Devolution

Jaggedy bike paths
and velvety night rides
these are a few of
my dangerous things

It is certain that I devolve
that my ancestors were panthers
Caged all day in pretty clothes
and encouraging words
the feral blood prowling in silence
awaiting its chance

The spandex hits my crotch
and I roll
threading my way
through velvety darkness
egged on by coyotes
yipping in the open space
On all sides of me
voices threading through the grass
across the trail
with just me slicing between

Five miles through State Park,
I see no other humans
I fly too fast for a girl without a night light
but am unable to stop
unable to tether the panther
whose need for speed
teeth sucking wind
jaw gaping
bugs splintering the cornices
of my eyes
Makes me whole.

14er Bliss

I love the hard, pumpy feeling you get when you are working at going uphill.
I love the way my head pounds until a single chocolate outrage Gu stitches those frayed temple edges back together.
I love the way you have to step slowly and place each foot deliberately so as not to plummet to injury - or just waste a ton of energy.
I love the way you gasp in that thin air that yet tastes fresher than the air anywhere else in the world.
I love the way I don't shower or change my clothes for days at a time. (I am green!)
I love the way you meet people on their journeys up the same mountain - and they've come from so many directions.
I love the way my body stays in motion, the way it craves the top as much as my oxygen-stretched mind.
I love the way the world is at the top.

I love everything about it.

Mt. Belford & Mt. Oxford
11 miles, 5900 feet, 9:04.37
July 25, 2009

The Minimalist

You are tempted to take shortcuts, to cut weight and "things" from your pack, to leave it all behind... but the minimalist has learned a few lessons.

You will need a cap and gloves on top of most 14ers. Even when it's 80 degrees in Denver, the top of Torrey's will most likely be tempestuous. Winds blow up there. All the time. Sneak snowfalls and thick wet clouds engulf you. Even the rocks wear a chilly set of whiskers. A warm 14er is a rare find. Come down 500 feet from the summit and you'll most likely bake, but up top - the winds prevail.

Extra water and energy gels are a must. Sunscreen cannot be neglected.


I'm tempted today as I pack. To cut things & stuff loose. But even the minimalist needs warmth on a bare peak. Even the strongest need help, need supportive people on their journeys.

Into my pack goes the warmth.

Mt. Yale: 14,196 Feet

I summited today! It was one of those days where I covered a lot of territory. My favorite shot of the day...

That Time of Year

It's that time of year. That grateful time, the time of reaping all we've sown. The kids are awesome. I ask them to write a sentence using the word "genuinely," and Ellis writes, "I genuinely appreciate Ms. TT teaching me reading and writing."

I have fought so hard with these kids this year! I have despaired of EVER getting through to them, of ever having them see that this - this intervention - is in their very best self-interest. Every day, they are showing signs that they now see the light. They are taking charge, putting themselves in the driver's seat with their reading and writing. (And loving their teacher, which goes a long way to repair the ego they battered earlier this year.)

Today we curled up around the lava lamp for read aloud. I got two pages into it and we side-tracked for a discussion of adoption and foster care and all the issues that lead to parents making the decision to not raise their own children. It was deep and close and caring.

One other nugget for the days next year when I have the new, untrained ones... Parents and teachers of middle schoolers, I direct your attention to this...

I let slip yesterday that, because of a schedule snafu, one student had spent an hour one-on-one with me in my office. My news was met with a chorus of "How come she got to do that?"

Aren't these adolescents supposed to be wresting their independence from us? They are not. Not anymore than we want to be free of them. I'm already sad about the year ending.

Yeah, I'm a loser. But I'm a grateful loser.

Lucidity Comes in Liquid Form

Everything I ever needed to know I learned on the swim.

I did fast 100s. My heart beat so hard, felt so large, that I was sure it was going to leap out of my rib cage and make a splashy entrance into the water below me.

My heart was full, sitting there doing her nails. In all honesty, she was a difficult grandma. She was a don't-touch-that grandma. But last week, I sat at a table with her, soaking her chemotherapy-hardened fingernails and toenails, clipping them, filing them and then rubbing in balm to fend off the itchy, thick skin. My mom was there. My sister-in-law, various nieces and nephews ran in and out. We talked. We laughed. She stayed there with us, with all of that chaotic kid and family noise. She stayed even though her head bobbed with tiredness. She was saying all of the things she'd never said. She said them eloquently with all that staying.

My plane landed in Denver on Sunday night and my phone rang. I thought my heart would burst, make a splashy entrance into the sunlit Colorado air that surrounded me. I wanted it to burst, to paint the sky with a rainbow, to tell Grandma that 89 years was just enough to thank a daughter, to woo a grand-daughter, to be heard.

Your arms reach and pull, all muscles seriously scrabbling for more purchase, more glide, more speed.

It clicked for me. How to climb the mountain was clear. I learned it from swimming. I needed to bend down, crawl like a monkey - on my hands and feet, my core tight, my arms scrabbling for purchase in the slippery scree. I needed to forgo oxygen and push through in bursts. I clued in the climbers nearest me - my nephew and my sister. In less than an hour, they would summit their first fourteener. I would stand there with two of my sisters, transported from our lives on a rural Wisconsin dairy farm when there was guaranteed Holstein shit under our fingernails for the first 18 years of our lives, up to that place that defies words... though my sister, in rushing bursts, tried... "It's all so amazing... It's nothing like I'd ever imagined it would be... every step of it... but how could I have imagined this...?"



I stretched, long and lean in the water. I was all glide and no effort. I flipped and repeated.

Do you ever get the feeling that what you are doing - in this precise moment - is exactly what you were meant to do, that you have been training all of your life for just this moment? That your neurons, your fibers, your very self is in harmony with this place? Do you ever wonder how you got there? Do you shake your head at the very odd confabulation of events that led to it?

I end this piece on a packing night. I will be on a plane again tomorrow. Going to a funeral, reuniting with my family - to grieve, to celebrate. I take with me Colorado sunshine. I take with me the sweet stillness of a good swim. I take with me peace - and the ability to be ever-surprised.

The Ample Spread

I feel the ample spread
when I sit down in my chair
My hips and thighs
conquer
quashing any resistance
from the chair
the loveseat
even the couch can hold
no truck with them
This truckload o' me
brooks no opposition

And while I'm bitchin'...

My hair is streaked with silver
I've got cottage cheese
- and not just on my plate -

BUT

My ample spread
encompasses
not only the state of my
buttocks and thighs
but also my frame of mind
I'm comfortable where I am
wide-ranging and free

So keep your skinny hips
and your 6-pack abs
I'm comfortable with
my ample spread
my horn of plenty
my plethora
the bottomless pit o' me
(No pictures with this post though.)