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!

All the New Things from the Past 731 Days

I skipped my annual review blog last year because I was grumpy.  I’m still grumpy (holidays are hard), but it’s important to periodically celebrate what’s been accomplished and assess what needs to change.  It feels like everything has changed over the last two years and it was hard to catalog the most important.  I would prefer to write a triumphant statement about the last 365 days (or 731 days, in this case), but life isn't like that and I have a blog so I have room to cover the exciting new things and the bummers (starting with the bummers because it was too much to end on). 

Bummers – Despite all the pretty pictures I post, sometimes things are terrible (but I will not post pictures of my crying face, it’s my worst face and I prefer to keep it to myself).  I can't look back without acknowledging these things happened.

The cutest dog that was also a jerk.  I rewarded myself for finishing my comps by adopting a shelter pup.  I named him Shackleton after my favorite explorer and registered for the first available obedience class.  My love wasn’t enough to overcome the poor socialization Shack experienced in his early life and I had to surrender him to the shelter after two weeks of biting and a traumatizing attack.  The experience was literally scarring.   

So cute. Such a turd. It's still painful to look through the pictures from our two weeks together. 

Academia is not for me .  Grad school negatively affected my mental and physical health.  As every year in grad school ended, my reviews were clouded by feelings of failure and general slacker-ness.   Doing research and having a job was cool, but it would be insincere to look back at the last two years and not acknowledge how much I felt like a failure.

The things that got me through dissertation writing: skiing at Beaver, the Outdoor Office, and occasional field work. 

Back pain.  I passed two very tiny kidney stones.  They both hurt and the fact that they came out so small added a lot of insult to the injury of a rock moving through my body.  Simultaneously I started having severe lower back pain that kept me from running (difficult to do when lying in the fetal position).  Things have improved since I started weight lifting (which was unexpected), so that’s a nice way to end the year.

Back pain views aren't all bad (L to R): passed my first kidney stone right before a Colorado trail half marathon, spent the summer in legs-up-the-wall pose, and passed my second kidney stone near Tombstone Butte. 

The world is on fire.  Natural disasters, political awfulness, and so many refugees.  It’s hard not to scream into the void because I can’t fix any of it.

New Places – I like change, especially changing scenery.

The San Rafael Swell .  We first visited the Swell for climbing in May of 2016 and every time I go back I think, “Why didn’t we come here sooner?”  Climbing, fossils, floating, hiking… you can do everything there and you don’t have to see any people.  You should go there, but maybe not while I’m visiting.

The San Rafael Reef (or the Sandstone Alps), the San Rafael Knob, and the San Rafael River near Mexican Mountain. 

France .  Our May 2017 trip to France was a big deal (a reward for finishing my dissertation and our first international trip together).  I don’t know French, but I want to eat all the cheeses and see all the things, so France was a good place to start world exploration.  During our 10-day trip we toured museums in Paris, explored the beaches of Normandy, and wandered the battlefields of Somme.  It was wonderful and overwhelming.  We ate fresh pastries and bread every day, but only sampled a fraction of the cheeses, so we’ll have to go back to sample the rest of them.

The Eiffel Tower (of course), the Normandy American Cemetery, and the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial

Wasatch Mountains .  It was tough leaving the Bear River Range for Salt Lake City, but the Wasatch are bigger and steeper (though more crowded).  I still have the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and seven canyons to choose from for a whole variety of adventures.  I’m learning a lot more about geology, as there is limestone, quartzite, conglomerate, and granite.

Hiking, climbing and biking in my new backyard.

The West Desert .  On the other end of the population spectrum are the mountains of the West Desert.  And talk about geologic variety.  I had to download this geologic map of Utah just to figure out what we’ve been playing on.  The West Desert is the driest part of Utah and all that exposed earth is stunning.

Ibex, Stansbury Island, and the Silver Island Mountains

Climbing Other New Places – We took the time to explore new climbing options in the Uintas, the Wind Rivers, the Jungle on the Aquarius Plateau, and the Valley of the Gods.  We saw some amazing things, climbed good and bad rock, and dodged thunderstorms.

East Ridge of Wolf's Head in the Wind River Range, Lady in the Bathtub in Valley of the Gods, and three silly birds atop Kestrel Tower in the Jungle on the Aquarius Plateua

Working in Humid Places – Being a wetland scientist has given me the opportunity to attend conferences (and run a little) in very warm and humid places.  Often the people were delightful, the food was good, and the running was a bit difficult.  

Visiting a longhorn in Corpus Christi, Texas; scoping out Civil War era mustaches in Vicksburg, Mississippi; actually running on the beach in San Juan Puerto Rico.

New Activities – I heard someone say that they collect hobbies and that felt true to my experience.
Floating.  I am not a swimmer so it was scary saying ‘yes’ to a ladies trip down the Ruby-Horse Thief section of the Colorado in July 2016.  It was great and I learned enough to lead my own trip down the Little Grand Canyon section of the San Rafael River in June 2017.  It’s amazing to float for days through stunning canyons (with no cell service or convenient points of escape) and end up miles away from our starting point due only to gravity.

The ladies of the Ovary Up trip on the Colorado, enjoying the warm San Rafael River, and my awesome friends at the bottom of the Little Grand Canyon.  

Hunting.  On the other end of the water travel spectrum, this year I also spent time sitting in a marsh waiting for birds to fly past.  Especially cool – I actually got something – a widgeon – and it was delicious.  Thanks to Chad showing me what the heck I’m supposed to do. 

Sunrise in the marsh isn't bad. It was exciting to be back in the marsh after only seeing it flying out of SLC International.  

Rock hounding.  Another abrupt shift: hunting fossils, petroglyphs, and rocks that can’t move but do hide.  Finding cool rocks is darn exciting.

Such exciting old minerals: hematite used to paint the Buckhorn Wash panel, fossilized sponges, Bonneville Salt Flats are made from the minerals left over from Lake Bonneville

Taking pictures of plants .  In addition to the plant pictures posted as the Plant of the Day, this year many more were officially published in Wetland Plants of Great Salt Lake .  Since then Brent said that he was OK with me taking so many pictures and got me a macro lens so the habit has been validated and I’ll be taking it to the next level.

Salt sandspurry (Spergularia maritima), Pickleweed (Salicornia rubra), Juniper mistletoe (Phoradendron juniperinum)

Mountain biking .  Much of my 2016 grumpiness was due to failing at my resolution to become a bad ass mountain biker.  I’m closer to badassery after riding some exceptionally cool trails and learning a lot about bike maintenance. Not without incident, of course: I lost a thumbnail working on the brakes and went over the handlebars a few times.

I've got such good people. Riding the Wasatch Crest, the Whole Enchilada, and the White Rim.  Sarah deserves an award for organizing river trips and mountain biking trips!

New circumstances – everything is different

New job .  I started my job as the wetland person with the Utah Division of Water Quality in October 2016.  Officially, I’m the wetland coordinator, but I don’t know exactly what I’m coordinating.  It’s wild (or secure, I guess) to have a job as a scientist that also provides good benefits and isn’t temporary.  It’s a bummer to start my retirement savings at 33, but so very exciting to have a retirement plan.

I'm mostly an office monkey now, but sometimes I get out to drive the airboat, filter murky chlorophyll samples, and poke at algae mats.  

Mostly done with USU.  I named and defended my doctoral dissertation, Sheila, in May.  It was many different things, which I will delve into some other time.  The important thing is that I got to graduate and my people showed up for me in a big way.  Thank you so much to everyone who befriended, fed, and supported me in ways big and small through the last five years.  You made grad school suck less.

Marsh people (the Marsh Llama and Marsh Ninja) graduating together.  

Moved to SLC.  Leaving Logan was hard but commuting from Logan to Salt Lake was harder.  I spent my first year here in a tiny place in the Avenues, a neighborhood I loved.  Now I love being in Millcreek where I have a room for my bikes (that isn’t my living room or bedroom).  I miss being close to My Person, but love the recreation opportunities down this way.

Such unexpected opportunities living so close to downtown.  

I’m sure grateful for the people who have helped me through the bummers and facilitated all the exciting new things I’ve tried in the last two years.  Having good people is good .  I’ve gotten two new niblings, run some excellent trails, had some gorgeous rides, and enjoyed so much good company. There’s been a lot of change and that’s really great.

2015 Was Not OK But Some Good Things Happened

It’s been difficult figuring out how to summarize 2015.  I distinctly remember this time last year I had so much that made me happy I actually titled a blog post “Finding Joy in 2014” and couldn’t limit myself to just 14 moments of joy.  But I had a feeling that I might struggle in the future to come up with additional great things as the years increase (15 moments in 2015, 16 in 2016, etc).  Perhaps it was a sign that this year would be less than great, maybe it was my natural pessimism.  I’m torn between listing everything that was uncool this year or the people I’m grateful to for helping me through all the uncool-ness, both lists would be quite long.   My compromise is to list both. 

This year I’ve been too busy, cripplingly self conscious and forced to bail on some awesome plans.  My troubles with the whole year could be summed up in the following story. 

August 3 could have been an interesting day, but it was terrible.  The Tour of Utah came to Logan and the Women’s Race went through my neighborhood!  August 3^rd also fell right in the middle of my time-crunched field season so I chose to do work instead.  Choosing work over fun was a responsible decision, but I regretted it.  For years I’ve looked forward to my field season, but this year I was cranky.  Cranky about working alone, unpleasantly surprised I didn’t like working alone, grouchy that I could feel my body aging, angry at how long field work takes alone, and experiencing DEET-related rage at the excessive number of mosquitoes.  All the negativity I was carrying boiled over on August 3^rd.  It rained more than 6 cm in a few hours, sending water everywhere – through my clothes and into my brand new boots, under my “waterproof” tablet case, all over my camera and phone and into my raincoat pockets.  I thought I was so smart only bringing waterproof things with me into the field, but electronics that can survive being dropped in the marsh won’t work when wet.  Water makes it impossible to type on any touch screen so my tablet typed nonsense, I couldn’t even open the data-gathering app on my phone, and my camera was just taking pictures of the rainwater on the lens. 

Every time I tried to wipe off a screen, dry my nose, or get my hair out of the Velcro on my raincoat I got angrier.  As I was counting saltgrass flowers I completely lost it – I wasn’t going to remember how many flowers there were in each plot, I kept dropping my ruler, magic markers don’t work when wet, and it wasn’t even all saltgrass so I was wasting my time there!  I stood up in the middle of the meadow and cursed, “God!  Why am I even here?!?!”  I couldn’t even curse right!  While I meant that to be two separate exclamations, it sounded like one existential plea to Marsh Llama.   With that I gave up and stomped the half mile back to my rig with my boots full of water and another gallon of water quality samples in my backpack (which couldn’t come from my boots for some stupid reason), but without the ruler.  It was hard work stomping all the way but I did it because I regretted working in the rain when I could have been watching the bike race in the rain.  Even worse, I came back to those wetlands four days later to take pictures in the sunshine.  All regrettable and not the only time I threw a crying hissy fit all by myself in the marsh. 

In between visits a Marsh Master came through and mowed over my monitoring well (and maybe the ruler).

This scenario played out many times this year: suboptimal decisions, bailing, self-consciousness and regret.  I bailed on Mt. Elmer, Mt. Peale, and Abajo Peak – what if I’d started on-time and taken the right way up?  I bailed on the last pitch of Parriot Mesa – what if I’d held on tighter?  I bailed on Phyllis – what if I’d taken the stupider, deer-free way home?  I bailed on a really important relationship – what if I’d said some things earlier or waited it out a little longer?  (It’s more complicated than that, but I like the symmetry of the sentence style.)  I had time to write this today because I bailed on birthday shopping after a terrible accident closed Sardine Canyon. 

As close as I got to Mt. Elmer, Mt. Peale, and Abajo Peak

In OK years I’d have summed everything up like this:  I’m grateful this year that I wasn’t tumbled down a mountain, struck by lightning, eaten by a bear, slain by a deer, frozen, brain-damaged, or physically crushed.  I’m further grateful sadness hasn’t literally broken my heart and that none of those mosquitoes gave me an encephalitic fever.  While I am happy to be alive, I feel thoroughly beaten by this year.  If I don’t acknowledge that it wasn’t OK nothing will change and I’ll get bad juju pretending that everything is epic and awesome when I fail as frequently as everyone else.  It’s been difficult to get by without weekend warrior victories to boost my self esteem.  At the end of many weeks I’ve felt much older than I had seven days before.  In addition to bailing on so many dreams, I’ve been too busy trying to teach and take classes, and complete my own research to focus on the people and activities I love.  I’ve only put up a handful of blog posts this year because I’ve been too busy to write anything fun.  Instead I’ve been working on expressive writing and acknowledging what I feel without reacting to it, so I’m very clear on just how uncool this year was and how uncomfortable that made me. 

Among the uncomfortable feelings I sat with - all the self loathing generated by editing my video lectures.  I'm too itchy and I hate the way I blink and start sentences now.  

But it hasn’t been all bad.  When I look back at the good things that happened this year, it’s clear that I succeeded when I had my people with me. 

Karina and I climbed Lost World Butte with an assist from Brent

Brent, Karina and I successfully located and explored a safe, abandoned mine

I finished my first ultra marathon with Mike and Austin (and it was a great time)

I led most of Longbow Chimney with Brent (lots of problem solving)

I went on the Maine to Maryland Hazelton Hospitality Tour with Chad (and lobster!)

Karina and I finished the Cache Gran Fondo (oh, the views; oh, the suffering)

Minor Solitary Success – I summitted Mt Ellen (in good time and good weather)

I climbed Lost Arrow Spire with Brent (scary yet satisfying; lots of cooperation)

Ran the Top of Utah Marathon and the Halloween Half Marathon (love my running sisters)

The three of us climbed Steinfell’s Dome (not even rain could dampen our spirits)

Ride Around the Wellsvilles v3 was a success (Spooky Edition)

Other good things that happened with my people this year: I went on two family vacations to Bear Lake, full of good views and great company.  My family grew this year with the addition of a 4^th nibling and a brother-in-law.  My people helped me with teaching by giving great guest lectures and helping with field trips.  After my accident with Phyllis, several people helped me get out of Bicknell, and have continued to give me rides or lend me their cars when needed.  My people even helped me through a traumatic break-up. 

I didn’t tell anyone about the end of my relationship for weeks because I was so upset about it and couldn’t bare the terrible responses I expected.  Instead of giving bad advice about forgetting and moving on, my people said the most helpful things.  They said they were surprised and sorry to hear about it; that they didn’t know what to say, but would be thinking about us.  They cried with me, shared their Netflix recommendations, and gently coaxed me out of the house with the promise of sandwiches.  I’ve got a great support system and have a lot of good karma to pay back.  Ultimately I’m faced with an introvert’s nightmare: I need my people in order to be happy.  I don’t know how to proceed with that knowledge, but it’s comforting to have so many moments that renewed my faith in humanity. 

I turned to my Word of the Day emails for some 2016 inspiration found four new, appropriate words:

Peripeteia – a sudden turn of events or an unexpected reversal

Landloper – a wanderer, vagrant, or adventurer

Indefatigable – incapable of being tired out, not yielding to fatigue; untiring

Pandiculation – the act of stretching oneself

I’m hoping for some fortuitous peripeteias in 2016 and to pandiculate as I become an indefatigable landloper.  Thanks for all the love and support this year.