Trips

Unpacking Thoughts upon Arriving Home from Vacation

By / April 4, 2013 / 1 Comment

We’ve returned from vacation. Usually this means I am filled with renewed energy and focus. The first few days after a vacation tend to be the sort where I get a million things done and don’t feel tired. I want that. I want to throw myself whole heartedly into work projects and emerge from next week with all of them done. I love weeks like that. The trouble is the “whole hearted” part. I’m not sure I’ll have a whole heart this week. We’re still in the first steps of finding solutions for Gleek and each step in this process has taken a huge emotional toll for me. I think about that sometimes, not being sure whether the path we’re walking is actually difficult or if I’m over reacting. There are reasons to want both of those answers, but I’m not going to spin down that rabbit hole today. Instead I’m going to acknowledge the rabbit hole is there and understand that I’m trying to avoid several more just like it, which could explain why my arrival home did not immediately trigger a burst of happy-to-be-home energy.

I have lots of work lined up for next week. They are the sort of projects which invigorate me and that I enjoy completing. I’ve got copy edits to enter, layout tweaks for Body Politic, a quick Hugo packet layout to do for Random Access Memorabilia, the CobbleStones 2012 edits are due to come back, and there is lots of planning to do for the upcoming challenge coin shipping project. Current count is 30,000 coins to ship in over 3000 packages. It will be the largest shipping we have ever done. These things are exciting. They are interesting. I want to switch into high gear and dive into the work. I’m going to try, even though a large part of me is afraid that my work focus will be interrupted by calls from the school. I already know that I’m going on a field trip next Tuesday and have appointments on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. I want a calm, focused, work week. Next week is not likely to be that week. I’m going to work anyway because the work needs to be done and deadlines loom.

A month from now things will have settled. We’ll be settled into the work of using therapy to change family patterns and to help Gleek restructure her thinking. Things will be more stable. I still mourn for the lost peace of this past month, for the work week I’m not likely to get next week, for the writing I’ve not done, for the little happy stories which slide past me un-noticed because my mind is occupied. To tell happy stories while I feel emotional chaos feels false, but to tell only the stressful things also is false. All of it is mixed up together and when I’m not sure what to say, I default to silence.

We’ve just returned from our annual four day vacation. It was the fourth such family vacation we’ve had and the first in which Howard was truly relaxed. This was our third year renting a condo in Moab and possibly the last because next year Kiki will be in college and we have yet to figure out whether “family vacation” means adjusting things so she can come or if it means those living under our roof. At some point she becomes a separate entity and household, but none of us knows yet when that will occur. We may change our vacation to be closer to Kiki’s chosen college, or we may change the timing. It has been lovely these past three years to have a familiar place to go. We’ll definitely return there again, even if not next year. My list of things I want to see in southern Utah keeps getting longer. These past three years I have learned to love red rocks and sharp blue sky. I’ve learned the textures of the desert. I’ve sat beside the condo swimming pool as my kids play and I look at the side of the mesa reaching skyward beside us. We’ve caught frogs and minnows in the pond and watched bats spin around the street lamp at night.

I list all of that and realize I am renewed. I have a challenging week ahead, but I think I can do this.

The World is Big

By / April 2, 2013 / 2 Comments

Sometimes I am so focused on the happenings inside the walls of my house, the hearts of my people, that I forget how big the world is.

It is big and wondrous. Skies like these can absorb any stress I care to throw at them.

Of course, under skies like these and with such views to see, it is hard to remember any stresses at all. Two more days of vacation. I think some of my stresses are lost in those skies forever and I’m bringing home the memory of sky instead.

Arriving Home

By / September 30, 2012

I’m home. This is a deeply happy thing, like in my bones happy. I started to feel it on the flight home as I approached Utah. I wish I knew if physical proximity to my heart’s residence actually had an effect or if it was all the effect of knowing that I was going home. Part of me would like to believe in a connection to the place I have created here, as if I could draw strength from the ground I have nurtured. I certainly felt like the forest around Mary’s house nourished my spirit. On the drive from the airport I immediately noticed how brown Utah is and how few trees it has. The only natural forests here are in the mountains and they are very different. Another part of me thinks that whole idea is a little bit hokey, but it doesn’t matter because I’m back with my people.

So how was my trip? I ask myself the same question, and I think it is going to take me a week or more to figure out the full answer. For today and tomorrow I am unpacking and resettling. I’m not going to have the mental and emotional space to figure out what this trip has done for/to me until after I figure out how it has shifted things here at home. In my absence my kids have learned some additional self reliance and I should not hurry to take back the tasks that they did for themselves this past week. This requires me to observe. Watching the group effort to pack lunches was certainly interesting and useful. It resembled the lunches on the retreat–make the ingredients available and let the people serve themselves. I’m also going to discover tasks that have piled up, waiting for me to return. But there are no crises and that is good.

In some ways I don’t want to unpack my brain from the trip. I know that some of the contents of my head have shifted and there will be changes as a result. Creating those shifts is exactly why I went. Yet, I’m tired and sorting it all out sounds every bit as difficult as going on the trip and being on the trip. Right now I’d really like to just have things be calm and normal. One of the things I have to figure out is if this desire to retract into ordinary routine is a wise impulse to allow time for writing, or if it is me trying to escape anxiety by making myself smaller. The two possible reasons require opposite responses from me. But I don’t have to figure it out today. Possibly not even this week. For this next week I will focus on creating calm stability for everyone in our house.

How was my trip? It was good. It was hard, but only because of things I carried inside my head. The location was lovely. The company was delightful. The food was excellent. I’m glad I went. I’m sorry that my going caused stress for Howard and the kids, even though letting them learn from stress was part of the point. I wish I’d been better able to disconnect my own stress and anxieties. I came home and the house is as I left it or perhaps even a bit cleaner. I think I will be able to incorporate more writing into my days here at home. I don’t know if the trip was necessary to making that change, it will definitely color the stories I write. And I get to sleep in my own bed. Now if only I could just get the lingering mosquito bites to stop itching.

The Final Day of Writers Retreat

By / September 29, 2012 / 1 Comment

As writing goes, this was not my most productive day of the retreat. In part my brain is tired. It is not used to having so much time allotted to writing, thinking about writing, reading research for writing, and talking about writing. It just fizzled a bit. Also a very large portion of my brain remained determinedly focused on the fact that I get to go home tomorrow.

The day did include several lovely conversations and I feel like I’ve finally come to know most of my fellow retreat journeyers. We acquired in-jokes and a shared lexicon of references. It no longer feels odd to walk into a room, sit down next to someone and just start writing without speaking first. I noticed this fact because there was a new visitor today and I found myself reluctant to intrude on him, which let me know I’d gotten comfortable with everyone else.

I did do some writing math, which is the sort of thing I do when I’m trying to remain focused on writing even though my brain is tired.
During this week I’ve written 4211 words of blog posts and 2109 words of fiction. Averaged over 7 days that gives me about 902 words per day. These numbers feel pretty paltry when most of the writers here are aiming for 2000-3000 words per day. But even before I came I knew I would not be able to measure the success of this retreat by word count. I actually had an exchange with Mary pre-retreat where she suggested I define success for the retreat.

I count as my first success that I came with a secondary success that I did not leave early. This was a seriously scary trip to take for reasons that are not logical and which I’m still trying to parse.

I got to hang out with Mary, which is always a win. I will extend that success to cover everyone who was here. I’m glad to know all of them.

I hoped to finish my draft of Strength of Wild Horses. I haven’t.

I saw a cardinal. I only saw him for a moment and only on the first day. It was like a little promise of hope. And I now know why they’re often referred to as redbirds.

I walked in the woods every day, usually more than once. I took lots of pictures.

The last measure is observing what opens up in my head when I’ve put away all the business, household, and parent thoughts. I wasn’t able to fully put them away, but I was also able to begin creating fiction. I don’t think this one is complete yet. I need to go home and step back into my usual routines in order to be able to tell what has shifted around in my head.

So tomorrow I go home. Until then, here are a last set of forest pictures taken right after a rainfall.

The vines in the forest continue to fascinate me. I was explaining to Marilyn that we don’t have vines in western forests and she answered “Oh really?” as if she could not imagine a forest without vines and moss everywhere.

Mosses also fascinate me. Especially when I got up close to them.

When you get even closer you can see all the tiny fronds.

This mushroom made me think of a dancing skirt. I could imagine it frozen mid-motion.

When I arrived almost all of the leaves were green. By today leaves are beginning to turn colors and fall. I suspect next week the whole forest will change colors. I’ll not be here to see it.

I’ll be sad to leave the forest. I’ve walked all the paths into familiarity and yet I find something new every single time.

Letting Go of Home Thoughts is Hard

By / September 28, 2012

One of the reasons this retreat is being difficult is that the schedule tracking portion of my brain will not stay switched off. Occasionally I can be fully present in Tennessee, out in the forest, part of a conversation. But then I’ll happen to glance at a clock and without me bidding it to, my brain does the calculation to Utah time and supplies the fact that at home Howard is helping the kids get out the door to school. This wakes up the portion of my brain that is convinced that I’ve committed gross dereliction of duty by not being present at home to manage the schedule. I’ve left my kids before. I’ve left them for a week before. But I usually arrange for them to be on vacation or visiting with relatives. They are outside the usual schedule as much as I am. This time they are at home, following routine. I am not. But my brain keeps tracking their routine and telling me that I should really check up on homework or bedtime or a dozen other things.

I can’t escape from home thoughts yet home feels so far away. I’m really not sure what conclusion to draw from all of this. I’m not sure how this knowledge should affect future decisions. Does this fall into the “Don’t do that again” camp or is it that I need more practice letting go?

In the category of less conflicted lessons learned: don’t wear ballet flats into the woods, or if you do, spray with mosquito repellent first. The tops of my feet look like I have chicken pox. These bites don’t itch as much as the bites from Utah mosquitoes, but twenty-five bites on my feet is enough to draw notice. Particularly late at night when I’m trying to sleep and thinking about home things instead. I probably should be spending those wakeful hours thinking about plot things. But it feels like an additional dereliction, as if fretting over the home schedule is penance I must pay for not being there. And simultaneously I can also feel guilty because I have this opportunity and I am wasting it by thinking about home instead of thinking about writing fiction.

Over all, this is being good. I hope it is being good. It will take me months to see the results of what coming has begun. Hopefully I’ll be able to step back into my regular schedule and none of us will be sufficiently dinged by this experience that repairs are necessary.

Surviving the Second Day and Making it into the Third

By / September 26, 2012

The stated purpose of this writing retreat is to travel outside my usual round of responsibilities so that I could focus on just writing. The first day I spent on travel, which is to be expected. I traveled both physically and mentally, arriving tired. I then suffered the common traveler’s lament of spending all the energy arriving only to desire to rest by being at home. I expected that. I also expected to spend some time grounding myself, becoming familiar with the house and surroundings. I did this at DeepSouthCon when I spent a good portion of the first day photographing and noticing the design choices of the hotel, much to the amusement of the hotel staff. They humored the odd lady taking pictures of the wall sconces and carpet. I’d planned to write up a post using those pictures, but the post never happened. It didn’t need to. I’d situated my brain and was ready to focus on the convention instead.

Except I arrived at the house and it felt familiar. I used to dream about my grandma’s tiny house. In the dreams I went upstairs and through a door to discover that her house had extra rooms and floors. Stepping into Woodthrush Woods was like stepping into one of those dreams, my grandma’s house–only different and bigger. I did not need to wander the house and get to know it. But I was tired from traveling, and despite feeling welcome I was not at home. There were other writers who had just finished dinner. I was introduced and we had a pleasant conversation and then everyone scattered to go write. I was left to myself. Which is the point. It is what is supposed to happen. Yet I did not write. Not really. There is a different feel when I am writing a blog post where I’m saying stuff and where I’m deep in the words. I was saying stuff that evening.

Surely the next day would be better. I would be settled and would begin to accomplish the purpose for which I had come.

Except I did not sleep well and the second day turned out to be hard. It was hard on me. It was hard on Howard and the kids back at home. Their struggles reached out to me across all those miles via internet and innate instinct. Instead of being here and now, my heart felt stretched across half a continent. I wondered why I had come. I was afraid that the logical and spiritual impulses which had guided me to take this trip were about growing through hard experience rather than reward. I really wanted something happy to result, but it was hard to believe that such a thing could happen.

On the second day of the retreat that I learned I bring my emotional baggage with me even when I leave the trappings of my regular life. I could suddenly see the baggage for what it was, but I couldn’t see how to re-pack it, get rid of it, or ship it back home. It was a day of bright and dark. I loved the woods. I needed to be there in the woods. But I wrote no words that were strong enough to convince me that they could not have been better written from home. I cried on the second day. Not all day, but sometimes when I was away from everyone else. I did not want to make any of the other writers responsible for making me feel better. I didn’t know if they could. I felt awful for being away from my family when they needed me at home to provide structure. I knew that they were competent and would find ways to muddle through. I worried about the comic work Howard was not getting done because he was shouldering my work at home as well as his own. I looked at my paltry words. I felt the even greater space of words I didn’t feel like I would ever be able to write. I felt awkward and odd with the people around me because I come from a social and religious context which often requires explanation. When all the worries got too much, I would walk in the woods or watch the birds. It helped, but I spent the day tangled in my own head.

Howard and I shared a phone call where we commiserated about how hard this trip was being for us both and how we weren’t sure what would come of it. I considered paying the extra fees to change my flight and go home early. Except I could tell I was not supposed to. My wise Kiki sent me an email acknowledging that the day had been hard without me there, but ending with “the second day is always hard. It’ll get better.” I marveled at her wisdom and clung to her words, wondering where she had learned it. Oh. She learned it from me. I tell her that at the beginning of a new school year.

The morning was brighter. Howard called and told me things were better at home. I went running up and down the long driveway, because running is better than crying. I walked in the woods. I wrote a blog post about it. Then I opened the file for my magical realism book and story spilled from my brain out through my fingers. I finally felt the deep word focus that I saw in the others when they stared at their screens. 1000 words later I have the bare beginning of characters and a problem. I’m going to have to discovery write this one, but it feels like the right beginning. I have written. I just might survive this experience after all.


My preferred writing bench.

Walking the Woods

By / September 26, 2012

Behind the house there is a table and chairs for eating. We’ve been taking our lunches out there to sit. This is what I see from my preferred seat.

The forest beckons me, and several times a day I go wandering through it. I can label it research if I want. I’m sure that many of the photographs, sensations, and sights will make it into my fiction. The real truth is that this forest makes me happy. I very much want to take it home with me. Sadly, it will not fit into my luggage, so I’m just trying to spend as much time out walking in it as I can. Memories are easy to pack.

The variety of life here is astounding. I wish I could photograph the birds, but they do not hold still nor let me get close. I would need a camera with a more powerful magnification than what I have. Instead I capture trees and rocks which will hold still. Some of the life looks really alien.

I begin to understand “parasitic” in new ways looking at the vines climbing up these trees. Though some trees do not mind, or have grown to the point where they are too big to be bothered.

If I lived here, or if Gleek lived here, that mossy giant would end up with a name. So would dozens of other little curves of creek and dells created by dead falls. I half want to name them anyway. I can picture in my mind Gleek running out the door and calling “I’m going to the fairy glen!” Perhaps this evening the lighting will be better and I can capture that place.

I did see one forest dweller who reminded me of home.

The yellow jackets here are less aggressive, smaller, and friendlier than the ones I encounter in my garden. Perhaps this is the result of them being part of a fully-balanced ecosystem rather than the oddly misbalanced ones found in suburbs. This guy was content to ride his leaf boat while I got close to take his picture.

Now I need to settle in and write words of fiction, while trying not to be too distracted by the pair of mockingbirds who appear to be playing tag through the trees over my head.

My Travel Day

By / September 24, 2012

I began the morning with an intense focus on last minute things. This was because I required the intensity, not because the things needed it. If I did not train my brain into focus, it wanted to wander around the house thinking maudlin thoughts about each and every thing I touched. I really don’t need to contemplate that this is the last time I’ll touch my regular hairbrush for a week. (I have a smaller brush I use for travel.) I made sure to hug my kids and tell them I loved them. I left enough cookies behind for a week’s worth of lunches. Then I got in the car and focused all my thoughts toward getting myself onto the right plane.

As the plane launched into the sky, I wanted a distraction, something to turn my brain off for the next four hours. Instead I began my writer’s retreat. I pulled out my laptop, I read my study materials, I let these things swirl in my brain and made notes on the mixtures and combinations that resulted. I had thoughts about how my 90% complete SWH draft was aimed in the wrong direction, so I knocked it back to 65% to try again. I observed some of the story techniques that I want to use in my magical realism book and some that I did not. I wrote a letter to one of my kids (remaining letters to be written before the mail comes tomorrow) and noted how the slow and contemplative nature of a handwritten letter changed the way I was thinking about that child and my relationship with him. These may be the first of many letters over the next years. On the ground in Atlanta I noted how empowering it is to be able to find my own way through an airport and onward to my destination without anyone there shepherd me. While waiting at the shuttle drop off point for my ride I contemplated how far I was away from home, and noted how that distance was affecting a portion of my emotional landscape. Then I arrived at a house that has been lived in and loved for three generations, you can see it in all the details. I want to wander everywhere and look at everything. Instead I made the acquaintance of some of the other writers over a late dinner. And now I am here, on my computer, in the familiar little piece of internet home that I brought with me.

Oh, you thought I meant physical travel. That part was pretty boring. It involved sitting in a too small space on a crowded airplane and a too small space in a shared airport shuttle. But the enforced stillness gave time for my thoughts to slow down, expand, pay attention to longer thoughts. It is like the difference between watching the ocean and watching a stream. Both are lovely in their own ways, but different.

For tonight, I finish my trip by settling in to sleep. In the morning I’ll have daylight to look around the woods.

Preparing for Departure

By / September 23, 2012

Who will bring in the mail while I am gone? I don’t know. I know I mentioned to Howard that he could stack it in the bin at the end of the counter, but that was just one of a dozen small conversations where I gave Howard details of little household tasks that I track and he does not. Some of these small things will be forgotten. Some already have been, since I forgot to even think of them–tasks so invisible that I do them without conscious thought. Awareness of all these little tasks makes me feel that everything will fall apart if I go away. It won’t of course. All of the important tasks will get done. Howard and the kids will see what needs to be done and they will do it.

Yet I worry, not for the tasks themselves, but for the additional stress that my loved ones will feel as they perform last-minute scrambles to accomplish necessary tasks. They’ll scramble themselves over obstacles that I am usually here to make smooth. I’m doing as much smoothing as I can before I leave. Meal plans are in place. Everyone has a week’s worth of clean laundry. The van has a full tank of gas. These small preparations appease my guilt, help me feel like it is okay for me to go and that disaster will not result. It is not as if I’m the first mother to head out for a week-long business trip. I’m not even the first one to feel guilty about it.

Last week I felt very tense about all these little tasks, with the same sort of tension which spurred me to put together a binder full of instructions and supplies for my mother when she came to watch my baby and toddler for a week. These days I can trust my kids to know their own schedules and requirements. No binders required. Yet I still feel the pull of writing notes and plastering the walls with them. Trash on Tuesday! Monday is a minimal day! Youth meeting on Wednesday! Instead of writing a dozen notes, I’ll just write one or two really important reminders. The rest I have to let go. The closer I get to departure, the easier it is for me to let go. I begin to accept that things will be run differently in my absence and that this is fine. My ways are not the only good ways. They may even find better options than the ones I’ve been using for so long.

I went away for four days in April and again in May. I returned from both trips to discover that all my people had grown. They were smarter and more capable because they had figured things out for themselves. They were also glad to have me back. I was glad to be back. I know this will be the same despite the extended length of time. Believing that it will be good for them is the only way I can get myself to let go of the responsibility. I am excited, afraid, curious, looking forward, feeling guilty, hoping for rewards, and counting costs. Tomorrow I fly.

The Long Hard Hike

By / September 6, 2012

There was a moment of decision at the beginning of the day which shaped everything that came after. It was a simple wooden sign pointing down two different possible paths through the Devil’s Garden in Arches National park. We hadn’t done much research on the trail, so confronted with this sign we made a decision almost whimfully. “This way.” Link said with a swing of his arm. The rest of us shrugged and followed.

It was a long low trail with a sandy path. If not for the sand shifting under our feet, the walk would have been easy. It was still pleasant though tiring for legs and feet. I noticed how the earlier rain had not soaked in past the top layer of sand. Each footprint broke through this wet layer into the dry sand underneath.

We kept walking, exclaiming at discovered pools of water in hollows of rock, or admiring the huge fins of rock that drew closer and then surrounded us. The landscape was desert, but beautiful.

Then we met a couple coming the other way. They told us that up ahead was a steep scrabble across a slickrock boulder. Even the name slickrock sounded a bit ominous. The woman hadn’t felt confident about it, so they’d turned back. Something in their words implied that this one steep spot was the hard part of the trip and if only they’d gotten past it, they could have had the rest of a pleasant hike. We rounded a curve of rock to see this steep place. A group was ahead of us and we watched an older woman with two walking sticks make the traverse with the help of her family members. If she can do it, so can we. It was the unspoken thought in all our heads. If we could only get past this one hard part, we could complete our lovely hike. Besides, we’d already been walking for an hour. It seemed better, easier even, to climb over the hard place and continue.

The spot was more than just steep. It was narrow and there was a slope down to a crevasse. It was simultaneously a simple place to cross and a dangerous one. Confident steps carried one across and up in less than thirty seconds. Howard helped three of the kids to the top and told them to wait. Link does not walk confidently, not over slickrock. Howard and I climbed with Link, one in front, one behind. It was a frightening walk with Link who does not like heights, who out weighs me, who sometimes freezes up when faced with a challenge. It was scary coaxing him up, but we succeeded.

We continued on our way, feeling glad that the hardest part was behind us. It wasn’t. We were one hour into a hike that would take another hour and a half to complete. That remaining ninety minutes was made out of scrambling up slopes, down slopes, looking for stacks of rocks to tell us we were still on the trail, and several ridge crossings where we had to walk along the top of the ridge with drops on both sides. Both Link and Howard suffer from vertigo. Our Gleek loved it all, so did Kiki, I would have loved it too, except I knew that Link was frequently scared and/or miserable. The fatigue grew until all the kids were asking to just go back to the car. Faced with each new challenge, we kept urging them forward because no matter what unknown lay ahead, it was still surely the fastest way to be done with the hike. Every challenge complete became one more argument for continuing onward. We didn’t want to face those things again. Particularly not that narrow passage of slickrock.

Oh, and periodically a squall would pass over us making everything cold and wet. Sometimes the wind would blow just as we had to cross a high ridge.

We kept going, even though we sometimes wanted to cry, even though our legs began to feel like jello, even though we doubted we could make it. There really wasn’t any other option. The only way out was through.

As the day wore on, Link learned to keep going despite the rough terrain. He stopped freezing up and began to find his own paths, the safest ones he could identify. We were a very tired set of hikers when we scrambled down that last ridge to the flat trail with the wooden sign post. I looked at the post and realized that had we gone the other way, we would have been just ten minutes into the hike when confronted with the first ridge walk. With only ten minutes to lose, we would have turned and gone back. The day would have been very different.

That hike through Devil’s Garden was hard. I would never have chosen to subject my kids to that level of difficulty. I spent most of the drive back to our condo picturing the many ways that various traverses could have ended in disaster. But they didn’t. Instead we have a shared memory of struggling and overcoming. We got to see places, like Private Arch, which simply can not be seen any other way. I still remember rounding the corner to Private Arch and having it appear right in front of us. We were the only ones there and peace filled us.

It felt like a sanctified place to us, the farthest point on the long hike. It was a place we could never see without struggling first. We sat there for a long time. When we finally left, Gleek said “I need to come back here again sometime.” I agreed.

I think about the Devil’s Garden hike when I meet someone at the beginning of a journey that I know will be hard. It may be a person embarking on graduate school, or a residency, or a dream to become a published writer. Even if they are aware that there is struggle ahead, it is impossible for them to know how difficult. If it is a path I have walked, I want to warn them, tell them that maybe they want a different path. Part of my heart wants to save others from pain and struggle. I have to remember that if I do, I also take away the potential for triumph. The only way to get to Private Arch is by climbing through some scary places.

We met others on the path as we walked, they were headed where we’d already been. Sometimes they asked us about the trail. We were honest about the difficulty, gave ideas about how to handle it if they chose to proceed, and told them how beautiful it all was. We told them to follow the trail markers and keep going. We added to those trail markers as we hiked.

Some day I’ll hike that Devil’s Garden trail again. It will be hard again, but just because something is hard doesn’t mean I should avoid it.