Home?

I have returned to Estes Park, more or less full time.  The 7 month unexpected road trip has come to a close.  To be home is lovely, the fresh air (that I still can't smell), the view and the community that I love.  I am still down in Denver at least once a week for PT etc.  A friend up here has offered up time to do PT and another to massage. I also try to swim 2-3 times a week at the community center and st(roll) around some local trails that are accessible. 

It was, and still is, incredible difficult knowing the Climbing Ranger staff has returned and is back frolicking and assisting others in the mountains I love.  I have climbed Longs Peak so many freeking times, but staring at it down here...all I want to do is climb it again.  Lumpy Ridge brings the same sentiment.  Old habits die hard.

Geez.  It makes me wonder how I will do here.  If this is home?  I love it here, I love my community here.  I have developed these friendships and extensive knowledge of these mountains in the sixteen years that I have been here.  

Difficult imagining anything different.  This accident has proven though, that sometimes we are thrust into difficult decisions.  Maybe none of the options are good choices, but we make one and must deal with outcome regardless.  

I feel guilty for choosing my fall adventures as I did, given my head wasn't in the game.  I feel angry for not listening to myself.  I feel embarrassed to have made a mistake.  I feel like a failure.  I feel overwhelmed that my accident has affected so many.  Only I am in control of these negative emotions.  Only I can choose to move on.    

I feel lucky to be back in Estes Park.  

  

I have started work with the Rocky Mountain Conservancy.  A non-profit that supports the National Park through project funding and educational experiences in the public land its mission is to support.  I think it will evolve into a lovely fit.  

Things will keep changing.  I will keep breathing for a little while longer.  I am learning many new ways of coping.  Coping with the nerve pain that persists in my body on a daily basis.  Coping with a new life of sitting, where I could run- climb- swim - hike - move to resolve difficult emotional times.  Coping with a new body that I am slightly ashamed of.    Next step.  Accepting.

nymph of the future

When I started Dovetail Mountain Adventures in 2010, my intentions were to infect others with optimism in their choices.  Yoga invites us to sit with uncomfortable feelings, striking poses that are difficult ...holding them for longer then our usual convenient threshold.  We learn to find a calmer breath in the difficult moments, calming the eyes and the soul.  We learn to communicate to our body the important aspects of pain, frustrations, or conversely comfort and joy in the most efficient of ways.

I thought creating Dovetail was an excellent platform to join groups of people, connecting them to trendy yoga and now very trendy rock climbing.   Rock climbing, for me, was more then the physical strife or extravagant vista.  I enjoyed, and sucked terribly at, finding breath, clarity, motivation, communication ...the rapid chess game.  I was challenged.  

The next step for me, the infectious part, was to build the confidence of Dovetail participants not only with physical endeavors but hopefully with daily life endeavors. 

Communication in their relationships, frustrations with vocation, and joy within themselves.  Sift through the bullshit nitpicking, simmering on over-blown disagreements.  Realizing that life IS a gift, love and respect fosters creativity.  Anger can certainty fuel motivation and clarity of situations but a breath needs to find its way between the emotion and the spoken word.

yadda yadda yadda.  This accident has me striving for that movement...the release from my brain...the release from dwelling on "what if's."  Dwelling on feeling like a failure. Dwelling on the past and the person I was striving NOT to be before, selfish, naive, stupid, ungrateful.  

Ironic I am now forced to sit.  Sit with the uncomfortable pose that life has currently thrust at me.  

What lesson would I teach myself?   

I am struggling with my current pose.  I think we all have struggles in our position... feel alone.  I am learning, that we are.  Only I can control my emotions, can control my actions, can control the presence I convey to others.  Others are doing the same dance in their own space at their own pace.  Be friends or be it partners.  To paraphrase Plato's Symposium, we have been divided into two in order to maintain a humble nature.  We strive to find our other half.  When we are lucky to find that other half, we feel like we are back to our original self.  This, is love.   

When we find comfort with ourselves, we can give comfort to others and venture further into our pose, into our minds.  My dance, next to your dance....is us dancing together.    

To find joy in the small moments.  To remember that although I am not doing a handstand on a mountain summit, I am breathing.  I can SEE the summit of Longs Peak, remember parts of the Park that I know better then the hair on the back of my legs.  I should be grateful for the running around, the failures, the incredible experiences with friends and strangers I have had in those granite nooks and gneiss crannies.     

I have found a new threshold and am trying my hardest to breath.  There is pain.  There is overwhelming embarrassment and frustration.

One day there will by joy, love, and comfort with this pose.