Birthday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...