Ready or not...

I woke up this morning to a fresh blanket of snow. Wait, let's be more specific. I woke up this morning to the clattering of my dog's toenails on the hardwood floor. I groaned... rolled over and swallowed the fact that I was going to have to get up and let the dog out long before I was ready to wake up (the truth is once I am awoken all I can think about is how I really have to go to the bathroom and if I am up to go there then the guilt that I should just be a good dog mom and let him out weighs me down until I do it). So, I trudged my way to the back door, inevitably tripping over my over-eager dog only to find that once the door was opened my dog refused to go outside. I looked out and everything was white- I thought it was beautiful. Yet my dog had somehow forgotten what snow was over the course of the previous three seasons. My now awake husband finally pushed him out of the door against his will. The dog sniffed the white substance, licked it and then ran out into the yard, tail wagging again. I smiled and then laughed as I watched him. I imagine it was similar to how a parent feels after being awoken in the middle of the night only to find their baby grinning at them from the crib, wide awake. I could not help but be touched by my silly dog's "new" discoveries.

I am excited about this snowfall. I will admit that it is entirely possible that it is because I know that this snow won't last. This isn't the snow that will form the constant tire boogers behind my car wheels. It isn't the grey snow that lurks in every parking lot come February. It also isn't the snow that I will have to shovel in the driveway while battling the temperature disparity between by extremities and my core (oh yeah, that's me wearing a ski mask, boots, gloves and just long underwear shoveling away on my very busy street). It is just a temporary reminder of things to come. A warning to get ready because while you were trying to wait until the very last minute to rake those leaves, winter was still making its way to you.

This snow is beautiful, white, and clean . It covers everything in sight, creating an alien landscape. Unlike any other season, winter has the power to change your surroundings in such a short time. The buds of spring take weeks to bloom, the heat of summer builds slowly and the leaves of autumn turn gradually. Snow is different. It takes a view that you have gotten used to, maybe even resigned to, and makes it brand new. It gives you the energy to keep going because somehow things feel fresh again.

Winter is a season that I need to bring me back to center. Other seasons are filled with chaos, but winter is more of a constant which allows me to turn inward. It also allows me to bring my awareness to the small things. I was excited to take the dog for a walk today, because it suddenly felt like a new adventure. We went down to a bike trail that follows the Cedar River. It was quiet, not a single biker, jogger, or morning speed walker to distract me. Just the trees, the river, the snow, and us. I noticed a hawk swoop above the trail ahead of me, which is something that would have probably been camouflaged by leaves just a week earlier (or even more likely, that I would have been too distracted to notice because I was trying to stop my dog from running in front of a biker, while they are ringing their annoying little bell and my dog is running circles around my legs and I am just trying to keep upright). Even more special to me was that I again noticed the chickadees flitting from branch to branch. Chickadees remind me of my late grandmother and listening to their familiar song brings me back to forests of Wisconsin. I am lucky that a species so common is so dear to me. I can have a piece of home almost anywhere I go, as long as I have the consciousness to notice them.

Winter is a cozy season. I think one of the best compliments I have ever gotten is when a friend once told me how "cozy" I was. At the time I think it made me feel like a grandmother, but now I have come to appreciate and embrace this trait. I am looking forward to a season filled with knitting scarves, drinking hot tea, wearing fuzzy sweaters, and reading Laura Ingalls Wilder by the roaring woodstove. Maybe my winter-loving husband is wearing off on me, but I can't wait for that next layer of white.

The Question

I really despise "the question." It comes up too often and people give it too much worth. One form or another has been asked since I was a child. You've been asked this question and we have all likely asked it ourselves.

"What do you do?" and when I was younger, "what do you want to be?"

I get it, I do. I know it is an ice breaking question and we ask this question to help us understand people. It is just that I don't think it will help anyone understand me. I think there are much better questions to ask someone to get to know them, but we are afraid that those questions are too personal, serious, or deep for simple conversation.

Maybe this just bothers me so much because of where I am in my life now. In order understand that though, I am going to back up a bit...

When I was kid, I answered the question with a variety of answers. Some days I wanted to be a singer like Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston. I'd find the highest surface I could climb up to safely as a kid, grab a comb, convert my turtleneck into a tube top type contraption and belt out "and I willllllllll alwaaaaaaays love youuuuu!" My grandparents were always a very supportive audience, but I never did make it to any larger venues.

Later on I became obsessed with bottlenose dolphins, clownfish, and killer whales. I had a tie-died whale t-shirt(that I still wear and I look hot no matter what you say), stacks of scientific ocean books, an obnoxious holographic framed picture of a whale, and watched The Little Mermaid too many times. We visited Marineland in Florida (A low budget version of SeaWorld with peeling paint and a lot less people) and I was the chosen volunteer for the dolphin show. I fed the dolphin slimy fish and tossed a football back and forth with it. I was in love.  So, I decided I would be a marine biologist. This was great for awhile, I thought I had found my calling. I imagined myself moving to the West Coast for college and completing groundbreaking studies on sea life. I'd be famous and my name would be in all the scientific journals.
Then my parents told me something I should have realized sooner. Marine biologists have to spend a lot of time in the water. I hate water. I don't even like showers much. I cannot stand having my face wet or my head being immersed in water. I begged my mom to allow me to schedule an elective surgery during the swim unit of gym class to no avail. I refused to go under water for class. I got a "C" in gym class that quarter (that is like an "F" in my world). So, needless to say, the marine biologist career path was cut short for me.

I spent most of my adolescence and young adulthood skipping from one aspiration to another. I would convince myself that I would be the best interior designer ever and once my major was declared and I started taking courses I realized I hated drawing. The pattern continued to repeat itself. I find myself being really interested in new things for a short period of time and then losing interest. I got more satisfaction with shocking my family and friends with my new plans than actually making any progress towards a career. I am not a slacker and I am actually quite smart. I was on the Dean's list most of my semesters at Madison. I just don't have direction. My fiance and most of my friends were the sort of people that knew since they were a kid what they wanted to do for a career.  I, on the other hand, fumbled through college. I ended up with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies with a certificate in Environmental Studies. That sort of degree would probably lend itself towards a job in Washington D.C. or with a multinational corporation but I never wanted to live in a city for the rest of my life.  So, now it just sounds impressive on paper without being of much use.

After college, I did seasonal stints at National Parks. When people asked me "the question" I was happy to answer "Oh, I am actually a Park Ranger." It was a great conversation starter. I was the envy of most middle-aged men. I felt like my profession at least matched a portion of my personality and values. I loved that I helped people appreciate nature and I felt like I made a difference in the world. I hoped that when I answered "the question" people envisioned me in the green and grey standing tall on top of a mountain, chest high. It just wasn't a sustainable career for me. I missed home and civilization and the consistency of a normal life. When I ended up in Iowa I had all those other things, but no career.



Now I have to figure out a new answer to "the question." The problem is I don't have an answer. I don't know what tomorrow will bring. My fiance and I have decided that having me home is the best place for me right now. Everyone is happier. The house is clean, the dog isn't running around chasing his tail because he has too much energy, a complete meal is served most nights without stress, I have a Y2K stash of strawberry jam in the freezer and I greet my fiance with a smile and hug every day after work. I have a good thing going.

It is funny though that as soon as you are happy others want to find a way to bring you down. They ask me what I plan to do with my life, hint to my fiance that I may be a gold-digger, and want a run down of what I do all day. I don't fit into their box. Or maybe it is just that they are jealous. I realize I am extremely lucky to have such a supportive fiance and family. I know that everyone does not have this choice available to them.

So until further notice, if you ask me "the question" I am going to tell you that I am a stay at home dog mom. I am still bouncing around ideas for my future. Maybe I'll be a naturopath or a website designer or a pilot or a policewoman. Heck, maybe I'll try out for the next season of The Voice. You just never know where life is going to take you next and I am okay with that, I just hope everyone around me is too.

I live in Iowa.

I have had the pleasure of living in and visiting many beautiful places in my 26 years of life.  As a child, I fell asleep to the sound of a chorus of spring peepers and the occasional hoot of an owl. I actually have an alarm clock with a "forest" sound setting that is eerily similar to those spring nights of home. One morning I was awoken by the sound of crunching while living in the Hoh Rainforest of Washington. I looked out my window to find a large elk butt blocking my view. In West Texas, I never knew if the Guadalupe Mountains would be standing tall when I walked out of the door or if  wispy clouds would be hiding them from my sight.  Oftentimes storm clouds would build all day and explode in the afternoons with monstrous thunderstorms. The dry, compacted earth could not swallow the sheets of rain fast enough and it  transformed the desert into a giant kiddie pool, if only for a few minutes. While I studied in Cape Town, I had an amazing view of Table Mountain from my window and my apartment complex was surrounded with exotic plants like birds of paradise and a shrub that looked like it would produce bananas if given the right attention.

Despite the endless memories I have of these places and countless others, I have a sad confession. I have always had an awful case of "the-grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side" syndrome. Growing up I could not wait to live somewhere that allowed me to have neighbors and cable television.

When I lived in the Hoh I felt claustrophobic and trapped by the idea of the remoteness. The moss and Sitka spruce seemed to entangle themselves around my chest and it always felt hard to breathe when I was in that valley. I knew it took 12 minutes to drive far enough down the road to where on a good day I might get a cell phone signal, and where my mail or the occasional package would be dropped off. It would take at least another half hour to get to the Ace Hardware-Outfitter-Grocery combination store where I could buy People magazine. I spent all week looking forward to the 5 hour drive along Lake Crescent, through clear cuts and across Puget Sound to Seattle and civilization. I had never felt better than when my car was parked at suspicious angles pointing straight into the water on the car ferry while I let the moist air play with my hair and I looked towards the lights of the city. I knew that those lights held natural grocery stores, Thai restaurants, friends, but most importantly a strong AT&T signal.

South Africa nearly ruined me. A couple weeks after I arrived, itchy red bumps began to appear over my body. I went to the pharmacy and they gave me lotion for scabies and told me to scald my bedding and beloved stuffed animals (Bean and Euklee) in hot water. When that did not work I made an appointment with a foreign doctor, who had a sign out front that simply said "Surgery." He told me I likely had fleas. My African friends assured me this was a normal occurrence amongst college aged kids there. Meanwhile, my mother frantically sent a care package across the Atlantic and the equator, that was stuffed with a plastic sheet to enclose my mattress and concoctions that killed anything that might like to feast on dead skin cells. I sprinkled a blue powder along the edge of my bedroom that I found in a shop near my place that is likely prohibited in the U.S. for its toxicity, but promised to exterminate fleas. Soon after my bumps started changing into scabs and then scars, the cockroaches appeared... I had a countdown written in my planner of how many days I would be on that strange, hostile continent long before I hit the 100 day mark. I stuffed myself with Cadbury Mint Crisp bars, Xanax, and bottles of Savannah Dry to help pass the time.

It is always the same story. I dream up the dream of dreams in my imaginative head. I am going to move to Texas and be a strong, fearless Park Ranger that just looks at rattlesnakes right to make them skirt away. I'll get killer cowboy boots and all the locals will fall in love with me. Sometimes the dreams nearly came true, but it was never enough. I longed for home so much I would make myself sick. I would shut out the opportunity to fall in love with a new place. All those beautiful sunsets but they didn't feel beautiful enough without the people I loved. A few days after I get home and my body is backed up from eating too many squeaky cheese curds and I remember that Wisconsin always smells like cow manure, I start missing wherever I just came from.

These days I reside in the state of Iowa. It isn't really known for anything other than corn. There isn't much to do and there aren't any mountains to greet me when I wake up. If I want to camp somewhere scenic I'll probably drive for hours and once the ice melts it converts itself instantly into stifling humidity. The funny thing is that I am happy here. No, not for the long term, but day to day without thinking about it too hard, I am happy. If I start missing home, I drive 5 1/2 hours and about the time I start getting annoyed with home, I drive the 5 1/2 hours back. I can dream about the banana slugs of the Hoh, the roadrunners of Texas and the giraffes of South Africa without actually having to go there. When the day dreams get too intense, I can open my eyes and drive 2 minutes to buy People magazine. I never do though. I have a garden to pick green beans out of, a dog to teach to play frisbee, a studio to paint/sew/bead/stamp/journal in, and a man that I love more than anything else in the world. We whine about how awful Iowa is but I know it could be worse. The soil is really good here and so the grass is actually quite green.

The Trailhead (and so it begins...)

Starting a blog seems sort of tacky to me. It is built on this assumption that people care about what I have to say or about my life. Seems a bit presumptuous. I am moving past this thought though, because I think it will be good for me.

I watched an episode of Northern Exposure (hello '90's!) the other night. Maggie decides to go camping for her 30th birthday and write letters to all her ex boyfriends (who happen to also be dead). Then she sends them off on a river and in the hope that she'll be freed from her past. In true dramatic fashion she gets stricken with appendicitis and must be rescued from her camping trip and so you are never really sure if it worked... but either way, this blog should be a similar approach. Bundle up all my crazy thoughts and spew them out to the interweb in an attempt to keep growing.

As for Northern Exposure, I am neither recommending or poo-pooing the show. I can only say that it kept me company on many lonely nights during my stint in Hoh Rainforest of Olympic National Park. I also hoped that the theme song played at loud volumes would disturb my neighbor through the very thin government-issue walls. It was payback for having to listen to his girlfriend's bird-like pleasure sounds one too many times.

If this blog had it's description on one of the old trail guides I am not sure what it would say. So, you may want to continue reading at your own risk. And you may ask, what is up with all the trail terminology? I like the idea of a switchback as a metaphor for life. Most of the time you don't feel like you are moving forward in life, but you always are, and then, sometimes you feel like you are taking on much more than you'd like all at once. It all evens out into this steady climb. I also need to milk the whole previous park ranger mystique for all it is worth. Sometimes I feel like it is the only thing I have done in life that sets me apart from the pack and one of the only things that has really surprised me about myself. I don't think it defines me, but it taught me a lot. I could be basing the theme of my blog on my favorite movie Mean Girls, in which case it would likely be called The Burn Book and I'd have to use words like "fugly" and "grool." Oh, but I'll probably use the word "grool" anyways because I think it's useful. Either way, if you plan on reading this, you should be happy I went with the trail angle instead of Mean Girls.