray

2009-03-01T19:15:00.002-07:00

Its been a pretty solid day today, all around. The most magical two things that happened have to be me not getting cramps and staring my period for the first time in like forever. That, and busting my second ever fire tonight. Magic, I tell you, magic. Runner up would be packing up on time, its like this is all my job or something.

This is again such a very very different group. They are very much more ebullient than the last crew, and sort of snappish. They are quick to talk and easy to listen to. They are all in all quite funny. They are cliquish and sort of impulsive. They are engaging, and in various stages of Open Sky disarray. The energy of the group is slowly beginning to shift towards springtime energy, just like the weather.

Communication has been mostly OK so far this week. I think I've been pretty on top of it so far, and pretty vigilant about only speaking positively of people. I did two short one on ones today, and did way less talking than i have in the past. It helped to pick the two students who love most to talk...All in all a good start though I'd say. The times I have been a bit more harsh then I intended I've owned and apologized pretty quickly.

I feel different here this time out. I feel lighter, and less burdened. I feel stronger in a lot of ways. I'm excited for more than a whole extra week of face time ahead of me.

I can't believe it is March. How on earth did that happen?

Dreams of Africa

2009-02-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

In some ways it feels so easy to be back at work, free floating through the nascent baby stages of desert springtime. It got cloudy a little while ago, but otherwise I've been sailing all day through a mythic blue day that made me think of Africa. The snow is mostly gone, except for here and there patches and in between glimpses of high peaks. In some ways easy and in others tedious and picky, because I want so bad to do it well and redeem myself from that pesky little disciplinary paper presently lying in my file reminding me to slow down and think before I speak.

I feel ridiculous taking a break my first night in the field mid-shift. But at the same time if I'm ever going to learn one of my many lessons out here I have to start being proactive and helping myself before things get bad. So thus I am hiding out for the moment at Old Base Camp wondering what the next ten days have up their sleeves.

I'm trying to decide whether or not I'm intimidated facing another almost double shift. I'm edging towards no to be honest but maybe shying away from judgement. The last double worked me so intensely I try not to think about it. But I feel like I'm in such a different headspace now, that comparison is only just barely valid. I guess I hadn't really realized how much the shambles of my love life had really affected me. Work definitely sits a lot more lightely now than it did two months ago. Thats for sure.

For this shift, well this week anyway, I'm looking for clear goals still. I'd like to settle in again, really, to a routine both personal and professional. I'd like to do more listening to talking. I'd like to seek out each girl for their own sake and begin to build rapport individually. I'd really like to have a good handle on my communication this week, though I'm not quite sure how that might look. Hopefully not talking about other people, and owning and appologizing when I do. I want to bust at least one fire, and failing that I want to put in a good and regular effort in trying.

I guess I'm more tired than it seemed, dozing off in my crazy creek like this...

Ain'ta That Good News

2009-02-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

The good news is I'm angry. While I can't and don't entirely absolve myself from what happened, I'm pissed off by how I've been treated. I'm sad that this is how it worked out, and genuinely thought it'd be different between us. I'm a little scared to be going back to work in the middle (end?) of all this knowing how gossipy and insular our workplace can be. I'm frustrated by my thing social network in this town, how everyone I'm close to is in some way connected back to Open Sky. Its coming off as a bit incestuous, and I don't know who I can trust who isn't somehow also involved in his side of things. Not like there are sides, there aren't. I have very limited desires to trash talk him, but it would be nice to be able to talk openly and not wonder how I'm being judged or where my words will be passed on to. I need some girlfriends in this state, who I can whine too, and some friend-boys who will kiss it and make it better and tell me they'll take care of the problem. I need friends who will take me out drinking when something like this happens again.

The more I think about everything that happened between us the more skeezed out I get. For starters, I find it incredibly strange that he would tell me about getting accused with raping a girl and having to leave school for a year to let things blow over. Tell me at all, much less tell me while trying to get in bed with me. I'm a bit disgusted with myself that I thought it was cute at the time--a vulnerable disclosure. Now the whole conversation just creeps me out. I think the scheduling thing was a convenient excuse to not get involved and to justify what amounts to basically using me for sex. I'm upset about the being used part, not the sex part. That I will mourn the loss of...but I kept my integrity.

I come again to the inevitable conclusion that I think I just can't do casual sex. I remember how much hooking up with Noah tore me up because I couldnt rationalize it away. I don't get get the concept, its foreign to me on so many levels. I kind of wish a little bit that I could be nonchalant about sex and love, I think it would make so many adult interactions so much easier. I think some of my hestitations come back to never having the balls to go after someone I want until they show interest in me. I end up infatuated with people because they come to my level, then it's all ok. Not because neccesarily interested in them or god forbid attracted to them, but simply due to the novelty that someone actually likes me and wants to spend time with me. My thoughts on the subject often come into play way too late in the game. But more than that I just dont think I can be intimate with someone without getting my brain involved. I cant really imagine being attracted physically to someone enough that I want to sleep with him, and not be attracted to any emotional parts. I suck at compartmentalizing anyway, but that I think is an unreachable goal--keep sex and like and love completely separate. I don't think I have it in me.

I liked that he was interested in me physically, intellectually, even it seemed like emotionally. I liked that I felt comfortable around him, and was myself. I liked the conversations, about books and culture and world affairs and current events. I liked how I could be honest and open and blunt with him (except for when I wasn't). I loved the snowshoeing adventure. I liked playing cards and being real too. I liked that he was taller than me, and no lie I really liked his abs.

I didn'tlike how weird things got as soon as we weren't together. How there was always something else he had to do instead of be with me. I didn't like how much I wondered about what was in his brain. I didn't like the way he didn't often seem to care whether I enjoyed the sex. I didn't like the way it felt secret between us. I didn't like how I always wondered what he thought bout me. I hated how lovesick and distracted he made me feel for two months, always day dreaming about some nice thing that was going to happen. I hate how self-centered he clearly seems to me after writing all of this.

I'm proud of myself for letting go. I'm proud I allowed myself to experience physical pleasure. I'm proud I did this, even though I knew I'd like as not end up hurt. I'm proud I lost my head for a while, that I let things play out. I'm proud I showed up, was honest with myself, the situation, and with him. I asked a little while back for courage and grace to be truthful and embrace the experience, and I think I was able to do both those things. It didn't end the way I woulda liked, but I did the best I could. I opted in. I dont think I would have been able to a year ago, or even 6 months ago, before I came out here. I think I would have been too afraid.

I'm happy to have him off of my chest. It is a bit of a relief on top of everything else I've been feeling. I don't have to sit with my crazy girl brain for another two months as miserable as the last two were in some respects. I got good and definitive answers, closure, and can get on with things. I can go back to the job that I love with a clear head, and not be constantly looking over my shoulder, or dreaming up harebrained excuses to run into him. I can go out with people I meet and not wonder if I should be telling them that I'm seeing someone. I can get back to the work of building a life here, and remind myself that I have to be the kind of person that I want to be around before anyone else will.

There will be other rapids, I know there will be. I don't quite believe that given my three year dry spell, but I know it to be true somewhere deep in the death throws of my stupid girl brain. This might be another long stretch of flat paddling, but there are always other rapids coming.

I'm so looking forward to going back to work on Saturday. My body and heart and soul are craving it, and my brain will hopefully get there shortly.

Don't Stop Believing

2009-02-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

So I did some impossible today, I had a real meaningful personal conversation with Jack. I have come to the conclusion that good casual sex is still casual sex, and sleeping with him is starting to make me feel shitty afterward due to the inevitable separation. Somewhere in the middle of trying to convince myself that I wasn't interested and didn't care, I got attached, and I'm so proud of myself for saying so. The only time previously I've done so was with Jason way back when.

While I'm sad and disappointed about how everything worked out I can't say I'm entirely surprised. It worried me enough just for the sake of our still opposing schedules, though i guess I secretly was thinking it would all work out once we managed to find ourselves in the same place at the same time. I should have acknowledged that we both had clearly different expectations, I saw but I tried to ignore. Even before the whole " but I like you and I like sex so I figured it'd work, but I have no intention for anything romantic..." spiel, I saw it. I wish I could be pissed at him, but I'm not, I'm pissed at myself for believing. I hadn't felt used before the conversation this afternoon at all, but now I do. I'm pissed at myself for expecting more from casual sex.

Ritual

2009-02-22T16:52:00.000-07:00

This whole Unitarian ritual is so bizarre. I guess there is something to be said for tradition, because otherwise I'm not sure why I still do this, more than some drawn out connection to parents and grandparents and home I wish I could say its a matter of belief or conviction but the fact is I come because it seemed like a good idea at the time, 'cause I feel like I should on some level, or for lack of a better idea. I often leave disappointed.

Spirituality for me, has grown way bigger than the confines of a building. Buildings rarely (not never, just rarely) move one to some higher existence. I'd say spirit is something intangible, more a sense in my gut, a shaking. Spirit is hard to explain. It was there in that flame-lit stone chaple way back when. It was there in the sweat lodge. It was there at Chaco, when I ducked between the eaves of ancient ruins and felt my throat constrict. Spirit pulls at my heart when I am sleeping alone under a clear night sky full of stars.

Worship I guess is an entirely differnet deal. I'm grateful for what a life and heritage of church-going has taught me as far as how I live my days, but worshipping together has rarely touched into the spiritual side of things for me. I dont want answers, I'm not looking for the right choice to be handed down to me from places unseen. I like the struggle, all for myself. I worship when I meditate, recognizing the small space which I occupy between and with the unending stream of everyone and everything in the universe. Worship I believe involves calling attention and holding sacred space for spirit.

My mother asked me recently, how my spirituality has changed since I've been out here. This I suppose is my weak attempt to figure that out. I know that my faith has grown by a lot since I moved to Colorado, but in ways I'm not convinced have any small connection to spirituality at all. Faith in humanity and faith in the universe seem like residents of some ordinary plane, nothing much higher to me. My awareness of spirit around me has changed a whole lot, I think thats the biggest difference. I know, now how walking into a ruin feels--how the air gets a little bit thicker and the light a little bit sharper, and how the hair on my neck stands and my heart thuds towards attention. I know now how the desert breaths at night--heavily and hot, till the moon shows up and then how the whole place dreams of ice and silver and deliverance.

I'm at Steaming Bean kicking myself for staring out onto mainstreet and visually undressing every black SUV that goes by to see if its his. I am really hating this stupid girl brain right now, while simaltaneously almost realizing it's futile to try to control it, much as I'd like to turn it off and get back to my life. There is little I loath more than waiting for the phone to ring. Feeling like I'm stuck in limbo and waiting for the phone to ring, well, thats an all around winner.

I wish I could write all of this effectively, but I can't seem to find an angle or a way in. It would make such a good short story, everything thats happened. I think I just dont quite know how to tell it yet.

Greatful

2009-02-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

I'm grateful for the sunshine and for the hint of lingering snow. I'm grateful for my job and for the opportunity it gives me to grow and be challenged as a human. I'm grateful to be doing meaningful work and that I know my presence is a blessing. I'm thankful for all the stress and pain that has taught me to appreciate where I've landed in this moment. I'm thankful for the grounding presence of yoga and meditation in my life, and for the feeling of earth beneath me once more. I'm greatful for my education, inside the classroom and out--particularly all of my travels and other such associated adventures. I'm so grateful for the opportunities I've had to immerse myself in culture and see things far beyond my comfort zone. I'm grateful for my mind that seems to be predisposed to learning other languages easily, and for all the special and indispensable experiences I've had while navigating in other tongues. I'm grateful to have the means to live comfortably enough, and to have had the support to pursue what I love. I'm grateful for all the people who love me, and for all the people whom I've had the chance to love. I'm grateful for my deepening awareness and understanding of the universe and for all the lessons and synchronicity of purpose and event that keep smacking me in the face. In this moment I'm grateful that my body is whole and that my mind is getting there. I'm grateful that I remain open to the experience, whatever that may be. I'm grateful that I've had some pretty profound intimate experiences, and that I've developed enough faith and awareness to actually look forward to more in the future. I'm grateful that I'm happy, content, engaged, and curious.

Strange Fruit

2009-02-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

It is so very good to be back in Durango. Driving up yesterday morning, from the first glimpse of the snowy mountains a good 90 miles south was like coming home. I love my little sunshine and blue skys room, and I love the delicious perplexities of this little town.

I am a strange flavor of lassitude today. It seems like all I want to do is laze around and daydream, and worse off than usual with out the impending sort of pressure of the coming work week. At least tomorrow I have stuff to do to speed the progress of the day--yoga early then the follow up with the doc. And then hopefully Friday will pass by unnoticed and I will have the weekend to ponder.

I can not even begin to describe the chaos and craziness swimming in my brain right now. I almost hesitate to write lately at all, because it seems like its always the same crap. Either work crazies with the occasional semi-legitimate ponderance, the turmoils of not working, or some color of boy induced ridiculousness. I mean, really, the highlite of the last little while is probably getting my federal tax refund yesterday. The biggest thing on my mind currently is whether or not I have the energy to go on another adventure this month before going back to work in a week and a half. And wondering whether the kiddoes will remember me when I do get back. And tthen of course the perpetual quandry of what to say to him--but I've been so possesed lately and have no new information or revelations on the topic so it almost fails to mention.

All I can really hope for, in all directions and regards, is for courage. I ask for the fearlessness to face what comes with the truth and directness and honesty that reality demands. To not shy away from the conversations and experiences that I demand in order to protect myself from some mythic painful future. Really I just hope to summon the grace and passion that I know I possess in order to speak my truth.

Its like the more I say it the more ridiculous this all sounds.

At Chaco

2009-02-17T22:26:00.002-07:00

Chaco Canyon
Its tuesday, sunup
and the sky is spitting snow
petulantly.

Pueblo Bonito, at first
approach made me cry,
absurdly
between the ghosts and graves
and stones and ravens.

I fled.

And the greasewood marshalls
giggled, and mocked.
But such a place where even
the canyon walls have wings?

I returned.

Inching my way, hesitantly,
through footfalls and boulders
ravished and ravishing,
and here even I hear ocean.

The ravens perch on
one half forgotten windowsill
and canyon wrens rush about
with too much to do.
Both seem to peer across at
me, wondering

If I am the next act.

Old Flames

2009-02-13T15:55:00.001-07:00

En route once more to Dallas, beginning the slow and beautiful trek homeward to Colorado. My plan of the moment is to head north tonight and camp at Cochiti lake, an Army corps campground between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. That is, if I don't totally wuss out and go to the hostel instead. I'm hoping I'll meet people at the WFR and that someone will take pity on me and offer me some floor space, like we did in Portland last time, but not counting on it. Camping by myself still makes me a bit anxious, I'll admit. I'm looking forward to the course, though nervous that I don't remember enough. I just took the pre-test for practice and managed an 80%, so I think I'll be OK at least in the beginning. So three days of WFR in Albuquerque then I'm hoping to make a stop at Chaco on the way North, get back Tuesday later, maybe Wednesday depending on the weather and how ambitious I get.

I ran into Nolan last night for the first time in a while--like three or four years I guess. I think it was all the weirder given the truely messed up place my head seems to occupy lately. And also seeing him right on the heels of potentially the most awkward Mom conversation ever...where she was basically like "Peggy I'm glad you are comfortable enough with yourself to take a relationship physical..." so I had to follow with the inevitable "Mom, it's not like thats the first time I've had sex..." just the first time you've known about. And if she bugs me one more time about birth control I think I'm just going to laugh. So it turns out she wasn't just playing dumb to our extracurriculars way back when, but legit oblivious. Seeing Mike was only awkward 'cause I couldn't seem to take my eyes off his package. Yea...explain that one...It's quite strange to stumble into that old layer of being once more and to not really feel like I'm transgressing. Despite my inability to control my gaze it was actually a pretty harmless interaction. Definitly reminded me how far I've come since then, and what a different plane really, I'm living in then high school, and what a radical departure my flirtation (for lack of a better word) with Jack really is.

We spoke actually, yesterday for a short while. It was nice, and expectedly ackward and awesome in a fumble around for words kind of way. I made up some crackpot semi-legit excuse to pick up the phone, some question about the recert to ask him. I don't exactly know what I expected, what I was afraid of--that he'd refuse to talk to me ?! I guess at this point I'm a bit confused by how much of any interaction is just sweet because its genuine like he would be with anyone, and how much is me. I have this reoccuring daydream about when we finally see each other next week or whenever, and don't really know what to do or say. I think I'd ask actually, or say how confused I am about how to read him, and whether we are still being physical or trying to do the friend thing. I think I'd have a hard time controlling myself, or atleast I do when I daydream. To actually have a pretty good chance of having that conversation in almost a week is almost too much to bear...

Circumlocute

2009-02-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

So I ran away this morning before Honza and everyone got back from his swim meet. I feel kind of bad that I'm sitting drinking something lovely and caffeinated at Riverside after a morning of shopping. I love having everyone here and cannot even begin to believe how much Czech I am remembering, but have to also remember that this is my vacation too, and interpreting 24/7 is way tiring.

As Mirek says--the answer clearly is that I must just chuck everything and move back do Čechy and bydlet s ními. Kdybych...

I had forgotten what kind of crazy intense conversations I have with these people. In the last five days we've had pretty heated discussions about my job, parenting and societal ills, našem novem prizidentě, health care, the economy, Honza's future, sports doping, and lord knows what else. I am holding my tongue on the whole me finding a nice boy topic, but I'd be very surprised if I avoided it completely.

I do miss this tough, using this side of my brain. I keep kind of putting it to the back of my mind but I know I'll have to deal with that part of me sooner or later. I love the struggle of circumlocuting constantly, and I love perpetually bein gin on the joke. I don't know how or why it happened, but this seems to be my gift and eventually I'm going to need to figure out how to incorporate it into my post-student life on a more regular basis.

Enough stalling I suppose...

Jet Plane

2009-02-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

In the air on the way to Dallas, and I'm trying to decide whether it's worth it to stay awake. The drive down to Albuquerque this morning was actually pretty smooth going. Lots of big empty country, juniper and red spiral mountains while driving through reservation after reservation. My phone started roaming about half way down to Bernalillo, so I couldn't even occupy myself that way. I left about 6:30 and got through security by 10:30 easy. Wouldn't have stressed me at all I don't think had I actually slept much last night...Same old story there.

I really don't know what to think about this visit. It hasn't even been that long since I left in September, I mean no more than a semester of school ever was. I feel way different though, and the six months in between somehow seem way more transitional and important than a similar chunk of time in Portland. Bigger and longer in weight. I guess I just want that to be recognized, really, and for people there to somehow sense all the work that I've done and the deep seeded shifts that I'm making. This feels more like a brief visit rather than a return home.

I feel a little guilty about seeing the Hlouskovi again, as my communication has been pretty minimal since I last visited them in 2005. Worried about how reconnecting will go and than I remember they're not exactly here to see me. I'm stoked to get to show off this area I guess, apprehensive about the language dillemas (which, not whether), anxious about trying to explain my work to them, and to see if I measure up.

And then there is the loud part of me that would really like to just hurry up and get tback to Durango already and commence having adventures there. I'm hoping home time is a good enough distraction, otherwise I may just get lost in the gushy part of my head in the next two weeks.

Akward

2009-02-03T14:57:00.003-07:00

Couldn't sleep for my mind racing this early morning, so I gave up finally and decided to do something about it. I am sitting on the porch of the wall tent watching the stars go down and the eastern sky begin to lighten. I don't say this often anymore, but I would really love for this day to get itself done with soon. The next twenty four hours are destined to be extremely full and long and not entirely occupied enough to keep my mind on the tasks at hand. I sort of cant believe it yet that in like not quite a day and a half I will have picked myself up from this desert and plopped back down in the middle of suburbia several miles away. I guess I've grown quite used to the pace of foot travel these past five months and the instantaneousness of the transition seems preemptively jarring. I know I will get through all the bullshit logistical nonsense that stands between me and gone somehow, but from this vantage point atleast the task seems quite large and cumbersome.

Today is going to require quite a lot of breathing.

I need to have an uncomfortable conversation with our therapist today, in large part to prove that I can. I hadn't realized how much my attitude towards her has really affected how I work with her. but it has and I need to be proactive about fixing that. I guess I feel really frustrated and unsupported by her when lately she's been pretty unavailable for us--either not coming out at all, or at a way different time and space than we were told and had planned on. I feel overlooked and a bit silly when I've asked questions in the past or voiced concern and have been dismissed pretty quickly. I know she does a lot of work behind the scenes which we never see, and its obvious to me from seeing the students that shes good at what she does with them. In the future I think the best thing for me to have a better relationship with this woman is to speak up and have this conversation so that we can better understand each other and that I can have more of the bigger picture about why she's never here with us. Maybe I'll just bust her an I feel...ha ha. I know at the very least I need to start the conversation and not have it fester until I get back.

Awesome. Not awkward at all. Yeah, OK...

Let There Be...

2009-02-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

I GOT A FIRE!! HOLY SHIT!

Anxieties

2009-02-02T17:40:00.002-07:00

It's silent out here way behind Cleo camp, save for the constant thrum of airplanes rushing off to Vegas or Denver or some such ski-bunny getaway. I decided to take my thermos of hot chocolate and find a spot of sunshine to try to gather myself on my last break of the week. I'm not eating anything, yet the little grey mohawked camp robbers are swarming, and seem staunchly confused by my presence.

I'm having a hard time focusing on my pen and ink long enough to clear my head and say what I have to say. I know in my heart right now I am preoccupied by the chance of a reunion after a long month and a half, and the small potential for a booty call. God, did I really just write that?! I think deeper I am apprehensive about this trip east which is more than rapidly approaching. I am confused even by what to call it, like is Maryland still home? Oregon felt more like me than Columbia ever did, and I think Colorado could if I gave it the chance. I've been telling people mostly that I'm going to visit my parents, and leaving it ambiguously at that. I'm nervous about face to face communication with Mom and Dad since my new found commitment to honesty and full disclosure. I'm afraid of regressing, as I usually do when I return, and just falling back so quickly into old patterns. I'm worried I can't quite take the intensity and invasiveness that I invited by doing so much work lately on our relationship. I think thats a big hurdle in my relationship with both parents, historically and continual--that I crave the connection and understanding but get intimidated and exhausted by the daunting process, and shut down before I get anywhere. Its easier to give them what they expect than to take the energy and time to give them the truth. I want more than that from this visit, but I'm questioning whether I have the emotional endurance to make that happen.

I'm really surprised by how unaffected I was this shift by Vanessa and the whole suicide watch. For some reason her story didn't get to me the way I'd feared it would. I guess maybe I've developed more of a personal boundary and professionalism than I'd thought. I think maybe it might have been different had I been with her for the first few nights in the field, but this week her drama has struck me as sort of ridiculous. In fact my lack of empathy of certain points has sort of disturbed me a little bit. She hasn't resonated with me as much as I thought she would, and I guess I'm still trying to figure out why not. I get being so depressed that moving is a struggle, but with her a lot of it just seems like a ploy for attention. I want to have compassion but I've struggled to put myself in her place when shes throwing herself on the ground and sobbing in the snow. It has been interesting to start to piece things together with her as far as student archeotypes and patterns go. She's a lot of Amy and a sprinkle of Erin for good measure. I've been the most successful working with her this week when I've been super direct bordering on harsh, or when I've got her talking about totally random things. Anything, really, as long as its not how sick in the head she is. Thats that borderline thing that Emily warned us about--they get overwhelmed exploring their emotions and get swallowed up completely in the process.

I'm anxious and excited about having the whole next month off from work basically. Anxious mostly just about paying bills entirely out of my next paycheck, probably not getting paid again till mid March after that first shift back out. Curious, I guess about how I'll adjust to full time town living for awhile, whether I'll miss the stars and how badly. As much as my attention tries to fight it, I do get into a good rhythm of things out here, and tend to feel a little lost in town without such a pattern and order to my days. I wonder what it will be like to wear real clothes consistently, since I have a grand total of about two wearable pairs of non-work pants. OK so maybe three on a good day. To eat off a plate with real utensils and some semblance of table manners. To be in a real city, a couple of them, in fact. To be out of the desert longe nough for my skin and my body to heal, and ease this endless cycle of cracking and burning. I'm excited to take a step back from this work and have the space to recompose myself, and anxious that I'll miss being out here. I wouldn't say I'm tired, but eight shifts solid is a long chunk of time.

They Pay Me For This?!

2009-02-01T17:03:00.002-07:00

Sunday morning early and cloudy at base camp. I guess I haven't had much of a taste for writting this week. I can't exactly explain the difference, except for reading madly on breaks, or falling asleep. Mostly falling asleep I guess.

Been a pretty mellow week so far, and all things considered. Three staff and two students for most of it is sort of a joke, like they pay me for this, really?! I've felt the passing of time quite acutely this shift, being back at familiar sites which I haven't seen since October. Every new arrival reminds moe of the group with which I was last there, or particular events with particular students. This job can be so much about layers of existences, when so much of every student is an imprint of the ones who've come before. The sense of presence and of fast forwarding and rewinding of their experiences is sort of overwhelming. Particularly how groups end up overlapping, who was once the new student looking up to four veteran travellers is now the mentor to two new arrivals, and the chain grows another round longer. Its sort of hard to explain in words.

I am antsy and impatient tonight. I've been pretty good at staying present in the field lately, but tonight I am far from here. The combination of a lot of the stress of Vanessa's arrival lifting, the girls holding strong together, my impending departure for a while, and an email from a particularly prominent source of my distraction. I really need to just stop using the internet at base, it always only spoils my weeks and I end up regretting it after the fact. The gist was basically hey, wanted to confirm in writting that we have the same time off coming up and that I want to see you and go on some adventures. Te he. And cue the giddy giggle fest that is brewing just beneath the surface and making me want to get home and get on with things already...

GOD vacation will be so good...

East Rock

2009-01-28T16:58:00.002-07:00

I'm back on my East Rock watching another sunset at Grumpaw. Being back here feels like sitting amongst a multitude of spirits, least of whom are all the Open Sky kids who have came before. This is one of my favorite spots for views, down into Squaw, the Ute, Shiprock, the Chuzco's, and the very tips of the Abajos just from this vantage.

I am wanting to have a hard time engaging this week, but so far not finding that to be the case. I thought it would be difficult, this being my last shift for a month, and with the amount of anxiety I had about again a whole new crew of students and my first suicide watch.

Urges

2009-01-20T16:52:00.002-07:00

Still in the field for an extra night, covering for some sick incoming staff. I'll admit I agreed for pretty selfish reasons, but its been a good evening all around. I feel more comfortable and at ease with this set of staff I think, and it was just friendly and relaxing to run into folks from that crew for the first time in almost two months. My patience is definitely way past wearing thin with the girls, but otherwise I feel pretty good about things right now. I did run into Jack accidentally on-purpose again, which was just as intense as ever. I sat next to him during chemical dependency group and I couldn't stop laughing to myself at the irony of listening to the naturopath talk about cravings and urges, while recognizing my own of an entirely different source...

The Space Between

2009-01-17T16:21:00.002-07:00

It is warm like springtime this morning. I am perched on top of those white rocks watching a very strange fog blanket the space between the Chuzco's and the sleeping Ute and our little kitchen spot. I love any vantage from which I can see our multitude of mountains, and rise bout the daily grind of juniper and sage canyons for more of the big picture. The breeze on my neck and thesun on my cheeks makes me think of very early February on our lake ages ago, when the trees are tricked into releasing their golden haze by an early thaw.

I slept last night with my head poking out form under my shelter and watched the stars go by for a good long time. I saw the moon rise over these rocks and the whole plateau go instinctively iridescent. I saw Orion nearly make his full migration across the sky, and Sirius rise and set. I think tonight I just might sleep next to the shelter entirely, and enjoy a full night and morning of big open sky.

Maybe its just the force of suggestion and the power of my imagination but I just inhaled ocean and my nose bristled with the exhale of salt and brine. My spine tingles from base to crown with the sensation, and my soul is somehow instantly about a thousand miles away.

I am currently daydreaming about my time off and all the logistical and emotional turmoil that I forsee ensuing. I had the thought earlier that it might be kind of a lot and intesne to fly back to Albuquerque, do three days straight of WFR, drive back the four hours Monday night, and go out to work immediately Tuesday morning. I'm not sure when WFR is supposed to finish Monday, but even if it is on the earlier end, it still kind of seems like a lot to accomplish. I am daydreaming about taking that first week back in town off as well, then pulling a double--starting out on Sky and coming off on Open, then staying on Open for the time being. I sort of fear another double, and the week recovery more than anything, but working straight through after being gone seems like bad news for my personal and professional stability. The double also seems like the best of both worlds, schedule wise, get a break on both ends, work the same amount money wise, get to hang with both staffs, get to end up on Open in the end, and maybe end up crossing paths with Jack in the process.

I feel again, looking out, that if I don't let my gaze settle for too long in any one spot this place mimics my home mountains. The scraggliness and absence of underbrush makes me think of those first October backpack adventures, high on ridge lines long after the leaves have blown down in the first fall thunderstorms. I wonder sometimes hoe this water girl can feel so much nostalgia and longing wrapped in the desert so far from moving water.

For the Sake of the Universe

2009-01-16T15:51:00.002-07:00

Breaking tonight at close to sunset at the Gallery. Today is glowing and I am content. We had an easy walk in from Tucker Springs after an easy morning, and made it here with enough time to set up shelters and do P-time well before the light leaves us. I am sitting behind my shit-show of a shelter chowing down on field manager chocolate and sesame sticks, having already changed my clothes and layered up for the evening, and feeling pretty damn stoked for life in this moment. Things are sort of clicking so far this shift in an understated and soft kind of way. I think my guide instincts are beginning to kick in, the ones everyone always told me would come. I've had good luck and shared good intentions and have been pretty right on with the general feel for the group so far. I don't really have the words to describe it, more then just falling into place. There were no fireworks or anything, life just got easier and less intensive this week.

There went the sun and I can honestly say I am about equal parts filled with dread as excited to see the sunrise from the white cliffs in the morning. This whole winter thing is growing on me I suppose, but not too loudly or discretely. I finally just sort of feel settled, with the process and the whole idea. And with the crapton of chocolate that I consume on a daily basis to make it through.

Though today feels miles and miles from last shift as far as internal turmoil goes, I am today working on parsing some of the feelings still writhing about in the pit of my stomach. In some respects I am facing my greatest fear--that I had a short and very powerful intimate experience and thats that, no greater god-like dimension, no earth shattering second act. I am facing the fear that I have been (will be?) forgotten by this boy, and that even with all the barriers between us finally gone the interest and desire will have waned. For me I think that would be the worst case scenario--to finally have the opportunity to be together again, and to get shot down. I think this is also just my mourning process, and a fairly classic attempt to think my way out--the epic battle between idealist and realist, head and heart, continues.

I think the difference today is that I will be direct and upfront, if and when I get the chance. I think I could be honest, even when it seems foolish, all for the sake of taking that chance and not looking back on this whole experience with regret. If I could right now, I would tell him to have faith that the universe is well intentioned, and will bring us together if we are supposed to be. I would tell him not to be afraid of what is to come, and don't shut down a good thing because of that fear and apprehension. I would tell him I can't hide from how I feel and be a hypocrite to all of my students. I would tell him to put aside some of the baggage that people carry about relationships for a little while, and give me a chance. I would tell him that my view of being with someone involves hanging out, going on some adventures, cooking good food, and poetry. My vision of an intimate relationship involves a lot of laughing and a lot of rabble-rousing, and a fair number of sunsets and sunrises. My version is honesty and challenging each other and fighting and reuniting. Mine is space and independence mixed with enough passion and curiosity not to get clingy. Mine is a scary new experience ballanced with trust and the good sense not to take oneself or the other too seriously. Call it what you will, label it what you need, just dont get caught up in all those unvoiced fears and expectations. I would tell him today how impressed I am by his genuine nature and all the sunshine he carries through the world. I would tell him how I read books of his and I hear his voice, how I read and am a bit homesick for a place I've never experienced. I would ask for honesty in return, and for the truth, his truth about what happened between us, and the freedom to move foreward.

The afterglow smudges of sunset are rapidly fading, and I'm thinking my attempt to hide out 'till fire happens without me might just be unreasonible. I love the me and the evenings that time can be told by temperature and the number of stars in the sky, not the number of cups of coffee I've drank or the amount of television I've inhaled.

The World Is Made of Energy

2009-01-15T15:43:00.002-07:00

I know as soon as I open this they'll call me back down from break for breakfast...Steph and me planned a pretty mellow week with two layovers for personal time, so hopefully even with short breaks we'll have ample time for spacing out and reflecting.

I'm sort of in a weird floaty place right now. I am engaged, but not excited. I am blah, but not exhausted like I thought I was going to be. I am present, sort of, but already counting down the days to my next break, next off-shift, to February and March really. I am much less possessed by all that happened in December than I was last shift, at least for now.

Time's up.

It's been really interesting being on the mean staff since working on the Sky shift. It's a whole different energy than the other side of things, both with staffing and just the general vibe from the students. They see us as much more severe, the other staff takes care of them and we make them do for themselves. Its also weird to not have the kiddoes on my side for the first time in a while. I think thats more a lot of transferance going on on their side, some serious staff splitting, and I think me taking things more seriously than I should.

I love it when I'm the one figeting and zoning out and all of our students are actually being responsibly productive. I am warm and drowsy in the sunshine, probably a bit dehydrated, and really wishing I could nap in the sunshine someplace warm...

Six Days

2009-01-12T15:37:00.002-07:00

It's Monday again, and I am far from settled enough to be going back to work. It's been a good week off, but six days just feels far from adequate to recover from sixteen in the field. Even just thinking about it right now makes me antsy and a little angry, put-upon in some strange parralel universe.

My challenge for this shift is going to be presence and focus. I guess I feel a little bit better prepared to settle in than before last shift, but not much. I am caught between my need to just be where I'm at and my need to set it aside, go to work with a clean mind.

The Day After

2009-01-05T15:24:00.002-07:00

Monday evening and it's snowing again. If it had to snow, the last evening out in the field is a pretty decent moment for it to do so. I am hanging out in the healer tent as an extra pair of eyes while Kate does some testing. Its a pretty awesome sanctioned break, actually.

I made the mistake of giving in and getting online briefly this morning, while hanging out in the trailor on my break. Now I'm super conflicted and scattered by what I saw. The good news is I'm officially confirmed to switch back to the Open side of things as of mid-February, when I get back from visiting Columbia and recerting my WFR in Albuquerque. I'm having a hard time pinning down how I feel about it right now, and am looking forward to checking in with Ellen tommorow on the subject. I expected to be totally elated, and to not find that true is midly concerning. I think it would almost be easier to not get the news I wanted, and just to make my peace with keeping that door closed for good. This way is so much more complicated, and means I actually have to do the work for myself and make a decision for myself about what I want from this boy. And then to have no communication from him waiting makes me frusterated and disappointed and confused. It makes me second guess myself and my actions. It makes me feel a bit silly also. It was nice to see all the birthday wishes from everyone, for sure, but overall internet reconnecting to real life experience was discombobulating, confusing, disappointing and fairly anti-climactic. I kind of wish I would have waited 'till I got home and postponed the inevitable.

On the plus side I'm not pregnant. Finally. So relieved. Well, I feel like crap but I'll take it.

Birthday

2009-01-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

I think the best part about my birthday so far has been waking up warm and dry to two cups of hot chocolate on one of the coldest nights of expedition yet. All of the girls wished me happy birthday, and the guides sang me a song. We are warm and dry back up at the wall tent after hauling ass from Tucker Springs this morning. I'm sort of zoning after finishing most of my paperwork, while dinner prep is rolling forward. They are cooking me a feast, and then I have the night and following morning off. I'm debating what to do with my evening. Breaks are way more complicated this deep into winter, I find it pretty frustrating particularly at base to find some way to occupy myself. I used to just lay in the hammock and read or write for a while. Now it's too cold to stay in one place for very long. Regardless, I'm super grateful for one more big chunk of downtime through the chaos of change-over.

I get a big kick out of recognizing all the things that used to freak me out working, that now I do pretty comfortably. I remember the first morning we woke to snow a couple shifts back. Even better, I remember the first time I pood in the snow, and how horrified I was. I remember the first time eating out of one bowl with a stick. I remember the first time attempting to bust a fire, packing a construction pack, and building a shelter. I remember the first time I called a kid out for something, the first argument I attempted to get in the middle of, and failed. Or the first time I called a kid out for being sarcastic. I particularly remember the first awkward staff feedback session. And carrying fives...

They just preseted me with a big gushy berries and cream dessert and sang happy birthday. Too cute...

This ends day thirteen of 15, and even with all of my frustrations about feeling present and problems focusing I do feel like I've made a lot of progress this shift. This is the first one where I really get why and how I differ from the students. I struggled with relating too much, and thus had a really hard time making and holding any boundaries. It finally hit me sometime last week though. I'm different from them because I've done my work. Not to say there isn't more work to be done, but I'm way further on my path than any of them are. This shift was also the first one where I've succesfully shared even a little about my own experience and past in a productive and appropriate manner. Overall, atleast this second week, I feel like I've contributed alot therapeutically, and too the staff team in a stronger and more assertive manner than before. I don't know whether theres been a lot of growth itself this week, or whether it happened sometime when I wasn't looking and now I'm just noticing the afterglow.

Must. Make. Feet. Warm. Fuck.

Taking the Bull By The Horns

2009-01-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday kicked my ass hard, and repeatedly. I was leading from Masada over to Old Base Camp, and what started out as a relatively simple slog through the mud on the road turned into a pretty stressful and endless canyon hopping tundra crossing marathon. I was super far gone by time we cruised into camp around 8 pm. I let myself get ravenous, and by the time we arrived I was way past coherent or pleasant. Though I was disappointed with myself for getting that cold, wet, and hungry, I was really proud that I could voice my needs to the staff and where I was at emotionally and physically. In the past I wouldn't have been able to admit that I was crabby and starving, or that I needed some space to cool off and snack once we got where we were going. I was also able to control myself and not get pissed at the wrong person.

It was a pretty sweet hike actually, and best of all pretty challenging for everyone involved, even staff. My big mistake was getting talked into going off road when I wasn't super stoked or ready to do so. I should have made a judgement call, and stuck to it. I also didn't have a good enough picture in my mind of where we were going and what was between us and getting there topography wise. I kind of figured once we decided initially to stick to the road that I knew what I needed to know, the one crucial intersection, and left it at that. I allowed Dustin to convince me what we needed to do, though I didn't totally understand enough to lead. I should have voiced that and stuck to the road, or taken the time I needed to be better acquainted with the maps. My temptation was to transfer a lot of my frustration and exhaustion and anxieties around leading to him, and I'm stoked to say that for the most part I didn't.

We woke to snow this morning, though by far not the epic maelstrom I've been fearing. It snowed for a little while while we were getting going, though tapered off pretty quickly. The stars are presently trying to come out, and the temperature dropped 25 degrees easy from last night. My rain pants have frozen to myself since sitting here, wet on the outside from digging deadmen for the corners of my shelter. It might be too cold and clear to snow more tonight, and at this point its not a huge deal either way. I feel the pull of the wall tent pretty good tonight, and the deeper hum pulling me back to my car and the complex life therein. I am however not looking forward to the almost inevitable crash that will follow us after we get back to base tomorrow, it's depressing.

Scratching at the Backdoor

2009-01-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

It's so much more than weird to write 2009 for the first time--to see it in print is to make it somewhat real. 2009 is such a departure into uncharted waters, a journey to lands I haven't even dreamed about yet.

It's Friday morning, warm, and I've just finished the last of my chocolate stash. I'm kind of at a loss for things to write a little bit. Things have been going fairly smoothly, time has picked up her pace, and I feel more or less comfortable in this space. I have the anxieties of the fast approaching off-shift sort of nipping at the outer edges of my consciousness like the dogs yelping at the backdoor to get let in. They haven't entirely convinced me yet, which I suppose is in itself progress. I am nervous that I haven't started my period yet, though not yet completely horrified. I am not often regular, and the amount of physical and emotional stress of the previous month could easily put me off my schedule. Or at least that's what I'm going to continue to tell myself for a few more weeks. I am anxious that I will potentially know in a few days whether or not I can move back to the other shift and when. That will mean whether or not this whole boy thing has any potential to go anywhere. I'm less bummed about the whole social side of things with switching to the Sky shift now that I've connected with Erika and Dustin and a few others. I'd be sad, but it wouldn't be as cataclysmic as I'd feared before coming out on this shift. I'm nervous to get home and check my phone and my email, and see who and how I've been remembered for the season. I'm apprehensive about change-over, secretly hoping there to be some small quiver of a chance to run into him around base camp at all on our way out. I'm sort of scared that there will be nothing and no sign and no contact and that he will have already moved on from this whole torrid fling. I always wonder how it seems that I get so much more engaged in a relationship or interaction with another person than the other party, but that frustration is usually my penchant for drama and codependency speaking.

Seems I let those dogs in after all.

I'm proud of myself this sift for being a big girl and dealing with the cold. Last shift being out at 15 degrees threw me pretty good, but we've been down that far pretty regularly lately. The thermometer in the medbag said 30 this morning, which seems downright balmy. I've even mastered a bit better the art of keeping my feet warm at night, though not before doing some long term damage to a couple of toes. I feel so much better equipped to handle the cold this time out. My new sleeping bag is more than solid for this climate, plus the addition of the silk liner and my bivy I'll be damn near polar bear proof. Also bringing out the Russian socks for at least sleeping have helped tremendously--I've been double bagging them lately at night and haven't woke because of cold feet since. My red synthetic puffy coat and actual snow gloves too have made life in general way more pleasant to deal with. I usually end up wearing both puffy coats at night while we are working on dinner prep or group and stuff, and then sleep wearing one with one wrapped around my feet. I've been hiking just in midweight long john bottoms and hiking pants, then all the way down to my purple exped weight top. Well, all two days that we've actually been moving in the past eleven. I'm also proud of myself for sitting with the anxiety that comes up on cold dark fireless nights and moving through some of it. I know and continue to remind myself that the sun will come again, I will be warm and comfortable again soon. I have to remind myself that night and winter are true transitory creatures, they will move forward and the light will return momentarily.

Hiking today to Old Base camp, then tomorrow up to Tucker Springs. We should get back to base by Sunday pretty easily, and in time for my birthday. I hope to have transitioned E to the west by that point (FINALLY), assuming she doesn't check out completely with her aftercare news. For me just personally that would be a huge note to leave on.

It's warm enough in the sunshine and silence that I'm getting drowsy just sitting here...

All Such Things

2008-12-31T20:14:00.000-07:00

Night-hiking again this New Year's Eve, well sort of. A truly drag ass morning and a wee bit of a back hike and again a beautiful trail side sunset in view of three mountain ranges. We are in full meltdown mode on two of four fronts, but the amount of work to be done I'm finding thrilling, and super engaging for once. That may be the large amount of chocolate I just consumed however, or the fact that I'm warm and dry in my sleeping bag in my shelter while dinner prep happens down below and around me. I am a bit high off an afternoon of good conversations and a lot of good feedback from the girls in the last few days. They keep commenting on how much the appreciate my honesty and disclosure, how it makes me easier to relate to. Though that boundary is still a pretty huge challenge for me, hearing that is a huge victory. I've known all along that my experiences and my story will make me a much stronger guide in this role, and its nice to see the very beginning seeds int hat garden start to bud.

If I could, I would tell these girls that I've been there, and it passes. I would tell them that I've drank too much, did drugs for the wrong reasons, slept with guys to try to satisfy a need I didn't understand. I would tell them I've been depressed, anxious, suicidal, codependent, hopeless. I would tell them about the number of times I've lost and found myself, and the number of times I've found myself at the very bottom of the well. I would tell them about waking up with the wrong people, and then the right people. I would tell them that we are all so much greater than the things that happen to us. That we are all such thorough works in progress--there will be good days and there will be a plethora of bad. That there are days that threaten to strangle you, but every morning can be a new start if you allow it and are open to it. I would tell them to stay away from the quick fixes and miracle treatments--life and recovery are battles at times. I would tell them that some days you are here and some days you are not and the key is to love yourself without judgement and never fear the work that lies ahead.

The truth is I would tell myself all such things...

Prospective Retrospective Perspective

2008-12-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

I am growing to appreciate some these bitterly cold nights where my feet freeze and fire just wont come. I am attempting to write from my shelter in my sleeping bag still, while the coyotes sing in the dawn, and the sky grows slowly rosy. Nights such as these test my stamina and test my faith and conviction that the world keeps turning and the light will come again.

I sort of can't believe it's almost New Years again. I spent the holiday this time last year in Columbia ignoring my thesis, getting ready for that ridiculous train trip, and sitting at home alone while even my folks went out and partied. January brought that epic cross country adventure, marked by endless text message conversations through the empty middle west, singing, and my face plastered to the windows for a one and only glimpse of the Rockies. February I have little to no recollection of. I remember a bitter cold snap, hiding out in the cemetary above campus in the frigid sunshine, just for a clear and unobstructed view of mountains. In February I ignored the Portland rains and began to walk all the way down Terwilliger to catch the Barbur busses. In February Shawn and me went out briefly, and LBD and I made winter and the city ours. March I only think of school and more school. March and my thesis excited me. Shoot, in March my other classes excited me. In March I read my environmental justice books for fun. April I think about spring break and crunch time. April was my first huge thesis deadline. I started applying for work in April, started getting the wrong offers in April. In April we adventured to the coast for that one tumultous afternoon. April was cold and wet. And then May was such a hellraiser, I sort of can't believe I survived her. May was deadlines and arrivals and departures and the very lasts of so many things. May I graduated from college, finished my thesis and was very well recieved, packed up my appartment, left Portland twice, and survived my family. In May I refused to say goodbye. In May the adventuring began for real. I spent May in four timezones.

June was when I realized that Birch Trail was going to be way different the second time around. June we crashed and burned in the Boundary Waters the first trip out, and I got my first taste of the wrong side of Gabe Chernov. July I continued to continue screw up in their eyes, back to the Boundary Waters with Lisa, get blown nearly to smithereens (or Canada) on Lake 3, and continue to sneak out and run away to Ashland and the lakeshore for some quiet time. August I left Wisconsin angry and sad, and quite conflicted that it was possibly for the last time. In August I landed at home for good for the first time in awhile. August also brought that epic Texas roadtrip with Kathy and those damn cats, and the day to day absurdities of temping in office buildings. In August I bought my first car, and freaked out to Ellen about moving west almost daily. I sat through September and waited impatiently. September was more departing and arriving and epic drives. I remember September with an altitude headache, for coming to Open Sky, and for being homeless for awhile. September also brought the mindfuck that was training, and the very beginning of the long slow realization that this is my work and that in a lot of respects I am living the life I imagined for myself. October terrified and frusterated me, full of budgets and logistics and all-too-adult requisites for my likings. October was sunrise from a couch in Emily's living room, while the steam train railed off the canyon walls and eating leftover P-food for lack of a better option. October was more homelessness, and learning to trust that thee universe provides for me as it should. October also was my monumentally frusterating first shift in Cleo, impotent and that breakthrough second shift around election day and halloween where things finally started making a little sense. I remember November for the tremendous let down and monumental self-growth that happened over those three weeks of not working. November was all about synchronicity and those secret unexpectedly spiritual moments that sneak up when you're not looking and suprise you with openness and profound knowledge and strength. December started out silently screaming with both the awesomeness and frustration fo that first double shift over Thanksgiving. I will remember this December however, not for some work milestone. I'll look back and know that this month was one of the very few in my adult (?) life where I truely set down my anxieties for a moment, went with the flow, and lead from my heart. More importantly, I went where my heart took me and was open to the experience.

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions really. I think its dangerous to compartmentalize growth and change and commitment like that. 2009 just seems a bit unprecedented to me, 2008 was the most distant landmark on my map for so long that this crossing over is like sailing off the edge of the Earth. For 2009 I want to see a continued deepening of relationships in all directions. I've started recently a lot of work on family ties, big, scary, lifechanging work that I'd like to see come to fruition. Whether or not Jack is the guy for this moment, I'd like to see that part of myself come out more often, and unabashedly so. I'd like to do some serious body and energy work to look at the block in the channels between my head and heart, though I know it can't and wont happen overnight. I'd like to be financially stable to put some money away, start paying off my mother, and be able to see a shrink and do some accupuncture at least once a month. I'd like to find some additional social outlets, have a good time on my off-shifts, and still not come to work so exhausted. I want to explore the southwest, and learn more about what is to be my adopted homeland. I want to visit Portland at least once. I want to read more books and watch more movies and hear more lectures and truely push myself and engage myself intellectually. Intellect is so much bigger than school and academia. I want to be less afraid in 2009. I want to know that I appreciate and value everything that I've been given, and that I grab the moments that speak to me.

And

2008-12-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things. Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the path of your fingertips be your maps and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing, and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well-loved one.
Walk mindfully, well-loved one.
Walk fearlessly, well-loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
be always coming home.

~Ursula Le Guin

Day seven and I maybe perhaps dont feel foggy today. I think getting riled up about how to treat how to treat Amy's feet and manipulations finally knocked me a bit more to my senses. I feel way more like myself today, still a bit doe-eyed nostalgic girl for my likings, and already missing and worrying about my next off-shift. But a bit more grounded in my body than I've felt all week.

It's warmer today, and the sun is blessedly still out. We are pulling the girls off solos as we speak, and will fill the rest of the day with ceremony and debriefs and check-ins and all the ordinary logistical nightmare that the week's end brings with it. Martha will leave tommorow, and Dustin will shift over someitme thereafter, and I have the chance to make this a new week if I wanted to. To stop dragging my feet and counting the hours and do some real and solid and good work.

I have some serious processing ahead of me with Amy in the near future, the likes of which I'm not sure I know how I feel about. I've known she is a wicked good mimic, and quite perceptive to other peoples' smallest mannerisms and gestures. I also know how attached she get to Chris on our Thanksgiving double and how jelous she got about all the special treatment he was giving to Sara for her cold feet and "poor circulation". And now suddenly Amy is dying of the same affliction. Not that I don't buy that her feet are uncomfortable, but to me it seems like a pretty clear grab for attention, using methods she saw work on us before. My challenge before I start to process with her is to figure out in my head how much is legitamately a concern as far as her actions go, and how much is my lingering anger and resentment over getting ignored and not believed by staff last shift over the same issue. That was really my only mission though I don't think I voiced it at all, was to speak the truth of my experience as I see it, and not worry so much about the consequences of what people think or who I am calling out. I can be so much of a better and more effective mirror than I have been lately. I would reflect to Amy I think how indirect she communicates, and how frusterating the mixed messages she sends to us are. I would try to shower her how shes been acting compared to how Sara was that first week, and also remind her how much Sara's whining and special treatment frusterated her in that moment. I think I would also maybe see if pushing the whole mind-body connection might get anywhere, though I kind of doubt it would....but see if she can track on how she is feeling emotionally whenever she is complaining of feeling sick or hurt.

I'm sort of feeling the West today. I identify that as the yearning for the North but not quite having the resources or the energy to quite access that place. I want to go there and do that work, but feel like lethargy is keeping me rooted, staring at the sunset on the western horizon. I sort of feel like I have so much going on in my head that I should be able to work and move things and discover. Thats sort of exactly the problem though, I am fully stuck in my head. All the thoughts and feelings which I'm sitting with are totally and completely coming from my head. I think my North work at least for the next good long time will be learning to come from my heart more than my head, and distinguish the two. Most of my turmoil and haze this week has definitly been head oriented and head bound.

My heart? In my heart I feel excited. I feel tremendously lucky and sort of incredulous that any of this is even happening to me. I feel scared and anxious when I think about what has happened and the possibility of what is to come. I feel that in the small of my back, between my shoulder blades, and just below my xyphoid process. It feels tense and squeezing, and sort of rumbly. My heart sort of bounces between blissful exhiliration and close to terror. Though on second look thats not that far from normal...

On the Dragon Spine

2008-12-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure for how well or how long this will actually work, but for lack of a better idea I'll give it a go. I'm on break tonight pre-dinner, watching the sunset over way off Monument Valley from the top of the dragon spine at Soda Springs. My handwriting is going haywire as my hands are freezing, but the light in this place and the beauty outside and within my head is too breathtaking go pass up. If we were at sea this would be the moment of the green flash. As it is, the only flashes are from the snow searing my retinas after two days without sunglasses. Atleast I finally got smart today and remembered to put sunblock on.

I wish I had words or an explanation for why this shift is going so roughly. Some of it is bouncing around from group to group and then that transport. Some of it is just being blah from the holidays. Some is I'm sure being way less gung-ho for a double after that first one. Some is coming in mentally, physically, and emotionally drained I'm sure. A lot is just feeling far away outside my body for most of the time so far, and then beating myself up over kowing that I'm pretty checked out. All this translates into me feeling pretty inept at my job. I've also been way less than adequate at the eating and drinking neccesary to be out here at this time of year, which leaves me feeling even more exhausted and physically ill. And then all the normal winter terrors leave me dragging at the very tail end of my inspiration.

I didn't sleep much last night for cold feet and truely screwed up dreams. Solos make me a little bit paranoid to begin with. I always thing I hear students calling their name to be rescued, particularly after it happened last time. They are doing well here this week, but the activity crossed with the forces that live here at this site definitly set me on edge.

I think the biggest thing that makes me antsy about the whole boy situation is how healthy it seems. I realized this after talking to Martha about it a few mornings ago. This (whatever this is) is the first time I've been with someone and not been somehow altered in the head. Usually depression, though anxiety and a whole lot of alchohol were at the forefront of all the relationships I've ever had. It's strange and more than a little bit terrifying and wonderful and intriguing not to have all those crutches to fall back on, truely uncharted territory. Maybe even moreso than the sober sex was...

I have in the back of my mind what happens when Ellen decides to keep me on this shift for good. Or when I dont get my period next week. Or when I get home in 9 more days and have no note or anything from him. Or even worse--when I do. Most nights sleeping out here I flash on that one evening together in a tent. More often than that I imagine his presence--the smell and the warmth and the mischief in his eyes. I imagine how he would be in a group, or whether he thinks of me out here, though I shut that down pretty quick. All these imaginings and secret backroom dealings really wreak havoc on my present tense. I am touchy like I haven't been in a very long time.

I hate to admit it but I am counting the days to warmth and some security and peace of mind. I am not tapping into the grace I know I have, my hood and hat pulled very literally down over my ears and eyes, blocking out both sound and the last afterglow remenants of the sunset.

Coyotes tell me it is way past time to retire...

Checkout Time

2008-12-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

Today was hard. Christmas and all didn't really faze me very much, though I didn't entirely expect it to. My body is trying to tell me things I'm not ready to listen to, and is rebelling a bit in the meantime. I think I took that exhaustion and disembodied feeling of the past couple days and turned it into a migraine. Also the parts where I beat myself up over not feeling present I'm sure played a large part. At any rate, I basically slept through our holiday festivities for the most part. I took a long break and slept in the staff tent, and basically zoned out for the rest of the evening.

I am intrigued and curious about all the good spirits in the group right now, and whether it will hold up through expedition. We have the specter of solos and snow staring us down, not to mention another holiday.

I just cant shake the feeling that it doesn't feel like Christmas. Or New Years. Or my birthday. Or 2009 coming on, when 2008 with graduation has long been the most distant mark on my horizon. It doesn't feel like time is marching at all.

Coming At You

2008-12-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

It's Christmas eve and I am back in Cleo after a very brief soujourn in Bohdi. I kind of feel better already--the young adults sort of stressed me out. All around I am distracted and foggy today, and I don't like it. I feel sort of disembodied right now, given everything going on drawing my attention away from right here right now.

Right here right now is chilling out in the wall tent, relatively warm and cozy for the first time in days. Right now is laughter and light while the snow continues to fall outside. Right here doesn't quite seem like a holiday yet, but is trying hard. Right now is sort of real and nostalgic and rosy red and glowing. This moment is full of recognition and cameraderie and some homecoming, even hundreds of miles away.

On the other side, my head is full of secret longings and remembrances. My head is full of February and the chance of returning home in a few weeks to a note or an email. My head is all overheard stories and recollections from other people, and a secret inner smile to myself that is apt to make me burst. This place is so fall of his presence, its both torture and kind of reassuirng in a way--he is in fact real and more than a figment of my wayward imagination.

Every now and again I just sort of shake myself out of this hazy reverie. I can't do two weeks of work in this state, I'm exhausted and we are still at base camp.

I am confused that the little window ledge breaking the flow between my heard and head is making an appearance today--maybe simply the sign of not feeling relaxed and grounded and at peace with my responsibility. This whole boy situation has thrown me further from my routine than I'd like to admit.

I'm going to stop now as heres the part wehre things get pretty circular and weird.

Double Time Again

2008-12-23T15:45:00.000-07:00

I can't believe tomorrow is Christmas eve. It's tuesday night of another double shift, and it's almost too cold to be writing right now. I'm hanging out in Bohdisatva actually, trying to keep an open mind about working with the young adults for a few days. So far so good, but the last like 48 hours seem such a whirlwind that I have a hard time slowing down longe nough to track on what is good or not good. Bohdi is a bit liberating, a bit scary intimidating, and really fascinating in an introspective kind of way, just trying to figure out where I fit in working amongst ostensibly peers. My biggest fear and why I fought working over here so hard is not being removed at all from the students. I use my age separation a lot to fall back on with the Cleo girls, and my fear is exposing my true scattered spastic self and not showing that I have the resources to be in authority and do my job. I sort of feel like I'm 22 and hae been where they are at in the none too distant past, what right do I have to offer any guidance? That said, I feel like I can finally envision a place and space where I can share some of my story with students here in a safe and appropriate manner. I like that feeling and I like the person who could make that happen quite a lot.

And theres the mee that feels stupid giddy after a two minute interaction with a certain boy on the outgoing shift. It seems we were meant to cross paths again regardless of whether or not I engineer it. I ended up stuck in Cortez to help with half a transport of an Avatar boy. We took long enough at the pediatrician's that the Open side was finishing up lunch when I ducked into the staff tent to grab some tampons on the way down to the sites. Just the hug and the way he looked at me were enough to make my week and prove to be super distracting. But the interaction also was enough to convince me that what happened between us was real and mutual and lingering.

Crazy intense few days and theres more to relate on another moment. I am so happy to see stars tonight for the first time in days. And for the hope to sleep warm tonight in my borrowed wiggy, even if the mercury does in fact touch down at 0 degrees F. Honestly, to sleep at all tonight would be fantastic...

Fearless

2008-12-21T01:45:00.005-07:00

Things I am Currently Afraid of:
-winter
-next shift sleeping out at sub zero temperatures
-driving in the snow
-skipping my next period
-why my big toes are still numb after last weekend's snowshoeing adventures
-not having enough money to pay my bills
-the secret thought that the sun won't come out again for a long long time
-seeing boy on my transport in a few days
-my mind when I think about any future with him

Things I am Currently Sure of:
-my way around Durango and enjoyment of
-winter will end
-my sunlamp is god
-chocolate makes winter better
-double butter and cheese rations make life complete
-I wouldn't mind having more regular sex
-I am a great writer when I want to be
-I miss close people in my life, but am doing better and finding and making them here
-the next place I live will be closer to downtown and with some sense of community and people
-I like myself better when I write poetry
-I am not as dramatic as I imagine

Things I am Currently Working on:
-controlling my anxiety around working outdoors through the winter
-cleaning the fuck out of my room before leaving for work on Monday
-slowing down
-admitting how I feel, not how I think I should feel
-accepting the adventures that find their way to me
-balancing being real and authentic with being under control with my students
-not flipping out about spending money
-not freezing to death
-trusting that the universe makes things happen how they should

Specter

2008-12-16T01:26:00.002-07:00

It's 1:30 Am and I am bound and determined to sleep in my own bed tonight. The snow is falling softly enough outside that I can't tell whether it is itself a drowsy dream, the whole outer world muted by the storms still going on inside me this evening. I am unconsciously falling back on one of so many mantras which we feed the students--that I must feel this pain fully, breath it in and back out through me so that it becomes a part of me, that the next time I feel this I know that I can sit with it and breath with it and overcome. The specter of past lives and experience sits flat and heavy on my chest tonight, yet surprisingly none of my escapes seem to be helping and I am flattered to be left to my own emotions for this night of hazy reflection on the horizons. I love the light that brings winter storms, pink dim and somber with the hint of that burning freedom that will come with the clearing of the clouds.

So I had a fling. So much more than a fling that I can feel his presence with me, that I wake to the realization that there are months between us with the ache and trepidation of starting out on a long and wild journey to some place untouched and untraveled. My previous 6 days pale as they fade from view, yet clarity seems to be seeping in through the cracks and mortar stones the longer I sit here in this place and acknowledge what an experience this was. I sense the temptation to hide tonight behind these words, though I reach simply for the right ones to write this experience, sear it into the most top layers of my brain is I have seared it into my flesh, and begin the process of turning it round and round to see what I can learn from it.

He came unexpectedly, when I was not looking. I sensed him before I knew him, like a ghost crossing the path in front of me, raising the hair on the back of my neck. Or the warm updrafts we get even still hiking at evening in the desert, like the hot exhale of some desert creature breathing sage down my spine. He brought to me a childhood on a northwest Montana ranch, farmboy revolutionary sensibilities, and a particular enjoyment for reading poetry and western tinged prose aloud. We sat by the river long past dark and listened to the torrent as I told him of my paths and passions, and we talked of wilds, and of saving the world. He took me to bed, and to the mountains, and we laughed it seemed for 6 days straight. He told me my honesty was sexy, and pierced the space between us with those eyes and shit-eating grin. We lay and watched the light return to the day around us, and I never once stopped to wonder wherefrom this blessing, let myself greatfully adrift till this departure day.

And now the clock has since struck and turned me back to a pumpkin, who dare not tempt fate yet with boisterous dreams of another ball. I am switching shifts at work which means we will work opposite for a time. Which means I must again bolster my faith in the universe that things happen as they shall and as they must. I confide that my convictions in the world right now are as paper thin as the air outside my window. The specter of our paths crossing again makes me want to do irrational and impulsive things--to have this albeit external good return to my life I would risk more than is healthy.

I know my work for the moment is to stay in this place. To breath through it and with it and sit next to it and stroke it, though running or dulling the sharp edges seem like the best course of action. Being in a heart space for so many running days was such a relief I hope to hold on to the ghosts of this experience for a while, and to explore the dark spaces which remain to haunt me.

I will do this, I can do this. I have wanted nothing more than to be the person who can risk with out fear, and love with the wild abandon that I so crave for myself.

Where I'm At: Take Two

2008-12-15T13:41:00.001-07:00

"This is what real education is about--opening our naked, scarred, vulnerable, precious souls to each other."
~Grace Feuerverger

Where I'm At

2008-12-14T23:05:00.000-07:00

come, my love. we have mountains to climb and wilderness to wander. you have shown me a love that cannot be given or taken. let us bask in the fullness of ourselves. a simple kiss now blood and breath, both awakened. a balanced diet to sustain health and life. we will wax and wane in attention given from our father. we can trust he will return, yet, she is here. she has granted us this land to forge her cycle, and when in doubt she places the ocean in our tears. come my love, we have oceans to sail. the painted nature of this earth is water-based and will fade if not tended. let us retrace the origin of a kiss. they have ravished your heart and mind, but your breath travels freely out of your mouth and into mine. there, is the current i wish to sail. here is a love, uncharted. throw away your map and swallow this cratered pill. pull it from the sky and let it dissolve under your tongue. it is only a matter of time before we are timeless. "
~Saul Stacey Williams

Embody

2008-12-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

I'm having one of those charmed life removed from reality experiences. The one where being in the middle of some luscious acid trip seems to be the most reasonable explanation. For the first time in a while I seem to be navigating by my heart more than my head and ignoring the consequences for the moment at least. I keep getting stuck in the spaces between whole thoughts, and that emptiness and vastness is sort of relieving--a well earned reprieve from the matters housed between my ears. I lick my lips and ponder whether I made the whole thing up.

I don't even think this is a conversation I'm ready to have with myself quite yet. I think I'm content to sit and drink tea and watch the snow begin to fall on Main Street, though it is much to warm this morning to even contemplate sticking. Headed out in a bit for a weekend in the woods, after which I'm hoping to return with a much clearer head and cleaner conscience. For now I am working to just sit with this chaos and clarity and all too physical manifestation.

Re-entry

2008-12-11T01:16:00.000-07:00

Reentry this time around feels a lot like culture shock. That whole unexplainable ache and perpetual confusion, and the boundlessness of understanding. It is familiar in function but new in form. I am learning again how to swim in matter which I can't yet permeate. The sun is out and 45 degrees suddenly feels pretty balmy after 10 degree mornings...

Chinese Water Torture

2008-12-08T01:02:00.000-07:00

It's finally Monday, and its raining again. I slept in the tee-pee last night with three of the girls as Callie was hardcore stomach sick all over the wall tent. Sleeping there though was like Chinese water torture--I spent a good part of the night trying to find a good way to lay between the drops. Its warmer though than it has been in a while. The scene at Cleo camp though matches the attitude and energy of the girls I'm sensing, sort of dreary and a bit abysmal. We had such a big expedition--physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually that I think its a bit of a let down for them to be back at base. Our last hike was 10 miles (not entirely inadvertently), I mean really. I struggle to do 8 with BT girls on Isle Royale, and even personally 10 miles is no stroll in the park.

The changes I've seen this shift have been pretty monumental. I know I say that often, but it seems like almost every shift out here something different and more ridiculously inconceivable happens to broaden my horizons to the true possibility of this work. Amy, herself, blew me away maybe moreso than any student I've yet worked with. I mean she went from walking out of camp, and almost being restrained and put on runwatch her first night with us to finishing her South pathway. She has developed into a strong force for good within the group. She takes leadership roles, role models positive behaviors, shares herself, and is starting to call out others on their shit. And it all sort of happened when I was looking the other way almost.

And then there was Erin, who rode this expedition it seems straight to rock bottom. I haven't yet seen the outdoors totally break a person down before her this week. The wilderness did our job so much better than we did on that regard for her. I mean--the girl pooped her pants and still wont admit it after hiking for almost 2 more days. I hope she cant get much further down than that, for her sake. But since screaming and crying and cursing her way hysterically through the last night of hiking I've seen a spark in her for the very first time since I've known her. You can see enthusiasm and excitement and even the tiniest bit of nascent positivity if you look really hard. And even a small amount of internal motivation.

I am personally excited to be back here ( I hope) next shift for the Christmas double and to see where another two weeks out here leaves these ladies. I've observed so well how long two weeks can really be.

Routine

2008-12-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

I have almost just stole this morning for myself. In retrospect I kind of enjoy this wise little routine I seem to have fallen into...Wake at first light, use the bathroom after finding my way out of the sleeping bag Harry Houdini style, gather kindling, revive last nights fire, start some water for tea, and write. Somewhere in there is a pause for sunrise, and a couple to admire first light skyrocketing across the canyons. The other staff usually wake way earlier than I'd like them to, but at least I'm guaranteed some small part of the day is mine alone.

I need to be better and more compassionate today. I want like a keyword or some kind of mantra to knowck me back into my mind and kick start that empathy overdrive that I so love and loath. A safeword that reminds me of insularity and universal respect for those girls and what they are here attempting to do.

Encroach and Approach

2008-12-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

Winter's approach is turning into one drawn out exercise in controlling panic. Every night out here seems to be colder than the one before, and bedtime triggers a little bit of a sense of impending doom. Its definitely a good project for me in controlling my fight or flight reflex, in keeping myself in uncomfortable situations, and trusting that whatever comes up will be surmountable.

I am again realizing how crucial the alone time thing is for my sanity. Its a couple hours past sundown, and we just rolled into camp a few minutes ago. I've been daydreaming for most of the day about an extra hour of morning to enjoy, fantasizing really. I got up about 6:30, got the fire stoked, started some water for tea, and had only just sat down to write when people started waking. The combination of mourning the lost morning, not sleeping well for two nights in a row now, and being stuck in the back hiking watching a couple of students at their whiny entitled worst put me in a foul mood for most of the afternoon. I hate the feeling of being zonked, checked out mentally and emotionally. I'd be walked on pretty much auto-pilot for awhile, catch myself zoning out, and have to remind myself that hey, this is my job, and prod myself into a conversation with someone. I remember learning so well about internal self-care that first summer at Birch Trail, and wondering how I would ever make it through a whole day on trips without just exhausting myself. And we didn't have the staffing or the mechanisms to take breaks on trips. I think I need to bring more chocolate out on shift. I think I need to maybe get up even earlier to have that space before the students wake. I think I really need to get over my embarrassment over asking for breaks, like anyone is going to think worse of me for asking for the time and space that I need...

The moral of this story leaves me attempting to chill out as dinner prep happens. I climbed halfway up the mesa and am sitting behind a couple of huge boulders. We're camped close enough to the wall that voices throw really strange echoes, and the girls below sound almost crystal clearly from behind my back. Oso, Jonah's dog appeared a little while ago from behind me and all I heard was animal breathing down my neck. It's hard to stay up here when what I really want to do is doze off but its too cold to do so comfortably. It is almost too cold tonight to sit in one place for very long. So my brain says nap but my body says get moving.

Under the Cottonwood Trees

2008-12-02T20:34:00.000-07:00

Sitting under cottonwood trees, even in the dead of winter still puts summer smells on my mind. Last night they were saying was the coldest one yet, drooping down into the teens for my first time out here. It's cloudy, and the sun's weak effort seems like snow. I am increasingly aware that surviving winter out here will require a lot more consciousness around taking care of myself and a lot more acceptance and breath than I am used to incorporating in my working life.

Marie graduated last night. As she likes to say, she took my Open Sky virginity. She was my first good Cleo conversation, my first pathway I signed, my first 1-1 session, my first student mentor, and my first grad. She was also the last of that first core group of girls I worked with my first shift to move on. I guess I'm feeling a little attached to that, and a lot less rapport with the current crop of students. A lot of this is just time, I know, and a lot is just the strange march of hours and deeds that means we must all move forward, willing and concious or not, eventually. Marie's passage though, in a roundabout way brings me to my own journey here. Her departure makes finishing my apprenticeship seem real and closed. Marie was also the one whos eemed to stick with me, even on the off-shift, and I'm curious to see if I can control and process that adequately, now that she's gone.

This journal was meant for this time and this place---I see it so vividly now. The red one lost to Squaw was very much a South place in my experience, full of rages and passions. This one feels so much more contemplative and grounded than before, writting here feels a bit more solid and fluid than before even. I like the feel of it in my hand and the way I feel compelled to open my heart lately while writting.

Even drowsy and zoning I can still hear camp going on a good quarter mile away. Someone yelling the same things at the same people, and I kind of have to laugh. I think this week I've done a lot better at owning up to how I'm feeling, particularly regarding specific students. In the past I haven't been super cognizant of the way or the moments when students triggered me until well after the fact. Amy affected me so much, pretty much from the moment we arrived at base last week. I was able to acknowledge that though, and work through it relatively constructively. I made it a personal mission to proove that I could work with ehr, even if it meant being uncomfortable with all our interactions bring up for me. I've done so fairly consistantly and succesfully too, I might add. I didn't let her scare me away.

Into the North

2008-12-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

We camped last night on top of some mesa, one of the coolest moonscapes I've seen out here yet. I love linesleeping for the views, and the returning light here is just beginning to think about creeping back across the desert. The Chuzcos and the next canyon over are still frigid silhouettes, even the lights on the Navajo reservation are still on from the previous night.

It's December 1, and I'm very much feeling the North this morning. The frost on my sleeping bag, the cut in the air, even the attitude of the students these days make everything seem a bit more placid and serious. Winter makes this gig seem so much more long term and steady, like something I'm really committed to for more than the three month summer season. Winter must be taken seriously. I'm curious this morning though, about what my North work would be...

Maryland seems far away, Oregon even further today. Maybe thats the presence of mind and spirit I've been missing for the past few days, come to think of it. Today our journey seems an integral step on my greater journey. For the first time in a while I can see that greater path. The one bigger than Open Sky, the one bigger than being a field guide even. The road stretches out like an already curled birthday ribbon in both directions. Except there is no road, we make the road by walking it.

Trigger Point

2008-11-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

Morning at Masada on the first full day of expedition. I am trying to slow down my brain long enough to unwrap what really seems to be going on in the pit of my stomach this beautiful day.

I'm noticing this shift for the first time how my conflict-avoidance plays into how I do my job. I've been working, well, we've all been working a lot with our newest arrival Amy. I was with her even before she got out here. I was with her when she tried to walk out of camp her first night. This morning she threw a fit when I went to wake her up, screaming and crying like I'd bit off her left arm. I worked through a SOAP note after Chris requested me to, though neither he nor I really believed her very much. Her defiance and oppositionality I'm finding very very off-putting. I hesitate a bit when I approach her, because I don't want to get into a power struggle I can't and won't win. Talking to her is starting to feel like talking to Dad--the absence of reason, and the lack of bidirectional communication. It's a little jarring to keep myself in that place, and I've challenged myself to keep working with her because of it. I remembered too, how important it is to keep everything in perspective and remind myself to respect each of my students, regardless of how they are acting. I respect this girl for having a vision for her future and a clear idea about how being here gets her there, even if she is kicking and screaming the whole way. That takes a lot at 17, I don't care who you are.

And then there's my mentor student this week, Callie. She'd probably be done her south work if we let her. She is powerful like I haven't yet seen, so much that I'm curious where to take her. She knows why she's here and what she needs to accomplish. She works too hard, but otherwise its just fun to sit back and watch.

I feel out of sorts. I don't like that twisting feeling in my stomach. I don't feel super grounded, which is all around disconcerting.

But I didn't even mention--I got moved to assistant yesterday, abysmal fire skills and all!!

A New Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T11:03:00.000-07:00

Sitting around a raging bonfire at Cleo camp seems ages and a million miles from my last entry. It's Thanksgiving, early afternoon and we are having personal time in the tee-pee. Its been pouring for the last 36 hours, and life smells like Oregon so much so that the olfactory overload is quite confusing. My eyes say desert but my nose and my heart say green mountains and rainforest, and the contrast is blunt with distraction.

I have so much gratitude for being back with the girls this week. I am again reminded of how being out here instantaneously dissolves the barrier between my heart and my head, which lately I am so painfully concious of. I also realize I have a lot of anger and resentment even still over the whole staffing fiasco. I thought I had worked through it but apparently not quite yet. I stand behind everything that I've said about this last chunk of time off being meaningful. My anger I think at the core is my frustration and uncertainty around wanting to be succesful at this work and still fighting that battle with feeling perpetually inadequate. I transfer a lot of anger onto Ellen, I think in large part because I perceive her as responsible for whether I stay or go. I also pin a lot of my insecurity onto her, atleast professionally, for having so much doubt about hiring me in the first place. I feel in some irrational sense that getting to work last shift was a reflection of them (theres the great "they" again) not having enough faith in my abilities out here. I think Ellen and me also communicate in very different manners in a lot of ways, and her blanket ebuliance and energy intimidates and exhaust me.

I catch myself starting to get anxious about the rain and the weather and the omnipresent looming specter of encroaching winter, and I'm reminded of my WFR instructor's two certainties in life. He liked to say you can be certain of two things in life, the bleeding will stop and you're either pregnant or you're not. Similarly, the rain will end. It has to, even in Oregon in the rainforest the sun comes out periodically. Winter is the same, just on a greater scale--the sun will come again. It has to.

I'm strangely OK with the way the boy situation unwound itself. I think the universe was conspiring to tell me great and global things, that I interpreted on a small, selfish, and pretty much inconsequential level. The lessons were correct but the application was far too narrow-minded. I think he was sent to show me exactly what I've been missing by walling off my heart, and to remind me that there are so many other ways of being in the world. I think he was supposed to show me exactly how disconnected my head is from my heart, and how deeply that disconnect manifests itself. I think we can be great friends, past all this lovely awkwardness. I think he was also supposed to remind me of my power. When I want something bad enough I can summon the gumption, resolve and courage to follow through. I talk myself out of what I want so easily and so convincingly. I'd like to see the romantic ideological side of myself win more battles in the future over the realistic pragmatic domain. I like those parts a whole lot more completely, I think. I respect the pragmatist, but I enjoy the romantic.

On this day of thanksgiving and gratitude, I'd most like to acknowledge the deepening understanding and openness to the myriad of things the universe can unveil to me. I'm greatful fo rthe opportunity and emotional fortitude to have come to this place and follow through with this grand adventure. I'm incredibly fortunate to have found myself here, and greatful for the insight that has already come to me. I am greatful to be living withouth depression as we look to winter's approach, and for all the tools and strengths I've honed in managing my fight. I'm greatful to be out here this week and every week, for the chance to live to my greatest potential and most soulful nature of my being.

It will certainly be a holiday that I will remember for a while.

Poetrees?

2008-11-16T20:37:00.003-07:00

I want to write
like the blood pools in my head
suspended and
upside-down.

I want to write
with incandescent
recognition,
locking eyes with a stranger.

I want to write
how blue skies tear
my unprotected psyche, how
bobcat tracks knee-deep in mud
shiver.

I want to write
like the last sunset, dazed,
caught unexpected and off-guard
in the rear view mirror of my car.

I want to write
with saltwater and seagulls,
of waking up in the desert neath
juniper canopies,
waves still crashing.

I want to write
while the children still sleep,
and my fire is the only
light splitting open
darkness for miles.
~11/14/08

I breath fire sometimes
while my insides quake and
stumble and breaks squeal
like a child in pain.

The chiseled brownstone three
floors below has rooms to let,
and cowboys on bicycles smile,
wondering how Colorado fares come
springtime thaw.

Winter sun retires, beaten
flummoxed and finished before
teatime. We call out
to mortal gods of fire and white.

Though I breath fire sometimes,
pour light like coffee at $1 a cup,
I am secretly pacified and amazed
as the ring road mountains blush
and crystal plays with the moon.
~11/14/2008

Bobcat Tracks

2008-11-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

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.

A Little Reminisced

2008-11-12T22:21:00.002-07:00

I finally figured it out. Walking back over the river to my car tonight, under daybright nearly full moon and iridescent remnants of last week's first snow--Durango reminds me of Krumlov. Almost painfully so, the low and stony river, the spiral streets with no cars, the way the snow reflects off the sky lighting the entire city in eery cast-off tones. Even the way the mountains stand off, withdrawn, the perspective of the surrounding hills and the castle tower. The revelation was so strong it took me a moment to take a breath and bring myself back.

The moon is full and being indoors is killing me. I didn't expect to miss the field this profoundly, to feel the pull so strongly after only a month out here. I miss the girls and the routine and the very act of being there--home and away and righteous.

Complex

2008-11-11T15:53:00.002-07:00

It sort of serves me right to miss out on sunrise yoga this morning, after not quite finding the motivation to venture over to the rec center on several occasions this week. So instead, denied, I am hiding my face at Starbucks with all the tourists (real Durango-ans no doubt take their business elsewhere). Tuesdays are taking on the weighty impulsiveness of Sundays during school time--too timid to trump the specter looming of real work, and far too much to accomplish in the meantime.

I am facing this shift with a fair amount of trepidation. This week is number three, what should be the end of my apprenticeship. Even aside from the pressure I feel to perform well and move forward, I am working towards intention for the week to come. Last shift part of the reason I felt successful is coming in with very specific bite-sized goals for myself. They were in large part reflections of that very first week int he field. I'm not sure yet what I want to reflect, what my task will be.

As for improvements, nothing sure really trips to the front of my mind. Not to say I was close to flawless last shift, far from it. But most of what I'd like to improve doesn't come alont with steps A-K. My biggest point of concern is maintaining the facade of appropriateness with the students. I worked really hard during last shift in the field to be more aware of the things I said to the girls, and the manner in which I spoke to them. It was frusterating to even still get feedback on the topic. She is probably right though, that I'm not super cognizant of the root of the things I'm saying, particularly family and other parts of my history which still cause me pain. The problem is I don't really see a logical doable fix, no intermediate between inadequate and better.

I think I could probably benefit from admitting my fears surrounding the pure logistics of this job. I have, sort of, the personal impact anyways. But at a very core level I'm afraid of fucking this up. At basically every juncture for feedback I imagine them to finally tell me the jig is up, OK thanks for playing, but it is time to go. Ellen intimidates me alot (hello transferance) and every time we are riding too or from base and I hear people compliment any of the other new folks a more than small part of me wonders why no one is saying similar things about me.

This inferiority complex this is so abstractly fascinating for me. Where the hell did it come from? It's not exactly like I was verbally beaten as a child or anything. All of these latent expectations seem so foreign and inexplicable, yet at the same time so perfectly familiar.

Wants and Needs

2008-11-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday night and I just couldn't bear wasting another evening. Instead I am stewing and sipping hot cider at that coffee place across from Walmart. I was up and out early today for some yoga, but fell back asleep as soon as I got back after sunrise. A good long talk on the phone with Chris, dinner, a shower, and there went another afternoon, whiled.

I'm here tonight because I need more order in these off-shift days. I need to figure out what I want and need from these jumbled days, and I need to be honest and methodical about how to go and get there.

So here it is, wellness Open Sky style:

Body:
physical exercise besides yoga 2x weekly
cook real meal on stove at least 2x weekly
take supplements regularly
see acupuncturist at least 1x monthly
shower at least every other day
get dressed well at least 4x weekly
lotion
clean bathroom at least 1 x monthly
leave floor clean before leaving for work
spend at least one hour outside at least 2 x weekly

Mind:
read books at least 3 x weekly
find and attend at least one concert/lecture/gathering of smart people weekly
watch at least 1 new movie a month
finish altar collage by january
pay off credit card by january
pay Mom debt at least 1 x every other month

Heart:
find and see shrink 1x monthly
locate volunteer opportunity and serve at least 5 hours monthly
journal at least 2 x weekly
speak with family at least 2 x weekly
write at least 1 poem per month
write at least 1 letter per month
leave house daily, even if just to walk Gilbert

Soul:
yoga at least 4 x weekly
meditate at least 4 x weekly
UU church at least 1 x month
locate music by january

So let it be so...

Las Mariposas

2008-11-07T16:44:00.002-07:00

I'm finding this off shift that the better I am at my job, the harder it is to really leave work in the field. This past shift I was so much more successful at making connections and building rapport with the girls (and other staff, for that matter), and fortunately/unfortunately I am struggling a bit to disengage.

Lately while meditating, I've been imagining my thoughts as swarms of butterflies, flitting around my face distracting me from my real work. Every time I catch myself thinking, I imagine the butterflies and envision them flying out the window on a command updraft, then return to my breathing and the task at hand. Every time I've noticed myself thinking about the girls lately, I force myself to push the butterflies back out the window--sort of a waking reminder, an ebbing and retreat of the tide.

It's sunny, blue, and cold again today, with just a hint of Wednesday's snow dusting still lingering on the hills and canyons outside of town. I am musing at the Steaming Bean, watching cowboys in Chuck Taylors' stroll by, and doing my damnedest not to think about anything significant. I am indulging in my first cup of coffee in maybe a month, which is only stoking my apprehension for winter's coming, the end of my apprenticeship, and a bit of homesickness for the rain forest and that past northern existence. It smells like pine suddenly today, and tourists in sunglasses and shirt sleeves seem strictly absurd.

I'm chaffing a bit at my lack of routine, I think. My stomach is a bit unsettled, that nervous energy that usually goes with riding a bus in a new and unfamiliar city with no knowledge of either where I'm going or the cultural custom required to exit the vehicle. Its a bit disheartening to be skating on the surface of this town. I want so badly to break through, to make some connection to something or someone that will hold fast to me here. The rest is a bit, well, lonely. Except that I dont do lonely, really. I feel no loss for people, only places and ties and that fleeing sense of acceptance and belonging that I both love and loath.

It is somewhat of that same battle that I fought all of last year while working weekends for College Outdoors. I love the visceral feelings in my body while working, how complete and present I feel in the woods. For whatever reaon I am still feeling that hard to hold on to in real city inside life. I'm closer to integrating both mes than ever before, but the process of doing so is quite alienating and discombobulating. While walking in concrete I am at a monumental loss for words.

I feel tightness in my stomach and stress in my shoulderblades. My stomach and legs feel itchy and scaley. I am warm, and my left foot is trying to go to sleep on me. Mentally I feel lubricated, like there is so much more that must be said, yet no words to express. Emotionally I feel a bit wistful. I have some anxiety and some longing that is making me want to clench my fists and paste my eyes shut tight. My soul is elsewhere, sitting on some highup overlook dreaming of water and clear skies.

Confessions of the Evening

2008-11-05T21:51:00.002-07:00

I am secretly more excited to be back from the field tonight to shower, throw on sweats, and lie in my bed watching last week's episode of Grey's Anatomy than I am to get caught up on the news...

I have secret cravings to crunch maniacly on crypto while working in the desert...

I sneak chocolate from my food bag regularly during meals when I think no students will notice...

I miss the northwest a bit...but not as much as I feared I might...

I'm afraid of winter coming on...

Election Day

2008-11-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

That big day in November and that other world seems very far away right now. It's Tuesday afternoon at base and the wind is howling something fierce (as usual) while the girls are doing chores. I am both pretty exuberant and fairly drained. I didn't really take any time for myself while we were on solos, which in retrospect was a mistake. I found myself sitting in group last night not really retaining anything that was being said. I fell asleep before Martha had finished singing the girls a lullaby. Solos were pretty mellow, actually. It made me want to do one of my own. Each of the girls were so totally different while they were out there by themselves. The loudest most gregarious ones would appear almost sad and withdrawn when we checked on them. The quiet ones were totally in their element off by themselves away from our daily chaos. It was nice just to kick it with the guides and with the field managers as well, but it made for a very strange feeling week. There hasn't been a lot of time to really hang with many of the students, not even my mentee student after pushing so hard to take on mentor responsibilities.

Plus I'm probably dehydrated. And haven't wagged yet today, which is making me feel altogether giddy and not myself...

Finally took that break. Its dusk now and I'm hanging out up by the trailer in their hammock, watching some crazy sky. Its been blowing pretty hard all day, the temperature dropped maybe 10 degrees , and without sounding too cliched there is definitely change in the air.

I'm lying here trying to think of what this week was meant to teach me. I keep flashing on moments, but so far no particular overarching message comes to mind. There have been glimmers which leave me amazed and curious that this is actually my job, like how did I come to be in this moment in time. I take that as a very good sign of being comfortable, allowing myself to accept that I'm really here, and to settle a bit further and deeper emotionally. I think maybe this week was meant to show me the power of intention. I left the field last shift fairly frustrated with myself, mostly because I left feeling sort of impotent. I knew there was so much more that I could do and offer and take on. I came in this week knowing that I wanted to step up and take on more, to take more initiative in order to feel good about my work. And I really have...

Four hours later Obama is our new president. Its snowing pretty good, and so cold my fingertips hurt sitting up writing this. Everything seems downright surreal, and the thunder snow continues outside adding an eery layer of disbelief.

Snapshots I'll take away from this week: sitting on the edge of Avatar point on Halloween night with the new girl Sarah in the dark and actually getting somewhere talking. Several incredible psychadellic sunsets and sunrises. Thundersnow. When Caren called out on solos, and the three of us took off at full speed, total adrenaline. Maybe perhaps getting through to her about productive uses of anger. Leading my first two groups ever here. Feeling included in staff groups. Being asked by students for help. Getting my period twice in three weeks (damned healthy food). Busting up a storm with David and Derek, and getting significantly closer to flame. Cassie smiling at me. Marie crying about aftercare. Learning what it feels like to be manipulated by a student. Learning what it feels like to be unwittingly dehydrated and drained. Being a bit revulsed to have to tarp a student. Freaking myself out over skinwalkers. 120 killerpillers. Duststorms and dragons. Feeling like I belong out here...

Suddenly I'm Torn

2008-10-31T16:06:00.000-06:00

Back tonight at Avatar Point watching the sun go down towards the Chuzcas, not quite making it before the horizon wins out. I love this site but am finding it makes me homesick for the ocean. I think it is by virtue of unobstructed horizon line panorama, looking down and out on the flat plane that takes my brain there.

Off this first evening of expedition, and I'm finding this week way more to my likings than last shift. I feel much more at home and closer to falling into a routine on the job. I hadn't entirely realized how being cold and not sleeping well affected me throughout that first week. Its a good deal warmer this week so far than last shift for sure, but the additional warm layer, winter sleeping bag, and pants with a crapton of pockets (hell yes JCPenny husky boys section) make life a whole lot easier to deal with. My new thermarest and super cush -5 degree sleeping bag make going to bed a bit of a joy and getting up for sunrise way less of a dread.

Theres an oil drum jam session going off somewhere close by and I keep loosing my mind adrift somewhere in juniper and pinon below. Its cloudy today, kind of muted and disconcerting. I can barely imagine this high desert in the rain, a strange juxtoposition of alien forces and not quite natural consequences.

I'm feeling very torn this week, for a lot of different reasons and from many different directions. First off I guess would have to be Dave. He finally got in touch Tuesday evening, and I finally forced myself to listen, hopefully in a more detached manner than I've been able to before. Talking to him made me angry, but different than it has in the past. He's doing better, not so depressed, but off medication and back on pot again so as to not demonized and alienate himself. I am pissed at him because it seems like such a ridiculous propostion--drink and smoke to be less depressed--but I think I understand where he is coming from. But for the first time, I'm not angry with myself about it all. I was proud that I was able to clearly explain to him why I was angry, how enmeshed I feel in his issues, and how much countertransferance I put on him, how much guilt I feel every time he goes down hill. I want to know more about countertransferance and co-dependency, like pathologically. Dave is definitly my model for it, but he's only one exaple of many, one relationship among dozens where I take too much responsibility and begin to personally manifest other peoples' experience and emotions. Empathy is a gift, but for some reason my compassion impulse goes on overdrive and is poorly controlled. I remember at 10 thinking my Dad got cancer instead of me, and feeling deeply at fault. Or at 13, lying awake all night for months because I thought Charlie could sense that I was awake and thus not kill himself because of that connection. Dave is just the lastest in that chain, and I want to know why and wherefrom.

I am feeling torn this week in the field physically due to the separation of two students from the group. We have Caren on directions (sort of an extended time-out) for the duration of the shift probably, and than Sarah just arrived new night before last still on Gateway. I'm finding it hard to speak only minimally to both of them, when I really want to nurture and make everything all better. I also feel fairly manipulated by Caren--I want to believe and trust her, but I know that I cannot at this time. I fear she is trying to use me, to take advantage of my ignorance to get away with things of which I'm not yet aware. We had a couple of good talks about why she's being punished and her anger, where I really tried not to take sides at all and just listen. I fear now that she takes me as an ally over the rest of the group and staff with which she still feels fairly conflicted. Particularly I feel used over first-aid priveleges. I'm in charge of basics this week and she is using my compassion and commitment as a cry for attention rather perpetually. I'm uncomfortable still not being able to fully trust the students, a feeling I'm still processing. But in the mean time I feel quite torn.

I'm also running into some internal conflict about being relazed and building rapport and wanting to be better on boundaries and rules with the students. This came up a lot last summer, and I know I feel better when I am more lax, but stuff also starts to happen when I'm not totally on top of things 100%. I am torn here in this setting because of the constant give and take from the rapport bank. I want them to like me and trust me, but those boundaries are so crucial to the girls' development...I haven't been here long enough to know where the balance point is yet. I fear being taken advantage of or being seen as weak if I don't enforce the rules that I see all the more because I'm new and the students don't know me well enough yet.

Torn, and pulled in so many directions, as I said.

We're laying over tonight for Halloween (!). Then tommorow and Sunday we put the girls out on solos, which they are not going to dig at all. We'll head back to base early Monday, then commences all of the turnover chaos. It seems so weird to me that this may be my last shift with some of these girls, either because they might move me next week, or because some might have gradded by then. Days with these girls really aare like weeks in terms of the experiences and connections you make here on fast forward. I will be happy to see them move on, but will think about them all often as my very first students out here.

Holy Wholy

2008-10-20T11:21:00.000-06:00

Still off this morning, watching an unfortunate set of clouds roll in. At least if it starts to pour, the next two nights are at base in the wall tent, not under my wholey tarp. My shelters are getting better, but the top tarp is pretty shredded from walking through one too many junipers on training. A big storm is gonna happen sooner or later, and I'd almost rather get it over and done with.

I wonder how it will be like for me, looking back on this week months and years from now. I remember my first trip at Birch Trail so vividly, how it felt in every inch of my body to finally be doing what I knew I should be doing. It terrified me to be completely and totally out there, to have this dream and risk everything in pursuit of that curiousity. Most of all it scared me to throw myself into this work and chance learning that I wasn't good at it, that the dream wasn't meant to be. I felt a bit like that on training, particularly when things were so difficult and I wondered (they did too apparently) whether they would approve of me or whether I'd have to start all over again. I have these two simaltaneous instincts. One, if I'm not naturally gifted at something that it must not be for me and I shouldn't even bother. The other leans the opposite direction, that I just naturally havet o work three times as hard as most people to succeed at the things I am passionate about, and I should just accept and acknowledge that fact. This week has been a new and different mixture of both tendancies. There have been some parts where I've felt just called to this job, liking pushing Cassie up that last hill, or coaching Kris with her letter. There have been some parts where I know I'll have to put the work and the hours in, like confrontations and group management. And there have been a lot of moments where its been neither a total loss or complete victory, where I feel pretty OK simply taking things as it comes and learning as much or as little as I need as I go along.

As much as I've been asked lately, I still don't have a good answer to why I'm here. Wanting to do this work has been such a constant in my life for at least four years. Its hard to go back and parse the inspiration. I wanted this even before I knew how vital it would be for me. I wanted wilderness before I needed it like oxygen or blood. I'm here because even in my darkest moments I could find a bit of peace outdoors. I'm here becasue I wish someone would have had the awareness and the guts to send me to a place like this at 17. I came here because I know so well some of the experiences of these girls, and what profound impact small moments can make. I guess in as few and as clear words as possible I'm here because I know personally the effect wild places can have on wellness, I've seen the change in others, I've read about it in countless books and journals, and I believe spiritually that there are forces out here working on all of us that are more powerful than any intervention I can offer. I believe in wilderness personally, experientially, academically, and spiritually, a belief so strong that I must do my part to make it happen. I am the best of myself out here. I've come, yes, in part selfishly, because I want to continue to see those shining pieces of myself on a more regular basis. But I've come also with empathy and service and curiousity--I want to see the best parts of these girls out here as well.

I have that hint of winter depression in the back of my mind, poking at me discretely every time I notice the date on the calendar. I can't even wonder again whether this year will be different, I cant allow any of my energy to go down that path. Its really not even worth the temptation of believing I'm cured, though no doubt the perpetual sunshine and wellness in which this job surrounds me will do wonders. The temptation leads to a laying down of all my armor and a weakening of my resolve. Being well takes all of my will and none of my imagination. This means getting back on the supplements, and back on the personal time agenda, and getting used to talking to strangers in this new life in which I find myself. I know the battle plan, I know the fortifications, I just need to prepare myself physically mentally emotionally and spiritually for a return to war. The summer armistice is over. I hope being in this environment, atleast half time, where wellness is so ingrained in everything we do, that I can find the support and enough reminders to force myself to do what I need to do...

Personal Time

2008-10-19T11:07:00.000-06:00

Laying over today was just...excessively pleasant. Thats the best way to describe it. I woke dripping, literally, burrito-d in our make shift tarp bivys from line sleeping last night. Martha and I sat around drinking mormon tea till sunrise, blinding and psychadellic over the La Platas. Nate showed up a bit later, and we ate chocolate, dissected the previous day, and gave midweek feedback to each other. I found both the giving and receiving of feedback today uncharacteristically hard. I got some great stuff from everyone, though not as constructive as I would have liked. They both commented on my comfort in the outdoors, which made me smile inside, and also my tone, though as a positive. Giving feedback was particularly challenging because I've known these people a grand total of five days and am so new at the job myself, like far be it from me to give them any criticism.

For myself, I need to figure out how to stay warm. Its only October and early mornings I'm already shivering in all the layers I brought with me. I need to have a better handle on tone and sarcasm. I need to sleep better in the field because I can already tell I'm wearing thin. I need to get better at reading the group, and knowing how to motivate without pushing puttons that I don't want to push. I need to get used to not fixing everything, and sitting back and watching things unfold as they may. I need to watch the self deprication, because it sets a harsh precident. I need to get over myself and realize that I'm never going to feel like I have the right things to say.

Today was also a big day for me in the therapy side of things. We had Kris' responsibility letter group after breakfast. It was sort of a first good look at the structure of this place. Her letter is her chance to own up to anything and everything that she feels she has done, wrong or right. It was fascinating to watch the other girls dissect her project and process. They really did most of the work for themselves. I felt like I had a lot to contribute as well, which is still surprising me. I also had a good talk with Marie afterwards, about how it feels to be surrounded by so many people who are so proud of their sobriety. She let me sit in on her check in with Martha as well, which was pretty profound. I am feeling like I'm standing on solid ground more and more lately.

We spend the afternoon carving on fire sets, sitting idly, and whittling in the sun. All and all, a pretty idyllic way to spend a work day. Tommorow a psychologist is coming to do meds for three of the girls, then we're heading to base in the evening. To the best of my knowledge Tuesdays at base are chores and catch-up, then changover on Wednesday.

Weird. This week is going much quicker than I expected.

Achingly Incorrect

2008-10-18T10:51:00.000-06:00

We just made it up to Grumpa a litle while ago, rolling in well past sundown. I'm off till dinner, and have settled on an outcropping looking down on the sea of shadow dusk and the memory of sunset. I am fighting the overwhelming sensation of having walked this way before. I think at least presently because it reminds me of sitting on East Rock at Star, though the sounds and smells are achingly incorrect. Its warmer tonight, up high looking down on the top end of Squaw. I actually kept my feet bare, in an act of daring defiance against the coming frost. I haven't mastered sleeping warm out here yet, which is making going to bed quite frusterating. Being here in the high desert is like being new in a foreign country. I can can follow and keep up with most of the actions and expressions, but some just get lost in cultural and linguistic interpretation. I know how to take care of myself in the backcountry, but learning to do it here in Utah is like a rough rudimentary translation.

The thing that has so far most surprised me is the amount of change in individual girls that happens over hours or days. How quickly they can melt down and also how quickly they can step up and show new signs of grace and maturityin the heat of the moment. I want to say that its been sort of a dramatic couple of days, but my sense is what we've delt with is small in the scheme of things. A lot of interpersonal conflicts between two girls jousting for control and feeling cut out and resentment for the other. One minor freak out in drinking puddle pond scum down in Squaw this morning. One potentially somatic stomach bug, though I want so badly to believe her. One hiking melt down, crossing anxiety issues with some maybe perhaps physical breathing problems.

It was actually one of the coolest omements of the week for me so far. I had been walking behind Cassie for most of the afternoon. We hit some pretty burly hills near the end, including the last one which was almost clifflike in stature. She's super independent, and gets touchy when people ask her how she is. I got her to tell me what it felt like when she cant breath, which she actually did in detail. The rest of the way up, she would stop every five or ten steps to catch her breath and psych herself up. I was afraid to cheer her on and make her angrier and more embarassed, so I just stood next to her, and matched her breathing until she slowed hers to match mine. We did this 6 or 8 times until we got to the top. I dont even know if she knew thtats what I was doing, but it thrilled me to get a positive response.

They had me navigate down to Little Easy yesterday, which actually went quite well. We went down a pretty good cliff near the end of Avatar point which next time I'll know to avoid. I took a good fall and bashed in my knee pretty good, which is worrisome, but the girls all made it down fine. We ended up crusing down this sweet side wash full of flowers and whirls and slickrock. I'd only feel better if I'd done it on purpose, if I'd planed to end up there, but it was definitly enjoyable either way. We ended up camping a bit up from Little Easy to get onto state land, and be allowed to poo in the ground. Horray!

Plan is to layover here tommorow, maybe dayhike some. They all have tons of therapy work or pathway stuff to do, and I think we get to do 1-on-1 checkins which I'm observing apparently. We may even stay through Monday, though I hope we'll head on . I cant imagine how two days of personal time would be. It's strange to have water delivered and be near a road again. Sometimes this wilderness seems so close, yet so artificial. I guees all wilderness which I've experienced seems sort of like that, just on a smaller scale than this.

Now my toes are cold. Dang it.

I've noticed and checked myself on a couple occasions my sarcasm and harsh tone. I was called out about both during training, which made it all the more disturbing to see it in myself this week. Also the affects both have on the students in real time. I think in a lot of ways I'm not fully concious of my tone or my sarcasm. Its definitly something I will push hard to be more aware of, for myself and for the students. It can only serve me to speak consistently from a more real place, and seek to understand what sarcasm is convering for or covering up.

I'm intrigued and unnerved by how much therapy tak seems to be sneaking into my lexicon...

Morning Light

2008-10-17T10:41:00.000-06:00

Apparently I have this morning off as well. Its well after sunup and I'm finally just getting warm. The moonrise last night and the sunrise this morning lit the horizon on fire. I caught the tail end of the show this morning from my shelter, while trying to convince myself to get up.

I'm sitting maybe 200 yards from the kitchen, down an outcropping behind some junipers, just sort of gazing out over the desert below. The bass line of a couple of far off jets is throbbing in time, and I keep imagining I hear church bells, in this my wild cathedral. The sky is so big in so many directions, it's hard not to be a bit overwhelmed. I find myself wanting to touch everything around me, to drink in and taste the desert.

Today we transition Cassie to the West. We are headed down into Squaw to Little Easy tonight. Then comes the dreaded accountability group, where all are given amnesty and a chance to confess to their sins in front of everyone. There has been a lot of conflict brewing and a lot of strange happenings, a lot of which I imagine, or at least I hope will come out tonight.

I want to be able to process these first few days in the field so badly. In some ways I think maybe it just hasn't affected me as profoundly as I was expecting. Yet. Or maybe I just haven't found the words, yet. I've felt comfortable and familiar with all the hard skills and campcraft. But at the same time all the more frusterated, because I know hard skills can be so much on the surface, albeit thinly veiled. I would like to get into things deeper here, but I don't quite know how yet. I'm concentrating on building rapport with the students, which is pyschobabble for getting to know them and hopefully gaining their trust. I feel like I'm pretty good at making relatively quick and strong connections but I want so bad to go further. It has been a bit awkward, really having no idea what my role is, or what expectations exist for me. In the future I hope to be able to be more up front with myself and with the staff team I'm in about asking and taking on responsibility. Its almost a strange limbo, being new here. Its being real live staff, but not really because for the most part I'm only observing and being another set of eyes, and chiming in when I feel like I can. I can imagine being more than this, which is new. A lot of times, particularly the more difficult moments I have the same instincts and want to say the same things as the senior staff end up saying. Its affirming to know that my responses are pretty on target, though I'm not confident enough yet to throw them in.

Into the Wilderness

2008-10-16T10:34:00.002-06:00

It's day two of real live wilderness therapy. I don't even know where to begin. Its prooving way much harder than I expected to take a break. I have this evening off, and I find myself laying in my shelter trying desperately to strain to hear whats going on at group around the campfire. Cassie is supposed to give her lifestory and then transition to the West which is such a crucial step for her and for the group. I feel like I should be there.

Other than that I think I'm actually sleepy. Weird. We're at Avatar point tonight which is big flat mesas on all sides. Heading into Squaw tommorow. Today I learned I need to be much more confrontative. I let too much slide and am not yet comfortable getting into the middle of a conflict. I had a really good talk with Marie about her drug use when we were hiking, which was sort of this first glimmer of what this is really like.

I'm not even making emotional sense right now. It is nothing and everything I thought it would be.

I Feel It In My Fingers

2008-10-14T08:42:00.002-06:00

There has got to be some kind of powerful energy in this town. I went to sunrise yoga this morning, which was wild and full of all sorts of energy on it's own for the record. Driving home I saw the biggest, brightest, most vibrant triple rainbow I have ever seen. It spanned all of down town Durango, and touched down on both ends so strongly I could probably triangulate the spot if I thought hard enough. The crazy part, this is the second wildly clear and vivid rainbow in about three days. The last one I saw from my window, with one base just about at the lip of Big Canyon, and the other over in the next wash.

Now if thats not a good omen, I don't know what is.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

2008-10-12T21:17:00.008-06:00

It's Sunday evening and days are slowly ticking by and I'm getting increasingly and majorly nervous about starting real work in a few days. I know it's just one more blind leap of faith to add to the list of the last couple of months, and that I'll feel loads better once I get there in the thick of things. But right now I'm just starting to get comfortable and cozy in my new place full of sunshine and blue skies, and imagining my first shift sits in my stomach like a pot of cold oatmeal. This job means so much to me, I have to figure out a way to set down all of my expectations before heading out to the desert in a few days.

On the one hand, I have absolutely no qualms about being here in this moment, on the path that I've fought to find myself on. I've wanted to be in the wild in a therapeutic setting for so long, it still strikes me as kind of strange to actually be here, doing this. My two weeks of training for the program honestly were some of the most profound experiences of my life. It ended over a week ago, and I feel like I've only just began to process what happened out there in the desert. I remember sitting on the train to Portland last winter, and writing about how I thought my story was just beginning. I really had no idea...I feel like my words, no matter how many times I turn them around and over, really do no justice to the intensity of this adventure.

There is a metal archway, layered in Tibetan prayer flags which stands in the middle of a field of big sage, about a 10 minute walk into the bush from base. This was my introduction to this new world, and the end and beginning of illusion. Through this arch we entered the gateway, the arrival, signifying the end of past lives, and the beginning of intention. I sat there, in the dirt under cloudless sky, incense burning somewhere close by, totally overcome by my senses. I sat there and meditated about what it is that I leave behind to begin this journey again, and then slowly crossed the threshold.

We walked that first night through the darkness in silence. We walked for hours on an old oil rig road, in single file, with no headlamps, quick enough to distract from everything but staying awake and upright. I remember the smells of the desert, and the strange updrafts of warm air between slow bursts of cool night air. Beyond that, the evening blurred around the edges, with glimpses of lucidity and the biggest brightest shooting stars I've ever seen. It was a trippy experience, walking through a tunnel as if blindfolded, no idea what lies ahead, simply focusing on the physical act of putting one foot in front of the other.

Waking up the next morning was as surreal as getting blindfolded and dropped on Mars. We slept out, and due to our spot near a couple of oil drums going all night like a bunch of well trained hippies with bongos, the exhaustion of the previous few days, and proximity to a bunch of Anasazi archaeological sites, I had some seriously trippy dreams. I remember one about mistakenly eating some poisoned mushrooms, realizing it, and trying to make myself vomit. And also one dream where the bugs flying around my face where I was sleeping where talking to me. Then to wake up under that sky, with mountains and mesas on all sides, facing one of the biggest adventures of my life, it was wild.

I think I was most surprised by the amount of emotion, honesty, and disclosure they both expected and elicited in us. I was surprised by the amount I found myself affected by our journey over those 9 days, and the amount I actually let slip from my lips. I would have considered myself a relatively self-aware person before my training for this Wilderness Therapy gig, but really it seems I had no idea. One of the main focuses for our students is to develop more of a consciousness towards the mind-body connection. We practice this regularly by checking in and reporting on how are mind, body, heart, and soul are doing. This entails no explanations, no justifying, and no pontificating, which for someone as cerebral as I tend to be, can be reallllllly hard. I found myself wanting to explain why my knee was throbbing, or say that it didn't matter, when all they require is an observation of sensation. I had a really hard time separating heart and mind for a while, because again being so caught up in my head I try to think things away, to explain and understand emotion until it makes sense and thus doesn't affect me so much. Some of the revelations were relatively simple, yet for me all the more profound. I happened to be chatting with one of our trainers one morning while putting on some arnica gel. They were asking me why and what was going on so I told them nonchalantly a bit about my knee problems, ending with "nothing really helps so I just try to ignore it." With out even hinting at psychobabble, he simply asked me why. I was stuck on that for a few days actually, and then finally it clicked. The more off balance, uncentered, foggy, or not present I am emotionally, the less I pay attention to my physical presence. And I'm in the clouds quite often these days, I'll just say. But the less I pay attention to how I'm holding my body, the more my feet overpronate, do the wrong things we'll just say, which pulls on my knees and exacerbates everything that has happened to them. The less conscious of my physical body I am, the worse I walk, and the more my knees hurt. The more my knees hurt, the more frustrated and angry and off-focus I become, further worsening the cycle. Simple mind-body awareness, but for me, it was huge.

I find it really fascinating that I have relatively little qualms talking about my own experiences with mental illness, however talking about my own small part in other peoples' still terrifies me. There are things that I said and connections that I made between issues and experiences and ramifications during that time that I've never been able to realize or share before. One night near the end of the week I sat up by the fire after everyone else had gone to sleep and ended up crying for a while with a couple of the guys. I'd been pretty shook up about the lesson on suicide watch for the students, and I'm not quite sure how it happened. I'm learning that I take on an incredibly large amount of responsibility for other people, particularly their welfare and well being, and I invite other people to use me and take advantage of my empathy and compassion because of it. Then when I'm at a low point, there is no one there for me, and I feel all the more betrayed. I am not responsible for the survival of others, but even saying so makes me feel a little...cold. Like I've lost a piece of my heart. But the weight of all of those people drags me down so deeply, it's time to let go. So I cried for all the people I've been their for, who I've talked down from the proverbial window ledge, and who I've allowed to lay down some of their burdens as my own. The last time I cried was senior year of High School when they told me that my mother had lung cancer. Over eight years ago.

We experienced a lot of beautiful spots and people, but the one that sticks with me is the sweat lodge. This was not, by any means, a sweat in the traditional indigenous sense. It was a creation of the organization and all of the people involved, that borrowed heavily from many traditions world wide. A sweat, regardless of who you are or what you are working through takes you out of yourself. I believe it is their intention to facilitate an awakening, a revelation, maybe even a spiritual experience, to show to the students that they are more than their pasts. I know for me it was one of the most profound and mystical two hours of my life, and I say that with out pretension.

Our sweat was to the four directions, one round devoted to each space and place, with breaks in between. During their time with the organization the students work through pathways based around the directions as well, each complete with tasks, responsibilities, and personal characteristics which they must embody before moving forward. Our sweat was only a small sense of the tremendous journeys they are on, and the work they must do.

I was smudged with sage before entering, placed my hamsa necklace and a small stone on the alter, knelt and prayed to the Earth and to the others with me, and crossed the threshold. Inside the lodge is pitch dark, already hot, musky, and so low you must crawl on all fours around the pit in the center. It is small enough that you must sit hugging your knees to your chest, and probably still be touching some part of another sitting next to you. They brought nine rocks from the raging fire that had been going all afternoon for the round of the south, and placed them in the center pit. The door closed, and I had to fight for a while with myself not to panic as I sat in the total darkness, temperature climbing, sweat already pouring off my face. They slowly began to pour water onto the stones one by one. Incense and herbs billowing off the pit filled the lodge with acrid and tempting steam. Then the music began, and we sang and chanted and called out to all things.

According to many traditions, to the medicine wheel, the south is a time of freedom, of play, of joy, of fire, of music, of passion, of rebellion, of youth, of red heat. This round was joyful, spontaneous, and free. We sang and screamed and yelled. We called out to our inner children, and howled at the moon. The south was exuberance, with little thought to the looming presence of the rapidly encroaching West and North. I danced in the south, and smiled wickedly. It was over too soon.

The round of the west brought figurative sundown, responsibility, facing dragons and demons. West brought the work of introspection, and a turning in my stomach. I sat in the hottest spot for this round apparently, directly in line with the fire and the pit filled now with an additional 4 stones. The west dropped all pretense of unbridled happiness, and instead faced the real personal and intense work that comes with darkness. I wanted to hide my face and make it be over.

North is winter, white, somber, and the hint of rebirth and renewal. North is taking on the dragons that you discover in the West. North is serious and a bit scary, with all sorts of talk about the people and things that have harmed you, the traumas which we have all lived through, and the damage which has been done. North is facing up to all of the little broken pieces of ourselves, and acknowledging the pain before stepping past it. North took that lump in my throat and stone in my stomach, and sort of forced it to the surface. My dragon? Twofold I think. One I already sort of mentioned, that is all of the people and things (including myself) that take advantage of my compassion and sap the life and joy from me in exchange for taking on others' responsibility and survival as my own. The other is I'm sure related, though I haven't quite completely traced the lineage yet. My dragon is my insecurity and lack of self-confidence, my inner critic that tells me its never good enough and that I am some what of a fraud. That I don't deserve to feel the way I feel and experience what I am going through. North was a wild and primeval bloody ride.

East is the coming of spring, of sunrise, the return of green, of rebirth. East brings wisdom and expects one to guide others. East was the end of our transformation that evening, as we sang and chanted our way into a new world which we would create for ourselves. East was endless, hot, and humbling. I spent most of it with my forehead flat on the ground in front of me, too completely overcome to sing more than a few words at a time. I don't remember what I said I would take with me, though I'm sure it had something to do with confidence, empathy, compassion, strength, endurance, passion, commitment. When it was finally over, with the doors blessedly open, we crawled out one by one, stopping at the threshold to intone the Lakota prayer "Aho Mitakuye Oyasin," our head to the earth pausing to all of our relations, that we are all related.

I stumbled out into the night air, totally and completely overcome by all that had just come to pass. I crawled maybe ten feet to the far side of the fire, and lay on my back looking skyward. The palms of my hands and the soles of my feet dug into the soil, and I swear I could feel the Earth pulsating. My whole body tingled as energy flow through me freely from head to foot and hand to hand and from sky and fire and breeze and stars. I lay there until I realized I was shivering, then forced myself to get up and change into dry clothes. I would have laid their for hours, for once completely and totally present, all four lines aligned and just filled up with the immensity of it all.

I wasn't myself for a few hours after leaving the sweat. I think about it a lot, try to harness the things I allowed myself to say, the things I silently intoned, the throbbing of emotion and intention in that space. I am in so many ways terrified about dealing with the students, but in that place it was meaningless. I am where I should be, I deserve the life I've made for myself.

Peanuts, bloody Peanuts

2008-10-06T16:57:00.002-06:00

Still alive, still in and around SW Colorado, still homeless, still living on peanuts (literally).

But I've definitly had quite a few adventures in the last few weeks, met some people and out of the way places, and am slowly convincing myself that sometimes the best course of action is to take a step back and have faith that I am exactly where I need to be, and the rest will follow.

Survived training, which is it's own happy fun tale for another library evening, but sadly left my journal abandoned in Squaw Canyon. Really only disturbing because in it was my budget for the next few months. I expected to be wrecked about loosing all of that writting, but in some respects, it had to happen. There was so much fire and so much pain wrapped up in the last year in a half, loosing my record just seemed fitting, you know? Just to have to let it go completely, and move forward with an entirely new clean page.

Living out of the car and tent and the goodness of others, however, is screwing with my head. I know its a great thought experiment and oh so neccesary lesson in trusting that the universe will provide, but I find it incredibly unsettling. It took me an hour and a half yesterday morning to dig through boxes and other detritus to find winter shoes and my down vest from the bottom of box number one. Not to mention the lack of laundry, food, and space. Being out of control of my situation has always been hard for me, and this adventure is in particular trying my patience.

My body is antsy, my heart is unsettled, my mind is impatient, and my soul is still back in that sweat lodge, howling at the moon.

All for now.

More 39 Foot Hills

2008-09-21T19:34:00.003-06:00

I have pages and pages of travel/transitions musings that I'll write at some point, just not tonight. It's 7:30, I'm in Durango safe, sort of homeless, and have a RAGING altitude headache. But its getting dark and cold outside, which makes everything seem huge and so much more consequential.

For the plusses--I have a place to stay tonight and tommorow night. I have a few leads on housing. I know things will look so much clearer (physically and existentially) tommorow once training starts. Irma did quite well ( minus the iceball to the windshield this afternoon the size of my head) on the drive, overall I'm happy with her. I did pretty OK money wise on the trip, I'm under budget on gas, spent nothing on lodging yet, and a grand total of like 7 bucks so far on food. Camping by myself was pretty OK too. Colorado mountains are pretty damn phenomenal. Besides from the tourists I feel like I fit pretty well in with the vibe around here so far.

For the minuses--well, heres to assuming they'll be all gone and quieted by morning.

More soon.

Confession of The Day

2008-09-12T07:22:00.002-06:00

I secretly really enjoy telling people they have the wrong number and hanging up when someone calls asking for "John McCain."

My bad.

The New Top Ten

2008-09-11T09:07:00.003-06:00

When you are calling a place of business, do try to comport yourself in a more than moronic tone and understanding.

When calling:

1) Know with whom you wish to speak. I cannot help you unless you know why you are calling.
2) Do not put me on hold, or ask if I can "hang on a minute, will ya?"
3) Do not tell me that you got a call from this number.
4) Speak loudly and clearly enough so that I may understand you. See number one.
5) Do not ask me how I am. You don't care, and you are keeping me on the phone, and away from my true job of dicking around on the internet for minutes longer than I should be.
6) Do not complain that you received a voicemail. I cannot control when and if employees are at their desks. I also can't produce them at will.
7) Do not ask me to page someone. See number 6.
8) Do not assume that I know who you are and just start talking. I don't really care that you got fired unjustly, and bloviating on the topic for an extra minute is only keeping you from who you need, and pissing me off. See number 5 and 6.
9) Do not say "Hello", and then wait. Do not wait at all in fact. See numbers 1, 5 and 8.
10) Do not comment on my level of caffeine consumption. See numbers 1, 5, 8 and 9.

Though I will say, I do give bonus points for particularly entertaining crazy calls. Like the woman who called a few days ago, didn't announce herself, and said simply:

"How bout a roll in the sand...?"

I mean, ok seriously. Seriously?!

Or the woman who called last week because she couldn't find her husband. I'm like, well okay, is he employed here? She railed for a good 3 minutes about how her husband hadn't been home since thursday, and I had to find her husband.

Lordy, Dooce here I come...

Suddenly so Ordinary

2008-09-08T12:27:00.002-06:00

It's funny, the more regular my life gets, the stronger my desire to say fuck it. Chuck it all, get some shitty teaching job in Tashkent, and you know, sort of drop off the face of the earth for a year or so.

A natural reaction maybe, from spending the morning learning how to pay my new credit card bill (not even due yet), and about my car payment and warrantee. Makes me gag a little bit, even just writting about it.

I'm excited to be headed out to Colorado finally in a bit more than a week. Nervous, wondering how my car will fare (and my sanity for that matter) on the drive out there. But somehow, Durango doesn't seem quite exotic enough. I'm sure I'll feel better once I get moving, get into trouble, and figure out how completely and totally in over my head I am.

But for now I am bored. I am plotting. And I am up to no good.