A New York Kind of Time

This week I am visiting New York city with a friend who I met during my travels in Spain. We both celebrate our birthdays this upcoming week and ironically have a lot to celebrate as separate people. Once deciding to embark on this trip I ran into the indisputable fact that I know a lot of people in the area. This week is now a week for me to see 7 people that I have met over the past 10 years and through varying times in my life. What a place to meet, at such an exciting time!

The bustle of New York shuffles me along, me following happily along. However I find my own corners to tuck myself away from the business and get the solitude and peace that I search for to reflect, absorb, and digest. If not New York would probably wash me along with it, ha.

Today I went to the Metropolitan Museum and was able to travel back centuries in time across the globe. The art inspired me and gave me a new prospective on New York. This really is a hub of culture, dating back hundreds of years. While taking in just 3 of the exhibits in the mountain of art I journaled this piece:

"The beauty of the paintings speak volumes of the detail of the artist's eye, the eye of the mind. To be able to rotate, scale, light or maximize a depiction of real life takes the viewer to a whole new world. An artist's mind is something to make one stop and consider how we each see life as it passes us by. We should see more beauty. More irony. More juxtapositions created by the placement of our life, and this the world.

Perhaps this is how we can save our planet: taking an artist's view of life and making it a reality of society's mindset. To hold the same awe inspiring beauty but within every waking moment, every footstep and every decision made.

Is not our lives but the illustration of our internal eyesight? Our emotions, our viewpoints, our inner voice coloring what we see. Is not what we see but a representation of ourselves?

Inspired by the beauty of a brushstroke to bring out the beauty within each soul radiating out into the view point of the world. Our world. Our brushstrokes of passion."

So as we all continue in our lives remember how your brushstrokes impact the bigger picture laid inside that glided frame, setting a canvas of the world...

Sweat: My Gliding Compass

Sweat pours in rivers down my face, blinding my eyes from the image reflecting back to me through the candle-lit mirror. My fellow students surrounding me flow from one intricately designed pose to another, sinking deeper into their inner beauty with each new twist of the body. I chant my mantra inside my head, blinding the pain with the mission of that days output. With each move I grow, expand and fill the empty holes within and without of myself. Sweat is the truth. Sweat is what I now yearn to see gliding down my body. Sweat is my enlightenment shining forth from my body.

Once upon a time I hated to sweat. What young female doesn't hate to sweat profusely in public? The first fews days of hot yoga I was ashamed of my sweat, of the rivets of water rolling down my body, soaking my clothing. Now sweat is benevolent. Watching myself and my fellow students sweating in each pose is satisfying. There is glory in that sweat. I earned that sweat. We earned that sweat stain.

I have just begun this journey of learning the depth and vitality engrained in the practice of yoga. I struggle with each 90 minute class. My practice's intention always begins with, “I will make it through this class” then followed by 1-2 simple words that define my mantra for those 90 minutes of spiritual and physical blended healing. Sometimes it is as simple as, “love” or “release” or “flow”, other times it is to simply smile and enjoy the moments I am hating the most. But at the end of every class no matter if I have cried that day, smiled and laughed, or just barely made it through I know I will be coming back for more.

This onset of a path I have just only begun is strewn with rewards and beauty along the way. I am content to walk this path and patiently find where it will take me, with sweat as my gliding compass. 

Top 10 Worst Experiences While Traveling

Top 10 Worst Experiences While Traveling

 It seems that some of the worst memories make the best stories to retell later, I wonder why? ;)

1. Early one morning while camping along the river in Nicaragua I ironically find the only cloud of mosquitos while in search of a nice quiet poop spot away from camp. Running away I jump a fence to take that long-awaited poop, where I land in a pile of cow manure. I lost both chacos and my only set of clean clothes to the knee-deep pile of muck. Throwing my shoes over the fence I helplessly dig a hole behind the next available tree, the width of my wrist, and relieve my bowels. Looking up to finally enjoy my poop and the river view in front of me, an entire dug-out canoe of Nicaraguan men are watching me empty myself into my shallow hole. “Buenos dias” is all I can say.
   
   

   

   Courtesy of Natalie Gillis

2. This story is also during the same time in Nicaragua as the story above. I was kayaking through Nicaragua on a tandem blow-up kayak with all of my gear, a partner who disliked paddling (especially upstream) and a week's worth of food, when we pulled over for the evening. We had been paddling hard all day and made good time to stop early. Getting out we set up camp quickly and began to prepare our dinner. In the middle of dinner the entire air filled with mosquitos. You could not escape them! With each breath I drew in at least 5-10 mosquitos, which came into my nose, mouth and lungs. No amount of deet or even netting itself was stopping these monsters! Abandoning dinner we all ran to our tents to escape the masses of mosquitos. Diving in with 20-35 of the beasts riding us in we zipped ourselves in. Where we then consisted to stay awake through the early evening into the night being eaten alive by the mosquitos that were inside our own tents. Did I mention the high humidity and high heat? Being eaten and sweating to death – there was no sleep that night.
   
   

   

   Courtesy of Natalie Gillis

   
   
3. I was traveling through Spain on an overnight bus from Madrid to Granada. Lucky me I was only incredibly hung over. After traveling and sleeping very little on this bus, I arrived at my destination where I was meeting a friend on study from the states. I supposedly was suppose to stay with my friend's friend in said friend's apartment. It being 6AM in the morning and no one awake on a Saturday morning in the city, we stopped at a cafe and got churros con chocolate with espresso shots a piece. Waiting patiently for his friend to wake up we stayed at the cafe for an hour or so. We walked across the city, me carrying my weighed down 50 liter backpack, over what seemed like '5 miles' to arrive at said friend's apartment. Knocking for over 15 – 20 minutes the neighbors seemed to get annoyed. My friend and I found a park at the end of the street where I laid my pack down and promptly fell asleep leaning against my pack. In the process of sleeping for 20 minutes it started to rain, I did not even wake up. At the end of my nap we both agreed that sleeping in this park was not a good idea. Arriving at a hostel down the street, or several – who knows at this exhausted point? - He dropped me off at the threshold. Saved! Or so I thought. I walked into the hostel and then proceeded to have to wait 3 hours for check-in time. Those couches were tiny and very bony indeed.

From the rooftop of that hostel in Granada.

4. Hiking down switchbacks at the end of the day, along the almost top of a ridge with two friends; the side of the trail disappeared. Along with the trail went the entire lower half of my body. I was holding onto the side of this switchback with one knee and a hand clutching a dried clump of grass. Strapped to my back was a 45 pound backpack filled with gear, water and food for two days. As the grass began to tear out of the dried dirt, I began to lose ground when my friend grabbed my backpack and pulled me up along side of him on the trail. Looking down I would have fallen 20 or so feet to the switchback below me: a fall I would not have liked to take.
   
   

   

   Courtesy of Jack Becker
   See that ridge in front of the mountain, yeah that's where I fell.

   
   
5. I was solo backpacking on my spring break junior year of my undergraduate career. I had decided to take a 3 day trip along the Florida Scenic Trail. Not doing my research properly, I came at the time that it was boar hunting season. Also not being an experienced solo backpacker I packed a leaky drum of water for two days of hiking with no water source. At the trail head, where my friend was dropping me off, a hunter handed me an orange vest and said, “Good luck.” Taking this in stride I began my hike with high spirits. After hiking 5 miles in one day, I reached my campsite at dusk. Eating a cold dinner I began to set up my hammock for the night, my hunter green hammock. Looking at my pack I realized that my drum had proceed to leak all of it's water throughout my entire backpack. Not only was I out of water but all of my food was soaked as well. After feeling sorry for myself for a few hours, I crawled into my hammock with a headlamp and a good book. Never having tested my hammock out in temperatures below 80 degrees I froze in the 60 degree night. Laying awake frozen around 1AM, while reading my book, I heard coyotes circling my hammock. My food, which was hanging in the same tree as my hammock, was what they were after. Anxiously waiting 4 hours for them to leave, I fell into a doze at daybreak where I was violently woken by a gunshot 20 feet from my hammock. The hunters in the dim light could not make out my hammock in the foliage. They were shooting a boar across the clearing I was camping in! Need-less-to-say I hiked out that day with a water bottle of collected and treated water I had captured in the mid-morning rain fall.
   
   

   

   Not a picture from this trip but it has a tent in it!

   
   
6. During my semester abroad in Costa Rica we spent two weeks learning to white water kayak. We were staying at a family's home, sleeping on our thermarests along their covered porch. Our first morning at the family's house we were given a dozen beautifully fresh eggs. We all made fried egg sandwiches and headed out to the river. Later that evening as we were all settling down for the night, all of us began to vomit and have excessive diarrhea. This lasted for the entire time of our stay. Being the type of outdoor people we thought we were, we all would go to the river and learn how to white water kayak and come home every night to lay in pain on our thermarests. Some of the memories that stick out the most during these hazy weeks were: Watching chickens eat our vomit alongside the porch we were sleeping on, running out of toilet paper at the house and the local store and having to rip pieces of paper out of magazines and later books to wipe ourselves with, and finally kayaking through a class III rapid for the first time ever and making it through soundlessly to then only lean over and profusely vomit. This memory was surreal even afterwards when we were telling other students  our stories. It became oddly real when after the course, receiving a facebook message from a fellow classmate who was quarantined for two weeks in a hospital in Canada, due to the rare parasite found in her intestines.
   
   

   

   Before the vomiting set in.

   
   
7. I was leading a climbing trip incoordination with the climbing club during my time as a graduate assistant. Myself and a few friends had decided to camp that night and then climb the following day. After leading and top roping several routes, even some slab, all morning; I began to lead a 5.6 route. I was clipping onto the nut with my draw, a full bodies length above the nut, when I fell. I fell two whole nuts down. On the way down I hit an overhang (what a bitch to get over) and smashed down on my left ankle with all of my body weight. Swinging far out after hitting the overhang, I came barreling back in smacking myself face-first into the wall. I was blind, my glasses had flung off my face during the crash, in pain, and dazed. I was slowly lowered and assessed. Oh yeah, did I mention I hiked out of the gorge that day as well?
   
   

   

   One of the routes I climbed earlier that day.

   
   
   
   
8. In my last two semesters in my undergrad I was the intern for the Outdoor Recreation program. I was co-leading a manatee snorkel trip in FL with my boss. We had everything good to go and rolled into our campsite the first night with just enough time to set up camp and make dinner before the sun set. Upon arriving at our campsite one of our students proclaims, “We are camping?!? I thought we were staying in a hotel!” This student had not brought any of the proper gear to camp. After unpacking the van, setting up camp, and beginning dinner I walk to my hammock to find my sleeping bag missing. After scoping the tents I find it, thinking someone had accidentally taken it for theirs. The student who had earlier proclaimed the distress at camping had forgotten her sleeping bag. My boss gave up her own sleeping bag and slept with 4 wetsuits surrounding her as blankets throughout both frigid nights.
   
   

   

   Sunset that night.

   
   
   
   
9. Deciding to go on a bike-bar on a crawl through Portland was a great idea, at the start. We started mid afternoon, with the intent to have plenty of time to get sober and drive home afterwards. After biking through the business district of Portland and drinking large quantities of bourbon and beer, with little to no food in our systems, we begin to walk 5 miles to the only place we could not stop thinking about: Voodoo Donuts. We finally arrived, ordered donuts (after waiting in line for over 25 minutes), and sat down with 2 donuts a piece. Being incredibly intoxicated, we decided to fill our nalgenes with boxed wine instead of water. A women walks out of Voodoo with an entire bucket, BUCKET, of donuts. After applauding and excessively commenting about this bucket of donuts she decides to give us the whole bucket of donuts. We were in donut heaven! Acting like the donut gods we thought we were, we began to hand out donuts to anyone and everyone. The business man sitting at the table next to us, the cashier at Voodoo donuts, homeless walking by, and even the man with the bicycle cart. After giving out all of our donuts, and eating many ourselves, we proceeded to hop from bar to bar getting kicked out for being far too drunk. I am pretty sure we hit on a cook through an open window that night, gave our numbers out to a bouncer and was serenaded by the homeless we were giving donuts to. Giving up we walked back to our car, sobering up along the way, to find that one of the tires of the car had deflated. We rolled up to a gas station, filled the tire, and headed to the house we were couchsurfing at in Vancouver. Best memory of that night: my friend hanging herself out of the window of the car as my other friend holds the back of her jacket from the back seat, while speeding down the highway yelling, “I am going to see if the tire is still inflated.”
   
   

   

   A random parking attendant took this picture.

   
   
   
   
10. Driving up the side of a mountain to a secluded lake in a borrowed car, filled to the brim with gear and people, I realize that the gas light has gone on. Making the announcement we then determine we can make it to the top of the mountain and then have our friends follow us down after spending some time at the lake. Making it to the top we parked and began the 2.5 mile hike up switchbacks to this "lake down the road".  After spending the entire afternoon hanging out by the beautiful lake, cliff jumping and playing guitar we hiked out. Our friends drove down before us and I put the car in neutral. Driving down this single track dirt road and cruising as fast as I could down the side of a mountain and straight into the gas station, the whole time on neutral. Whoo what a ride!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    

    See how full the car is???

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

South Shore Living

Wow what an amazing weekend, no what an amazingly epic month.

It all began when the PCT crew (Kelly's crew) rolled in honking their horns. We decided to spend July 4th the right way with a slackline, guitar playing (yes I am currently learning how to play), picnic, lake swimming and general festivities with beer on stunning Tahoe Lake on Chimney Beach. 

I left on a bus a few days later up to Donner Lake where I got to work with the Girl Scouts of Northern California on several volunteer service projects this month, in a beautiful place, with some old friends. I spent my days hiking, swimming, working hard and my nights playing guitar, hiking, swimming, giggling and staring at the beauty of the Milky Way.

Driving back to base with some of my girls, you know who, we spent 2 days driving to secluded beaches (Agora and Fallen Leaf Lake), hiking on some wicked switchbacks and tearing the town up.

These past couple of days I have been kicking it with some trail crew friends scaling waterfalls, hiking up switchbacks to more secluded lakes where catching fish for dinner is a must, sailing on Lake Tahoe during the sunset on a sailboat, cycling to sunsets on the beach and cooking huge ass meals to satisfy the belly after such adventures. 

Today is a day to catch up on some errands, daily attendings and rest. Tomorrow I start my 2-3 day cycle adventure around the 72 mile Lake Tahoe. Next week I head back out to Soda Springs to complete my 4th Volunteer Service Project and then the following week I head to Santa Cruz to go on a month long project in Yosemite. How much better can my life truly get right now?

Bike Week & Last Week of Santa Cruz

So here I am with only a few days left here in Santa Cruz, CA. I am being relocated to Tahoe for the summer months. I am scheduled to work on road mitigation for two months in the eastern Sierras. I seem not to be able to get away from Mammoth and Tahoe. Gorgeous forests, ATV's, giant trees, campfires, and backpacking in amazing places is what the next couple of months hold for me.

These two months in Santa Cruz, CA have been outrageously perfect. Backpacking adventures to crystal clear rivers, mountain biking along the ocean cliffs, picnicking in giant redwoods, laughing til tears erupt from my eyes, having mind-blowing and life altering conversations, getting to know people worth getting to know and learning more about this world, trail work and myself at a rapid evolution of me. The experiences I have had the chance to experience and the people I am humbled to have met within just a short period of time is insane. I can only imagine what living in the forests of the Sierras with 30 people for two months will produce as well!

In almost a goodbye celebration for me; this week is Bike Week (actually really month) for Santa Cruz. I get to bike with other passionate cyclists, share stories, get tons of free food and gear and experience a biking side of SC that I would not have thought exists. So free breakfasts, ice cream, pizza and beer here I come!

Free breakfast from Staff of Life for Bike Week.

Hiking through the Arboretum redwoods and happened upon this hanging quote.

Natural bridges biking.

Laughing game on the beach.

Chilling by the San Lorenzo river.

West Cliff hiking near the cliff restoration project. 

Natural bridges biking.

Secret spot in SC, PVC pipe leading down the cliff creating a wind tunnel with the waves.

It was such a big wave!

Deciding What Is True

The Invitation

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Living the Redwood Dream

The first week of training has ended here in Santa Cruz. We are staying in Mount Hermon while learning about the slough, berm, upsloping and outsloping of a trail. What a beautiful place to be with such amazing young adults. They sure did a great job picking people out for this internship. Every single one of the people in my group are constantly challenging and inspiring me. The conversation we hold as a group and during one-to-one are intelligent, thought-provoking discussions. I have learned and grown so much already. Where will I be in another week? Month? Full term?

They say that there are signs directed towards you pushing, prodding and whispering you to the place you are suppose to be. I was not sure if this was it at first but there have been too many signs since this thought. I am meant to be here, with these people, doing this work.

So I lay here in a hammock writing this blog post. Tonight I go to a concert. Tomorrow is filled with beach BBQ's and sunshine. How lucky am I?

Keep Santa Cruz Weird

After rolling into Santa Cruz after being on the bus from 8AM to 12AM, rain coming down in buckets on me as I stood at the bus station and stupidly forgetting to pack food (who eats turkey sandwiches out of a vending machine? Not this girl...) I found a place to crash on a friend of a friend's couch. I fell asleep wondering if I had done the right thing: loneliness and just being outright scared of the new challenges present in front of me had sunk in...

When I woke up this morning I still had some lingering doubts and a foggy mind (no coffee yet). Ironically one of the roommate asked me to drive her to her morning class and of course I said yes! I got lost for an hour on the way home, my phone lost service (along with the ability to GPS my ass out of there) and I was still wearing my PJs when I asked a cop where I was going. What I discovered on this adventure was the hills of Santa Cruz; where people run and bike on established trails, trees drip with the morning fog, redwoods gleam in the rising sun and music streams out of the open windows as the sun begins to light up my face. So I woke up this morning feeling unsure about my decision to leave  Mammoth and my routine there and begin something brand new here. But after that car ride I began to understand why I had come here...

So why in the world did I leave my skiing season early at Mammoth, travel for over 16 hours on a bus with all of my belongings to a new city, new job, and new people? I begin my 6 month volunteer work with the AmeriCorp ACE this Sunday. I will 'donate' over 1000 hours of labor cleaning and building trails, working with the community and educating them about conservation and the trail system, and living in the woods frolicking with people just like me while being dirty. Sounds about right for me, doesn't it? Yep, that's why I am here.

Am I making money? Hell no. Am I establishing a career for myself? Nope. Am I doing something I am passionate about? Absolutely. Am I surrounding myself with people and experiences that will push me, build me and allow me to flourish? 100%.

Life comes fast, hard and sometimes absolutely unpleasant. I am not trying to sprint through my life so I can surround myself with objects and money. At the end of the day, year, my life I want to be able to rummage through my memories, scars, photos and friends and relive those years over and over and over...

To view some information about my projects and other's projects go here.

Learning How To Yard Sale Gracefully

So I have now been present in Mammoth for about two months. I have learned how to ski backwards done the bunny slopes without eating shit, and how to get down blue runs without looking like a complete fool (occasionally). The scene at Mammoth is not different from what I expected; however, it is a smidgen more intense then I had anticipated. There are three things to do in Mammoth: 1. Work, 2. Ski, 3. Drink. Two of those require being on the mountain and either moving down the mountain at fast speeds hoping I catch myself after the fall line or skiing backwards making car noises down the bunny slopes. The other happens to create an odd after effect of teaching children how to ski slightly buzzed or hungover. Or going skiing the next day and just continuing the drinking while skiing. Overall there is a lot of recovering time needed.

I have learned how to successfully ski down blue runs and tomorrow begins my attempt at snowboarding. I am excited to be able to ski and snowboard down blue runs!

Today while free skiing, outside of uniform (meaning you do not have to have perfect technique), Anna and I (another instructor) were messing around and acting like fools. Well guess who ate it hard - yes that's right, me. In the process both skis came off, poles too and I was stuck on this steep incline unsuccessfully trying to put my downhill ski back on. A man skied down, gave me some great tips and then asked if I "Needed help down the rest of the run?" I almost started laughing. This man did not know some key facts for this situation. That 1. I had eaten shit cause I was being a fool, 2. I was a ski instructor for the mountain. I kindly declined his offer and popped my other ski on. It took a lot of effort to not bust out laughing. However my ski partner Anna did not restrain herself. This pretty much made my afternoon and I began to fool around on the slopes even more. My last run I ate it 3 times, on an easy intermediate run. I just laughed the whole time. Anna was twirling in her skis down our last run while I was looking a fool screaming songs and flailing my poles around. Ahhh what a way to end your afternoon of free skiing!

Rhino ridin' with Dave McCoy's Rhino's!

The legendary Dave McCoy, what an honor to meet him!

Skiing those slopes.

Riding the lift up during a blizzard.

Woolly the mammoth and I during Christmas.

I am excited for my next adventure in the Americorps internship but I am enjoying my time here at Mammoth in the snow. Here I come tomorrow and snowboarding! Which means falling on my ass all day everyday.