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7 books I’m dying to let you borrow

Oh hello friends! I’m a reader. A slow reader. A let-me-digest-this type reader. And also a distracted-by-all-the-cheeses-I-could-be-tasting type reader. So besides my Mastering Cheese textbook, 2021 had seven books for me that I’m going to be raving about to everyone I talk to anyway, so you may as well just see the list now.

I hope you pick up one or two in 2022 and find your mind opened and your heart moved and your energy sparked.

See No Stranger
A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love
by Valarie Kaur

3 words this made me feel: Human, Love, Connected

1 thing this inspired me to do: Listen and learn about way more people.

A surprising thing I learned: The hatred and violence against Sikh communities in the wake of 9/11, and how radically loving their responses were.

Why I think you should (there are no shoulds, but still) read it: Honestly, this one is just going to make you a better person. A more connected human. I don’t know what else to say.

Reading difficulty 1-10: Not. It’s easy to get lost in, hard to put down.

A favorite excerpt (how do I even choose?!?) to whet your appetite: “You are a part of me I do not yet know. . . . Wonder is where love begins, but the failure to wonder is the beginning of violence. Once people stop wondering about others, once they no longer see others as part of them, they disable their instinct for empathy. And once they lose empathy, they can do anything to them, or allow anything to be done to them.”

To Shake the Sleeping Self
A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret
by Jedidiah Jenkins

3 words this made me feel: Adventure, Free, Brave

1 thing this inspired me to do: Spontaneously take a winter hiking and meditation trip to the snowy, icy Minnesota north shore. Oh and revive my old pastime of spending hours and hours browsing Google maps.

A surprising thing I learned: Even though North America and South America are connected by land, you have to travel by water or air between Panama and Colombia because there’s a roadless jungle called the Darien gap that is known as a “smuggling corridor” and is considered one of the world’s most dangerous places.

Why I think you should (there are no shoulds, but still) read it: It challenges everything you’ve settled into. It pulls messy honesty out of you. It makes you dream again.

Reading difficulty 1-10: Another nail-biter. Honestly this reads more like an epic movie in IMAX. Difficulty negative ten.

A favorite excerpt (how do I even choose?!?) to whet your appetite: “As thirty approached, and ‘youth’ was passing into ‘adulthood,’ the terrible reality of time hit me like a wet rag. I looked back on my twenties and realized that every time there was a crossroads, I took the first and safest path. I did just what was expected of me, or what I needed to do to escape pain or confusion. I was reactive. I didn’t feel like an autonomous soul. I felt like a pinball.”

Mating in Captivity
Unlocking Erotic Intelligence
by Esther Perel

3 words this made me feel: Understood, Excited, Inchargeofmyself

1 thing this inspired me to do: Communicate more.

A surprising thing I learned: Just how codependent and enmeshed American love relationships tend to be, and just how unsustainable and unfulfilling romance is when its core is a pursuit of absolute security.

Why I think you should (there are no shoulds, but still) read it: For almost all of us, sex and eroticism is a core part of us and so worth exploring and learning and getting help with. But it’s also not supposed to be talked about, so that getting help and exploring thing doesn’t always happen. This book is a life-changing, sigh-of-relief-giving, absolutely amazing place to start your own conversation about it.

Reading difficulty 1-10: Esther Perel is a story-teller who thinks and speaks and guides in stories. And through each story she somehow introduces you to your truer self. It’s not difficult, it’s completely engrossing.

A favorite excerpt (how do I even choose?!?) to whet your appetite: “Fear–of judgment, of rejection, of loss–is embedded in romantic love. Sexual rejection at the hands of the one we love is particularly hurtful. We are therefore less inclined to be erotically adventurous with the person we depend on for so much and whose opinion is paramount. We’d rather edit ourselves, maintaining a tightly negotiated, acceptable, even boring erotic script, than risk injury. It is no surprise that some of us can freely engage in the perils and adventures of sex only when the emotional stakes are lower–when we love less or, more important, when we are less afraid to lose love.”

Stamped from the Beginning
The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
by Ibram X. Kendi

3 words this made me feel: Disgust, Determination, Love

1 thing this inspired me to do: Make a habit, every time I hear someone (including myself) place responsibility on BIPOC and other minorities to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” of redirecting the responsibility first and foremost onto the ones who are doing the oppressing or enjoying giant advantages from the oppression. In other words, while a Black person may choose to fight for themselves, a white person is fully responsible for making the world a safer and fairer and more equitable place for Black people and other minorities–and that is not done by ignoring away our head start and enthusiastically cheering them on to fix it all themselves.

A surprising thing I learned: While it was a huge and needed step forward, the passing of the Civil Rights Act also made way for a new version of racist argument in America: Since opportunity was now supposedly, officially “equal,” we could now just blame the Black population for ongoing disparities, instead of grappling honestly with the hundreds-of-years head start white Americans and their families had and the reality of ongoing racism.

Why I think you should (there are no shoulds, but still) read it: It is such a powerful eye-opener and motivator. It is incredibly informative and it’s a deep motivator for making the world a better place.

Reading difficulty 1-10: Honestly, this one’s challenging. I’d say it’s a 10 in difficulty, because it’s just got so much gross, depressing, nauseating truth for America to face. Which also means it’s a 10 for needing to be read by you and me.

A favorite excerpt (how do I even choose?!?) to whet your appetite: “Time and again, racist ideas have not been cooked up from the boiling pot of ignorance and hate. Time and again, powerful and brilliant men and women have produced racist ideas in order to justify the racist policies of their era, in order to redirect the blame for their era’s racial disparities away from those policies and onto Black people.”

Play
How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
by Stuart Brown

3 words this made me feel: Childlike, Happy, Relief

1 thing this inspired me to do: Make opportunities to laugh more. And sometimes swim laps less like a human and more like a dolphin frog. Or a frog dolphin. A frolphin.

A surprising thing I learned: Humans have a real developmental for “secret spaces” where we can be totally and safely alone, free, and uncensored.

Why I think you should (there are no shoulds, but still) read it: Because you’re too busy right now, and it’s making you sad.

Reading difficulty 1-10: 1 if you read it, 10 if you don’t.

A favorite excerpt (how do I even choose?!?) to whet your appetite: “Once she realized that she would need time for her heart play and started acting on that realization, she began to experience true play again. She began to feel an excitement with life that she had forgotten. . . . Setting out to remember those feelings can be dangerous. It can seriously upend your life. If [her] marriage wasn’t as strong as it was, her husband might have felt she was pulling away when she went on long hikes by herself . . .”

The Body Keeps the Score
Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
by Bessel van der Kolk

3 words this made me feel: Hopeful, Understood, Likeiactuallyhaveabody

1 thing this inspired me to do: Yoga, swim. “Think through” less, hug myself more.

A surprising thing I learned: Retelling trauma in talk therapy can actually continually retraumatize. Sometimes saying what happened isn’t what it takes to make your body trust that it’s safe again.

Why I think you should (there are no shoulds, but still) read it: Because if you’re somehow one of the people who won’t find yourself deeply in these pages, you love someone who does, and this will help you get it. And whether for you or your people, there are so. many. practical. options. So good.

Reading difficulty 1-10: There’s science stuff, but it’s worth it.

A favorite excerpt (how do I even choose?!?) to whet your appetite: “Trauma victims cannot recover until they become familiar with and befriend the sensations in their bodies. Being frightened means that you live in a body that is always on guard. Angry people live in angry bodies. The bodies of child-abuse victims are tense and defensive until they find a way to relax and feel safe.”

P.S. Bonus fact, when you get to the part where Bessel van der Kolk remembers the feeling of being a “little boy” with “stern, Calvinistic parents” . . . . . . same, friend, same. . .

Deep
Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves
by James Nestor

3 words this made me feel: Amazed, Excited, Powerful

1 thing this inspired me to do: Learn free-diving.

A surprising thing I learned: The deeper you go underwater, the more blood flows away from your limbs toward vital organs to keep them functioning longer. Peripheral vasoconstriction. “When a diver descends to three hundred feet–a depth frequently reached by modern freedivers–“ and I’m having to just quote this verbatim because I mostly skipped science, thank you home school, “vessels in the lungs engorge with blood, preventing them from collapse.”

Why I think you should (there are no shoulds, but still) read it: Honestly, this sounds like a niche book for a niche audience, but I 100% swear you’ll enjoy it. Also, do you like sharks?

Reading difficulty 1-10: Less than 1.

A favorite excerpt (how do I even choose?!?) to whet your appetite: “The ocean is usually silent, but the waters here were thundering with an incessant click-click-click, as if a thousand stove lighters were being triggered over and over again. Schnöller figured the noise must be coming from some mechanism on the ship. He swam farther away from the boat, but the clicking only got louder. He’d never heard a sound like this before and had no idea where it was coming from. Then he looked down. A pod of whales, their bodies oriented vertically, like obelisks, surrounded him on all sides and stared up with wide eyes. They swam toward the surface, clicking louder and louder as they approached. They gathered around Schnöller and rubbed against him, face to face. Schnöller could feel the clicks penetrating his flesh and vibrating through his bones, his chest cavity.”

Want to borrow one?

Sneak peek of what’s next . . .

Maybe all this reading results in a few helpful thoughts from my fingertips this year. Want to hear them?

A different New Year’s suggestion

Watch, listen, or read down below :)

Hello again friends, happy new year to you! Have you made any resolutions this year? Maybe set some 2022 goals?

I haven’t.

And not because I think resolutions are bad. I don’t think they’re bad, I don’t think I’m better than you for not falling for them, and I bet I’ll make some again one day.

But not this year.

I think it’s because I’m in a very specific season of learning–can I share it with you?

I subtly shifted toward the window so my next-seat-neighbor couldn’t see my face on the flight home from Indiana. I didn’t want them to see the tears rolling down my cheeks every few pages as I read the little book Siddhartha. And they looked young, so I also wanted to hide the more adult pages, where Siddhartha’s lover teaches him “the game of love . . . one of the thirty or forty different games [she] knew,” like the one “which the textbooks call ‘climbing a tree.'” So yes, colorful book all around.

Exactly 100 years ago, a German-Swiss poet and painter authored the book Siddhartha. A story about a student of the Buddha. And not just a student of the Buddha, a student of life. Of business, of romance, of philosophy, of pleasure, of high society, of travel and exploration. In fact, Siddhartha’s study with the Buddha didn’t last that long. Can you imagine? Sitting and listening to the Buddha and eventually saying, “sorry, I love what you’re saying, it’s just lacking a little something for me.”

Siddhartha wanted life to make sense. He wanted to understand, to get it, to have meaning, to feel purpose–to be fulfilled as a human.

So he searched.

And tried.

He tried living with the Buddha. He took what worked for him and moved along to find more. He apprenticed with Kamaswami, a wealthy business owner, and became a massively successful financier. It wasn’t quite right. He traveled, explored, adventured. Still, there must be more. He met a woman named Kamala who opened him up to a world of passion, sex, romance. Even this wasn’t enough.

How many new strategies, practices, schedules, goals, and habits have you tried over the years, so that life can feel . . . right?

And how tired are you?

And again I’m wondering–which new way are you trying this year?

“It’s sort of a blessing–a gift–that life is so short.” My friend introduced this counterintuitive concept to me sitting in a coffee shop–the same coffee shop he keeps returning to for connection as year after year of life journals itself along.

I had just shared with him a roller coaster overview of some personal searching the last few years has held for me. A family wedding where I paid a visit to my old trauma stomping grounds. The cracks started forming, pressure building. Then a hike in the Rockies with a hat on–I never wear hats, so I’m not used to the brim blocking my peripheral of what’s above–lunging upward over a rock into a giant, unforgiving tree branch. A crack, blackness, stars, awake again, on the ground now, “F***!!!”, annoyed glances from parents of small children, looking around in a daze, one shoulder a little lower than the other, whiplash, dizzy, fuzzy, head throbbing. A concussion that just got nastier as the days passed. Powerfully knocking all the anxiety loose. The cracks widening, the dam bursting. Everything I’d internalized that had kept me “safe” in my quarter century on this planet suddenly falling apart. Therapy, more therapy, lots of therapy. Journaling. Denying. Realizing. Seething. Accepting. More therapy. Hoping to figure it all out and end up “all better” someday.

“Because we don’t have time to work on everything.”

My friend explained: “We feel this pressure to measure up, to be good enough, to make it all the way to our ideal version of acceptable or of healthy or of right or of whatever other way we think we’re supposed to be. Some arbitrary bar that we set for ourselves, or that was set for us. We keep trying and working and struggling to measure up. But eventually it becomes clear that life is too short–that there’s way more stuff than we’ll be able to work through–and that maybe we don’t have to figure it all out. Maybe we can’t. Maybe we’re not supposed to.”

What are you determined to figure all the way out this year? To beat this year? Achieve this year? Discover this year? Perfect this year?

And if you don’t reach that bar . . . is that okay? Are you enough? Is your now-life worth it anyway?

Do you watch The Office?

(It’s funny when a TV show becomes so legendary that it’s no longer “have you watched,“ but “do you watch?”)

If you’re an Office person, I know for sure three times you cried about it. Jim and Pam at Niagara, Michael saying goodbye at the airport, and the entire Finale episode.

In the Finale, goofy old Andy Bernard says something just outrageously profound that sums up the point of the whole show–a show full of different characters casting about in countless directions for meaning and growth and purpose and fulfillment. “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.”

When Siddhartha embarked on his journey of self discovery, he was ferried across a river by an old man. After a long life of searching, Siddhartha again comes to the river, and finds the same old man–still radiating the same peace Siddhartha had seen in his eyes years before. Vasudeva, the ferryman, leads a simple life transporting travelers back and forth across the river. Having tried every different way in life, still feeling like he’s missing the point, Siddhartha decides to stay with Vasudeva–learn from him, see if he can find the peace and contentment the old man has found.

Vasudeva doesn’t have grand philosophies, programs, pleasures, practices, or opinions to share. Instead, he encourages Siddhartha to learn from the river.

As the years roll by, Siddhartha watches the river. The river just . . . flows. It keeps going. And going. And going. It is strong and soft. Steady and inevitable. The river doesn’t fight, and it can’t be fought. The water is carried to the ocean and brought back again by rain, birth and death without beginning or end. And without struggle, the river lives on–its various ripples and currents and waves and droplets all as one. One continuing, flowing one.

There is no perfecting the river. No molding its waves into the right shape. No struggle that will stop its currents.

The river flows.

The flow of life.

With all its bad and good, it’s happiness and sadness, it’s living and dying.

Life flows on.

And while one can learn peace and joy and beauty and love during life, one cannot master it, stop it, fix it, win it, or beat it.

One just . . . lives.

Nails on a chalkboard. I did not like what she was saying.

I’m a next level Scheduling guru. I can fit every different goal and passion and habit and session into a 7-day-excel-spreadsheet (color coded, too, because life is an adventure).

And then life’s currents do their thing and I have to rewrite the schedule. Every few days.

Over dinner, I was complaining to Lyssi that I just couldn’t figure out a realistic way to fit everything I want dependably into my day or my week. Running, yoga, meditation, breathwork, exercises, swimming, cooking, massage, reading, podcasts, languages, piano, movies, friends, journaling, reading some more, brushing my teeth. And on top of it all, actually writing for my blog again.

“I have a sort of strange idea,” she said. “What if you just didn’t follow a schedule at all? What if you just did what you wanted to do, when you wanted to do it? Just listening to your body and your heart? Like when you wake up in the morning, maybe it’s a reading day, maybe it’s a movement day, maybe it lasts five minutes or an hour, or maybe you just stay in bed?”

Um. No. That is . . . the worst. It will not work.

“I’m just worried that if I don’t schedule it, the stuff I really need and want that isn’t comfortable is what will slide. Like movement and exercise. I’m afraid I’ll always just go with what’s easy.”

As much as I hated the idea and knew there was no way it would work, I also tasted this little flavor of relief, and had to go back for more. So I threw out the planning, and just lived what life brought me.

It has turned out looking like a lot more movement and exercise–especially yoga and swimming, almost every day. I haven’t read any less, maybe more. I have grown more in touch with my body, its pain and its insecurity and also its freedom and its strength. The only thing I feel like I’ve lost is a sense of failure at not measuring up every day to the Peter I kept planning and re-planning to be.

“In this hour, Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate, stopped suffering. On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a knowledge, which is no longer opposed by any will, which knows perfection, which is in agreement with the flow of events, with the current of life, full of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure of others, devoted to flow, belonging to the oneness.”

So what was your New Year’s resolution? And how are you measuring up? And will it be enough?

I feel like six months from now I’ll probably be writing something about how valuable schedules and habits and consistency are, and I don’t think it will be wrong. Schedules are wonderful. Planning is important. Repeated practice adds up to a lot of strength and joy and beauty and adventure and love.

Which is why I’ll probably set New Year’s goals or intentions again someday. But this year I’m learning to lay down that bar I’ve been desperately seeking to measure up to, year after year, struggle after struggle, interruption after interruption, disappointment after disappointment.

Which season are you in? Are you trying yet another strategy this year? And here’s a more helpful question: Are you tired about it?

Then maybe it’s time to give yourself over to life. To trust it. It will flow. It will bring love and pain and excitement and sadness and hugs and loneliness and movement and boredom and the whole time it will be beautiful and it will be yours and it will be right.

Sure, chase the adventure and meaning you want in life. That’s part of it and it’s worth scheduling and pushing now and then.

And also, you’re already living. It’s life. It’s weird. It’s exciting. It’s confusing. It’s beautiful. It’s allowed. And it’s enough.

As Siddhartha nears the end of his life, he speaks again to his childhood friend and fellow seeker, Govinda: “What should I possibly have to tell you[?] . . . Perhaps that in all that searching, you don’t find the time for finding?”

Can you let go of the Shoulds for a while? Can you just live? You may find that it’s enough. That you’re already enough. That you’re already there.

P.S. What’s funny is that after giving up completely on schedules and goals and Shoulds this new year, I’ve stumbled upon a clearer intention for this season of my life than I think I’ve ever felt. It’s a simple one and it’s helping. Ask me about it over coffee sometime. I’d love to share it.

Maybe I will write another tomorrow. Or maybe I will sleep in. If I write, would you like me to write for you?

Glacier Adventure

Glacier National Park.

My favorite.*

(*at least for today)

There are things in nature that I love with every little bit of my heart. Big mountains. Cold flowing water. Tall trees. And all the all the all the green.

Glacier is the ultimate mix between massive mountains and walkable woods. For some hikers, the cold rugged ridges of the Colorado or Canadian Rockies, soaring close to three miles above sea level, are a bit daunting–inaccessible. They feel sort of desolate. While that’s part of their draw for me, Glacier is different. Glacier feels more like a place to go just hike, no matter how little or much mountaineering you’ve done. Glacier’s peaks aren’t quite as massive and cold, but the slightly lower altitudes make it a little more comfortable and accessible–and SO GREEN!!! And the glacier-fed lakes and rivers are the most shocking turquoise! (Oh and all the wildlife!)

If you’re looking to get into hiking and national parks-type adventures, Glacier’s the perfect place to start!

If you go–hit me up, I’ll give you all the best spots!

My sister and her husband and my wife and I took a week-long adventure to Glacier National Park back in June of 2018. We took a train on Amtrak’s Empire Builder route from St. Paul Minnesota’s Union Depot to East Glacier Montana just outside the park. We stayed on the west side near Whitefish, where on the last full day we woke up early and cold and drove across the park to run the Glacier Half Marathon up and down mountains in the rain. What an experience.

Why don’t you come along on a visual adventure?

Apgar Lookout Trail

Lake McDonald

Looking weird to feel good. Foundation Training always helps us stay strong and comfy on our adventures full of long train rides and hours in the car. | *Photo by Susan Powell*

Two Medicine Lake

“Trick Falls” – Running Eagle Falls

Views along US Highway 2 through Glacier

Silver Staircase Falls

Kayaking in and out of the rain on Lake McDonald

Swiftcurrent Lake, Many Glacier

Grinnell Glacier hike

Glacier Half Marathon

Hope you enjoyed, and hope sometime you go find some adventure for yourself at Glacier National Park!

Western States Adventure

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Well hey friends. :) It’s a weird year, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one who is missing more adventurous days. So if it helps, join me on a little virtual road trip to the West Coast and some other gorgeous destinations that direction.

In fall 2017, Lyssi and I did our first real big outdoorsy adventure, along with our bestie/sister Brie. Since that first thrilling and confidence-building journey, adventuring in the great outdoors has become a regular part of our lives. I hope you’ll do it, too. :)

So come along to Arizona, California, Oregon, Nevada, and Utah!

(Click on a picture in the mosaics to scroll through them full size.)

ARIZONA DRIVE

After an afternoon flight into Phoenix, we hopped in our rental and just started chasing the sunset west. Desert in the dark, California road signs warning of high winds, and, eventually, sprawling lights and speeding cars as we descended toward Palm Springs. One thing we didn’t really grasp ahead of time was the significance of “fire season” out west. A midnight drive through Los Angeles, a few detours for roads closed due to wildfires somewhere in town. When we hopped on the highway heading north, we saw orange blazes all over the hills in front and to the side. It was . . . strange. Heading north from Los Angeles in the dark was quite the way to whet our mountains-appetite, with steep winding ascents for miles. After a long night of driving and a couple hours at a rest stop, we passed through Sacramento and made the long drive up to Portland. Near the Oregon border, we drove up into green, green mountains and stopped to explore Lake Shasta. Around there, we began to realize the “haze” and “fog” we’d been seeing all day was just smoke from wildfires burning all over Oregon and northern Cali. Even closed in our car, it stung our eyes. Our second morning in Portland our car was covered in ash.

NESKOWIN OREGON & THE GHOST FOREST

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After a winding drive through woods of cedar trees, under a starry early-morning sky, we arrived in Neskowin at dawn. Walking out onto the beach to the sound of crashing waves was magical. We could hardly see around us, the mist was so heavy. As the mist rose and the tide slowly came in, a hundred ancient tree stumps covered in marine treasures sank slowly into the ocean. The “Ghost Forest.”

OREGON COAST DRIVE

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A smoky but incredible drive down the Oregon coast. Each bend in the road was incredible.

CALIFORNIA REDWOODS IN JEDEDIAH SMITH REDWOODS STATE PARK

Towering redwoods that remind humans of their relative smallness and just how young we really are.

SECRET BEACH NEAR BROOKINGS OREGON

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So this was a little treasure some research uncovered before our trip. It’s not really a beach, it’s the ocean crashing on the rocks in a little cove. It’s just that when the tide goes all the way out, there’s a spot where you can pull off to the shoulder of the road and venture down to a “Secret Beach.” It did not disappoint. More wonder in this little spot than just about anywhere I’ve seen.

CENTRAL OREGON

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Oregon wasn’t exactly what we expected. I didn’t realize it had literally everything. Deserts, giant cliffs, mountains, forests, lakes, rivers, ocean, and even painted hills. And then these massive rolling grassy plains that I didn’t expect to be as breathtaking as they were. They came right after a drive through a massive, mountainous forest with a stop at Mount Hood–a forest that made me feel like I had found Home.

SMITH ROCK STATE PARK OREGON

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Smith Rock State Park is one of the most other-worldly, shockingly epic places I’ve been or even seen in my life. In the middle of not-too-mountainous central Oregon, a short drive from where we stayed in the adorable city of Bend, Smith Rock’s giant volcanic ash formations rise hundreds of feet straight out of the ground, offering views for miles around and some pretty spectacular and spectacularly-nerve-wracking hikes. We did the aptly named Misery Ridge route. Our views were a little faded with smoke from the wildfires that knocked all the forest, river, and hot springs hikes off our itinerary. But it was still incredible. Honestly, the smokiness just made it feel more enchanting. A highlight of Smith Rock is Monkey Face, a 350-foot narrow rock tower that rock climbers frequent. If you find yourself in Oregon, I can’t stress enough: Smith Rock. Incredible.

CLIFF JUMPING AT STEELHEAD FALLS

If you like cliff jumping, waterfalls, or both, Steelhead Falls near in Terrebonne is an awesome spot. Seemed like a fairly private spot. Easy hike. Absolutely gorgeous and a lot of fun.

PAINTED HILLS IN JOHN DAY FOSSIL BEDS

What can I say about the drives across Oregon?? . . . by the end of it, we had all but decided to move there. Anywhere in Oregon. It was all so beautiful! We drove from Bend straight down to Utah, and a good chunk of the first day we spent driving through John Day Fossil Beds (wow) and stopping for a while in the Painted Hills. It was like visiting another planet.

NEVADA DRIVE

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I did not expect the long, desolate drive across Nevada to be one of the best parts of our adventure. It. Was. Awesome. It started with a sign in south Oregon that said, if I remember correctly, “No Gas for 130 miles.” We were truly in the middle of nowhere. The occasional car would whiz by at 100mph, which meant that drivers didn’t have nearly as much time for passing in the opposite lane as they expected, and we were run off the road once by an oncoming truck. Once we got into Nevada, we drove for hours and hours on a long, straight highway lined with desert and ranches and Native American reservation towns and rows of mountains maybe 10 miles away on both sides. It was majestic.

Top five coolest life moments, for sure–doing 90 alone in the Nevada desert, we suddenly heard–I should say felt–this deafening BANG! Our car shook. What the hell just happened?!? We spun our heads looking for whatever just did that and saw a fighter jet that looked like it couldn’t be more than a hundred or so feet overhead. A second later, another bang shook the car and another fighter jet flew low overhead. It was one of the most exciting and thrilling and special moments ever. I bet the pilots get a kick out of doing that.

When darkness fell, we turned onto US-50, which is called “The Loneliest Road in America,” and for good reason. Vulnerable might be the word to describe that chunk of the adventure. I think we saw just one vehicle between dusk and midnight. But we also saw more jackrabbits and coyotes and deer than I’ve seen in my life. It was also like driving through a blizzard of bugs, unfortunately. And the strangest thing was that we seemed to be climbing. The air was starting to get very cold and sort of thin. Eventually the road began twisting and turning as we rapidly ascended. Eventually we made it to Ely where we turned in for the night.

Our drive the next morning was a bit of a shock. Turns out the steep twisty roads we’d driven in the dark were bordered by steep hills and drop offs, and we’d climbed thousands of feet into mountains we didn’t really know were there. Our daylight drive back down the mountains was a little slower and more cautious with no guardrails, and sort of thrilling to realize just what sort of scary drive we’d made the night before. 100% I would take another trip just to drive all around the state of Nevada.

ZION NATIONAL PARK

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Zion was indescribable. Our first legit mountain hike as outdoorsy adventurers–4 miles up, 4 miles down, 2000+ ft of elevation gain, through slot canyons and along winding and gusty precipices–took us to Observation Point and its mind-bending views. This little spot was one of the biggest perspective-giving places I’ve been in my life. Shortly after we got home, I wrote a little about why. Here you go: Observation Point, Zion National Park

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The next day we did Angel’s Landing. Have you done Angel’s Landing? If you have, you know what I mean when I say I have never been more sure we were going to die. But what an incredible and beautiful experience. Once in a lifetime. Long, steep switchbacks up to a lookout. What I saw when we reached the lookout literally made me sit down half-paralyzed. It took me a few real minutes to decide to go for it. All I could envision was watching one of my best friends slip. The next half-mile felt like an eternity, following a narrow ridge with 1000+ ft drop-offs on either side. Steep, slanted, sandy slabs where you hold for dear life onto chains. Stepping a little closer to the edge while you say a prayer, so another group of hikers can pass. Deciding which hiker holds the chain and which hiker just tries to keep their balance. Oh. My. Goodness. It was worth it and I want to do it again, but maybe without friends along to worry about or traffic to dodge. The summit of Angel’s Landing is spectacular.

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Our last big Zion hike was Canyon Overlook Trail, another kind of beauty.

Go. To. Zion. 100%.

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CLIFF DWELLERS ARIZONA

After we crossed from Utah into Arizona, we found a little spot to explore called Cliff Dwellers.

GRAND CANYON

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Just a way-too-brief stop at the Grand Canyon on my birthday.

SEDONA ARIZONA

If you ever go to Phoenix or the Grand Canyon, make the trip to Sedona. You’ve probably heard of it. It is so beautiful. Also, drive this route: 89A between Flagstaff and Sedona. You will not be disappointed! It’s gorgeous enough in itself, but our drive was especially beautiful as we wound back and forth in and out of sunshine and rainstorms.

ARIZONA DRIVE

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We kicked off our road trip with a long drive straight west from Phoenix through flat, hot, dry desert. And then we ended our trip coming back into Phoenix from the north, a much, much different drive. A long gradual descent of about 8000 ft. Mountains all around and big open sky. Our ~4-5000-mile adventure brought us just about every imaginable view. Thrills, hidden gems, climbs, lonely night skies, and dizzying heights. We saw a lot of world in a week and a half.

Remember, friends, that adventure is therapeutic and nature is healing and exploring the world opens doors you didn’t know existed. And sometimes it’s just an unusually long but surprisingly affordable road trip away.

Go adventure!

Love to you, fellow adventurers! :)

You still are and you still can

I am a world traveler. An explorer. An adventurer.

Salty wind on a gloomy Scottish coast, with an order of fish and chips. Diesel smell from the red double-decker buses.

Giant red Maple leaves painted on the airplanes, a little memory to remind me that I had technically been to Canada, even if it was more through. Little me still wants it to count.

The palpable rush of confidence and swagger as sheltered teen me navigated the Heartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and caught the MARTA, all by myself, to see my adopted family. Atlanta and its suburbs that, after a few trips, was my emotional stomping grounds, my “real home.”

Restaurants on piers in San Diego, with the loud sound of crashing waves. “Red and white,” a cryptic inside joke that out-of-place teen me and all my fellow travelers in San Deigo laughed and laughed at, though I never actually got it.

Homemade black-bean breakfast burritos at dawn on the road in Arizona with my big sister, and the jaw-dropping, don’t-know-what-to-do-with-it massiveness of the Grand Canyon when I first walked up to its edge.

The carefully-choreographed nonchalance with which I’d swing my backpack over one shoulder (only once accidentally smacking a fellow traveler in the face with the cool maneuver). The “oh yeah, this is my every-day, I’ve got this” demeanor I adopted whenever I had traveling companions, just to prove that yes, I’m a seasoned world traveler at seventeen.

Traveling by greyhound bus. Telling people I traveled by greyhound bus. Cred.

A long, long, long flight to . . . Amsterdam? And then to Frankfurt, where I logged onto an internet kiosk to send a quick love-note and discovered that German keyboards switch the Y and the Z. Struggling to keep my eyelids open so as not to miss my connection to Africa.

And then there was Ethiopia. Addis Ababa. I could write and write and write. The collapsed, seat-belt-less back seat of the taxi with the door that would swing wide open around curves. Ululating funeral processions. Wedding feasts. The way Amharic speakers gasp and raise their eyebrows to denote that they’re still listening. The beautiful Ge’ez script that doubled as code for my secret love letters. Morning prayers over loud-speaker. Blue and white taxis with boys hanging out the door yelling their destinations, and chaotic traffic like you’ve never seen (though YouTubing “Meskel Square” may give you a sense). Outrunning a bull down an alleyway. Beautiful old cathedrals. Getting lost at dusk in a corner of the city I’d never seen. Key Wat. And the streets of Addis Ababa coming alive with runners at 5am.

And Uganda. Kawunga ne ebijanjalo for lunch every day. The dancing, the rhythm. The elephants and giraffes as I rode a massive bus from one corner of Uganda to another. The beautiful landscape. The “oh-yeah-this-is-normal” feel of wildfires in the hot Savannah. The warm, generous welcomes in remote villages from the poorest of people. The python I suddenly notice slithering through the grass two feet away. Jack Fruit fresh off the tree. Roaring waterfalls, rivers with hippos and crocodiles. The several-story shopping malls and glamorous houses that told me that I’d learned only a tiny little version of the truth about Africa.

A dreamlike week in Mezzegra on Lake Como in northern Italy. All the pizza, all the wine, and fresh food from the little shop on the corner, where the deli attendant didn’t wash hands after using them bare to wrap our raw chicken, but like in a this-is-normal way. All the little restaurants serving food fresh from their home gardens. Showing up at the local super market fifteen minutes before the hour, only to see the doors shut and someone explain that they weren’t busy so they went ahead and closed early. Beautiful mountains and towers and villages and trails. An intimate elopement at the Villa del Balbianello with just my adventure buddy, our photographer couple, and the reckless driver of our wooden boat. And gelato, of course. Il dolce far niente.

And most recently, a few years of flying or driving or taking a train or doing whatever it takes to get to any and every gorgeous piece of America (or Canada) we can–from Big Bend to Glacier to the Rockies to the Smokies to Zion. And a weekend wandering Santa Barbara, driving its mountain roads, splashing in its waves, eating authentic tacos, and wishing Shawn Spencer and Burton Guster really lived there.

World-traveler.

That’s me.

That was me.

People still say I travel a lot. I guess I do, when we’re not hunkered down waiting out the coronavirus. But like . . . sort of traveling. I don’t fly on airplanes very much anymore, mostly shockingly long drives (think sixteen hours in one day), and pretty much just in the United States. But I didn’t mean to be a United-States-traveler, I meant to be a World-traveler.

When I left my home country for Africa, I discovered that a big portion of my heart belongs to exploring countries and cultures all around the world.

That just is me.

“But,” I haven’t left the country in five years. When I was twenty, I envisioned this World-traveler me flying off to a new land to explore at least once or twice a year. I knew how to, I learned all about it . . . this was what my life was going to be about, in a big way.

In the ten years since, I’ve flown across the ocean only once. Been to Italy and Canada. In ten years. Not what I envisioned. So . . . am I a World-traveler?

What is something like that for you? Something that is a huge part of daydream-you? Maybe a thing you used to experience, do a lot of, love, dream about, envision as one of the main threads in your life?

Maybe something you haven’t gotten to keep doing quite like you envisioned it?

Traveling? . . . Running? . . . Writing? . . . Drawing? . . . Volunteering? . . . Journaling? . . . Singing? . . . Playing sports? . . . Being romantic? . . . Adopting fur-children? . . .

Have you felt like you’ve had to give it up? Like you shouldn’t claim that title for yourself anymore, because it’s not accurate?

Maybe you used to be a runner, but not really anymore now that you’ve had kids. 13.1 used to be your jam, but now a slow 1 or 2 miles is a major accomplishment, when you even get the time for it.

And you still love “running.” You want it. You remember it. You know it. You miss it. You have your old medals, photos, miles logged on your running app, memories of worn down pair after pair of shoes. You occasionally look at your old race bibs and get very opposite feelings at the same time–happy and sad. . . .

Are you even a runner anymore?

Whatever your big thing is–and maybe you have a few of them–I wonder . . .

. . . why does time matter so much in your identity?

. . . and why can’t you still have it, even if in a more these-days version?

Why do we get so wrapped up in the passing of time when it comes to our identity?

You will always, always, always have the miles you’ve run. You’ll always have the countries you’ve visited. You’ll always have the people you’ve loved. You’ll always have the dances you’ve danced, the songs you’ve sung, the books you’ve read, the letters you’ve written, the rock walls you’ve climbed, the parties you’ve thrown, the puppies you’ve snuggled, and the accomplishments you’ve accomplished.

Why do they count less ten years later?

One day, it will be one hundred years later. And then, which will count as you? The one-hundred-years-ago you or the ninety-years-ago-you? At your funeral, who will be remembered? Only the you of the final couple years? Or the you that has lived a long and vibrant life of twists and turns and adventures and accomplishments and passions and stories and favorites?

Your memories and photographs of 10-year-old dancing you, 20-year-old dating you, 30-year-old running you, and 40-year-old parent you . . . they’re no less real or important or wonderful or YOU than they were 10, 20, 30, and 40 years ago.

Why do we judge ourselves by arbitrary measurements of time when we tell ourselves and others of our identity–of what makes us us? Why don’t we just access our deep down selves, even if our deep down selves haven’t had the chance for many years to show up the way they love to? The love for the thing is still there. The memories are still there. The reality is still there. The identity is still there.

You don’t have to throw back-then-you away. Now-you will also one day be a back-then-you. They all count. Let go of time a little when you know and share yourself. Let you still be you.

And why can’t you still do that thing you once loved and still love? Is it not normal for this stage of life? No problem, be abnormal. Are you not as physically capable of it as you used to be? No problem, do it slower/lighter/easier. Is it too expensive to do as much as you used to? No problem, find (or make up) a cheaper version of it, no matter how unique.

What would happen if we still just did that thing we loved–still love? What would it take?

Among other things, it would take just letting go of the need to be “the best at” or even “good at.” Can we let go of that? If we can, there’s a lot of epic life to be lived.

It would also take accepting the fact that the experience will just be different now. When I was sixteen, I could eat a lot more pizza in one sitting than I can now. And I don’t feel as great the next day as I used to. Okay. . . . That’s okay. And before my concussion, I could run a lot harder than I’ve been able to since. Okay. . . . That’s okay. And exploring and traveling for me looks a little different now than it did when I was nineteen. Now, instead of living on the other side of the globe for the better part of a year, I sneak in a couple quick hiking days into a long weekend bookended by long drives. A little less glamorous. Okay. . . . That’s okay.

So that big thing of yours . . . that thing that holds so much of your identity, but that you feel you’ve lost . . . are you sure you’ve lost it? Won’t it always be a part of you? And could you still find a way to live it and celebrate it some more?

I’m still a World-traveler.

I hope to do lots more actually physically visiting other countries in my lifetime. I’d love someday to do it very regularly. But for now, I take hiking road trips in North America, study languages from places I want to adventure, learn about other cultures through documentaries, and explore those places on Google Maps for hours at a time.

I always will be a Word-traveler. Even when I’m stuck at home for a season.

It’s who I have been. It’s who I will be. And both of those make it who I am.

Who are YOU, “even though” . . . ?