The gift of being a burden

 A few days ago, I gave birth to my second child, who I carried in my body for nine long months. The bigger she got, the more of a burden she became (mostly on my hips!). Now that she’s out in the world, she’ll continue to be a burden to many areas of my life for decades to come: physically, mentally, financially, emotionally, spiritually… etc.

Yesterday my precious newborn had a bit of a health scare and we rushed her to the ER. Fortunately, she was perfectly fine, but for awhile I was hysterical and terrified that she was not. In the big unknown of what was going on with her (was she deathly ill or were her unusual symptoms completely innocuous?), the question couldn’t help but slip into my mind: what if I have to live my life without my daughter? That possibility filled me with panic and dread. I instinctively knew that her death would devastate me to the point where my life would be turned completely upside-down. And I thought, how strange is that, that someone I just met and who has caused me so much physical pain, can have such a tremendous impact on me? She is absolutely a burden and yet undeniably and unswervingly worth it to me. 

So today when I saw a social media post meant to inspire the reader about how “you’re not a burden!,” I actually found it grating. I’m a burden. You’re a burden. We’re all burdens to the people in our lives and the planet we live in. But our souls are so precious that we’re worth it all. Worth so much that the king of the universe would lay down his life for us. What a burden! What a sacrifice! But he made that choice and he’d make it again because We. Are. Worth it. 

Put another way, I found my backpacking trip (now nearly ten years ago!) to be one of the most difficult and rewarding experiences of my life. I didn’t have the resources or knowledge to make my pack ultra-lite as many backpackers try to do, so my pack was fairly heavy. In it was food, clothes, toilet paper, tent components (the various components were split among members of my group), and my sleeping bag. It was a literal burden I carried on my back for many miles. But I absolutely wouldn’t have discarded any of those items because they were absolutely worth having for both my comfort and survival.  

I feel as a mental health counselor, I shouldn’t be telling people that they are burdens. It feels like that would be a damaging thing to say. But for those who feel like a burden, slapping false positivity on them and denying what they inherently know to be true just isn’t helpful. What is more helpful and honest would be to say, “yes, you are. But you’re a burden worth carrying. “

SDG. 

Home is Where the Heart Is

Just over two years ago, very shortly after moving across the country with no home and no job and no solid plan, I wrote the poem Finding Home. Several years previously, when I was still in college, I remember saying to a friend that I wasn't going to use the word "home" anymore, since no matter where I lived, I'd be only a temporary resident; a foreigner on planet Earth. Removing "home" from my vocabulary only lasted about a week, but I admire my younger self's efforts at preserving the integrity of the concept of home. It's funny how I have played with the idea of "home" over the years. I still do.

Now I'm a newlywed (and loving it!), sharing a bed and a home with a man for the first time. Home is redefining itself for me once again.

Evan and I enjoyed tropical paradise for our Hawaiian honeymoon. It was divine. We thoroughly enjoyed the mountains, the plants, the fowl, the beaches, the weather, the waterfalls, the food, the culture, the novelty of being married, the luxurious resort, and most of all, being completely alone together for a whole week.

Sharing shaved ice. More than just a snow cone.

Lexi told me before we left that I once I was there I wouldn't want to come back. I told her that's what I was afraid of, then joked about the possibility of just...never coming back. So when Evan tried to joke and daydream with me during our trip about moving to Hawaii, I surprised myself with my lack of enthusiasm for the idea. I wasn't even interested. I shut down his imaginings with logic, saying things like, "It's too expensive here," and "We'd be too isolated." He always admitted that realistically I was probably right but I think I frustrated him a little by not at least indulging him in fantasizing about building our lives together in a jungle wonderland.

Staff at the resort apologized to us that we wouldn't have a view of the beach from our suite. 

This is the view we got. No complaints. At all.

I surprised myself again when we were returning home. As Evan's parents drove us home from the airport and I gazed out the window at the dusty, dry bluffs the flew past us, I felt so nostalgic and happy to be home. Home? Is this home now? I've only lived here for two years. Can it be? True, I'm more emotional when I'm sleep-deprived (as I certainly was that day), but I couldn't deny the contentedness I felt at returning to familiar landscapes and familiar people.

I was talking to Lexi about this whole idea on our first hike together upon my return. How could I be disenchanted by a place as (admittedly) spectacular as Hawaii while still holding places like Jamaica (higher crime) and Alaska (colder) so near to my heart?

Only one answer makes sense to me: people.

And all this time I thought I was drawn most to nature; God's beauty.
Lexi and I moved out here for the mountains two years ago.
My heart is still very near to the mountains, sea, and glaciers in Alaska.
Every day in Hawaii we were stunned by spectacular views.
I feel very close to God when I am still in Creation, experiencing all that he has made for his beloved children, for me.

So why didn't Hawaii capture my heart and refuse to release it? Why don't I have a new obsession for it? I was right that I am initially drawn to landscapes, but what keeps me is the people.

I loved Jamaica because of the relationships I created and built while I was there. I talked to several dozen Jamaicans about the most intimate parts of their lives, so while I only spent a week there (the same amount of time I spent in Hawaii), years later, I long to visit. I loved Alaska for the same reasons, only more so. And I was content to come home from my honeymoon because that's where many of my friends and (new) family live. Of course it makes sense, but it really caught me off-guard.

The phrase, "home is where the heart is," is almost 2,000 years old. My heart is spread across multiple states and cities. The number of places I can lay my head and feel at home is growing, but I'm also very happy to stay right here.


S.D.G.

Workout Money

There are now less than twelve weeks until my wedding and my plans to work out three times a week have basically failed due to lack of motivation. It's just really hard to get my butt out of my warm bed in the morning and go running in below-freezing temperatures. In those moments, it's easier to just resign to being fat.

Not that I consider myself fat. I just would like to trim up a little before the big day(/night). I was talking to Lexi about it at length, about my frustration with being unmotivated. She made all kinds of suggestions about what I could do to motivate myself, but the only thing that I know has consistently worked for me historically has been having someone to work out with.

The problem is no one, including my fiancé and roommates, have a similar enough schedule to me that they could work out with me. I'm in this alone.

(By the way, I'm focusing more on working out than changing my diet since I think that's where I'm lacking more at the moment. Also there's a much smaller chance of me even being able to pull off drastically changing my diet right now considering the absurdity of my schedule. The only diet plan I have is a vague goal to drink more water.)

Then Lexi made a brilliant suggestion, and I think it just might work. She said I should "pay" myself every time I work out and then spend the money on something special for my honeymoon.

I was instantly excited about working out again. Here's the specific plan I came up with:

Earn $10/hour for heavier workouts (such as running, doing Jazzercise, or lifting weights)
Earn $5/hour for lighter workouts (such as hiking)

My goal is to earn $15/week total, whether by doing three 30-minute heavy workouts, three hours of hiking, or anything in between. At that rate, in twelve weeks I should be able to earn $180 to spend on something fun on my honeymoon. I think it should be something rewarding that we can both enjoy, and Evan thinks it should be something that would encourage me to stay active. Hopefully we can think of something that meets both our criteria. He suggested a pretty dress that might normally run small on me (so I'd be motivated to continue to fit into it).

 I think it's important to be strict on what I'm earning money for. Whatever I choose to buy, if I don't work for the money, I don't get the thing. I simply won't have the money in the funds for it, even if I technically have money in the bank. If I don't follow this rule, I won't work as hard.

This has been the first week of my "working" for myself and it has gone very well. I've already earned $25, mostly from hiking. I think so far I'm pushing myself to get out and moving more than I normally would.

Of course, my goal is still to earn $15 a week, so even though I earned $25 this week doesn't mean I get a pass next week and only have to do one 30-minute workout for $5 the whole week. My numbers drop back to zero each Sunday, so I will have to keep pushing myself.

The reasons I'm telling everyone this are 1) so that I can be held accountable to more people, 2) because I'm excited about this, and 3) because I think it's a brilliant idea (thanks, Lexi) and hope maybe someone else can find motivation the same or similar way.


God bless.

Dollhouse

I recognize and apologize that I've been so MIA. I'm not sure if anyone really missed me but here I am. I'm back. I'm still alive. To be honest, it hasn't just been my blog, it's been all of social media that I've been pretty absent from, and even a good chunk of my actual social life.

I started graduate school in January and am still working full time, so needless to say I've been busy being a grown-up and haven't had as much time to spare for fun stuff like blogging. Or hiking. And since I live next to beautiful mountains now, hiking usually wins out against sitting inside typing away, which I'm doing plenty of for school already.

But this morning I'm chilling in my pajamas and slippers, sipping coffee and munching scrambled eggs. It's a good morning for blogging.

ANYWAY.

In Sunday school a few days ago we talked about The Fall. In case you're not familiar, the Fall is the part of the Bible where God created the world and then the humans ate the forbidden fruit and ruined it for everything and now we live in a rotten universe because of it. You'll hear all about it in Genesis 3.

So for someone who grew up in church, I'm familiar with the Fall and I'm no stranger to the pain and suffering of the world. Nobody is. We've all suffered, simply because we're all part of the post-Fall universe.

But what I hadn't thought about as much was how so many people react to the Fall: they pretend like it's not real, or at least they try to. They make blanket forts in their rooms and take their little dolls and create their own tiny universe that the "bad" stuff can't get into.

I was surprised when my mind went to the home magazines I'd seen recently. (At work during rec therapy I need to watch the patients but can't really get anything else done at that time so I often sit and skim the magazines they have available.) Some of the magazines are more for the laywoman, with DIYs and decorating tips. Some of them are far more upscale, with thicker pages displaying photos of elaborate living rooms  and classy-looking dining rooms and mansion-cabins on a mountainside and the occasional ad for a six karat diamond necklace.

To be completely honest, I love looking at those thick-paged upscale home magazines. Even the writing in them is more luxurious. Reading them, I can be transported into a fantasy world of wealth and glamor and perfection. If I lived in a home like that, nothing could touch me. 

But when I step back and think about the people that live in those homes, and how many hours they cleaned (or hired someone to clean) that kitchen until it was spotless, or took great care to arrange the vase of fresh flowers and that little pile of books on the marble coffee table, all because they knew the photographer was coming tomorrow, I have to face the truth that even these beautiful homes probably look lived-in most of the time.

And then I think about how these homeowners got their five minutes of fame for being in a fancy magazine and maybe they feel a little self-congratulatory about how well they played off their glamorous dollhouse under the blanket fort, as if their world is perfect and protected.

Of course, it's not just with homes that people do this. Middle-class people who don't have that kind of money have to fake it in other ways, by portraying a perfect social life or a perfect family or a perfect job or you name it.

One thing I've noticed, though, from working with people in the lower class, including some homeless people, is that none of them are under any illusions that their world is or could be perfect. They are forced to face the fact that they are poor, struggling, and hurting. Some of them may imagine a more perfect world if they had more money, but many of them are wise enough to scoff at that ideology. They know what the Fall looks like first-hand and they know that it touches everybody.

I guess I'm okay with what church people call "pushing back the effects of the Fall," i.e. doing good and showing kindness to make this world a little better and a little brighter. We can't undo the evil that we've all been plagued with, but we're promised total redemption through Jesus someday, so I don't think a little temporary redemption through our feeble efforts is in vain.

What I'm not okay with is selfish pretending. I'm not trying to call out the rich folks of course. I myself am often tempted to believe that if only I had [blank], everything would be better and I wouldn't have to worry anymore.

It helps that I am faced every day through my work with the brutal truth of suffering. But where is the balance between total despair and covering my eyes and ears screaming LA LA LA EVERYTHING IS PERFECT!

Where is the in-between that fully recognizes the Fall but realistically asks, what can we do to help?

I'm searching for that place.


God bless.

The Dream

Her florescent cubicle
Illuminates the dark circles
Under her eyes and she feels
Her blood pulsing slowly
And steadily through
Her limbs.
She rests her chin
On the palm of her hand,
Fingers curled in,
And blinks methodically
As she turns her gaze
To the blue sky
Out the window
Which has sparse clouds
Drifting through
That blue nothingness.

After work, she drives
In her sedan
To the junkyard and finds
An old van
With beige curtains,
An old man
With beige clothes
Who has a history
Of mechanics and he offers
To help her
Get it up and ready
For the road.

For two months,
While her van reaches
Its new prime,
She collects stones and bones
And a friend with dreads
Who recently became homeless
With a duffel bag full
Of the oddest things:
A cassette player, a Bible,
A tennis ball, an unopened
Package of incense,
Three keys, a jar full
Of what she says are frog eyes,
A smoky fedora, five smelly tie-dye socks,
And a blue ukulele
That rattles inside.

She and her friend set off.
They go west, due west.
With the stones and bones
She makes rings and earrings,
Five dollars apiece.
They sleep in beds
In the van
And camp off the grid
Cooking over fires
They make in random fields
Laughing and reading poetry,
And when the stars came out,
They'd sing,
She with her husky alto,
The friend with her sweet soprano,
And the rattled ukulele notes
Drifting up toward
A dark heaven.

They travelled like this
And found secret treasures
In the land:
Waterfalls, canyons,
Bluffs, foxes,
Caves and creeks.
Every Sunday they left
The van on foot
And found a hike
With no trail or a tree
To climb
Or a little oasis to jump
Into with no clothes.

On a roadside in the rockies,
They found a small brown dog
With big brown eyes,
A collar with no tags,
And a ribcage that showed
Some of the nature
Of his life's struggle.
They named him Summit
For his power and obscurity
And he followed at their heels
And licked their faces
And she loved him
And he loved her.

Dying clothes with plants
Harvested off the grid
And eating salads of the same,
Meeting strangers on the run,
And seeing hundreds of sagging
Old buildings in small towns,
Was just beginning to become
A little hum-drum
When they were at a gas station
That smelled like cow poop
And cigar smoke
And she happened to look up
To see sitting on the curb
A man
Eating a sandwich and drinking
A bottled iced tea
With khaki pants with holes
In the knees and a brown
Bushy beard
And a tan nose
And mayonnaise in his mustache
And a blue bike on his right
And a large green backpack
On his left.

She watched as he pulled
A book out of the top
Of his large green backpack
And start reading, amazingly,
The Little Prince.
She walked up and asked him
What part he was at.
"How to tame a wild fox,"
He looked up at her
And grinned,
Licking the mayonnaise
Off his mustache.
"Where are you going?"
She asked.
"Everywhere I can,
Seeing as many things
And meeting as many people
As I can
On this big beautiful continent."
"Join us for a stretch"
She invited,
And he did.
And she
And the friend
And the dog
And the man
Ate meals cooked over fires
And sang songs under stars
And went exploring on Sundays
For a few weeks.

He said,
"It's been nice riding along
But my bike misses the road
And I miss the wind."
And she turned her face away
When a tear rolled down her cheek
When she said goodbye.

Three months later
The friend told her
About being accepted
Into the peace corps
And she'd be leaving for Morocco
In a few short weeks.

She dealt with the losses
By taking Summit
And changing directions
From west to north
And driving past mountain lakes
And driving through gray
Summer rains
And singing songs
A cappella from inside
The van and Summit
Just looked at her with his
Big brown eyes.
And on Sundays she usually
Climbed a tree
Or hung her feet off a rock
Or hiked through the rain
Getting wet and muddy
And rarely seeing
Another human face.

Finding temporary refuge
In a small town in Alaska
With mostly natives
And a few whites
She bought jade for her trade.
There she went hunting
For salmonberries and chanterelle,
Dandelion and chickweed,
When she spotted a broad back
And brown hair
Hunched over
Sitting on a rock
Which had a blue bike
Leaning against it.
Summit barked and ran
In that direction
And the man with the brown beard
And tan nose
Turned away from his book
Toward her
And beamed.

Their travels didn't last much longer;
Neither did their loneliness.
He build a small home out of cedar
In a forest of spruce
Next to a mossy creek
Where Summit could roam
And he carried her over the threshhold
And for fifty more years
He played his guitar
And they went out under the stars
And sang in harmony
Her in her husky alto,
Him with his sweet baritone,
Laughing and reading poetry.

After all this,
She blinked again
and turned her eyes
With dark circles underneath
Away from the window
And back to the florescent cubicle
To make another buck.


God bless.

To be still with you

In solitude,
In quiet stillness,
I long for a companion:
you.

To sit in socks
Across the room
With separate books
And occasional glances.

A cup of tea,
My feet in your lap,
Wordless,
Content.

This is my eveningdream.

But then you're here
And the quiver in my heart,
The tingle up my spine
Compel me, rather, to leap
Into your arms.

In joy of you, I play.
I tickle, I joke.
You grin at my youthfulness.

And our laughter is anything
But quiet
Or still.

Thank you
For the wildness
You awaken in me.


God bless.

"Solo" Backpacking

I did my first "solo" backpacking trip this week. I put "solo" in quotations because I was a solo human, but I did have a partner: Lexi's 8-month-old golden doodle puppy, Juneau.

Juneau and me at the trailhead

The trailhead

I was planning to be gone for two nights but only ended up staying for one. I was hiking in a location I'd never been to before and I wasn't sure what the landscape would be like, although I did know that the weather would be warmer and sunnier than where I live. I guess I should have done more research.

Getting some sun felt amazing. As you can see, the trail is pretty wide-open and there wasn't a lot of shade. A jumble of trails near the trailhead made navigating difficult for me at first (as I am not great with directions and when backpacking with other people I am usually not the one in charge of the map). When I couldn't find one of the main trails I was looking for, I had to find an alternative route.

Happy hiker

From there, the trail steepened and narrowed and I started to feel my body's inadequacy. I had to pause to catch my breath a few times on some of the uphills and Juneau would always turn back and look at me like, Why are we stopping?

However, I was rewarded multiple times with stunning views.

Looking back on the hill I had just hiked up

I am smitten by the snow-capped rockies in the distance.

Glad I'm only at 7-8,000 feet in elevation! No 14ers for me (yet).

The snow glows in the sunshine.

Just thought this was a neat-looking hill

Because our location was, as it turns out, pretty desert-like in climate, there were lots of cacti hanging around, one dead piece of which Juneau stepped on. He paused to pull it out of his foot with his teeth and then started walking again, limping. I sat down and tried to get him to sit next to me or on my lap so that I could pull out the remaining spikes. After pulling one out, he would have no more. A few minutes later, we started walking again and he stopped limping so I figured, oh well. That was, thankfully, the only injury either of us suffered.

The trail widened and leveled out again and the sun was getting low. However, none of the creeks promised on my map had made themselves known; in fact, everything I saw that looked like a creek bed was dry as a bone. For being so early in the summer, I was surprised that there would be so little water. I didn't have enough to last me two nights or really even one, as I had been counting on being able to find some in the alleged creeks in the area.

The low sun made me nervous about having enough time to set up camp, so when I got to a fork in the trail, I climbed a hill in between the "tongs" of the fork, hoping to look down and spot some water. The trees blocked my view, but there was a wonderful camping spot up on that hill so I decided to just park it for the night and then figure out what to do the next day.

My body was ill-prepared for the hiking and weight-bearing required for backpacking, but I have all the skills and knowledge necessary, so I was pretty pleased with myself that I was able to set up camp and cook dinner over a fire with no issues. Juneau was wonderfully well-behaved and occupied himself with a jawbone he found.

It was pretty brittle and made a nasty crunching sound when he chewed it.

The sun was down and I had run out of things to do to keep busy. I lamented being "alone" and having no one to talk to. Contemplating this, I decided that I didn't really care for solo backpacking. It gives me a nice sense of autonomy and self-accomplishment, but I am too much of an extravert and need someone to talk to (who talks back). I settled down next to the fire with my bum in the dirt and started reading "Jacob have I loved."

When it was about 9 or 9:30 it was too dark for me to continue reading even with the light from the fire so I went to bed. I saved a little bit of water for both of us to drink in the morning, but I was almost out. I brought my ENO hammock instead of a tent and tried out the new 15-grade sleeping bag Evan got me for Christmas.

Meanwhile, Juneau was attached with a long cord and harness to one of the trees my ENO was strapped to. Lexi had prophesied that he probably wouldn't sleep much nor even want to lie down on the ground because of his aversion to being dirty. She was right about him not sleeping. I had trouble sleeping simply because I was in a hammock and unable to sleep on my belly, but Juneau was busy playing watchdog all through the night.

I frequently heard him growling and even barking, sometimes from right under my hammock, at things I could or couldn't hear. I was terrified of a mountain lion smelling our food and coming into camp. With mountain lions, you're supposed to make yourself look big and talk to it in a low, firm voice. If Juneau saw one, I was sure he'd foil my attempts to ward it off by barking and possibly attacking, which would result in both of our deaths, so I was a little freaked out. I never saw or heard any humans or animals larger than a bird the entire time, though.

I had heated some rocks around the fire so when it came time to go to bed, I put them under my hammock to keep me warm. It worked pretty well for a couple hours. Here's a video on using hot rocks if you're interested.

At some point, shivering in my sleeping bag, I peeked out and realized it was morning. I sat up and saw this:

Juneau had gotten tangled around a cactus bush and, lacking the logic to get himself untangled, he nevertheless used problem-solving skills and Houdini-ed his way out of his harness. Turning to look for him, I saw him in the near distance looking at me stock-still with his head cocked. I called him and he ran over as fast as he could and proceeded jumping on my hammock and biting me.

When I was able to keep Juneau off of me long enough to get out of my sleeping bag and put on my shoes, I gave him breakfast and we finished the little bit of water we had left. I had decided that without any water and no guarantee that there would be water further up the trail, the safest and smartest thing to do would simply be to head home. We packed up and were on the trail by about 6:45 a.m., going a different way than how we had come in.

The view from my campsite at sunrise. 

Camera batteries died so this was taken with my phone.

On our way out, we passed a tiny flowing creek and I was able to get some water for the rest of the hike. It was so tiny that I could see both where it started and ended from one spot. My mind had been made up about going home so I didn't consider getting water from it and then turning around and camping somewhere, nor did I consider camping by the creek as it was so tiny and only about 8:00 in the morning when we found it. I don't know what I would have done all day just sitting there. Napped, I guess. Juneau was too thirsty to wait for me to filter water for him and he drank heartily directly from the stream. He seems to be suffering no ill effects.

I reached my car at about 9:20 and was home by around 11. I'm disappointed by the pseudo-failure of my trip, but I learned from the experience. My body was pretty sore the next day (yesterday), so I'm also glad I didn't push my body to do more than I was really prepared to do. Still, I hope I can go out again soon, next time with a (human) friend.

God bless.