Life Long Loves Tour--- a draft just publishing now.

After returning from an 8 week adventure throughout Patagonia, I had a brilliant idea of traveling some more!!
I haven't written in ages and have, in fact, opened up this blog many-a-times to write something down but I feel my thoughts swarming.

I was home--Estes Park-- for 11 weeks in 2013.
The 2014 year was shaping up to be similar, as I left for a 2 month trip to Patagonia on January 3.  I find myself tired from travel.
I keep my schedule full of friends, full of trips, full of busy.

Am I distracting my heart from the loss of loved ones?

To remedy this, I had the brilliant idea of traveling some more...well with two intentions.
One, visit the people who have infected me with their brilliance, compassion, passions, and love over the years.
Two, visit those important people because time with them is often the best gift (thank you PK for that reminder).  So, off I went to spend time with those that I love so dearly, those that have taken care of me through thick and thin.

Estes Park to Moab to Mesa to Yucca Valley to San Diego to Groveland to Tahoe to Bend to Seattle to Nosara, CR to Bellingham to Leavenworth.

Plans, like always, altered.  The convergence of the 'family' (a blend of KMAC crew/Andrew's friends) in Indian Creek had me layover for an extra 4 days.  The positive support amongst one another towards all of our individual endeavors and psyche (for climbing, for fun, for being genuinely nice and caring people) is unmatched.  I climbed some of my hardest Indian Creek climbs during this week, also with some of my biggest lobbers!  Such a grand time.  I almost on-sighted Sweden Ringle at the end of my first day!  (Thank you MonKeys ---you know who you are!)

In Mesa, AZ.  My mom and I went on a Great-Horned Owl hike (she knew a sneaky spot where two were nesting). After dinner, my dad and I played with his new telescope, something we did when I was a child at our lakeside cabin in Minnesota.

There was a full moon, it was neat.

My parents, always exploring- continuing the adventures with open inquisitive eyes.

In Joshua Tree, Craig, Hogan, and Erik treated me to an awful (food not company) Mexican dinner in Yucca Valley after days and days of granite crystal wrestling.  These men, excellent athletes, have been a source of inspiration and possibility.  You can try hard every day, with a family, with athletics, with the mind, with yourself and a little scotch goes a long way!  Thank you!

Patti and I boldly plunged into the Pacific waters near San Diego for a body board session.  Catching up on our 20 year friendship.  Discussion has altered from the days of 2-a-day swim practices and Dairy Queen treats to married life and loosing loved ones.  Her mother, a second mother to me, has alzheimers disease.  It is awful to hear the diminishing of the this lovely ladies mind and body, with such hopelessness.  It is remarkable to have been friends for so long---regardless of time and space to know that we love one another.
"Bohemian," she looked me up and down as I arrived.  Ha!  I got it from her.  Growing up with Patti, I was inspired to step out from under my naive roof of existence.
Travel.  Embarrass yourself.  Try new things.  Laugh.  Laugh to the point of embarrassing yourself again.  Repeat!  Thank you Patti!

Matty and PK just got hitched!!  So, next stop Groveland, CA.  Hopes of climbing in the Valley, diminished as rain moved in.  We climbed at Jailhouse instead, overhanging sport routes that are pump worthy.  

I don't know Matty all that well.  I do know he has a  quick wit and he brings a smile to one of my favorite ladies.  PK, has been a pillar of support for years.  We giggle and chat simultaneously, faces turning blue when it has been too long since we have spoken.  We have suffered similar losses, similar need for movement and similar haircuts and colors.  This lady reminds me to be true to the important people in my life and myself.  Time is one of the more

------The road trip continued north visiting my good friend Sam Piper in Truckee.  We ran and caught up.  Next stop was Bend, visiting and randomly dog sitting for a high school friend and fellow swim team guy Micah Vitoff.  I didn't know anyone there and they were off on a trip, so I took care of their giant friendly fur and sourced out some solo mountain bike time.  Time to reflect and return to a clear mind before jetting off to Leavenworth, Washington and teaching a month long Wilderness EMT course. 

While there I reconnected with Jens Holsten, we met in Patagonia on Fitz Roy.  I was spreading Andrews ashes on the summit, while he and his partner Chad were enjoying the journey and summit views.  Chad fucking got hit in the head as they descended a different side of the mountain, we never saw him again.  So, it was healing to connect with Jens on this trip and get to share my little bit of grief process. 

"if we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. one's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things." Henry Miller.

Last of the Sidetracked

3/3 CONTINUED : I wrote this piece for a lovely little journal called Sidetracked.  It contains  incredible stories and beautiful photos of adventures, culture and experiences around the world.  Get the June 2019 issue and you'll see the full story.  

https://www.sidetracked.com/

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My healing process mirrors this Earthly cycle. Grief floats through the raging rapids, sinking in, jolting into boulders, dragging across shallow bottoms, all while trying to maintain an airway as it jostles across the unforeseen landscape in one piece. 

I am still whole. 

I vaguely remember waking behind Texas Flake. Josie, my climbing partner, rappelled down to me. I was face down. I’d been unconscious, strewn amongst boulders. My head was bleeding. Josie rolled me over and I came to. Excruciating pain was vivid then, even though now it is a vague memory. I can’t feel my legs, I told Josie. She worked in Yosemite on their Search and Rescue team, and initiated the rescue by cell phone. Swiftly, a YOSAR helicopter flew two rescuers out to just below Josie and I. It was a delicate procedure given the sheer granite face, unpredictable winds, tiny ledges, and  virtually no room for error. 

That notion, ‘no room for error’ – I could marinate in that for hours. I already have. I worked as a climbing ranger in Rocky Mountain National Park, similar duties and job function as those then tasked with rescuing me. I hiked around every day on the job communicating preventative safety measures with recreational visitors to the backcountry. Our crew was intended to be always available and in high-functioning physical and mental shape. Ready to bust up trail at any hour, after any exercise we might have already done, to help those with a medical emergency, wherever they may be in the Park. I coveted the daily interactions with people and the wilderness. How lucky I was to marry them both as my job. 

While I evolve into acceptance, I strive to find joy and purpose. My life was brimming with it before. Before I was paralysed. Now, my brain is also paralysed at times, stuck on the spinning narratives of the past. Wishing I could run across crisp mountain summits and red desert trails. I long for a time when I can feel if my bladder is full or enjoy a slap on my backside. Golly, how about feeling an orgasm! I make bargains: for my injury to be one vertebrae lower, so I might have the use of my quadriceps and the ability to just stand up without clunky archaic full-leg braces that make me think of Forrest Gump. I have yelled at myself in private moments: 'What the fuck were you doing? Why didn’t you pay attention? Why were you even there?

The irony. The girl who couldn’t sit still.

As the seasons change the river changes her voice. Summer grows and she becomes loud and obnoxious.  Maybe she is scared as her waters spill over the bank. Fall evolves into winter and the chatter of the river quiets, its danger simmers. Fall brings romance and delicateness. Yellow leaves float down her curves. In winter, she freezes, perhaps flowing quietly under the ice. Unknowable hazards lurk there. Spring returns and she begins to swell, bellowing her growth. Year after year,  this process continues, like the process of grief. It may seem to have calmed down; I may seem to be ‘crushing life’ because I have this archaic device that allows me ‘freedom' of movement. I sit. My legs burn. While I am constantly in physical pain, my mental pain is more like the river. It ebbs and flows. Sometimes loudly exclaiming my sorrow; sometimes believing I am safe to walk across the ice in the winter only to find my foot slips in and I am back in the river’s darkness.  
Maybe I am crying with sadness.  Maybe I am yelling with anger.  Maybe I am bargaining, trying to get my damn foot out of the river, for one more muscle to work.  Maybe I am watching the yellow aspen leaves charily floating along as I soak in beautiful fall sunlight and warmth. This will continue for the rest of my life. As the river continues to flow for eternity. As the burble in my head calms, I have more time to ponder Me. Who was I? Who am I now? Who do I want to be? When we have experienced our own death, or something like it, how do we move forward in our unexpected rebirth?  

I am still a mover. I want to move my body, move my legs. My lower half will most likely never move again, without the help of science, research, awareness, the compassion of strangers.  I still can't sit still, taking part in a new movement, a new way to move my body but also new way to advocate for something sitting in my own lap.   Maybe, it was never the need to quell the body through physical endeavours, as I thought, I was perpetually seeking the straightest line, thinking that was the most efficient path in the mountains, in my work environment, in my relationships.  I was focusing on the wrong system, the wrong shape.  I was confused in my previous life, perceiving most circumstances in a linear way.  Perhaps true access to that quiet mental space and focus, is to also spend some time in the chaos of the mind.  After all the insecurities of my body stem from the insecurities in my mind. In this new life, a balance better serves the goal of full body appreciation.  

The shape of life.

The Earth continues to orbit the sun. The river flows downstream, ebbing and rushing, twisting and turning, but water fills its banks through the subtle process of freezing and melting. The river cycles from land to sky, feeding new life, helping the natural process of decay and renewal; carving new paths, fuelling the evolution of rebirth and death for eternity.  This circle is full, all encompassing of emotion and experience.  I am still on this earth and participating in the continuous cycle.  I continue to breathe. I am changed, carving a new path but my head and my heart like this Earth, are still full, colourful, and rounded.

Sidetracked 2

2/3 CONTINUED : I wrote this piece for a lovely little journal called Sidetracked.  It contains  incredible stories and beautiful photos of adventures, culture and experiences around the world.  Get the June issue and you can finish reading my story! 

https://www.sidetracked.com/
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I am not there yet.

I am one year and a half into this new relationship with sitting.  On October of 2017, I fell while rock climbing in Yosemite National Park.  I had a rope.  I had a climbing partner.  I did not have enough gear in place and there was too much rope in the system.  I fell over 100 feet.  I had climbed the Nose on El Cap nearly a dozen times previously, from my virgin 3 day ascent to speed record ascents.  This day, my partner and I were intentionally climbing fast.  I led the first block of the route, covering nearly 1500 feet in just over 2 hours.  Fifty feet before the scheduled shift change on a feature called the Boot Flake, something happened.  My foot slipped or a hand or seemingly a combination.  My gear placements were minimal, a bolt 30 feet blow me.  This is one tactic people use for speed climbing this route in particular,  I usually have two pieces of gear tethered to me as I ascend, for some reason on this day, I was being more cavalier or naive or stupid.  I only had one in.  The distances are rough estimates.  Either way, granite zoomed upwards before my eyes as gravity took hold of my figure.  My body ricocheting off a piece of rock independent from the main cliff, named Texas Flake.  I now lay nestled in a small chimney still over a 1000 feet up the almost sheer wall.  I took the fated, “unsurvivable” fall in the most horrendous of spots probably on the entire route.   

Every morning the wheelchair beckons for closer company.  I acquiesce, I certainly don’t want to lie in bed all day.  Sitting was never my plan in life, laying down certainly doesn’t compute.   My arm position my left leg over the edge of the bed and then the right.  I sit up using the core muscles still available with a heavy push of planted hands and triceps.  The lower limbs, now considerably atrophied, dangle in a space unaware of their surroundings, temperature or that they are even attached to me.  

Distant.  

The spring snow melts in my town of Estes Park, the Big Thompson increases her burble.  The hum is subtle out my bedroom window but as earth revolves giving us more daylight, the sound amplifies.  Summer breezes, snow melt fades as time passes, the swollen river simmers her proclamation, gradually.  Blue skis are common every morning but inevitably some part of the mountain range will be surrounded by afternoon dark gray storm clouds, dousing torrential rains and (susceptible to) unpredictable electrical impulses shooting out of the sky.  Booming thunder bouncing from granite gendarme to granite gendarme.  The river reacts, snug banks absorbing the surging water to her best ability.  Sometimes there is a spill.  Sometimes overwhelming floods wreak havoc.   

My healing process seems similar to this earthly cycle.  My grief floats through the raging rapids, sinking in, jolting into boulders, dragging across shallow bottoms, all while trying to maintain an airway as it jostles across the unforeseen landscape in one piece. 

...................................TO BE CONTINUED..........

Sidetracked Journal

Afternoon light dances and drifts as a warm breeze teases Ponderosa pine boughs. My backside

nestles comfortably into the sofa, warm laptop on my thighs. My feet are propped on my coffee

table. My backyard obsession, Longs Peak, is the cause of this glorious quagmire. I had just

spent four back-to-back days training around the many aspects of this 4,346m playground.

Running trailhead to summit, dangling on a rope to suss out the moves of its harder, vertical

face climbing routes, and joyously scampering its ridges and peaks. Red face, content heart.

Training for what, you might ask. Sitting, I would exclaim with a laugh.

The most efficient way for me to access a quiet mental space, gain focus on non-moving tasks like computer work or reading a book, is to twirl about physically until I have reached full-body fatigue. As the sofa warms and my legs find rest on this particular evening, I find myself sipping on wine planning the upcoming year’s slew of expeditions. Typing away, detailing new route possibilities on yellow cliffs in Madagascar, Googling images of unclimbed granite spires rising out of the freezing waters on Baffin Island, and giggling in conversation with Libby about the jungle tools we were going to need to machete our way in to

remote Chilean granite domes.

How quickly the simple things can disappear.  The daydream subsides as sound and light shift my focus to real time, real places. The room is warm. I am shivering, buried beneath a down comforter. There is a wheelchair by my bedside.  It has been there every day now for over a year.

My mood is learned indifference even with the persistent hum and electrical burning in the

lower half of my body. Perhaps I should feel something approaching love for this antiquated and neglected device that only just allows me to roll about a house, a paved lake, or out to dinner.

I am not there yet....

TO BE CONTINUED : I wrote this piece for a lovely little journal called Sidetracked.  It contains  incredible stories and beautiful photos of adventures, culture and experiences around the world.  Get the current issue and you can finish reading my story! 

https://www.sidetracked.com/

Where are you now?

Stoic

Stories of my smile, stories of my frown.

I haven't written in awhile.  I have been working on an article for a beautiful publication Sidetracked, so while I have been writing in my days it has been mostly editing.  This morning I needed to journal but I am traveling in Bend, OR and did not bring my journal.  We will see where this goes.....

I traveled quite a bit before my injury.  While I did live and work in Estes Park steadily mid-April to the end of the September, I still found myself flying to somewhere else almost once a month.  July was probably the only month I didn't leave Estes Park for years. Crazy to think about.  It didn't seem so exhausting back then, sometimes if I worked a clinic over my days off with the Park and had a later flight home with work at 7am the next morning, I would be tired but it was easier to recoup.  Running in the mountains, averaging 30-60 miles a week was normal.

After injury I find I am pooped.  There is more planning involved, constant burning in my legs and the effort of this smaller muscle group that supports my mobility.  Arms!

.......Well, per usual I got distracted.  It's a week later from the paragraphs above.  It a was a lovely week in Bend but back to some emotion here in Estes.  Trying to sort patience and contentedness.  When will I have either of those qualities?

Bond

I arrived in Bend, stoked to spend a week of nordic skiing and hanging with a rad new (to me) community of people.  Instead I had drifting thoughts of, I just want to be home.  I know this thought comes from being tired of travel.  Of wanting to build a house, grow food, have dinner with a loved one, conversation and adventure with loved ones.

While I enjoy that I have a vast community of friends and pen pals, always have.  I think I was striving before my injury to settle a little bit.  Not settle in trying hard but try hard in different endeavors.  I knew how to climb, how to run, how to avoid conflict by being cool or being avoidant with my needs but I longed to tackle the emotional or communicative sides that I needed to work on.  I needed help and support with those endeavors.  I didn't know how or wasn't brave enough to ask for help nor was the timing right for some to offer.  I made small efforts but ultimately relied on what I was used to....solving myself or avoiding through physical activity.

This trip had a rise up of my past work, intentions to be a better human. To learn.  To grow. 
I had an immediate reaction of "I don't want to be here".  Thoughts drifted to why not?  What do I want?  What would make me feel content?  Physical activity is ingrained in my being, so is time outside.  I think connecting to a community is also.  My desire to have a partner and play and friends and travel and piano and movies and ocean and night sky and bailey's and wine and cheese and a sore body pervades.  I do want it all :)  I am different but I am the same.

Beauty

I guess in this rant, I wonder what have I learned in this life altering injury?  How am I better?  When Andrew died it was the most devastating life experience for me.  When Annie died, when Chad...when Hayden.  When things are traumatic we learn, we grieve in a variety of ways over an indeterminate amount of time but do we change?

How can I still enjoy playing outdoors and curious adventure, pushing the body while also sharing some experiences with friends and a romantic partnership?   How do I share Quinn but with more patience for my emotions and those of others.   Appreciate individual goals and compassion for individual differences.  Appreciating that every partner, every relationship (friends or lovers) will be challenging and amazing at the same time.  Life is work, constant unpredictable, painful, joyous work.

Maybe I am learning that all we can do is be patient with the emotion or experience as it is now.  It won't last, we can plan we can expect but a multi direction change is in store at any moment.  What does all that planning and expectation of ourselves of others bring us?

Be gracious.  Be present.

Hard to do at times.

Grace

---Looking Back---

Staring at the mountain that in 12 hours time I would loose my ability to walk, climb, pee...so many things, gaining.... ?

I have some drafts in my blog site that are unpublished.  Below is one from late in March 2013.  I am writing about two close friends from Estes who were in a mountain accident, one died, one came away barely with many injuries.  2013 held a lot of sorrow and loss.  Dave and Lisa, then Rick and WHAM...Andrew and Annie.  Sometimes re-reading my thoughts are wild.....how they are the same even now.  Even older blogs, like the Peter Pan one are interesting.  I WAS working on myself but what was I doing about it?  What a I doing about it now?  Conversations about risk, change, failure, ambitions, and engrained habits of who we are.  I need to do some more journaling....sitting.  HA!  
______________________________________________________________________________March 2013
During this annual week of wandering I am reminded of my fortunate existence, ponder my ambitions (well, I have been doing that a lot this last year anyway), and usually sleep until my bladder cannot possibly rest any longer.  This year, the sleep was different, almost non-existent.  An uneasiness about friends, relationships, and well, just a feeling of something amiss.  Similar to my experience in the Baja a month ago, words fall short in accurately describing the emotion or experience.  

The van loaded with seventh graders, Dustin (my co-guide) and I drove out of the Grand Gulch Primitive area after 6 days of exploring canyons, ruins, and minds.  I turned my phone on near Moab, Utah.  Beep after beep, twenty-something texts in total after only 4 days without service.  Something was most certainly off. 

“Avalanche..injured”....”have you heard?”...”injuries include...” ....”funeral arrangements” ....I dropped the phone upon reading the last message.  I gazed forward, lost, the red canyons seemingly closing in on the van yet disappearing all the same.   The road just was, as it seemed I was.    

I am not attempting to say something profound, merely feeling a strong urge to write.  Death, regardless of circumstances, creates multitudes of emotion and I need a release.  

We are here now, no past, no future, no hope, no fantasies.  

Just here now and how quickly now can be taken away.  

I feel my heart heavy for a good friend, her personal injuries and the pain of imagining the situation dealt with head on.  My eyes moisten for the loss of a lovely man, and sorrow for his lovely wife and two beautiful young children.  My chest flutters as our small town community unites in these stressful times.  Love, everywhere love.  Love now.  LOVE NOW.  

This past year keeps pointing at living now, loving now, appreciating now, kindness, selflessness.  As always I feel slow in my development as a person.  Obviously we should be kind to everyone, have patience, try hard, love like we mean it, give because we love giving and making others happy.

We adventure because it fills our soul..........

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once in a lifetime

Frank's beer of choice for San Diego Saturday afternoon. :)

Summer of 2013 while on an expedition in Greenland, I lost a friend and I lost a love, Annie Rooney and Andrew Barnes.
I spent the remainder of that year distracting myself with climbing and traveling.  I dove into the Bugaboos, the desert and journeyed to the far away Torres Valley in Southern Patagonia for the first time.  I put up first ascents, I ran a few triathlons and even managed to make it to the summit of Fitz Roy.  I thought if I exerted myself physically it would quite the chatter in the mind, the tears in my eyes and the heaviness in my heart.  It seemed to work.

After spreading Andrews ashes and giving a little summit dance on top Fitz Roy with Jens, Sam, Luke, Clay and Chad, we all made for a descent into town with plans to fill our bellies with beer and empanadas.

Chad took his last breath on that mountain, not far from the summit where we had all just been.

I returned home even more confused.  How and why did these incredible humans leave us so abruptly?  So young, capable and incredible.

I returned to Colorado but not for long.  I didn't feel settled.   I went on a road trip spring of 2014, calling it my Precious People Tour.  I visited friends and family in the west.  Some of the stops were to rock climb and visit friends in those special places, mostly single pitch shenanigans in Indian Creek and Joshua tree, Index and Skaha.  Primarily, I wanted to spend time with people that melted my heart---- past and present.  Good friends from climbing community, Andrew friends that were "family," and those friends that had nothing to do with climbing or perpetual movement.  It was special.  I cried (as I have a tendency to do).  Hugs were shared (asses were groped I am sure).  Laughs and memories illuminated campfires.  Andrew's ashes dusted deserts and pines and ocean and snowy summits.

Libby and I on a Lake Mead bike tour, Matt photo.

 I was single.  I was capable.  I thought I was sorting my heart, my desires, my intentions.  At the end of that road trip I got a call from Rocky Mountain National Park offering my dream job of a climbing ranger.  I had applied for 3 years.  Hell yes!
I took the job.  I met a man (on my trip, bathrooms of Indian Creek we joked).  I fell in love again.  My life was swelling with good things.

Things deflated.  Quickly.  Relationship.Legs.Work.Simple life.

Death and hardship affects us all differently.  It has lasting affects, usually learning through sadness results in actual learning and growth.  I ran into the mountains, I surrounded myself with people I loved.  Now, as I sit...I realize that instead of looking inward I distracted outwardly.  The title of my blog is :look up stand still breath: for god's sake.  I was trying to remind myself to slow down because I knew movement seemed to work but didn't actually allow things to sink.

Here we are now,  I have sliced through to deeper layer.  More work.  More hardship, without the ease of movement.  Its mind-boggling.  It is hard.  I know I will get there.  I know it takes time.

I write all this because five years have past.  I think about Andrew, Chad, Lara, Annie, Tim, Jason, Marc, Ryan, Hayden, Inge, Neils, Jonny, Micah, Bean, Kyle, Scott, Carlyle, David, Bernadette, Alina, Anna, Quinn...... (so many more).  Lives have ended.  Health has changed.  I am on the road again, in the same westward direction visiting many of some of the same folks.  Instead of climbing and running through the land, I am more of an observer.  Different lens, same motivations.  To see the world, to heal the heart, to give and receive love.  I know our learning and growth is slow, contingent upon experience and sometimes there is just a way to the world out of our control but how can I do better?  How can I listen, learn and grow without attachment or judgment?  Who was I before and what are my expectations of myself or others that this is so challenging? 

Maybe you are already there?

all tow, no hands.  Power assist for the steep uphills and speed checking Matt on the downhills.