Change ... is constant ... and one is required to find my heart (drafted late 2019)

The last few posts had been sitting in my draft folders. They were not actually recent as the posts are.

I am battling with fear. I am taught by society, it should be a battle. After a ski mindset clinic in 2013, I learned to use fear as a tool. Very useful when skiing a scary line, or dealing with the unknown pitches of rock climbing before me. Thus, I let my fear out of the basement when I knew it would enhance my athletic performance. The clarity and focus fear brought to me as I peered over the inches of ski tips delicately balanced over a cornice drop that had a steep run out or when I saw nothing but flaring finger tips in a narrow damp crack, several feet below was my last anchor only to bust out in an overhanging section of a wide hands traverse where I could get in a larger anchor to clip my rope to safety from a catastrophic fall.

Exhilaration, breaking personal records on rock and snow.

However, I seemed to be getting regressive in my personal life, in romantic relationships, and possibly my relationship to myself. I put it in the basement when it came to finding myself attracted to someone. How couldn't I?

My first committed relationship in college, which lasted five month, used to tell me he wish I wouldn't talk in front of his friends. He saw me as a 'hot date' to take to his fraternity functions. His friends were concerned about me - concerned about the way he would physically pin me down to restrain me for no apparent reason, concerned about the way he blamed me for any mishap.

My next boyfriend who was angling for a suburban life with children identified. After a year of ups and downs with me he knew better than I that I was not interested in any of that. He didn't tell me I was undateable - but he highlighted I was different from other women in their young 20's.

It took me another six years before I let myself fall for someone and be in a relationship. He broke up with me saying he didn't see us getting married and wasn't interested in any further discussion.

In a quick turnaround, I started dating someone who was a self-professed practicing Buddhist. After a year of dating, we ended our relationship when he told me he wanted me to change.

The last two men I fell in love with, I didn't even bother to tell I was in love. I had already left. We had already said our goodbyes. Isn't that sad?

How could I recognize love? I grew up with a family of immigrants. Love is conditional. It's based on the grades I got in school, the universities I was accepted into, the scholarships I received. The job title I had, my pay grade, and the name of the organization I worked for.

I repressed fear in my personal life. To a heavy cost - not just my personal romantic relationships but to my health. Benign tumor growth, a hyper sensitive immune system, allergies to everything in the natural world, mysterious gastric ailments that specialists couldn't figure out - maybe gluten intolerance? I found myself with worse injuries than I had encountered before - lasting concussions, more sprained joints, dislocated ribs, torn shoulder. I was fighting the core of my being when it came to my personal relationships. How do I turn this around?

Bitter scary exhilarating relief sweet ... one moment I am grasping at the straws of purpose that bring me to Afghanistan and the next I'm feeling woefully inadequate at comforting our Afghan officer who's shoulders the program rests on. She is fearfully lying in the dark, crying listening to helicopters as they take care of the latest activity of civil violence ... the familiar story of a holiday ritual in a sacred place of many brought together for celebration. Marred by death fire smoke and confusion. Five minutes before I was reading the speech of one of our athletes who described a young woman's perils in Afghanistan - a crucible is the disbelief Afghan females can be mountaineers. From yesterday's dinner at the family of one of our girls. How her father described the shrine to his children in the corner of the living room - one are the decorations of his sons wedding the other certificates of his daughters athletic and leadership achievements. He bragged after returning to Afghanistan he told his neighbors, critical of his daughter involved in athletics, that they couldn't do anything about it. He's a proud father of a strong daughter with promise and potential. 

Define Feminine

Arc'teryx has a Define Campaign. As an ambassador for them, they've asked me to present during their summer launch event for 10 minutes. Something around the theme of 'define feminine.' Since given this assignment, I've been perusing what it means to define feminine. Let's just get the dictionary.com definition out of the way:

adjective
1. pertaining to a woman or girl: feminine beauty; feminine dress.
2. having qualities traditionally ascribed to women, as sensitivity or gentleness.
3. effeminate; womanish: a man with a feminine walk.
4. belonging to the female sex; female: feminine staff members.

Not helpful at all. So I thought about why Arc'teryx selected me. It has something to do with how like the other regional ambassadors, I maintained a separate non-outdoors worklife, I took a couple or more big trips a year, and I was a frequent weekend warrior. I may have toes in another part-time job that is in the outdoor industry. So could this mean my definition of feminine was, ambitious, leaning-in, passionate? I started thinking about the audience of this talk. I couldn't overthink this, but I already am for a 10 minute presentation. So I turned to my activities, also in line with activities the company manufactures equipment for, I started with 'trekking' in college. Became a climber post-graduate and alpinist in the midst my professional career. Two of the four okay. Then I became a skier, three of four - batting well for a white-collar professional. The last is running - something I've been doing since high school but non-competitively and only in the capacity of cross training. Great! So I'll show slides of me doing all of these things - but do they define feminine? Back to square one.

In Yosemite I stumbled upon it. At the Pines campground my friends and I compared our climbing days. I exclaimed I had a lot of fun on my climb. One of the guys who was projecting a route he started six ago, exclaimed, "Fun?!? Climbing is fun?!?" There, nailed it. 

Fun - women have it when we choose to, it's a feminine quality, it's probably the most important thing I hold dear in my experiences with people and places and why I go outside. Fun is just a subset of happiness - or is a pseudonym for it. 

So there, a couple minutes taken up and have about eight minutes left. Going back to dictionary.com ... sensitivity. How can I play with that one? Sure, while watching the film In the Heart of the Sea, I teared up at the whale hunting scenes. I cannot watch creatures get massacred - unless its for food. And unless its another wild creature for its survival. But for human avarice, I cannot. 

So sensitivity - we women feel connection to others, without it, we wither.  

Next, I'm thinking about my recent trip with the Afghan women. I think about the hashtag campaign #AfghanWomenStrong. Strong is a feminine quality. It's a bit of a dirty joke, but I liked this misquote from Betty White (Golden Girls!) “Why do people say "grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.”

It isn't to say men don't have qualities of fun, strength, and sensitivity, it's just attributes I think of as a feminine qualities. 

I think if I catch up to the years, months, weeks, days I have not written in this blog, I can finally write about what's on my mind. So many things to write about. The month of May found me sleeping on the ground for nine days in three different locations:

Yosemite, CA
Panjshir Province, Afghanistan
New River Gorge, West Virginia

Today I remembered how to cook something ... barely ... the turkey breast is a little tough. I signed up for a yoga class. I wanted to remember one of the many topics that have been swimming through my head that I should blog out. But now that I'm writing, they all escape me. Today I wrote a ten page trip report on Afghan Ascend's expedition to Panjshir Valley. Much of it I won't publish, and maybe a sentence or two in it is for my eyes only. But here's a raw excerpt, unedited, unfiltered:

Prepared for the gate to Kabul (DXB)

Going to Kabul in May, a city still battling with a foe reluctant to acquiesce power, the Taliban - was not something unusual for me. What was unusual was I was going to a city at war, without the accouterments I had when I flew into Baghdad in 2007. There was no military airplane, I was not surrounded by armed soldiers, I had no Kevlar body armor nor did I have a side-arm for personal protection. My security relied solely on my anonymity. I’m not sure how a 5 foot 9 tall woman with two large duffels and an expedition pack arriving into Hamid Karzai International Airport with a U.S. passport could escape attention. The threat to foreigners was first from kidnappers seeking ransom and next the Taliban. Before arriving in Kabul, I was cognizant of not setting any expectations of Afghanistan, I was trying to be aware of what emotional and psychological baggage I might bring. I did not want to affect the Afghan Ascend program by suddenly freezing in place or running for shelter if I heard a car exhaust backfire. Maybe that seems unlikely, but it didn’t take long for anyone who spent enough time with me after I returned from Baghdad that I might have had a slight touch of PTSD. I thought the first thing Kabul would remind me of was being in back in Baghdad. National-level conflict is in my DNA.

2015

January 2015 -   In January, I chose compassion, enough, and generosity as my guiding words. I went ice climbing at Smugglers Notch in Vermont which was a new location for me. I also headed to the Catskills at the end of January.

February -  did ice climbing trips to Mount Washington Valley ice fest and to the Adirondacks -annual trips for me. I also started seeking answers to why I had a uterine fibroid and why mine was affecting me as badly as it was. I had been experimenting with different diets - cutting down on foods that had estrogen or might contribute hormones from inorganic pesticides, I sought the help of a professional nutritionist.  I also started examining beliefs I had. A book recommended to me by several women, including a gynecologist, emphasized how a woman's emotions and beliefs are very much connected to her health. Hidden deep within my psyche, despite being a strong, driven woman who appeared comfortable in a man's world, I had grown up and continued to secretly believe (so secretly I didn't know it) in the shame of being a woman, of being a sexual person. It was something I had to contend with and examine. This uterine fibroid, not only made being a woman very difficult for me, it also was taking away something society values, my ability to conceive a child.  I wanted to treat the fibroid like it was a foreign entity but like some diseases that don't have a cure, it was my own body, seeming to betray me. Perhaps it was a physical manifestations of something I'm in denial of. Of beliefs I do not acknowledge or something I don't accept about myself. I had to start uncovering these beliefs about myself. 

March - The beginning of the month I snuck in a weekend trip to Alta Utah and was rewarded with several days of powder. I went on a week long backcountry ski hut trip in the Tetons. My menstrual cycle was scheduled to start at the beginning of the trip and I was nervous about how things would go. I had changed my diet according to a nutritionist, and in a little bit of disbelief started noticing that my periods were less painful, shorter, and less heavy. This trend was to continue.  I decided yes to climbing Denali in June with one of my favorite climbing partners and mentor. 

April -  lots of training for Denali. My symptoms seemed to keep getting better. 

May -  more training. I would go to the new River Gorge and instead of rockclimbing I would put on my double mountaineering boots and go up and down the stairs at Kaymoor mines. I went to Denver to pre-acclimate and then to Crested Butte to Leadville. I was extremely thankful my work was flexible and allowed me to telework so I could be well-prepared for my expedition. 

June -  and I was off to Alaska! What a journey. I should definitely post a trip report on this blog. 

July -  coming back from Alaska I was immediately thrown into a very busy time at work. Working on proposals before my trip to Alaska, I returned to find out that some of my proposals had been awarded. In a short amount of time I was tasked to build six project teams, train and coach new hires, do the client work and additional proposals.  I told my bosses at work I intended to go on another expedition in September to the former Soviet states of Georgia and Armenia.  For Fourth of July instead of joining my friends rockclimbing in West Virginia and Kentucky, I found a deal to go to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico. I had a wonderful time catching up on sleep, soaking up sun, and relaxing. 

August -  I moved out of my mother's.  I am still adjusting to paying five times the rent I'm used to.

September -  what a contrast to go from living with my mother to living in an apartment by myself and then to having every meal with nearly 14 people every day for 17 days. I made lots of friends and lots of memories with those friends. This trip is still having an effect on me - and those connections I made help me realize how incredibly good a shared passion is for building community. 

October -  A little too enthusiastic about getting back into rockclimbing I pushed myself way too hard before I was conditioned for it. I am learning how training to be a mountaineer impacts being a technical rockclimber.  I learned I'll have to be careful with my choices. I'm not going be an amazing backcountry skier, technical alpine rock climber, mixed climber, mountaineer, and ice climber in the same year without being bad at most of those things - or get injured trying.  Right, guiding word - compassion - for myself.

November - Felt my energy come back. I didn't realize how fatiguing two expeditions and the amount of work I had taken on affected me. A prescription for physical therapy and realizing I couldn't even run due to pain motivated me to get healthy.  I took two classes with two people I admire greatly. One was a workshop with Steve House and Scott Johnston, the authors of Training for the New Alpinism. They helped me understand how to build a training plan and more importantly assess where my fitness was and give me the tools to assess where I needed to build additional strengths and capacity.  I took another clinic on ice climbing for two days with Will Gadd - literally a grandmaster of modern ice climbing. He help me learn new techniques reinforce lessons I should retain and was very kind about my injury.

December - cleared to start climbing again, I started making forays to the climbing gym. Even had a couple days planned to climb outside, but El Nino in the East meant that was not to be. Otherwise, I did sort of my year-end/beginning thing. Went to Ouray! This place has so much significance for me. It was one of my first trips after deploying a second time to the Middle East - a re-acculturation to the West again. And then I chose to live in Ouray one winter (2011) while jobless and learned to ski. I came back two years ago, and it reminds me of all the changes I've been making to my life, from the path set before for 20+ years to the way I'm trying to move this large ship that has become my life .. tossing things I don't need overboard, sacrificing other things that weigh me down, and trying to be aware of all the new things I feel and think about all these changes. Ouray reminds me I don't have to live on the course I thought was set for me when I was seventeen, or twenty-four, or even twenty-eight. Interacting with all the old friends and the new ones in this little mining and adventure town, who have chosen different paths themselves, reminds me life is full of possibilities, as long as I'm open to them.

2014 reflection

I'm big on the lists and that's really all I've been posting. Here it goes just to catch us up before I do a review of 2015.

January 2014 -   I read about an idea - instead of making New Year's resolutions, choose guiding words. So in an experiment I decided to choose vulnerability, romance, and daughter as my three guarding words for 2014.  Recovered from a left ankle sprain, a displaced rib, and a concussion I greeted 2014 in New Hampshire ice climbing. What was more cool was spending time with old friends in the White Mountains.  I also took a professional certification exam. And in the excitement of seeing a report for fresh powder I booked a trip to Silverton in Colorado. By the time I got there the snow conditions were the most challenging I had ever experienced - wind slab, breakable crust, ice, and exposed rocks. In any case I fell back in love with the San Juans.

February -  went to my favorite ice climbing festival in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Enjoyed climbing Repentence.  Last summer I had been noticing that I was having issues with my menstrual cycle. It had gotten so bad, I started planning trips around my period. I only told a few close friends but I had no idea this was going to be the year where I was going to try to figure out how to live with a chronic issue. A doctor confirmed I had a uterine fibroid. End of the month I went to Alta for a whole week where I got to ski with one of my closest friends and with my mental coach. I also got to do a little bit of backcountry skiing.

March -  it was a wet and quiet month. Started work with a new client - turned out to be quite heavy in terms of how much time I put into the office.

April -  tired of having some successful years in the mountains  and then having other years where I was injured and on the couch I decided to embark on a structured training regimen.

May -  went to the Cascades. Our initial goal was the North Ridge of Mount Baker. What we found was way too much snow and the road barely cleared.  Not having the equipment for snow travel we changed our plans and climbed the Tooth, which also had a lot of snow. We went to Leavenworth for some multi pitch cragging. We witnessed a climbing accident where my climbing partner held a young man's lower leg in traction where he had tib fib fracture. After that trip I went to the Red River Gorge were my friends had rented a cabin. We had a lot of fun although I probably did not climb that much because I felt like resting after coming back from the Cascades. I also started recognizing that the problems I was having with my menstrual cycle and the fibroid was now cutting into my work and whether I even left the house that day!

June - embarked on a new cycle of the training plan this time to prepare for climbing in the Tetons. Went to the Gunks and Seneca a lot for a lot of multipitch climbing.

July - kept training by myself and dissatisfied at work so I signed up for a community college course thinking I might go back to school for another degree.

August -  training and working

September -  my Tetons partner had to bow out to have surgery so I went by myself and linked up with a guide and we climbed for three days together. We had some pretty ambitious objectives which we fell short of. I don't really regret it because I learned a lot and I plan to come back.  The project at work ran out of contract funding, which was a relief because then I got to move on to work that was a lot more engaging.

October -  I saw an ad for a drug study to treat uterine fibroids. Being a participant in the drug study ended up causing me a lot more trauma then my actual condition. I ended up in the ER, on narcotic pain medications, even bedridden for three days in incredible pain and it took me an entire month to recover.

November -  The study was having trouble finding enough participants and so I agreed to give it another go. I had to go through some invasive tests and one of the drugs they gave me, I ended up having a severe reaction to.  Once again I ended up close to going to the emergency room, bedridden for three days, and settling in for another month long recovery. My other options were to have surgery. It still amazes me how uterine fibroids, which affects as many as 60% of women in the United States is rarely discussed and there's little research to discover it's cause. A cursory search on government websites generally point out most women with uterine fibroids are asymptomatic, yet they are the cause of a majority of hysterectomies and for some women present fertility issues. The second week of November I went up to new England to ice climb. Unfortunately not even 40 minutes into the trailhead I had to turn around because of extremely severe abdominal pain. It was so bad I just wanted to curl into a fetal position on the side of the trail and vomit.  At the end of the month I went to Costa Rica with my family it was nice to relax and catch up on rest.

December - having begun to recover from my miss adventures with medical health studies I went on a week and a half week trip to Ouray, Colorado. It was great to see friends, ice climb and ski. And fitting to return to where I was the first month of 2014. 

Gone Girl Film

Old post from November 2014 I didn't publish until now:

I saw "Gone Girl" in the theater last night. It was better than I expected. I wanted to see it because of all the divisive and polarized commentary in newspapers. New York Post would have you believe that you shouldn't take it seriously, it's just entertainment, and it's a thriller. As a film goer I found "Gone Girl" relate-able even if horrifying, like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

Who's the victim, the hapless adulterer husband, or the woman who was told be everything she could be but once within the confines of marriage, must be less than herself? So she pulls off the most ridiculous coup - it became apparent to me she escapes from one jail cell to another. Resentment comes from refusing to acknowledge our own complicity in owning a set of the prison keys.

Some critics say this film doesn't say anything about modern marriage. Hmm, not so sure about that. According to a November 2014 Elle issue article, almost 25% of marriages are ones where the woman has more earning power than her husband, and those marriages end most likely in divorce. Also there was a time marriage was about family alliances, taking care of a woman who many not have useful skills outside the home, the roles of husband and wife were very clear. Now, a woman doesn't need security from a man depending on where she's from and what she's capable of. Marriage for her, is a liability.

Certainly the film is melodramatic, it's 2 and a half hours long and not having read the book, I'm sure misses some serious character development points. For example if Amy is a true psychopath, how is it she has no friends? Or if she is so accomplished, again how does she not have friends? The things I wonder about.

Integrity to others vs. Integrity to Self

There's a ruthlessness in the choices I make. Up until recently, I haven't felt particularly negative about the life choices I've made: separating from the U.S. government, moving in with my mom, working part time for a reduced salary, and making it known I prioritize situations where I have an avenue to the mountains. Until recently. I gave someone my word and then I broke it. Circumstances changed between when I gave my word and when I decided I had to break my word. It was a choice between keeping my word, which I value as a part of what I believe is a characteristic I have: deep integrity, and another conflicting characteristic I have, which is commitment to my true self. So my true self is someone who will break her promise to ensure a way to make it easier to get into the mountains. Integrity ranks lower in my personality scale than being unfettered and uncommitted to convention. Sounds paradoxical and hypocritical right? Commitment to myself and my desired lifestyle over commitment to integrity and trust.

I wrote the above post three months ago. The funny thing about this life, is I'm eating my words. I've committed now to moving out, reducing my expendable income. I'm okay with that. Two months ago I summitted a mountain where the uncertainty of even going to the top were paramount on just the last 140 feet of the summit's ridge. I was stoked - it meant the higher peaks of the Himalayas were a possibility. And if I could fit the pieces of training, income, interesting work for income, experience, and partnerships - none mutually exclusive - that goal was attainable - and with patience - maybe in even a couple years.

On veteran's day

“Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country's cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause.” 

 - Abraham Lincoln.

For some time I carried this weight.  Despite my six years in the US Department of Defense, working three months in Iraq in 2007, being one of the few women who wore civilian clothing - although we were given the option of wearing desert cammos that read "DoD Civilian" and then another couple years actually considered a US Army Civilian, and in both instances, carrying around an official identity card declaring me as accompanying the Armed Forces and subject to Geneva Conventions - I don't feel worthy of the title or honor of being called a veteran. 

 International Zone, Baghdad 2007

Sure I went to the same training as many of uniformed colleagues before I was shipped on the same military aircraft to the same desert destinations. Sure I cried when I thought about my uniformed friends who I could not save ... who died for this country, or those who had to leave their families behind (just as I was leaving mine behind), for service. When my unit went to a sponsored day of gratitude to the Armed Forces at Busch Gardens, I felt like a freeloader. 

Yes after six years of service I walked away, not sure what those six years had given me, and not sure what they would contribute to my future. 

In any case, I always feel immense pride at having served alongside my brave, self-less, uniformed brethren. Even for the short-term I did, usually behind multiple lines of defense if and when I was overseas with them. Every time Veterans Day comes around - I struggle with this mix of pride, shame, and egoism. I recognize all my friends who wore the uniform - and certainly I could have taken up the uniform; I also wonder how many other civilians like me, who served in the rear to support our troops or worked alongside them, feel the same way I do. 

I honor all our country's veterans, those in uniform, in the past, present, and future, and those who served alongside those in uniform to support our country's cause.

This dance...

I'm this restless energy, that wants to dance in the mountains, on ropes and my partner never begrudges me this dance. This partner faithfully belays me, cleans the gear, and sets the ropes for us to return to earth. And I realize how grateful I am, to this partner who never says no when I ask to dance on ropes, on mountains, even when my partner is in pain.

This partner who asks me about dancing down mountains, what shoes shall I wear?

This partner who asks me to dance the biggest mountain we ever encounter, so big we must sleep three nights in her cool arms and not feel thirst until we start the descent down her flanks in the beating southern sun.

And this partner who asks me to dance in these mountains, I have seen distantly, dreamt of, or heard terrifying tales of. These mountains this dance with ropes and wax slicken-ed sticks. This dance to connect, to feel how little I am, how big I am, how big we are, how infinite, expansive, and how limitless we can be.