“It’s just the new normal,” someone said to me recently.
It was the day I broke down in tears on the phone to one of my Senator’s offices, calling to ask him to finally do something about the assault weapons killings hundreds of people in this country, to step up to help the people in Puerto Rico quickly running out of water and food, and to reinstate funding to provide millions of low-income children with health care. Continue reading
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the sacrifices I make to feed my adventure lifestyle, in particular about giving up depth of relationship in one place to move on to somewhere new. I’m incredibly lucky to have so many friends who are like family literally all over the globe—so lucky sometimes it takes my breath away. It runs deepest in Montana, the place I called home for ten years before landing in Revelstoke. Continue reading
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. That’s just human nature, and in my case, my severe level of FOMO can paint the grass across the way in hypercolor. The trick is learning to appreciate the shade of grass on your side of the fence. Sometimes it’s worth exploring the other side, which takes some guts. Sometimes it takes leaving to realize you actually loved where you were.
I wrote those words almost a year ago, at the peak of what I like to call my restless phase. I recalled them as I realized that right now—finally, for once—the grass was greenest exactly where I am. Continue reading
In early May, I felt the itch for a long backcountry trip far away from cell reception and computers. My slowly-healing broken ankle had kept me out of the mountains for any sustained period of time, and I needed the simplicity of slow coffee mornings, trails, and long sunsets. I wanted to wake up with no one around for miles. Continue reading
Yesterday, I strapped on my ski boot for the first time since I broke my ankle. I gingerly stuffed my foot into the plastic, buckled it loosely, and leaned forward, waiting for the pain to come screaming up my leg. It didn’t, so I thought, “Damn, I think can do this.” Continue reading
I haven’t stopped moving in two years. In 2015 I hopped on a plane for New Zealand, where I lived in the back of my beloved little station wagon for the summer and skied my way through the mountains in winter. When I returned stateside late that year, I didn’t spend two weeks straight in one place. Continue reading
I said goodbye to my girl yesterday, eight years after we met in the Missoula pound. She was three years old then, and huge. Her papers listed her as a lab/husky/shepherd/pointer, which is pound-speak for “giant mutt.” I’m convinced she was part wolf. Continue reading
They say bad things happen in threes. It was a week full of loss.
It began with the loss of a love, and I’m drowning in my decision to let this one go. It was followed on its heels by the loss of my faith in the underlying ultimate goodness of this country.
But it was the last one that rocked me, that leveled us all like a blast. Continue reading
