I must be in a good place now.

I spent my weekend outside: blistered; dirty; thirsty; sore; and completely happy. Being removed from sirens, thumping bass, obnoxious neighbors and pigeons, and roaring airplanes created a sense of stillness and calm in me, which I desperately needed. My thoughts weren't as rapid and despondent as they had been at home. It was peace and what my soul had been begging for. It was a weekend of healing and validation. Being out in nature, I like to think, has washed over my sadness. I'm ready to move forward.

K- shared a poem with me a while ago and I take tremendous comfort in it. The parallels to my weekend are almost flawless:

"Wild Geese"

Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

It was supposed to be a two mile trip to the lake, but since the trails weren't marked (and I forgot to bring a map) it ended up taking us about four hours to arrive at our destination. The upside to this was that we were able to explore parts of a different canyon we would have otherwise avoided. Maya was a trooper and carried her pack most of the way until she finally gave up and refused to move until I took it off. I ended up carrying it the rest of the way.

After setting up camp, we explored the basin and lake a bit, but my ankles and heels were torn up by my new boots and I wasn't able to go very far. We resolved to return to our tent and make dinner. The beauty I was surrounded by was what I have missed and hadn't seen in far too long. Nature. Sitting under the sun, drinking wine, reading and doing crosswords with ideal company was the absolute best way I could have spent my Saturday night. As the sun set, the wind made waves of the wildflowers and gold grass. The noise of crickets filled the air, the scent of dust and sweet desert plants filled my nose, and the joy of being close to raw earth filled my being. I wish I could live in a place like this.

If you look closely, you can see our tent. Over the ledge is a lake and waterfall.

When the air turned cold, we went into our tent and played Pictionary. Doodles included the jackass porcupine and the man with a metal detector, both of which we saw on our trip. We went to bed early, cozy on the hard, rocky ground and we drifted off to sleep to a lullaby of wind and chirping, buzzing insects. Maya's limbs were limp and she didn't give a hoot what I did to her. Exhaustion: that is the way to end a day.

Gratitude and peace now fill me. Mother Nature, you know what you're doing.

The Dumps Are So Hot Right Now

It's too bad that my employer knows me as well as she does. I thought I cleaned up my face enough to get away with looking a tad bit tired, but she knew.

"Do you have a cold?"

"...Uh, no. I'm not sick. No cold..."

She paused and tilted her head down for a better, more serious peer. "Are you okay?"

Caught. I shrugged and shook my head, "Um, yes. I'm...okay."

"Oh, okay. Sorry."

"You do it to yourself, you do

And that's what really hurts

Is that you do it to yourself

Just you, you and no one else."

It's funny how one's brain and emotions can fuck up a body. Power of the mind?

I've been here before.

Love. The Everly Brothers had it right:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFE2SnliiV0

I'm Still Growing into my Geological Skin

Last summer I was only able to hike once and the fault was my own. This year things are going to change because I ache, in fact I've been aching since last summer, to spend days in the woods. There is nothing holding me back this year. I have a handful of backpacking companions and a will to go.

I went on my first conditioning hike to Wallace Falls on Sunday which for the most part was a success. I made it to the top and woke up the next day perfectly sore. The only stitch in my day was the fact that when I was just about to the top it started to pour. For the average Washingtonian hiker a little rain is no big deal. I realized on Sunday that I'm not the average Wasingtonian hiker.

Hiking in my runners was not a problem in California. When I went on a four day backpacking trip in Mammoth I didn't get too many blisters and never rolled my ankle. I conquered Half Dome and Cloud's Rest in runners. I've also hiked in the Pacific Northwest -in the summer- in them and they served me well. So you see, I was a bit cocky. "Who needs to spend money on hiking boots? I've only hiked in my running shoes and it's always been fine," I would insist whenever the ghost of hiking boot future would haunt me. Up until Sunday morning I had never hiked in Washington in the Spring. I've learned it's a different game.

The already damp trail turned into an endless, slushy mud-pit. I tried to walk on the outside of the trail when possible, but even that didn't keep my cute little runners from sinking deeper and deeper until shoe, then sock and eventually panicked foot were wet. This happened at the top and I knew that ahead of me was a 3-mile descent through even more unavoidable puddles and slippery rocks. I had no one to grump at but sweet Maya and let's be honest, the only one who deserved to be grumped at was myself.

And so today I journeyed to REI and purchased the ugliest and quite possibly the most expensive pair of shoes I have ever purchased and I have to say... I'm really excited to try them out, but let's try to keep it hush-hush. No one likes to admit defeat.

The Girl Who Goes Alone

The Girl Who Goes Alone

Here’s the thing about being a girl

and wanting to play outside.

All the grownups grind it into you from the get go:

girls outside aren’t safe.

The guy in the car? If he rolls down the window and leans his head out, run,

because the best you can hope for is a catcall, and at worst,

you’ll wind up with your face on the side of a milk carton.

Even when you’re a grown-up girl, your father—because he loves you—

will send you a four-page article about how to protect yourself

while standing at the ATM, while travelling unescorted, while jogging solo,

an article informing you how to distinguish phony police

and avoid purse snatchers, pickpockets, rapists and thugs.

Tell someone you’re going into the woods alone

and they’ll fill your ears with every story they’ve ever heard

about trailside cougar attacks, cave dwelling misogynists,

lightning strikes, forest fires, flash floods,

and psychopaths with a sixth sense for a woman alone in a tent.

To be a girl alone in the wilderness is to know

that if something goes wrong—

you picked the trailhead where the ax murderer lurks

or the valley of girl-eating gophers—

if you don’t come home unscathed, the mourning

will be mixed with I-told-you-sos

from everyone whose idea of camping involves an RV or a Motel 6.

The message is clear: Girls must be chaperoned.

So when, at the end of the day, you zip up the tent

and lie back in your sleeping bag,

fleece jacket bundled

into a lumpy pillow under your head, the second

you close your eyes every least night noise is instantly magnified.

You lie there and consider the pungent heft of menstrual blood,

how even your sweat is muskier, louder, when you’re bleeding.

Not hard to imagine its animal allure—every bear for miles around

sniffing you on the night wind.

You lie there listening, running a mental inventory of any

potentially scented item—

did every one make it into the food bag hung from a tree?

Toothpaste, trail mix, chapstick, sunscreen—fuck.

Sunscreen still in your pack, nestled right beside you

where Outdoor Man used to sleep. So you’re up, out of the tent,

headlamp casting its too-bright spotlight, darkening the dark outside its reach

as you lower the bag, shove the sunscreen in on top of the trash

with its food wrappers and used tampons. Hoist and tie.

Far enough from the ground to elude the bears?

Far enough out from the branch to thwart raccoons?

Tree far enough from the tent to keep from signaling the proximity

of ground level, girl-shaped snacks?

You go alone—in part—to prove that though Outdoor Man has left you,

his body is the only geography he can deprive you of.

He can give his muscled calves and thighs, his shoulders, chest and hands

to another woman, but not the Sauk River old growth, snow fields of Rainier,

sea stacks of Shi Shi.

He can keep from you the sweet, blood-thrilling hum of his body, but not

the sweaty, blood-thumping-back-aching pleasure of a hard-earned

panoramic view, high altitude starlight or the singular blue of a crevasse.

The thing about being a girl who goes alone, who goes

again and again is that it freaks

the potential next boyfriend. He doesn’t want to be out machoed

and he doesn’t want to admit it and he hopes you can’t tell.

The thing about being the girl who still goes alone is that it proves

you don’t need him and no matter how you show him you want him

it’s not the same

and you both know it.

Zipped back into the tent you remind yourself you’ve never really been in danger.

When have you ever been in danger? Well there was that boy, but years ago,

a teenager like you, driving around bored and pissed at the world,

his BB gun and his father’s two rifles

and on the seat beside him. Lucky you.

The gun he leveled on the window ledge

lodged nothing more than a BB in your thigh.

The thing about being a girl alone in the woods is you know too much

about the grain of truth in the warnings.

Even if you seem impervious, weird good luck leaving you so far unscathed,

you know the other girls’ stories—your sister

date raped after a party in college, a friend

raped by a stranger at knife-point, the two women

shot on the Pinnacle Lake trail. The singer

killed by coyotes in Nova Scotia.

The thing

about being a girl

who goes alone

is that you feel like you shouldn’t go

if you’re afraid. If you go it should mean you’re not afraid,

that you’re never afraid. Your friends will think that you go unafraid.

This girl

who goes alone

is always afraid, always negotiating to keep the voices in her head

at a manageable pitch of hysteria.

I go knowing that there will be a moment—maybe long moments, maybe

hours of them, maybe the whole trip—when I curse myself for going alone.

When I lie in the tent and all I am is fear.

I walk in the wilderness alone so I can hear myself.

So I can feel real to myself.

I walk into the wilderness alone

because the animal in me needs to fill her nose with the scent of stone and lichen,

ocean salt and pine forest warming in early sun. I need to feel my body—

taxed and stretched and aching.

I go because I know I’m lucky to have a car, gas money, days off,

the back and legs and appetite

to take me there.

I go because I still can.

The girl who goes alone

claims for herself

the madrona, juniper, daybreak,

she claims hemlock, prairie falcon, nightfall,

nurse log, sea star, glacial moraine,

huckleberry, trillium, salal,

snowmelt, avalanche lily, waterfall,

birdsong, limestone, granite, moonlight, schist,

cirque, saddle, summit, ocean,

she claims the curve of the earth.

The girl who goes alone says with her body

the world is worth the risk.

-Elizabeth Austen