gratitude

Every day I am grateful for:

My weird house

Elvis…

My weird dog

My boys. Their partners. Their happiness. Their resiliency. Their pursuit of their dreams. My heart nearly explodes with joy and love

Jay. Jay. Jay…

and all that he brings. All that he is. All the love that he showers on me.

Friendships. You know how every break-up or rough time, has, in hindsight, a theme; the lessons that you learn from that particular crisis tend to all be in the same general arena? This last go-’round was all about friendships – I learned a shit-ton the really hard way. I lost so many, gained some incredible new ones, and re-connected with some of the best people I have ever known. Then the pandemic moved in, I stopped working in public, I moved way out of town, and we weren’t allowed to see each other…

That seriously weeded out any of the fringe elements. I got weeded out of some too. It’s okay. But, those who remain have made this past year manageable. The humor and love and support have been sanity-sustaining.

I am over-the-top grateful for my sexy new firepan. Valentine’s Day gift. New boating gear is always fun but even more spectacular when it can be used at home for a backyard fire around which you can safely sit with a couple of those incredible friends.

And IT’S SO NICE!

Thank the heavens above for rivers.

For landscapes of stone.

For hot springs at 9000 ft after skiing in the mountains.

I’m super appreciative that my truck is still running with 230,000 miles on it. Well, kind of running. My friend’s Toyota has 340,000 miles on it, so, fingers crossed.

My new skis bring me all sorts of joy.

He’s a really good gift-giver.

The blue of the sky over the cliffs of red rock that I see out my window fills my soul.

I have the freedom to walk into that blue any time I want.

That is sanity-saving.

I love my mommy. Y’all know that. She and I have spoken nearly every day of this Pandemic. She’s a keeper.

I love my birds.

Jay’s home has big birds. Raptors. Big birds. I love his birds too.

That sounds kind of dirty doesn’t it?

I have songbirds: Juncos and Finches, and Chickadees, and Towhees, and Titmouse(s?) (Titmice?). I have Quail. Quail. They are the best. I could watch them all day with their little head accessories bobbing in synch with their scampering feet. They bring me so much joy.

A male Meadowlark just arrived this week. In the snow. He’s gorgeous. I think he’s looking for a place to put down roots; he’s got marriage and children on his mind. I hope he moves into the neighborhood. I’ve been feeding my birds special treats like kibble and brown rice to entice them to settle in.

Yesterday a juvenile Northern Harrier flew around my tree. I don’t have birds of prey here. I barely even have Ravens. Yet here he is.

There is magic in this canyon.

My life is just grand.

leaving

Today is my last real day in the cabin. Tomorrow my family shows up to help me move all of my shit to either storage or the new home.

I’ve done most of the packing already; moved more, much more, of my belongings than I have remaining. The thing about packing is that it doesn’t leave time to just be; to stop and look around absorbing as much as I can of the goodness and serenity that this home has provided for me.

I’m so focused on the future, on the new place, that it detracts from the sorrow that comes with leaving a home that has been my refuge.

This cabin caught me when I was falling faster than the speed of sound. I was so lost and damaged and broken when I moved in.

Really, to be honest, when other people moved me in while I crumbled.

The day I moved out of my last home, the home that we shared together – MXB and my sons – was one of the saddest days I have ever survived.

My children helped then, but they too were broken. We were lost and scared and floundering. Tomorrow they will again help, but it will be with lighter hearts.

3 1/2 years ago when I moved, I was literally climbing over MXB’s shit that he left in the house when he bailed. Every time I carried boxes through the garage, I had to maneuver around his couch, his two freezers full of animals that he had killed, his ammo reloading table that he built and never used.

At one point that day, just to add insult to injury, she (the friend that was no longer a friend because she was the new love of his life) showed up on the ranch to drop something off for another resident. It was the first time I’d seen her since she blew up my world.

And on that painful, agonizingly heartbreaking day, she tore me a new asshole. She self-righteously shredded the last little bits of my soul.

Still not sure how her betrayal got twisted into being my fault, but she made me pay.

I lost my home, my friends, my sanity. My son almost died…and this cabin caught me. Healed me. Quieted my mind and gave my heart the space to repair, to become whole again.

It became my sanctuary.

These 800 square feet, my east wall of windows that brought the mountain peaks into my living room – made them my constant companions, the leather recliner in front of the woodstove, my deck under the stars: these are the bits of the cabin that gently held me while I clawed my way out of my pit of despair.

I can’t begin to count the hours spent curled up under a blanket in the chair, next to the fire, staring at the view, sporting the green hoodie that belonged to my dead best friend.

Deep, all-consuming, unadulterated, crippling grief.

In the early cabin days, every time I pulled into my driveway I thought, “Thank god I have this place.”

Each day since then, as I began to feel sane again, to feel happiness and joy and gratitude, I have said, over and over, “I love my home.”

As excited as I am to move to the desert and have a new adventure, I feel as if I am being kicked out of the nest.

And..I am ready. I’ve recovered.

I have changed. I am a different person than the one who took up residence here all of those years ago.

There is no way to survive what my family has been through without changing, without becoming new.

Or at least revised.

At Outward Bound we had a belief that we imparted upon our students…

‘Outward bound’ is a term that applies to ships – as a boat sails out of its safe harbor into the open seas, it is said to be outward bound. As we dragged kids up mountains and encouraged them to learn new life skills, we reminded them that their Outward Bound course really began when they got on the bus to return to the big wide world – taking with them all of the skills, knowledge, and self-awareness that they gained while with me for a month in the wilderness.

Tomorrow, I am outward bound.

 

“Ego Tube”

Back in the day – the day when I was taking people deep into the wilderness; when I was young, vibrant, idealistic, and rather self-righteous – the day when I was a purist, a leave no trace purist – I had a thing about summit registers.

There was a handful of us who believe(d) that Leave No Trace means leave. no. trace. and that leaving a plastic tube with paper and pencil, attached by cable to the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere was leaving a trace.

Trash.

A physical reminder of man’s need to make his mark, to conquer, to claim fame.

So, those few of us who felt so strongly about the issue often ended up with a few summit registers in our packs as we hiked out of 30 days in the backcountry into civilization. Mostly unbeknownst to our students. Mostly. We knew that what we were doing was controversial, but like I said…

self-righteous purists.

Lifting a summit register is often no easy task. It usually entailed telling my students to start the climb down, “I’m just going to coil the ropes, I’m right behind you.” Then, with a few mighty swings of an ice axe, the cable would break and the entire thing got stashed into the top of my pack and down I’d go to meet my group – no one any wiser.

Word of our tireless endeavors to clean up the Weminuche was getting around amongst the higher-ups in our organization and the word then came from those higher-ups to us lower-downs to stop this practice, but, since we imagined ourselves to be the next Ed Abbeys, saving the planet one golf pencil at a time, we ignored the warnings from above.

Until the day when I dragged my students into re-supply way the fuck out in the wilds where a dirt track crossed a remote trail and lo and behold, there was my supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor, come all the way down from Denver to have a face to face with me.

Apparently, one of my students who was rather perceptive (and impressionable) and fully aware of the trash issue, had taken a register when I wasn’t there, stashed it in his backpack, and brought it home to Connecticut with him where his mommy unpacked his bag, found it, and immediately called our offices to let them know that her child, who had come to Outward Bound because he got in trouble with the law for…stealing…had stolen something with the support of his Instructor.

Me.

Fuck.

Wrist slapped. Warnings issued. Promises made. And the lesson I learned…

Be more stealthy when stealing.

I have lost some of my edge in my old age. I no longer take such a hard stance, although, I do still believe that humans should not be leaving anything manmade in the Wilderness. Especially not affixed to a mountain top.

I understand that some, (most), like the camaraderie that reading other people’s scribblings at the end of a hard climb brings. So I am slightly less militant. I certainly won’t sign one, but I will consider leaving one in place, especially if the people I am with are enjoying it.

Depending on where and how offensive it is.

So, I went out to Utah the other day and climbed to the very top of a ridge which is not a peak – it’s more like an 80-mile undulating wall of China. I am sure there is a “highest point” but it could be anywhere in that 80 miles and the reality is that the monocline is only at most, 900 feet tall; it’s not some massive peak begging to be conquered.

As I got to the tippy top, the place where the sloping incline of rock abruptly stops and there is a 900-foot uninterrupted drop down to the wash below, I saw a cairn (a pile of rocks marking a trail…don’t even get me started on those in the wilderness) marking what seemed to me, to be the perfect place from which to cast oneself into the abyss with no hope of surviving.

I know, as I approached the pile of rocks that I don’t want to take one step past it, but would everyone realize that before they did take that step, that one step too close to the edge?

Dumb, I thought as I made my way towards the offending and potentially dangerous pile of sandstone. And then, I saw it. A glass jar with paper and a golf pencil.

Summit Register.

Not even on a summit.

Granted, it’s a steep climb to get there, but my stubby-legged dog made it, and it was no great accomplishment. Not a big enough one to warrant a symbol of great achievement.

In glass no less. Everywhere you look is solid rock – slick rock – perfect for dropping a glass jar.

Inside, of course, is the inevitable notepad and pencil. One person has written on the register and it says:

Dude, (and Dudette) if you’re calling it an ego tube, and you not only signed it but actually put it there, what’s that saying about you?

And who the fuck carries a glass jar of tomato paste in their backpack? Obviously, this was planned in advance – the jar was clean, pencil sharp, and paper stapled.

The old me was outraged. The newer me was also outraged. Nonononononononononono. Not here. Not okay. Not ever.

So the old me picked up the jar and stashed in my pack. I scattered the rocks used to build the cairn, the new, more careful me resisting the urge to trundle them over the edge since there was a truck below me and trucks usually mean people and I didn’t want to kill anyone.

I fumed. I was disheartened to find that here. Here in my place. Here in the fragile desert. Here where it didn’t belong.

Trash.

When I got back to my truck, I decided that the only thing to do with the offending item was to take it to the visitor’s center. My hope is that they will put it on display with a sign that says, “DON’T be an asshole!”

To the conquerors of the peak, congratulations, you hiked less than a mile and climbed, at most, 900 feet, never losing sight of your truck.

To my old rebellious friends…

I stole another summit register!!