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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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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When I grow up, nope, part one

What did you want to do as a child when you looked into the unimaginable future? Who did you dream you might become, and what did you do in this other part of your life? Did you look forward with bright anticipation for what you saw ahead, or did your imagination and experiences lead you toward darker possibilities?

I saw so many branches on the path in front of me that I had no certainty, only guesses about where my life would be at 20, 30, now. I wanted to be: a mermaid, scientist, artist, jockey, Solid Gold dancer, explorer, archaeologist, writer, Ayla from Clan of the Cave Bear, an environmentalist, chef and a teacher. All of these professions and passions seemed compatible and possible, minus the jockey idea, which got squashed early on because they are petite and I was 5'10" by age twelve.

I didn't know then that in parts of our American culture people are supposed to follow one trajectory. I have never been able to do that, either to my benefit or detriment. Instead, I have followed my will,curiosity  and the need to survive. Some of the job choices I have made have been a success, others a failure. Most of the time I've ditched the duds fast, and I knew what I didn't want to be when I grew up, right away.

I adopted vegetarianism for some ten years, and a little longer if I add my sophomore year of high school, before I headed to vegetarian intolerant Belgium (that's changed in the twenty years since I've lived there). Still, I worked as a kitchen bitch for many years, notably the winter I spent coated in grease and gagging over blood as a grill cook. I'm not sure how I landed that job despite extensive experience in restaurants, since I had little way to gauge how well prepared the slabs of steak and chicken breasts were.

There remains not the slightest portion of doubt in my mind that working in a call center is one of the circles of hell - and I don't even believe in hell other than as a metaphor. I had a morning shift, which meant I got to hound parents getting their kids ready for school, workers on their way out the door, the deceased, and elderly folk who didn't quite understand what I was not selling them. You see, I was supposed to obtain the client's agreement for a free trial of x y z product, but if they didn't cancel it in time they would be charged for the experience. It could have been a great deal, but my conscience reminded me that it verged on a scam.

I slung cocktails at a skeevy downtown bar in Albuquerque during one of my stints in college. Imagine if your waitress wore tank tops instead of a bra, and refused to shave her legs. Yes, that's me, ashamed to help people get drunk in a bar, and ignoring you if you didn't tip me the first time I brought you your drink. Then I'd ride my bike the several miles home at three a.m., until the night I got hit in the head with a full beer bottle thrown from a moving car.

A necessary responsibility on a multi-day river trip is as the groover attendee. The rule on the river is pack it out, and that means everything. The set up includes a heavy duty plastic bag, lime, sawdust, a roll of toilet paper, hand sanitizer and a large ammo can. The original rig lacked the improvement of a toilet seat, thus, the groover. I've been the gear boater on numerous commercial trips and that includes setting up and dismantling the groover, plus stashing it on your boat, as far as possible from where you sit. Hot days are miserable and odiferous.

And that's just some of the jobs I had in my early twenties.

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Airstream office

The simplest thing for me to do now, day #2 out of a daily succession of blog posts, is to allow myself to start slow, though not too slow. I didn't post yesterday, so through that failure I've created a challenge: publish one entry in the morning, another in the afternoon, and be sure to inform people at some point today that I have a blog up and running. It's part of the experiment, but I will not excuse myself; every day I publish a piece, no matter what else happens.

I repeat a mantra to take small steps in daunting circumstances, like this open-ended commitment to write via regular blog authorship. Or to apply my own usual stride, but reduced to one foot in front of the other, methodical, intentional and fluid. A long journey begins with the first, then second paw print on the soil, mine was Coup de Grace and this.

I think some context will help you to know a little bit about the path I walk. Many of you reading this know me, or at least do so through the intricacies of connection, but I live so far away from most everywhere that details will make this dot to dot picture more cohesive, concrete and real. I want to reach the heart of everything I write about, and place and home are part of that.

I sit cross legged on the bench in my office, which also happens to be the entry, dining area, spare bedroom, and general storage. This space blends into the kitchen so seamless you'd be hard pressed to identify where one begins and the other fades. I estimate the entire square footage of these two spaces totals 84 ft. Still, the roof arches overhead, pale light filters through the yellow and fuchsia curtains I stitched on the sewing machine in this same space, and the rain on the aluminum shell makes music with the background thunder.

I bought this funky, mostly intact 1962 Tradewind Airstream seven years ago from a friend who was moving from northern New Mexico to California. The story of its meanderings and how it left Taos and returned years later will be told another day, but I bought it in the hope it would be a step toward my dream to buy land and build a home. Though this has yet to be, the purchase remains a blessing. 

I've lived in it in the boat yard of a raft company in Taos I worked for, in several friend's yards (thank you, Sora and Pete), and when I moved into #77 Calle Martinez it transformed into a writing and stitching studio, held parties and sheltered friends as they wandered through their own story.

After Brad became a part of my life, I helped him replace Airstream plumbing that had been transformed into a Frankenstein themed collection of garden hoses and random copper pipes. I knew Brad planned to stick around when he told me he was selling his turquoise Tacoma for a larger truck, and that one of the perks of the v8 was towing capacity. He proposed this winter with a ring, but the day we installed the tow package on his truck and test drove the trailer around the neighborhood said the same thing.

Repairs made on the Airstream sparked travel lust, and when my attempts to get accepted into a MFA writing program met dead ends, it seemed a good time to leave Taos. We wanted to explore a different landscape, seek opportunities, and grow in our relationship in a new environment. Four years ago, minus a few weeks, we held a yard sale, sent the furniture to storage when we didn't sell or find a babysitter for it, bought sleeping pills for the car phobic cat, and gave thanks again that the title had arrived just in time for our departure.

We left NM and headed north, spent a few nights in Kevin's driveway in SLC, and arrived to late June rain and snow in a part of Wyoming that had just recorded snowfall around 700 inches. We hooked up the travel trailer at the Kudar, a motel and rv park established in the 1940s, and settled in for our first summer of cohabitation in the Airstream. We already had work lined up, and the transition from a weak economy to one fueled by a steady parade of tourists proved easy.

For a writer/massage therapist/ski instructor/occasional landscaper & catering server and her fiancé, a raft guide/snow cat operator, we lead an atypical, pseudo posh life here in this small town east of the Grand Tetons. Our Jackson (Hole) summer home sits in the heart of town, half a minute walk to the recreation center, an easy bike ride to the library and Moo's ice cream, and most important, a quick ride to mountain bike trails. Our set up is serviceable and homey, and though we appear to be Hole hillbillies when our laundry dries on the line or look like petty thieves with our fleet of bikes, we remain content.

It's the start of the summer season, and that means some three million visitors will filter through Jackson over the next three months. When I'm not at one of my myriad jobs, or en route navigating traffic, I'll be under the EZ up typing the latest blog entry, or lounging in the thrift store lawn chair storming my brain for the next story. This is life, craft and work, in a vintage trailer, rooted down in this small town just across the river valley, east of the Tetons.

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