Wild and Precious

Le Sigh. I've reached the end of another year feeling the same conflict as in years past. How do I appropriately celebrate all the awesome that has happened without bragging? How do I acknowledge we all have struggles without being a bummer? I guess the only thing to do is try to be brief and hope it's clear the struggle is real. We all have something we're dealing with.  The video below captures how things go pretty well: we're rappelling down the Weasel in the dark with a few snowflakes after climbing a pretty great route, getting a little lost, and watching a gorgeous sunset. Adventure is always a mixed bag of good and not-so-good.

It was an action packed year. Brent and I have fallen into the practice of going out of town most weekends, which gave us the opportunity to see our favorite places and visit entirely new locations.

Before diving into highlights from the year that has passed, some personal achievements that are un-photogenic.

• I went to the dentist and physical therapy. Going to the doctor when I'm not really sick feels like a very grown up thing to do. Like registering my car. 
• I made progress on one of my pet peeves - I worked on not saying how busy I am when people ask how I'm doing. That's not very descriptive and if I'm busy all the time it's not noteworthy.
• I have developed exceedingly strong feelings for the Oxford comma (it's completely necessary) after reading through 80+ water quality standards.
• I experience regular feelings of rebelliousness when not using two spaces after the end of my sentences. Even more so because I use one or two spaces according to whims.
• My quest to gather more hobbies continues: I now sew a little, enjoy building stuff with my power tools, like to look for fossils, and am better at kayaking.

But, of course, I took lots of pictures of the very cool things that happened this year. Below are highlights. 

• Didn't run much, but did run great stuff: the Moab Red Hot 33k and the Rim Rock Marathon

Moab Red Hot 33K

Big climb at the beginning of the Rim Rock Marathon

• Worked hard to become a bad ass mountain biker, attained some new levels of skill (bad-assery is a difficult benchmark to know), including surviving a 6-hour trail race

Finishing El Doce after 3 laps and 41 miles

Blissful riding on the Wasatch Crest

• Finally got to Costa Rica, a childhood dream of mine. Searched for bugs, snorkeled, saw volcanoes

Brent holding a tail-less whip scorpion during our nighttime bug tour in Drake Bay

Hiked through 5 miles of jungle to snorkel on an isolated beach

Listening to birds in the cloud forest

• Went on our annual backpacking trip, this time to the Sawtooth Mountains, which were spectacular

Camped and swam at this lake below the Finger of Fate

The Finger of Fate

• Dove into backcountry skiing, it's a lot more work but also quite wonderful

First time touring to Dog Lake

• My family came to the San Rafael Swell - my favorite people in my favorite place!

K's at the Wedge

Little Wild Horse Canyon with my people

Niblings learned how to stem canyons

• Solo vacation took me to Great Basin National Park, tagged Wheeler Peak

I hugged a bristle cone pine

• Built the platform for the back of my truck I've been dreaming about for years

• The book! The book! The Great Salt Lake wetland plant book is real!

• Spent more time on my road bike than I expected, rode it to the top of Big Cottonwood and around the Wellsville mountains for the 5th time.

Almost 4,000 feet of climbing done, ready for the downhill

• Sister's trip to San Diego with Brent's sisters (my sisters-in-spirit) included bonding, building terrariums, and riding segways

Segways are really fun

• Lots of opportunity for family bonding. Courtney lived with me for a bit, having a roommate was great and I enjoy getting to know my baby sister better. Took my sister-in-law rappelling, watching her overcome a fear was wonderful. Got another nibling. Mountain biked with family. Enjoyed many family get together's

Biking Wire Mesa

• One of Brent's dreams (and what I worried would be my nightmare, but it wasn't) came true: we did big wall climbing in Zion! On the fall equinox! It was gorgeous! And stressful!

What a morning view

A line from one of my favorite poems, "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver,  captures how I tried to live 2018 and hope to continue into 2019:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?  

So wild!

2013 In Review

The internet tells me that Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living."  I like that quote and I'm one of those who looks forward to the New Year as an opportunity to examine the last year and use what I learned to improve the next. It's been a pretty busy year and based on an examination of my top 13 moments of 2013 I've decided to go on more vacations in 2014 because those are the best times.  Here are the top 13 highlights of the last 12 months.

1.  I led Otto's Route up Independence Monument with some excellent encouragement from Brent.  The encouragement is important because it is a 400 foot route with several sections that were difficult to protect (read: scary).  That trip to Colorado National Monument made me especially happy to be dating Brent because he's the one who initiated this crazy tower climbing vacation strategy in the first place and taught me how to trad climb.  He's great.

2.  Completed the Hurt in the Dirt and other excellent mountain biking adventures.  More props to Brent, he was willing to get up at 6:00 in the morning for mountain biking rides, let me borrow his bike for four months, followed down trails at crawling Becka-speed, and came to take pictures like the one below.  This was the year I figured out mountain biking is definitely awesome (yet I have no blog posts about mountain biking, I will fix this soon), it was a major revelation for me.

3.  Ran 105 miles in organized races, most of which were excellent.  Top four running moments this year (because I can't pick just one) were 1) training trail run in September through Logan Canyon; 2) last six miles of the Ogden Marathon, lots of rain and downhill running and my family was just a few miles away; 3) last half of the Top of Utah Marathon, who knew a marathon could feel so good?; 4) even numbered miles of the Desert RATS trail half marathon, the views and emotions were usually at their highest points then.  More props to Brent for always being at the finish line, even when they were 400 miles from home.  And for the awesome running tights.

4.  Becka's Thursday Ski Day.  I bought my first season ski pass this last winter and used it primarily to ski by myself on Thursday mornings.  Why Thursday mornings?  Because the mountain was generally empty and I had put enough work in during the week to deserve a slacker break.  I could feel stress just melt away as soon as I jumped off at the top of the lift.  I had many moments of zen there by myself and I think I became a better skier for it.  This relaxing break in the week, which I've just reinstated for the coming year reinforces my idea that vacations, even if they only last for 4 hours, are good for my health.

5.  My Howling Great Salt Lake Spectacular.  After a few years off I decided in August to bring back the solitary adventure and spent three days hiking to various high points with views of the Great Salt Lake by myself.  I howled in the rain on Box Elder Peak, under the sun at Frary Peak, and fleeing from thunderstorms on Deseret Peak.  I also spent quieter times waiting for the sunset at the Spiral Jetty and Antelope Island.  It was a nice reset point on the year.

6. Phyllis the Forester and I celebrated her 150,000 mile anniversary together and spent an entire year out of the shop.   I love my little car now more than I did in January.  Since the beginning of the year we've traveled thousands of miles in the car and even camped inside it one trip.  There were some troubles with the tires and getting those bike racks up there, but on the whole she performed well.

7.  Several new wildlife encounters.  Kayaking with a flock of phalaropes was the most blissed out part of the year and running past a rattling rattlesnake was the most frightening moment.  Even cooler, when I told my friends on the Facebook about the rattlesnake encounter the overwhelming response was "Cool!" because my friends are cool.  I also spotted a cactus in a wetland, while not quite wildlife, it was wild.

8.  I grew a successful salsa garden.  Not every salsa making encounter was successful and I still ended up with a lot of wasted food (but nearly as much as all the zucchini I grew to hate last year).  I love pulling weeds and tending my little garden empire and I love salsa, so it was a winning situation all around.

9.  2,875 vertical feet climbed with Brent (at least, probably 3,000 feet).  We met rock climbing and got to know each other rock climbing and our best vacations are rock climbing.  This wasn't our most prolific climbing year, but I think it's great I still learn new things about him when we go on our trips.

10.  I was conquered by the Wellsville Mountains.  Those mountains have been staring me in the face everyday since I moved to Cache Valley and I found three opportunities to interact with them this year, first my hike to Box Elder Peak in August, then an intense ride all the way around the mountains in October and follow up hike across the ridge.  The Wellsvilles are a narrow, very steep range and any Wellsville-centered activity requires a lot of climbing (by foot or bike), which provides an excellent opportunity to look inside for sources of strength. Two of three times I had my great friend Karina to help out.  

11.  Completed another successful field season.  There was an airboat ride and I got to drive a boat with a mud motor.  I didn't break the rtk GPS I had to cart around for the month and the only thing I lost was a knife (but I loved that knife).  I also continued to cultivate my love for pickelweed, the best plant in the world.  I love the part of the year I can spend my days outside looking at plants, the data I get is a bonus.

12.  Took 4,875 pictures, posted 48 blog entries, and was an author on three peer-reviewed papers.  I put a lot of stuff out into the world.  While it feels a little self-indulgent, it also feels great to have some measurement of my productivity this year.  And you, thanks for reading this, all your views totally make me feel good.

13.  Got to spend time with the people I love the most.  Including this trip to City of Rocks where my family displayed bravery and skill in a trial-by-fire first climbing experience.  It's nice that the year ends with a series of family moments (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Liz's Birthday Shopping Spectacular) because it reminds of just how much I love those people and how excellent it is to hang out with them.

Being Good at Stuff

Climbing kids (let's call kids anyone younger than 10) are one of my favorite things about climbing at the gym.  Kids try so hard, seem so fearless, and look like they're having the most fun.  The other day I overheard one of these kids say "Dad, I like climbing, I'm really good at this."  I was tickled by that statement, it sounded like he was having a great time.  Then I got to thinking about the last time I thought "Hey, this is awesome and I'm good at it."  And it's been a long time.

The more I analyzed my thought patterns when I'm struggling, or even when I'm cruising, I realized just how negative and un-enjoyable my thinking is.  Which got me to thinking about samskaras, the current expression of past karmic tendencies, imprints and patterns.  Samskaras can be changing constantly, if we pay attention to them, because our current thoughts build future habits.  [A quote from this article I really like: "Sow a thought, reap a habit.  Sow a habit, reap a character.  Sow a character, reap a destiny."]  With that in mind, I think one of the best ways to recapture the fun I've had climbing is to identify the bad samskaras I have and try to build new ones.  Most often, these bad thought habits are manifested in the songs stuck in my head, which I have decided to illustrate here (along with an explanation of the silly climbing jargon they come along with).

Bad Thought - I can't clip off that sloper.
A sloper is a hold or rock that is more rounded than edgy.  The grip required to hold onto slopers feels weaker and less secure than for edgier ("crimpy") holds.  Clipping is the process of clipping a rope through a caribiner that has been clipped to the wall/rock face, protecting you from hitting the ground during a fall.  Clipping, especially from sloping hand holds, is the scariest part of a climb for me.  Being scared leads to a lot of climbing up one foot, then down one foot, then figdeting...  It's a lot of wasted energy, and the whole time I have a Taylor Swift song stuck in my head.  Ridiculous.

Bad Thought Song -  
(Just hear "clipping off that sloper" instead of "getting back together."  It's totally what happens in my head.)

New Thought - What is the best position to clip from?  Should I climb higher?
There are two things I can do when I get scared like that.  Put on a brave face and trust the hold I don't like, or keep that brave face on and climb until I get to something I do like.  Either of these options requires the ability to keep thinking, even when scared, and breathing evenly is a key part of this.  Thankfully, I really enjoy the Ingrid Michaelson song below this, so I can remember to breathe.

Good Thoughts Song - 

Unproductive Thought - This ledge I'm standing on is the most beautiful ledge I've ever stood on, I will not move from it.
Ledges, which I'll call anything wider than four inches, feel very safe.  Unfortunately, that brief period of feeling extra safe can leave me too petrified to move on up.  The longer I stand on the ledge, the more tired my legs get, so they start shaking.  Then my brain starts to become exhausted and defaults to playing Lady Gaga over and over.  I love Lady Gaga, but the portion of "Edge of Glory" that gets stuck in my head is Gaga at her most repetitive   It's not productive.  And while no one can hear the song in my head, everyone can see my shake-leg, and they always mock me.

Unproductive Tune - 

More Productive Thought - This beautiful ledge is an excellent place to rest, but I should move on before I tire myself out.
Resting is an important part of climbing, but I think if you don't move past your resting spot it's considered quitting.  From what I remember of moving past "secure" places, the air feels fresher and the views seem clearer once I move past the fear.  So that's what I'll try doing.

A Song for Climbing Higher - 

Negative Thinking - I will fall (and die) if I have to make a dynamic move.  
A dynamic move is one where at least one limb does not maintain contact with the climbing wall; lunging, leaping, and jumping are all dynamic moves, and they're scary.  When stuck in the tunnel vision of fear, everything below me looks a million feet away, and the stuff above doesn't look that close either.  With these mis-perceptions, I can't properly assess the risk of making a move.

A (Beautiful) Song for Negative Thinking - 

Positive (and Realistic) Thinking - With a couple of shifts and a dynamic move, I can get that hold.  I could fall making this move, but my belayer will catch me. 
Accepting that you may fall is a critical step in lead climbing, and one I need to remember most often.  Chances are, if I'm making a dynamic move in the gym, I can make it.

However, falling in the gym isn't that bad (falling outside is slightly riskier, but not bad at all if you do it safely).  In fact, taking a fall or two can be a good reminder that my belayer will catch me and all will be well.  

The Song that Makes Me Happiest - 

Hmm.  Well, after drawing that out, I feel much better.  Here's to feeling good at that thing you're good at!

[On another subject, I thought buying a package of rainbow colored pens was a frivolous and childish thing to do.  But turns out it was the best idea I've had all semester.]

2013 Could Be a Transformative Year

I'm one of those New Year's Resolutions people.  It feels a little arbitrary to resolve things just once a year, in the middle of the winter when I don't ever get much done.  But when else would I do it?  This year I've been especially reflective, and my yoga magazine has facilitated this a great deal.  In the last week I've read articles on karma, recapitulation, and fear that have all resonated a great deal with the way I'd like to see myself (I highly recommend perusing those articles if you've got some free moments).  The word that stuck out to me most in these articles was "transformation".  The article about karma suggested that the reader note their major skills and major challenges then consider how both positive and negative aspects of life have interwoven to create change and transformation.  So I did that.

Currently, I consider my top three abilities (or good karmas) to be writing, running, and climbing; my top three challenges (or negative karmas) are publishing in peer-reviewed journals, asking for help, and the fear of falling. It's easy to see how most of those are linked together.  The rest of the article talked about how to change your karma by changing your actions, action being the key word here (in fact, action is one way karma is translated).  This particular quote summed it up well.

"Your past actions may create some obstacles for you, but your present actions can help you overcome them.  So according to the teachings of karma, every moment is both the result of your past and a seed of the future."

In the last two weeks I've been thinking of ways to change my habits (both thoughts and actions), in order to see positive transformation in my life.  Specifically, I want to be less fearful, because that seems to be my biggest obstacle.  The article on fear discussed being in the 'trance of fear' where you can't see anything but what you're afraid of, you can't enjoy the moment you're in or remember the love that is around you.  This is exactly what it's like when I get scared lead climbing, I only see the worst case scenario, I can't remember that climbing is fun and that  I have a belayer on the other end of the rope who loves me and will catch me when I fall.  It's similar when I think about asking someone for help, I can only imagine them saying 'no.'  The article suggested cultivating an 'unconditional presence' where one "faces fears with courage and kindness" which will eventually lead to "the freedom to live and love fully."  Granted, there's some fluffy language in there, but the idea of living fully is one that resonated a lot with me.

In order to overcome these bad karmas, I made a list of resolutions for the year.  Before doing that though, I went through the process of recapitulation, where I listed all of my successes and regrets from the last year, then I tore them up and threw them away.  It was kind of a heavy process, it was really easy to come up with regrets, but harder to come up with an equal number of accomplishments.  This surprised me, because I like to consider myself an un-regretful person. What it really came down to, in the end, was that the regrets I had produced stronger feelings than the successes, and I could trace all my regrets to two things: fear  and missed opportunities.  But one important step in recapitulation is facing your negative moments and then moving on.  And I felt better seeing that there are ways I could make next year better, especially by embracing my successes, which involved going new places (higher heights, longer runs, bigger hills), working really hard, and cultivating important relationships.

With all this in mind, here are my resolutions for the coming year:

1. Become a more competent lead climber: try a 5.12 sport route and a 5.10 trad route.  Lead at least one pitch of a difficult desert tower.  
2. Run faster: complete a half-marathon in less than two hours and a full marathon in under four hours.  
3. More substantive reading and writing: less Facebook, more blogging, much much more leisure reading (at least six books).  
4. Publish: submit two manuscripts for review, one from my Master's research and one from my PhD research.  

Oh, Resolutions

 I realize that it is January 25th, but I promise I set my New Year's Resolutions before the new year.  And here they are:
1.  Be more patient (especially with people I am routinely a cranky-pants to)
2.  Be more a more consistent vegetarian and practice yoga more routinely
3.  Run two marathons
4.  Lead a 5.12 rated climb outside

I was pretty psyched about these resolutions, in part because I was so successful with my resolutions last year and thought that would continue this year.  Alas, this almost all unraveled in the first two weeks of 2012.  It went down like this:

Showing Phyllis the Forester some love.  We are parked, and not lost.  

1.  The combination of southern California traffic, my poor sense of direction (and my entire family's sense of direction, really, we're like wounded bumble bees), a lot of time in the car, Las Vegas, and a serious sugar crash lead to:

 a.  my getting unbelievably lost and cranky in San Diego, repeatedly, despite having saintly navigators (really, electronic navigators is what we needed)
b. a very tired bottom and depleted tear ducts
c. frightening a very sweet, new acquaintance who followed her heart to Sweet Tomatoes
d.  openly weeping in the salad bar line at Sweet Tomatoes  

While this was very discouraging, I am trying to patiently make the most of it.  It's clear to me that I can work on being more patient.  I think there may be a number of steps in this process: (1) print directions to everywhere, possibly invest in a talky GPS; (2) maintain perspective, 60 miles is not infinite, it's just 60 miles; (3) making sure I eat good foods (Read: more sustaining than chocolate chip cookies) all day long, even long stressful days.  And to those I scared with my tears, I am very sorry.  If you give me another chance I will make sure to leave my cranky pants at home.  

I love baking cookies.  But they are only nutritious for the soul .  The body need more veggies.  

2.  I have been a vegetarian more most of the last four years.  I say most because I have been a terrible vegetarian since about August, when I started training for a marathon and realized I was becoming iron deficient.  Really I was so tired I would lean in to look at a soil pit and end up resting my head on the edge, just for a little rest.  After the marathon I never really got back on track, but I was going to for 2012, then I found myself ridiculously tired again.  This is distressing in part because it is no longer acceptable for people my age to need an afternoon nap everyday (I hope one day this stigma lifts), but also because it makes me  boring, and one of my few life goals is to be an interesting person.  Anyways, after having to turn down climbing because I was too tired (and realizing that Brent was expecting that), I decided I can't be busy and maintain the type of vegetarian diet I need to remain healthy.  So I cook a meaty meal about once a week.  That combined with my vitamin supplement seem to be doing the trick.  I've died a little inside, because I very much loved being a vegetarian and dislike taking my vitamins, but I've also been able to go to the butcher around here, so I feel like I'm still maintaining my environmental principles.  And I think this year I'm really going to start fishing!

I finished a marathon once.  

3.  Running two marathons is still within reach, but a week ago that didn't seem to be the case.  During the TOU marathon I began having IT band issues, and the fix for that is to rest, so I did, for 2 months.  I ran a Thanksgiving Day race that brought the same old pain back, but much faster.  This was distressing so I decided to modify my run, which is much easier to do on a treadmill.  I went for a brief outside run during the first week of the semester and found the same pain again, as well as some chest pains.  It was crushing.  But I read more about ITB pain and found some more ways I can run better and can proudly say I ran three miles yesterday without ITB pain (however, they were three treadmill miles, and I can barely walk now due to my sore calves).  My running future is bright.  Plus I have sweet tights that make me fill spiffy.

This is how I climb on top rope.  It's awkward.  I suppose it's also awkward on lead, but it looks cooler without the rope in the picture.  

4.  I feel like I'm finally back into a climbing groove.  I've spent the last few months behaving pretty belligerently about lead climbing.  I just haven't wanted to do it, especially when my friends could do it for me.  I think I may have developed more than a mental block when it comes to climbing on lead, it was a straight up attitude problem that I had no intention to fix.  The only desire to go back to being a good climber was a nagging guilt that I was being boring, my friends are all challenging themselves to be better and I'm moving backwards and whining the whole time.  Then yesterday I had a break through with a climb I'd been working on in the gym: I discovered I was mostly board with the top rope wall.  It's time to move on.  Of course my resolve my dissolve once I rope up, but I'm going to keep trying to make myself believe it will happen.

So that's essentially the month of January.  I've had a lot of moments where all I could think is "Running/climbing/grad school is hard."  But I've also had a few moments of appropriate perspective: my trouble are few, my life is awesome.  So here's to 2012, I will become a better person.

The future is bright, and it was sunny at Red Rocks.  Mmm.  Sun.