Back to school

Several Saturdays ago, I received a phone call that shifted the entire trajectory of my life. Its origin was a high school where I had interviewed in late spring for an English teaching position. The person on the line, director of this expeditionary learning (EL) style school, launched into an enthusiastic recitation of the attributes I possessed that were in alignment with their culture, ones she suspected would lend to me becoming an excellent teacher. She told me that she'd had my file sitting on her desk since our interview, that she'd been impressed by my calm, self-possessed presence and enthusiasm. I smiled to hear this, as I had prepared for that meeting with a determined focus I had never used in the dozens of interviews I've had before.

Their Spanish language teacher had resigned: would I be interested in teaching French through a new language program the school would offer? It would be a part time position and an entrance into the community, structure and methods of teaching. I could continue at my job and take online classes to become certified as a secondary education teacher. I accepted before the phone call ended. We agreed that I would come to the school the following Friday so we could define the parameters of the position.

Grenoble, France, 2005                                                                                                                               Photo by Bec Allen

Several days later, the director sent an email stating that she had cobbled together a few positions in order to offer me full time work. Was I interested? I'll admit that when I sent her a response with an open attitude toward the offer, in truth I balked. All I could foresee were long hours and being spread thin across a variety of tasks for a pitiful wage. As a LMT, what consistency lacks in my paycheck is seasonally balanced, when I have more work than I can handle, plus a living wage.

My dad and sister shared a reaction similar to my own. I discussed the FT gig with my partner and he encouraged me to accept, as he had with her previous offer. Then a friend who had worked in the same school system where this one is chartered guessed correctly that FT equalled benefits, the like of which was alien to this mostly independent contractor. I long for a new chapter of my life where I kick debt's arse, maintain health insurance, own a home and start to build wealth.

Besides that, hadn't I often spoke about the desire to head this direction, toward meaningful work with opportunities for growth, with a more consistent schedule through the year and a paycheck that remained steady, no matter if it was peak or off season? She quoted me, my hope to try everything possible (barring moral no nos) and that I could "do anything for a year" as an experiment.

The director called the next day, unable to wait the week until our meeting, perhaps intuiting my reservations. What she offered resonated with my being and I knew then that even if it was a year of hard work, the benefits beyond health insurance, retirement and a consistent income merited that work. As a friend had reminded me, few people get asked to teach in a classroom on an intern license and minimal classroom experience. I'd learn copious skills as a teacher, part time thus less demanding, and the experience would support my certification classes and vise verse. Best of all, my first year as a teacher would happen with the support and mentorship of seasoned teachers and the force of the director.

Ski instructor, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, 2012

The other parts of the rest of the FT job? As the synthesis of years teaching skiing, as a raft guide and outdoor recreationist in various ways, I'd get the chance to reinvigorate the wilderness component of this EL type school as the outdoor education coordinator. This means I organize and lead excursions camping and backpacking, biking, hiking, skiing and rafting, with an emphasis on leadership, skill acquisition, fitness, awareness of the natural world and self, and always, safety and fun.

Oh, and I get to be the activity bus driver, too. Now I just have to obtain my CDL.
It's going to be one interesting, educational, eye-opening, challenging and exhilarating year. I can't wait for our first day of classes tomorrow.

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Self-healing diet

Two months ago, I had confirmation from a doctor of oriental medicine that I have some kind of imbalance - energetic or otherwise - with my gallbladder and liver. Western tests and ideas about how the body functions revealed nothing amiss. Two ultrasounds showed no gallstones and my blood work proved to be at normal levels, except for a slight vitamin D deficiency. 

The cure she suggested includes Chinese herbs (Free and Easy Wanderer, to deal with liver chi function), along with a strict adherence to a low fat, especially minimal saturated fats, vegan diet, which I have followed from day #3 after the visit. This information precipitated a few days’ panicked binge, and I ate several pints of Vermont ice cream, movie theater jumbo sized quantities of buttered popcorn and at least one burger with fries before I acquiesced to reality. 

The first week challenged me to create meals, snacks and even beverage options that complied with the guidelines I found in Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford. During the transition from content omnivore to healing myself vegan I understood I would probably feel better if I ate in a different way but occasional temper tantrums erupted about having to make such a radical shift. Still, the desire to be free of constant pain kept me moving forward, reminded me that I had 10 years of vegetarian cooking under my belt, and led me to find recipes online, cookbooks at the library and on my own shelves. 

One of those books is The Self-Healing Cookbook by Kristina Turner, based on macrobiotic principles. The inscription, dated February 2001 and written in my own hand, says “Sara Jane, heal thyself. Love to you and scrumptious food.” I reclaimed this book, which I had gifted my sister Sara, the horrible day my mom, sister, brothers and I cleaned out her apartment, post her funeral in November 2005. 

During the long years she struggled with addiction, depression, mental illness and a thorough lack of hope that she might someday shed some of the burdens and scars she’d collected over the years, I maintained hope that something might lead her to recovery. However, I doubt she glanced through its pages once: her relationship with food was tumultuous, from a childhood as a “picky eater,” to an adulthood when picky became anorexic, compounded by insulin dependent diabetes.

I share this because the struggles of one reflect the struggles of all, even though it manifests in a different way from one person to another. I know that the pain I’ve felt for four years is diet related, but it’s also the result of years of unprocessed emotions and high levels of stress. Chinese medicine attributes the negative emotions of anger, lack of courage, and indecisiveness to dysfunction of the liver and gallbladder. I tend toward road rage and jaw clenched intensity, I’ve wanted to be a writer for forever and feared to do so, and I have lost count of how many times I’ve said “I don’t know what to do” since emotions became physical symptoms.  

The book I gave my sister to heal her body has become a tool to heal my own. I eat to transform my health and in two months I have had a 50% reduction in pain and shed 20 pounds, so now I’m moving into the second and third components of this healing mission. Stress, anxiety and anger are on the out and I am focused on calm, cool, quiet mind and peaceful heart. I have rescue remedy in the car and I’ve started riding my bike around town, which is almost as fast travel as driving and great exercise, another de-stresser. This aspect of transformation challenges me, just as altering my diet has, just as will part three: forgiveness of myself and others who contributed to my imbalance. 

Cactus spines and the wrong shoes

I've already made it to the car and have the keys in the ignition when I remember the one last thing - shoes - a tradition of sorts to bring me back into the house to retrieve that final, forgotten item. I grab the cleated shoes from the shadows beneath the table and head out. From our neighborhood to the Rift Valley trail head it's a ten minute drive, the bike clamped into the rooftop rack, the sunroof open and the stereo blasting tunes over the howl of the wind.

Once there, I remove the bike and replace the front tire, then collect gear to prepare. The essentials, like backpack with hydration bladder and snacks, a helmet, ipod and headphones, and... my man's biking cleats.

In my hurry to get moving forward I neglected to verify whose shoes I tossed into the car, and now I have three choices, none ideal, so I go with more immediate gratification. I can return home and collect mine, wear these or go rugged in the flip flops I have on. Or, as the owner of the shoes tells me later, I could have returned home and rode the trail near our house, which never crossed my mind. I had a plan and shoes seemed inconsequential.

Another ride on the same trail I also forgot any cycling footwear and did wear the flip flops. That's harder than it sounds, given the construction of the clip-in pedal, a miniature egg beater centered in a small rectangle platform.

I shrug and pull on socks and slip into the cleats, assured that although two sizes too large, the velcro straps will pull snug enough to keep my feet from moving in the confines. I finish dressing, snug earbuds and set off to the tune of Modest Mouse. The trail is dry, despite the evening showers that have rolled through for the past few days, and my heart shouts out joy to see how verdant the valley looks in the morning sun.

This joy escalates as I gain speed on the first section of a gentle but continuous decline, and I buzz past sagebrush and cacti in bloom. I realize right away, though, that the shoes don't fit well enough to release contact with the pedals with any speed. I remind myself to clip out well ahead of need, and that works until I reach a place in the ride where I'm challenged.

Switchbacks, a tight elbow that brings the trail from one trajectory to another, are my current nemesis. I struggle to maintain the body position required for balance, and falter in my speed, not to mention confidence. During one tight spot I fail to slow down, shift down, and the pedal clings to my foot, so down I go, to the inside of the turn, the bike still attached to my feet.

It's one of those slow motion moments, where I have time to see that I'm falling into sage - poky but not prickly - and then I'm almost to ground and I notice the prickly pear huddled beneath the sage. I'm going to land in the cactus, face first except I throw my hands in front of my head.

Cactus spines prick both palms in just a few places, but sharp fur covers the skin along each finger, a fuzz of impossible to remove irritants. I untangle my legs from under the bike, lurch upright, duck into the shade of a piñon and pull the spines out. Teeth and massage therapist blunted nails manage to remove the majority of the prickles, and I ride the rest of the trail with the remainder a reminder of my failure to commit to the moment. I crash when I shy away from the turn, obstacles or challenge.

The theme I carry through that day: life is best lived with a fearless (not lacking fear, in fact, just not petrified by it) movement forward. When I stall out because I'm afraid of what comes next, I lack the momentum to make it through gracefully. Commitment, whether or not success ensues, at least aligns me (and the bike,or whatever vehicle I'm traveling by) with a greater chance of victory. Or less painful failures.

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Solstice celebration

Sunday's Solstice marked the longest day of the year, when the day sprawls out, light overwhelms the dark, and it is possible to play outside long after the usual limit to when one can have fun. Weekends in the summer in our seasonally driven town evoke a more rural experience - you must reap the harvest of the abundance that visitors bring from Texas, California and places farther down the road - so my partner and I finished our respective work gigs and scrambled to organize ourselves for a little trip down to the river. We loaded gear into the back of the truck, strapped the canoe to the roof rack, and I drove my car down after a quick return to the house for the necessary cooler.

Down in the canyon south of Taos we dropped off the car for the later shuttle back to the put-in and then made our way to the Taos Junction Bridge, which straddles this part of the Río Grande Wild and Scenic River. There, we made quick work of unloading the canoe and hauling gear out and into the craft, organized the load, and had a Lagunitas Day Time IPA cracked before we'd even left the beach. Oh, and of course we zipped ourselves into our PFDs (personal flotation devices), before we departed.

The Río Grande has been flushed with water, contrary to its typical meager June flow, because rains fall and irrigation has slackened in the wheat fields of Colorado. It was 1,700 + CFS (cubic feet/ second) on the Solstice, but at this time of the year it can dwindle to a quarter of that. For our purposes, the flow carried us along with minimal guidance when the water increased speed at constrictions, and we helped ourselves along, paddling through the flat water. This stretch of the newly designated Río Grande Del Norte National Monument has long been called the Orilla Verde, and it is mostly a float with several class 2 rapids, meaning these places require some maneuvering around obstacles and present faster current.

The first of two rapids we had to negotiate is named Gauging Station for the CFS gauging station that is evidence you have nearly arrived. Generally it's a descent along a tongue of water narrowed by numerous rocks, but at this water level our canoe hurtled along in the rowdy waves, most rocks submerged to form holes to be avoided. My partner, an experienced boater, guided us into the slower water of mid-river eddies formed by rocks above the surface, and we managed to reach the bottom not only unscathed, but upright and barely wet.

Although Father's Day or Solstice celebrants crowded the launch and all the places where brush had been trammeled back, we had the river to ourselves. Well, we were the only self-conscious animals to be found on the water. Dusk, at 7:30 on the longest day, is a perfect time to float the river, uncrowded except for the increased activity of these creatures, who are more welcome than humans after an intimate day guiding them in a raft or giving them massages.

Our first sighting was a four legged: a slender buck with stubs of antler covered in velvet, who watched us in return with limpid and curious eyes. We heard the crack of beaver tails on the surface, but they eluded our sight until the sky's hue dominated rose rather than blue. Once, we watched as someone dragged a flowering branch into the reeds, and guessed it to be a beaver.

The river corridor hosts many species of birds - we saw Western tanagers, ducks and geese with fuzzy, pint sized entourages, swallows and kestrels - the most dramatic of which is the night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax). I watched a bird land river right several hundred yards downstream and thought I saw the gangly, long legs of a heron, but when we approached that spot, we saw the chunky, penguin-like body of a night heron, feathered black and white, sporting feathery tendrils from its temples, red eyes turned black in the gloom. It posed, unconcerned with our proximity, and we were the ones who startled when another slap resounded next to us. We turned and watched as not one but two beavers swam upstream, their sleek bodies leaving little wake, except for a trail of bubbles to mark their passage.

At that moment, we reached the top of the second rapid and were quick to turn our attention to the choppy wave train ahead. The canoe crested waves several feet high and slapped a few when they hit off rhythm. Cool water leaped up and into the boat, playful as a child who splashes in a puddle. Once successfully through, we raised our paddles in a boater's high five and marveled at the encounter: night heron - so odd and beautiful - along with the elusive beavers spotted and a fun rapid that challenged but did not overwhelm us.

As we neared the take out, we praised the Solstice in all its glory. Late on the river, fauna to encounter, and the day transmuted into dusk, then dark. Time spent together with my partner in play and wonder. The waxing crescent moon arced above, and Venus and Jupiter came into alignment with our celestial neighbor. The río continued to flow toward the sea, part of the circulatory system of the planet. Summer has begun.

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Vegan, revisited

During high school I learned about the the dire environmental costs from and brutal treatment of animals on factory farms, and this marked the first time I tried to become a vegetarian. Fifteen years on the planet, oldest of five children, working class parents and resident of a small rural community - none of these contributed to success in weaning meat from my diet. For six months I ate whatever had never had eyes, excluding virile potatoes, and that generally meant an endless selection of iceberg lettuce salads, canned corn and the blessing of the farmer stand and tomatoes, cucumbers and Ohio sweet corn once June arrived.

Six months later, I left to live in Belgium for my junior year and bid au revoir to the moral high ground in order to be able to integrate with my host families without reservation. That year I ate whatever was offered, and took comfort in knowing that the cows and rabbits I consumed had lived their days in fields and bush rather than feed lots and pens.

It wouldn't be until I lived in a college dorm that I shifted my diet to vegetarian again. At the ultra liberal Antioch College that I attended for a year, I found a plethora of like minded folk who included lacto-ovo veggies like me -I ate eggs and ice cream with gusto - along with vegans who eschewed any products of the labor or life of animals. A year after I dropped out of that school I moved to an organic farm in Newburg, Maryland for the duration of a growing season, April to November.

On the farm, part of the worker's wage included all the food you cared to eat, essential since there was no minimum wage for farm hands then or now and we made $4.25/ hour. We lived communally, simplest after 10 and 12 hour days in the sun and doing the kind of physical labor that sculpts your body into a lean mean working machine. Each day one of the crew was responsible for preparing lunch and dinner, and since half of the people there were vegan I became one by default (except for pints of New York Super Fudge Chunk hidden in the recess of the freezer and eggs benedict during trips off the farm). My body leaned out, my mind cleared and despite the exhausting work this marked the healthiest period of my life.

I remained a vegetarian until I was 26 and playing rugby in another incarnation as a college student in New Mexico. I started craving meat; the oddity of having my taste buds aroused by the scent of blood after almost a decade of revulsion toward factory farming could not stop the need. So, I ate meat, and still do, choosing sources I know have been raised locally, humanely and organic whenever possible, with the assumption that I'd stop again some day. That time has arrived.

I have this mysterious abdominal pain that has taken up residence under the lower ribs of my right side, where liver and gallbladder do their digestive work. Western medicine hasn't revealed the culprit, not through several ultrasounds and blood work, but a DOM (Doctor of Oriental medicine, who uses acupuncture and herbs to heal) identified stagnation and imbalances corresponding with the loci of suffering, my unhappy liver and gallbladder. Last week, I gave notice to the pain and started taking Free and Easy Wanderer (anti stagnation), quaffing cleavers and chamomile tea, and eliminated as much saturated fat from my diet as I can manage. The easiest way to do the latter is to eat a vegan diet - no meat, dairy and eggs - and one that excludes the fattier elements, such as coconut, nuts and chocolate. No toxins, either, so goodbye to beer, wine and tequila.

The upsides to the 'deprivation,' as I sometimes call this minimum two month commitment? I feel better, clear mind, emotionally balanced, and the extra padding I've been collecting for the past few years is diminishing. The pain in my side is more intermittent than constant, and that is a relief, as chronic pain wears you down near to misery.

Best of all, I'm relearning how to cook food beyond meat and carb fare. I already love to spend time in the kitchen, and now I eat almost exclusively from what I've prepared myself. Already I've made cauliflower and millet mashers, roasted beet and sweet potato chickpea burgers, chips from beet and radish greens, and spiced and unsweetened breakfast cookies with carrots and gingery applesauce. Today's culinary agenda includes empanadas and a pinto and plantain stew garnished with roasted parsnip slivers.

Temporary vegan life means fun with cookbooks, raw ingredients and well-being.

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Rio Grande baptism

Yesterday I was baptized in the Rio Grande, blessed by boisterous, unruly water. The morning's Race Course trip near Pilar, NM, sixteen miles south of Taos, marked my first commercial raft trip on this river in seven years. In between I guided several trips on the float section of the Snake, that iconic braided channel river that meanders along the Grand Tetons, near Jackson, Wyoming. Three excursions didn't add up to cool confidence in running this section with five male high school students. I had transformed into a rookie again, though the end result prevailed in a positive way. 

Canoeing the Orrilla Verde section of the Rio Grande.

Nerves jangled, I had to find a place in the willows that shielded the shore to offer liquid back to the river, and I ran the lines through in my head, recalling each rock, but I reveled in the fresh perspective and lessons of revisiting an occupation I have left behind. Despite numerous summers in a boat on that river - paddle guide or passenger, behind the oars, in an inflatable kayak and once only in a hard shell - this cameo appearance attuned my eyes to new ways to circumvent or charge through obstacles and rapids, deal with situations as they arose, interact with and take charge of other's lives, all the while focused on fun, safety and the moment.


When I ski a run I know by heart, the snow, weather conditions and even the me that I am at that moment determine how I address the actions I need to take to succeed in this dance down the mountain. Each turn, movement and even breath coordinated and there's no room for mundane worries, daydreams, or to answer that phone call, text or email. This is life, distilled into the details, as vivid as it will ever be, so all that signifies is now.

In the middle of the first major rapid, Albert Falls, our boat hit a hole, a place where recirculating current creates a pillow of water hidden on the downstream side of a half submerged boulder. As our momentum halted five of the six passengers, me included, slid over slick PVC tubes and into the drink. The hero of the hour, a short kid with a well developed upper body, caught my hand and dragged me in, and then I pulled in the closest two, and we collected the third from another raft in the eddy below.

None suffered more than the chill of spring snow melt, and we warmed up paddling hard through the next two rapids. Those almost men were thrilled, even though each one had expressed trepidation about falling in the river prior to it occurring. This didn't squash their desire to risk an intentional swim in the cool Rio, which they requested only ten minutes later and were allowed to do once we had passed beyond all rapids.

As we floated down the final mellow mile, they sang a call and response: "soy marinero," and "soy capitan!" No doubt they will remember that day for a long time to come, in particular the heart pumping adrenaline, their fears realized but overcome, an adventure unique amongst two busloads of juniors. Higher risk balanced by triumphant results makes for a better story to recount. I'm humbled whenever I take a swim in the river, and cleansed, too.

In it I am baptized, vision cleared, whole being enlivened and reset to a more neutral attitude. The water clarifies, washes away the day-to-day and connects me to the source of everything. I guided the rest of that eight mile stretch, freed from my apprehension and grateful for the transformation.

Rigging for a run on the Snake River in Wyoming.                                                                      Photo by Hannah Hardaway

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Earthship travels

Maybe this is true in your town, and maybe not, but in our little mountain town most of the adult transplants have some variation on a quirky story about how they arrived and then stayed, whether they intended to prior, or not. Down in the southern part of the state, we have Roswell, with space ship crash downs; here in Taos earthships have landed. They are the lure that brought me through northern New Mexico and inspired me to move here, and they were the foundation of the first part of my story here.

Earthship? Think off the grid housing, reused, reclaimed, recycled: tires, cans, bottles and dirt, tons of dirt. These were the DIY (do it yourself) solution to housing that architect Michael Reynolds dreamed up in the 1970s that have been built by the sweat equity of thousands of people laboring in dozens of countries around the world, in climates as varied as the high desert of Taos to the rainforest of Guatemala. His vision includes thick walls (think a mid size car's tire width bulging with the earth rammed inside), oriented toward the southern sun and bermed at the north to utilize passive solar most efficiently and the earth's constant temperature as a buffer to extremes of hot and cold, rain and snow collection off the roof, and use of grey water in planters where you can grow your own meal year round. They integrate with the landscape and function with minimal external input once complete, thus the earth ship, one with which to travel the mesa sea that encapsulates much of the terrain around their origin. These buildings have other features and modifications that allow them to function in varying climates, but to find out more visit the Earthship Biotecture website earthship.com or visit their visitor center in the Greater World community when you next find yourself a few miles west of the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.

I first heard about these innovative structures in 1998 from a roommate in a cooperative house in Seattle, and my exchange student boyfriend and I were intrigued from first mention. We decided that we would visit Greater World when we drove across the southwest that summer in my 1969 Volkswagen van, and we stayed there a week out of the month and half we were on the road. We met an architect who rented an earthship for the month's duration of an internship and he invited us to stay in the spare bedroom. We fell in love with curved walls and tranquil ambiance, with the beauty of subtle details: cupboards fronted in beaten copper, plaster embedded with mica sparkling in the light that poured through ceiling high windows and planters a profuse riot of blossoms and green leaves. I slept as well in that room as I have ever slept anywhere, and the desire to return and live in such a place rooted within even before we left.

The following summer I sat in the pub where that same former boyfriend tended bar, trying to figure out my next step after I left Edinburgh. I planned to either travel to India to learn massage or fly back to Seattle, pack the van and return to Taos to work for the earthship building crew and set myself up as a contractor and build these houses myself. He convinced me that NM held more prospects and that I might get lost in India.

By October of 2000 I extricated myself from my life in Washington and headed south. I managed to survive the drive to Taos, although the van's front end crumpled during a high speed collision with a deer in Colorado. A little over 30 years old, it still rolled over mountain passes with confidence. I lived in that van in the parking lot of the earthship community's visitor center for the first month, while I volunteered for the building crew, instead of working for them as I had assumed I'd arranged before I ever left Scotland.

Around the time my savings dwindled so did enthusiasm for doing thankless hard time. I found work at the local ski area, and I connected with an absentee earthship owner and arranged a work trade for rent-free living. I never really did much more than clean up the space, wage war on tumbleweeds with fire, and battle futilely against the dirt clods that fell from the unfinished walls on a regular basis. There's not much work in a finish-upper that can be done lacking funds, tools and supplies.

The best parts of living there were my two roommates, lovely, fun and eclectic women also in their early 20s. One made beautiful stained glass art and necklaces strung with dry animal dung, and the other had a dry, dark sense of humor and became my ski buddy after I learned how to do it. She switched from snowboarding, due to our resort's prohibition on one plank snow sliding. It was this latter gal's birthday yesterday, and I cheered this woman on from afar in a social media way. You know, well-meaning but vague. And not actually on time, because I realize in writing this that I just thought happy birthday wishes, and about that long ago friendship in an earthship, but never typed the words and sent them across the web. Until now.
Thank you, friend. I'm grateful for your companionship during those long ago quiet mornings drinking coffee, dancing under the stars, for the thrill of hurtling down the mountain with you. I'm grateful, too, for the ship that brought me to this town, for the possibilities I foresaw when I arrived, and even more for the detours that became a life I'm blessed to have created. You never know where the current will take you, particularly when you travel in an experimental craft.

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Little Wildhorse Canyon

Up until two weeks ago, I had never walked through a slot canyon, but the ancient and almost alien landscape of the San Rafael Swell in central Utah provided the perfect introduction to such a place as a solo adventurer. I do hesitate to explore the outdoors alone in certain circumstances, but embrace the opportunity in ones I deem safe 'enough.' Sometimes I get that gut thumping reaction, a visceral sense of danger, and I listen to these. Call it instinct - I am an animal first and foremost - it's intuition to me, and I've learned with fortunately few failures that I have to heed those warnings.

The friends who suggested the Little Wildhorse to Bell Canyon loop advised me that it was a friendly, low risk hike of 8 miles, lacking the deep-water crossings and gear assisted scrambles necessary to travel through many slot canyons. This would be a Canyoneering 101 sort of experience. So, while my male companions rode dirt bikes on single track a hundred plus miles from our camp near Green River, Utah, I drove west and south to an area near Goblin Valley. Sola, right.

The Swell is an anticline aged between 40 to 60 million years, which means that it's one long line of rock turned back over on itself, a fold with the oldest rocks at the core. Massive sandstone reefs rise in misshapen towers across the mesa that fronts it, and flash flood erosion over millions of years has ripped away sedimentary rock to form canyons, valleys and gorges. It was up one such canyon and down another that I walked through layers of time, event and a beauty rivaling that of any cathedral.

My being requires time spent alone in nature in the same way a Catholic goes to mass: to connect with the Divine, to breath in the ever renewing power of grace, and to find the peace of prayer. Yes, there are more risks in the wild, but the rewards of solitude for my spirit and the movement of my body, and my breath, far outweigh these. I take care to watch the weather - a flash flood in this narrow space could mean possible death - and my amygdala hums at the ready in case I need to scale the rock to higher ground. My steps are measured and the pack I carry is loaded with water and a few snacks. I temper wild with caution when I'm sola, just as I do when I ride my mountain bike alone.


The trail starts out as a superhighway, an open water-graded and graveled path, until its first choke a mile in. I scramble up a nearly vertical stack of boulders and soon reach the Little Wildhorse and  Bell Canyon juncture, where I choose right into Little Wildhorse. From there, the walls undulate wide apart to so narrow that I have to squeeze through sideways, and there are enough climbs to stay challenged. I trot past groups and couples, until I'm truly by myself.

The sheer walls are painted with 'desert varnish,' or oxidation from water, and I can almost believe the art has been formed with intention. When the wind quiets in the hush I hear the earth, still now but resonant with the floods that created the space where I stand, and this is a place where the Mother creatrix reigns unique.

I reach the Bell Canyon sign and walk along a road for a mile or so, until I reach the actual trailhead, and then I descend into Bell. Downstream as the water flows where it fills the gap in the rock, so I'm downclimbing instead of upwards. I reach standing water, and remove my shoes and socks as some boys and their grandma I meet instruct me to do. It's a foot deep and the most moisture I've seen that day, the only other evidence of water pools in pockmarks in the stone or moistens the lower layers of sand. The canyon residents I encounter - lizards, birds, bees, cacti and flowers in bloom, penstemon, Indian paintbrush and globe mallow - thrive, not troubled by the dry climate.

All too soon I arrive back at the juncture where I turned right, and I exit the canyon as a family meanders into it. I am calm, happy and just tired enough, and certain I will return to Utah, and navigate other canyons, alone or with company.

I have fallen in love with this desert, this remnant of inland seas in the driest land, where a diverse ecology thrives in its environs, and beauty is found in the margins.

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Restless moon

Just shy of 3 a.m. and I'm determined to make efficient use of a restless mind, instead of staying in bed in the vain hope I'll fall into sleep, while the wind blows, my man snores and the full moon shines bright through the cracks in the blinds.

Tonight I read the first five chapters of Dave Ramsey's book on making over ones' money - per the recommendation of my sensible youngest brother - and although I skim the 'praise the lord' parts, my brain crackles and sparks with the possibility of a different relationship to my financial circumstances. Ramsey emphasizes that debt is not a tool - though in regards to buying a home he concedes it can be a necessary reality - in 180 degree opposition to the attitude of the vast majority of the US population. Most of us were trained this way, through relentless marketing, 'need it now' impatience armed with plastic, or general ignorance. I know, I'm a frustrated and indebted citizen: college debt, credit card debt and car payments. Besides that, at present my husband and me are in seasonal unemployment, which adds to the excitement of juggling funds to pay all our bills. Sort of like tossing around knives when you haven't quite learned how to negotiate apples and oranges.

We've both been followers of a summer work/winter work pattern for more than a decade, because we both believe in the philosophy that you might not arrive alive in time for retirement (at least not in good enough a state of physical fitness that we can play as wild of games as we like: ski, bike, hike, raft, etc.); live it while you can. We appreciate its challenges more every year, in particular when our savings diminish quicker than the next cycle of work arrives. Recently, this way of being has become tempered by other desires, too, the ones that more forward thinking adults appear to take for granted. A home, one to call our own. Possibly a kiddo or two, if that's what fate and biology determines. A mattress stuffed with cash, wait, I mean a retirement savings. No debt, an anchor to slow us down and potentially pull us under.

No debt? A life without debt has become the promise land, but seems as far away in this bleary eyed and moonlit moment as Avalon. No matter, I believe it to be a worthy journey, and like all distant destinations it can be attained given persistence and patience.

Traveling on a budget is a skill I've already acquired, and since I lack others related to money, it's time to go back to school. And this round I'll "just say no" to student loans. Tomorrow, I sign myself up for remedial Adulthood 101, focus on financial responsibility and financial consciousness, and I'm going to master it, previously but no longer allowing my finances to be the boss of me. The moon, on the other hand, reigns supreme.

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Green River

Early last week I sat in the shade of a cottonwood that leans east towards the sediment tinged flow of Green River, cool in a thin sun cover and bikini, refusing to layer up because this is the closest I'll probably come after a chilly winter in the mountains to lazing on the beach. It's in between seasons in our resort town and that means neither my husband or I are back to work yet, so we went on vacation with some friends in the desert near the town that bears the name of the river that sustains it.

The husbands were out riding dirt bikes and the ladies had just completed the shuttle back to retrieve the truck from our earlier launch in town. We rode stand up paddle boards eight miles from there to our camp, underneath a rail road bridge, in the shadow of I-70, choosing one channel of the braided channels over another, enjoying the landscape, the water's flow and each other's company. My friend's dog is along for the trip, sitting, standing and occasionally leaping into the water, adorned in her doggie life jacket and her fur kinked with wet. Of the three of us, I am the only one who has fallen into the river... three times.

Today we drove down the dirt track that heads through the sandstone remnants of what used to be the sea. The irony: here in this driest of places - with an annual rainfall average of 10" - everything around us reflects millions of years of oceans moving in and out, leaving behind monoliths and ranges, each formed from aggregation and erosion. The wind carves the landscape, as over time it shifts shape and form, and yet we can still see the echos of the arcs of the waves that used to be here, so long ago, when we walk across rock scalloped by the ebbing waters.

This desert is a revelation of evolution. You can see time in frozen slices, the starts and stops of events that appear catastrophic to human eyes, with their limited scope of vision, but these might simply be the equivalent of cells in their expansion, contraction and multiplication. What we see is what we notice, of course, and what I notice is the beauty, the austere perfection of apparent desolation that in fact harbors a surprising quantity and diversity of life, lizards, hawks, globemallow and evening primrose in bloom.

I cannot imagine how any person can believe that the earth is younger than ten thousand years old. Is it because our eyes and minds can see a century at most, and we can't imagine a planet that doesn't contain us? The river flows and in it swim ancient creatures we can only dream about, the river meanders along whatever path it chooses - and we see the evidence of its path through the ages - the river drifts over its bed and it will do so long past two women and a dog have left this plane of existence.

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Trade off

This is the first summer in five years that my partner and I will live in a house with right angle walls, separate rooms and a working bathtub instead of in the classic Airstream we called casa sweet casa in Jackson, Wyoming. After three years away we moved back to this little northern New Mexico town - no passports required, just a love for chili (red or green), sage brush and quirkiness - in the hopes that we could stretch out into a house. Our home, one we could settle into, sink down roots as we plant trees, build a garden, create a place to connect with community around a huge kitchen table, make art and hopefully babies, a nest but also a launch pad for future adventures. A place we could sink our money into and see it in return as time leads us toward those golden years when our hair is white and our steps slowed, when the rocking chair is more appealing than the chair lift and ski slope. I'm talking about a long time from now...

We've started to house shop and so far that dream place hasn't revealed itself, at least not in the price range we can afford. Our town shares similar economic circumstances to that of many a resort town in the US - high prices in the real estate market due to the large number of vacation homes and rentals, the desirable land priced high at over $100,000 an acre, and a job market that mainly consists of service oriented positions - and yet the appeal of living here still seems to outweigh the challenges. Here you can ski, mountain bike, hike, run the river, etc, and enjoy the mountains, gorge, mesa, forest, etc, while eating delectable food in the company of a diverse range of people who speak myriad languages, all in this small town with its expansive atmosphere.

Jackson had almost as much appeal, and certainly a better wage, but there didn't appear to be a way to stay long term that included home ownership, not when affordable housing means a two bedroom condo that costs $300,000, or the commute from the suburbs is either 45 minutes away and/or over a 10,000 feet pass with 10% grades. Although the American psyche might have the daily commute hard wired into it, I feel that spending a huge chunk of time in a car on a daily basis lowers my quality of life. We could ride our bikes in town up there, but we also moved every spring and fall, into and out of the Airstream, in the attempt to stretch our income and make hay for the future while the sun shined.

Now we're house hunting and I'm back to thinking the Airstream might be a good long term home, especially if we get a significant amount of snow next winter and we can bury it, igloo style. What we can afford is a small assortment of run down structures that might be better served to be flattened and then start over again. The rest is a collection of homes that will probably be bought by out of towners seeking their x number property for rental purposes or the occasional visit to our economically disheartened town. Here, it's not as extreme as the market in Jackson, where 10,000 square feet homes often sit empty, except for their caretakers and the property management workers who keep them ready for their rare use, while the imported Mexican workers and east coast gap year kids live crammed many to a house. There, we were high on the hog in our 20' travel trailer compared to our raft guide friends who lived in the raft stacks at the boat house.

In response to the housing crisis in Jackson, one letter to the editor suggested that those people who can't afford to live in Jackson should leave. This comment fails to consider that without those low wage workers who stay despite the financial struggle - because they love the area as much as you do, dear snob - who will take care of your children, home, feed you, serve you? A 'resort' community needs its teachers (probably the most undervalued profession) and trash collectors as much as it needs its entrepreneurs, doctors and Fortune 500 CEOs. But the real estate market does not reflect this truth in mountain towns, or indeed in many places of beauty, where somehow it's a privilege to live there.

I can't offer a solution to this sad state of economic imbalance that really just reflects the state of our nation, which has become a land of the have nots and have a lots, with the bulk of us struggling along in between. I do know that in my own particular experience, learning to want and need less has increased my happiness. The trade off to living simply is that you can live more and work less, which is our particular dream. Although we hope to own a home, what we seek and what we'll get will probably look less like the average American home and more like a stationary version of the Airstream, with a working bath tub, of course. We won't trade off on quality of life, but rather we will trade off the part of the American that means big, bigger, biggest.

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How to be an adult

The lessons I learned on how to be an adult must have been very subtle, delivered so quiet and unobtrusive that I didn't even notice I learned them. I'm generally certain I've mastered some of the basics: how to treat others as I'd like to be treated (except for when I'm feeling vulnerable or when I'm cursing slow or erratic drivers from behind the not opaque enough windows of my car with out of state plates), how to take pride in a job well done (thanks worker bee ancestors and to my hard working parents), and the necessity of love, play and laughter for a life well lived. Household chores, changing a flat tire, building a fire, and filling out a 1040ez, no problem. It's some of those other skills in the realm of being a financially responsible adult, such as buying a home or ridding myself of a college debt that feels like a boulder sized ball and chain, that make me want to curl up fetal and suck my thumb.

Did you learn any of those skills essential to staying on the surface of our American economy from family, community or your school? Having taken an unofficial survey amongst my peers I will guess that you did not learn how to pay your taxes, handle a mortgage, make an informed decision about taking on debt, or even handle the more mundane task of balancing your budget: rent, food, bills, etc. If you can't perform the tasks that are required of a person aka an autonomous adult, does that mean you're simply a child, pretending to be a grown up?

Don't get me wrong, quite a few of the habits and attitudes common to the average concept of the American adult appear grim and undesirable to me. Work 40+ hours a week, with your only time off through the year a two week vacation from which you return to work more exhausted than before, all the while trading your time for an existence you may or may not like. Rack up debt going to college, co-own an oversized house with the bank, and buy things you probably don't need or even really want with credit cards that come to rule you. I've tried some of these habits and they don't suit me.

And now my man and I intend to buy a house. Amongst the price range we can afford is a meager assortment of run down and poorly built abodes. My husband gets to be the on paper provider because my college debt is just debt. I'm so very grateful that I was fortunate enough to continue my education beyond high school. I regret, however, the lack of foresight that given my lifestyle choices, I doubled the debt from my first year of college alone by ignoring it. A liberal arts degree doesn't bestow a whole lot of economic bang for the buck to pay that debt back. Thankfully, a massage therapy certification and license does.

So my hard working high school graduate husband will be our loan holder, and because of my college loans I'll pay rent and help renovate whatever foreclosure or for sale by owner we can afford. We won't purchase beyond our means - we strive to rid ourselves of credit card debt and I scheme how to pay for a college education I haven't yet figured a use for - our goals are clear. Be fiscally responsible, learn how to do that in the ways to which we currently lack knowledge, and continue to find the balance of work and the rest of life. To that end this bookworm has gathered materials from the library on how to manage money, buy a house and get out of debt. Because I believe that's what an adult does: accepts her ignorance, her frustrations, but doesn't hold a grudge, and then sets out to change her circumstances.

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Seasonal changes

For my husband, myself and many of our contemporaries here in this northern New Mexico town - along with people in mountain communities across the northern hemisphere - it's a time of seasonal change that ends with winter and invites in summer. Except there's spring in between, which is both a magical period when buds form and explode into a riot of new leaves or delicate pink and ivory blossoms, grass emerges from ground that already longs for snow or rain, birds chorus in a riot of mate or fight songs, and then there are the maddening spring winds that scour the earth and raise dust clouds up and over and into you.

I wake this morning with grit lodged in the corner of my eyes; yesterday I dared to ride the old dirt road a couple miles east of our house, which has been closed to vehicles to become a trail for pedestrians and mountain bikers. I waited too long to leave the house, meandering from one project to another, so that by the time I peddled from road to roundabout to dirt access to trail it was afternoon and the winds had dropped their playful act and gusted in earnest. The air current wasn't so bad when I rode through the protected juniper and pinon, and much of that "Talpa traverse" follows the natural curve of the earth across the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo, and I had more tailwind riding uphill than otherwise. The sky burned blue overhead, granite sparkled under my tires, and my improved skill set thrilled me when I was able to ride sections of the single track that had in years previous made my stomach turn over with fear.

The return ride, however, proves that the wind dominates the landscape: columns of dust rise high and turn the sky cafe au lait, tumbleweeds skitter across the road, and the decline of the slope is not enough to keep me in a higher gear as I pedal against the buffeting force. I want to hide in the sagebrush, call a cab, will myself arrived - which is what I do. Then I'm grateful to hide from the elements, and so very glad for body and mind that I chose to ride my bike, despite the challenges of the return.

It's essential to stay active when the seasons shift. All those lovely days with no particular commitments, since the next season's work hasn't yet appeared. For me, though, I'm not really much a part of either camp these days - no 9 to 5 job, nominal time spent teaching skiing last winter, about that much time on the river ahead of me - I just work when there's work. It would be easy to slump into the couch, watch TV and movies, grow plump with snacks, forget about biking and devolve into less than slothhood.

Instead, I'm riding my bike, getting on the river when I can, and working to renovate the 1962 Airstream I'm lucky enough to own. We have chosen to stay here in our unique New Mexico town for the summer and beyond, instead of returning to Jackson and diving deep into the frantic schedule that is the reality of the seasonal worker in that resort town. We have started to desire following the seasons without having to move from Airstream to cramped apartment and repeat.

Seasonal shifts and the desire to change the trajectory of our lives, from sort of vagabonds to householders who are capable of both rooting down and being able to spring into experiencing other places without having to start over again and again, without that monthly storage fee as a tether. This transitional period is even more exciting and bigger a shift than usual. We won't get blown off course by the winds, and this off season will be a great period of deepening connection and an opening to expansiveness.

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Whitefeather

During the 15 years that have passed since I first showed a student how to make pizza and french fries with their skis, I've taught every winter but one in some capacity. From full time to part time, from children as young as "almost three" to adults in their 70s, in communication via French, Spanglish and with gestures, on mountains near Taos, New Mexico, Wanaka, New Zealand and Jackson, Wyoming, and on beginner terrain and steep slopes to students with confidence and without. Some seasons I thought I'd turn teaching into a career - but in the last five years or so the refrain has been "I'll just do it this one last season" - and now I think I may have truly taught my last lesson.

Whitefeather is the name of the easiest way down the mountain at Taos Ski Valley, and it's the same run I graduated to on my second day ever skiing. The white feather has been a symbol of both cowardice and courage over the centuries and I fear it was named for the insult. However, to make your way down its three miles or so, from the point of view of the beginner, is truly an act of courage.

I love how a shifted perspective thrills me these days when I launch a small rock, even though I distinctly remember a challenging Whitefeather when I first skied it: steep, narrow and interminable. I recall the sensation when I ski down that run with my new students, an empathic, almost visceral memory of the excitement and nervousness, the failures and victories of successful turns, stops and collision aversion. When I teach new students, I appreciate where I have come from in my own learning journey as a skier, and it renews my hope that not all fears are here to stay.

The lesson I taught last week was neither abject failure or crowning glory to send me running or allow me to rest on albeit minimal laurels. What I saw that made me no longer wish to teach skiing is the generosity with which I nurture and encourage others, while withholding such positive sustenance from my own creativity. This is the missing piece that I've hoped to locate so I can finish the books I've started, rekindle the blog I barely gave a chance, or simply have a regular practice that I share with others.

This teenage girl had her first lesson the day before and finished the day on Strawberry Hill. It stands as a gate through which the beginner will ideally pass to ensure basic skills to ski the mountain with safety and enjoyment. Her fear had her gripped, and though she could stop and turn, her mind continually sabotaged her as she imagined one small disaster after another. She would make these tight turns that whipped her into increased speed and rather than take the risk to finish the turn, she'd sit down. When she could finish the turn, she'd slow down and instantly she'd look comfortable on her skis.

I played the coach and cheerleader, asking her to repeat "I can do it!" when she froze. I suggested that she visualize her way through the turn and to direct her gaze - "your whole head, not just your eyes" - to where she wanted to go, not to the ground, which leads to falling toward it. I coaxed, applauded and demonstrated how to create a succession of linked turns to find the fun in fluidity and speed control.

The day's goal had been to ski down TSV's other green run, which is in an entirely other league of "easy way down." Let's call it aqua or turquoise on the difficulty scale, since if you compared it to the terrain on almost any other mountain it would be designated blue or intermediate. We went for Whitefeather as the happy medium and she made it down, eventually. No injuries, no falls except the times when she dropped down to the safety of the snow. One turn at a time, she skied back to the bottom.

I envied the coaching I gave her. That's the piece that's been missing in my writing. I always felt goaded to be a better skier for the challenge in attempting new skills and terrain, and because I wanted to ski with my friends. I haven't found this in my own writing yet, but I'm on the hunt to find it within myself and nurture it into a fierce determination the likes of which I've known in skiing, travel, etc but never had for my writing practice. It's time to get out the pom poms, follow writers I admire down the metaphorical slopes, and wear my crown of white feathers with confidence and pride.

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Fail or succeed?

I learned how to ski as an adult, and learned to teach at the same time. Hired by the supervisor at the kid's ski school to help inside with parents and kiddos, fit skis and boots, and to clean the building after hours, it was with the understanding that if I tried skiing and liked it I'd be added to the roster of instructors. Not the typical route to become a skier or to teach it, but it just so happened that my own first day of skiing opened something wide in my mind and body and in a moment I became hooked.

I fell, oh how many times did I fall that day. Standing or walking in my secondhand ski boots, which are slippery and cumbersome footwear. In initial attempts to put on my skis I'd try to step into the binding, the ski would shy away and I'd splat onto the snow. I'd fall with the introduction of every new skill: sliding the skis into a triangle shape to stop, side step or herringbone walk, in turns - especially to the right - and traverses, pretty much a fall on average every 5-10 minutes. During my 4 hour intro lesson, I flopped to the ground as if I were boneless chicken, the sun blazed over head so I steamed through my clothes, the boots pinched my ankles, my rump and other parts a patchwork black and blue, and my emotions ran the gamut from thrilled to terrified.

A more sensible person might have conceded that she lacked some of the essential qualities of a skier - balance, coordination and grace - but I have rarely been identified as a sensible person.

I went back for more the next day, tired, bruised and hung over from celebrating the thrilling victory of having survived my first day of skiing. The entire class progressed beyond the Strawberry Hill beginner slope, though I know I was advanced with some reservations. We skied over to the #1 chair lift, which brought us to the main base area and a sign I'll paraphrase which has welcomed folk to Taos Ski Valley for decades: although the expert terrain, which is all you can see from here, is the better part of the mountain, TSV also has some fun and friendly beginner and intermediate terrain. So don't be scared. Maybe just a little.

I plonked my sore derriere into the chair lift and my heart clamored to jump out of my body via my throat. Ahead of me the mountain loomed larger and steeper as we ascended. There were people actually skiing below us, making more turns than I considered possible. I expected one or all of them to suddenly free fall into oblivion, and assured myself I'd never ski said terrain.

Short story told long: I survived my first green run aka "easiest way down" and from then on skiing often reigned over the known universe. I spent the rest of the winter guiding 3 year olds towards the ski life, and though it might have looked more like babysitting than coaching, I did bring my growing passion and knowledge of skiing to those kiddos, along with snow sculpture, hot chocolate and find-the-missing-mitten games.

Every free moment I had I slid down the mountain with ever increasing speed and daring, even if the skills were slower to arrive. Successes were achieved: first intermediate, advanced, then expert terrain runs, skiing in trees, through bumps, my first hike, race and stitches. Yes, I failed on occasion, but loved the exquisite sensation to be found in gliding over snow amongst the beauty of the southern Rockies. Minor crashes and injuries spiced the experience.

I spoke about failure in my previous post, and I realize that success and failure are inextricable and interdependent. I can achieve my goals only if I am willing to fail, and the avoidance of failure is in direct correlation to my ability to succeed. If I relinquish my attachment to the outcome of my endeavours, just as I did when I learned to ski, eventually I can succeed in almost anything I try, and love the times when I fail.

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Snowbird, Utah                        Photo by Joe Augusten

Failing is fun

After posting my last blog entry is August of last year - that's three seasons and eight months ago - I definitely considered Words and other adventures a failure. I started strong: 12 posts in June, 11 in July, and then I crashed to a halt with August's single post bemoaning the 16 days since I'd last shared an online confession. The months thereafter summed up... nothing, nada, rien, zilch, a fat zero. My determination, dedication and confidence fell into a huge sinkhole and I got lost inside its cavernous maw and didn't emerge until spring returned, goaded on, as always, by words.

Words clamoring to be shared, to exist somewhere removed from the inside of my too noisy brain, words that grow louder the more I dig my heels in and try to placate them, uhm, me, with any and every excuse. I will write later after I complete the list of chores a mile long, or in the morning when I'm not so tired, some day when I find a topic that's worthy. Words don't care about all that - they just ask me to define who I am, what I stand for, what I love, dream of, despair over, fear - so long as what I speak onto the page is authentic, radical, wholly an expression of me. No big deal, words.

This is the essence of creativity: it doesn't care that you are blocked, processing, ashamed, busy, afraid, or trying to lead a more serious life. As a part of a vast network of creation, our very nature is to create, whether it's in accord with a biological imperative or any other imperative that drives us. If we ignore this part of our self, we tend to suffer. A writer who doesn't write is a person with a head filled and spilled over with words.

I must not abstain from writing, from creating, in order to avoid failure. Mistakes, false starts, speed humps, potholes, detours and other obstacles line the road I travel, but in fact these forms of failure are in alignment with the creative process. The phrase "if at first you don't succeed..." does not end with give up. But it seems to me that in this area of my life, unlike in other parts, I have given up. Or had. I guess we'll just have to see.

For now, I acknowledge that failing is fun. Failing means an open door to new possibilities, perspectives, and actions. Failing means I can toss out what doesn't work and start renewed. As I acknowledge my failure, I can move on, let go, transform my experiment into something that works for me. So: more posts, keep it short, be okay that not every post is brilliant, and above all, have fun.

"Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

-- Samuel Beckett

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