Lion Hunting

I know I've written about goals, and that Nick and I had made a list together about things we wanted to accomplish in the next couple years. Well...one of those dreams came true two weeks ago. We picked up our little girl, Zuri the Rhodesian Ridgeback. 

I knew I wasn't going to make it much longer not having a dog- there was a big space in my life. And Nick has been absolutely committed to getting a Ridgeback. So we pinched our pennies and brought this little fine dime home. Ridgebacks were originally bred to hunt lions in South Africa, and they're a combinations of a lot of different breeds. She's already trying to keep BearCat in line (even though he literally doesn't do anything at all). 

We got her because we knew this would be the perfect companion for running and hiking, which we do a lot. We also really missed our community of people at the dog park and I'm super excited for her to finally finish her shots, attend her first puppy obedience class, and hit the park and meet all her new friends. 

Growing up, my parents never let my brother and I have a dog. That's okay, I'm making up for it now and I'm learning so much. First, that life with a dog is crazy and it's better than life without one. Second, dogs will always love you and they will never judge you. That's something I think everyone needs in their life more. And third, how to be kind and understanding. Not that I'm a mean person, but teaching them takes time and being gentle and patience is key. Having a dog makes me a better person. 

La boda jamón

The Circuit- Portland, Oregon

It's been two months since Nick asked me to be his forever lady. I'm so stoked to marry such a wild character. Nick is definitely the stuff dreams are made of- I could get lost in his eyes and his beard and his delicious Nick Ham breakfasts. Mhmmmm...

I'm going to write about wedding planning for a little while. It wasn't something I grew up dreaming about and planning, so I feel excited at all these new little discoveries and the experience as a whole. Ah I already lied. I'm actually pretty intimidated by it, and I've asked my friend Trevor to just take my colors and my budget and make it work. 

Then, on Sunday, I bought my dress and my heart swelled with joy! I had tears in my eyes when I typed in my credit card number and got the confirmation email (what a beautiful moment with my iPad, huh?). Nick laughed from my living room because I was all ooey gooey over the fact that the dress itself comes from an environmentally responsible company that produces sustainable fashion by recycling old or excess fabric. That was important to me. It was important to me not to have to think too hard about the dress; I bought it because it was exactly what I'd been imagining. Oh, and it was on SALE. We're simple folk, folks. 

SO! This will be a simple wedding. This will be a happy wedding. A fun wedding. I hope our love is the centerpiece, and that we can celebrate this day with all our good friends and family. Look for more posts or follow me on the Insta-waves for every day nonsense and photos of my dog.

10 Things to Remember to Do Before I'm 30

My friend Emily inspired me to make a list of long term goals. She updates her list every year, and I am just starting one. Nick has a few to put on here, that we'll try to do as a team, but here are just a couple long term goals I have :). 

Walk a high line

Become an expert light weight backpacker

Hike the PCT with Zuri, our Rhodesian Ridgeback

Save $10,000

Develop a creative start up business

Pay off my student loans

Get a couple more dogs

Build our Tiny House

Run a trail marathon

Publish a small book of collaborative poems and short stories

There are a few more, and I need to make a more comprehensive list! But for now, I hope these few inspire you to make your own list. 

Frosts + Grapes

There was a freak frost last week. Then some freak snow. There was a big storm moving down from Alaska, and everything was frozen solid. We drove out to some friend's vines and picked extra sweet, freezing cold grapes and let them melt in our mouths. "A late season Riesling for ya!" is what our friend Tom called them. We went out to Bennington Lake and sat on the ridge overlooking the valley- we could see the fog rolling over the Blues.

This has been a season of sudden change. When we were in California, we missed the seasons. But back here, we watched the leaves turn to fire and drop, watched the ice glaze over them. This season. The dog was hit by a car, and we cried harder than we ever have before. We made a big life decision, we started putting away a lot more money and not eating out as much. We chose our bridal party. We even changed the direction the kitchen table sits in my studio. The BearCat sleeps on the bed with me at night, which is a new experience, he is such a big lump. I am trying to walk to work.

There is a season for everything. I believe that, truly. And that seasons teach us and mold us and allow us to accept change, both the instant and the gradual. Seasons teach us to let go of things that were never meant to last, and to be open and at peace to the new things that will come.

everything burned. 
like I was butter and you were the sun
and I stood there, melting
right in front of you. 

Octobers.

Our dog died this past month. And we got engaged.

There have been a lot of emotions. And I think above all, we've become each other's ultimate support partner is grieving the loss of our best bud. Nick and I haven't started planning a wedding. We're not looking at venues. Instead, we've been looking at puppies online, wondering if maybe now is the time to try to pick up our broken pieces. 

I borrowed a dog from the humane society this week. A skinny little terrier/chihuahua mix who has been surrendered with five other dogs. They'd been living in a car with their owner who actually owned ten dogs. He was very skinny. But we brought him home. We went to the pet store together, we brought out all our old doggie stuff, played games with him, gave him a bath, and that night he slept in bed with me and our cat. 

And I just couldn't do it. For no particular reason. He just wasn't Pip, and he was never going to be, despite how sweet and darling and attached he was. I took him back to the humane society, and I cried when I told them I didn't think I was the right owner for him. They reassured me that "that's okay! That's why we do the home trials! He'll find a good home!" But I still felt like I was losing another dog all over again. Kicking myself for trying to force this poor dog into my Pip-shaped hole to stop the bleeding. Hating how the dog knew I was bringing him back, that I didn't want him and he'd never see me again. 

I don't think I've ever felt more of a desire for heaven to be real. Curled up on my yoga mat one night, I asked God and the Universe through desperate tears to be reassured that I'll see the damn dog again. Because this world is truly the loneliest place, and I need to have hope that things will be different and things won't suck so much, even if I have to wait my whole life for it.  

perfect dog.

The Dock

I'm hoping, that when all this
comes to a close,
that I'll be free to walk
till I reach the dock where
the water became air and air became lungs
and lungs became words and words were stopped
by lips; lips that were warm like soft wool coats.
I'm hoping that when everything stops,
I'll come back to the place where
we were the fog, and
no one was there to see us go.

Hermano de mi alma.

For Mark, on his birthday. 

With every foot, stepping-
forest fires, gulping seas. 
      And life begins again. 
With every word to me, ironed into a flat
     sheet to cover more ground,
      Life begins again.
With every beam of light
      (each its very own. 
          never before seen,
          felt, or heard crashing into
          the stones of the earth),
That gets caught in the shadows of trees,
    struggling to push through, to reach you.
                                      Life begins again. 
And you are the trees; the ones lost and the ones found 
Roots that spreaaaad
    further, as seeds becoming natives, 
    tumbling over most every human.

Each new morning, each new glimpse, your very Steady breath 
resonates in the rocks,
Life begins again- 
       And the Wild echoes,
       calling to their Brother. 

From Liz Gilbert

"Dear Ones — I wanted to repost this essay I wrote from last year, because the question came up again (as it always will) just the other day...hope it's helpful!

QUESTION OF THE DAY: IS IT SELFISH TO GO ON A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY?

Somebody asked me this the other day and it made me smile, because it reminded me of the years between 2006 and 2010 (what I call "The Eat Pray Love Years") when somebody (often a reporter or interviewer) would ask me this question EVERY SINGLE DAY.

It's been a while since I've had to answer it, so I will take a trip down memory lane here, and answer it once more.

The answer is: No.

No, it is not selfish to go on a spiritual journey. For that matter, it is not selfish to go a vision quest, or to embark on therapeutic/psychological self-examination, or to go on a pilgrimage, or to devote yourself to prayer and meditation, or to take any sort of creative or healing or investigative voyage into the self whatsoever.

Because:

1) It is your divine and intrinsic right as a human being to discover who you are, and who God is, and what your purpose is, and what your talents are, and where your joy is to be found, and how to ease your own suffering and the suffering of others. (In fact, seriously: What else are you going to spend your life doing, if not, at some point, taking a bit of time to try answering even one of those questions?)

2) Going on a true journey of self-exploration should not be confused with going to a spa for a weekend. It is not a way of spoiling yourself. It is not a luxury. It is not a mani-pedi for the soul. Nor is it a relaxing endeavor — as anyone who has gone deep into meditation or self-examination can attest. We don't necessarily take on the central questions of self and divinity (Who am I? Who is God?) because it's FUN. Often we are driven toward those questions by great suffering, and can only work our way through those hard questions with tremendous courage. Sometimes we don't even want to ask those questions, but simply must. What's more, these questions can be asked at any moment, from any place in the world, in the midst of any situation. These are not questions for the rich or the privileged only. You don't need a plane ticket anywhere to explore this stuff. I have a friend who is investigating these questions from within a prison cell right now — and trust me, even from within his seven-by-ten-foot cage, he is ON A JOURNEY.

3) Going on a journey toward the self is actually a public service. You know why? Because until you get to the bottom of yourself — until you humbly investigate the roots of your own suffering and nonsense and misery and destructive patterns — you will just keep causing mayhem, misery and trouble...not only for yourself, but for others. A friend of mine who has been savagely unhappy for years finally started therapy a few months ago, and he said to me, "It's super helpful, but I just feel so selfish, spending this much time and money on myself..." To which I replied, "Trust me, dude. It is benefiting ALL OF US." (His wife and children most of all. But seriously — all of us win whenever a loved one gets helped or healed.)

4) I was once told that in Mandarin there are two words that both translate into "SELFISH" in English. One means "Doing something that benefits you." The other means, "Doing something that benefits you at the expense of others." In English, we don't have this distinction. But there is a recognition in Chinese that these are two different notions — that it is not necessarily true that anything you do for yourself harms others. Sometimes you can do wonderful and important things for yourself without taking a thing away from another human being. This is the difference between self-care and greed. Self-care = GOOD. Greed = BAD. They are critically different. Never forget it.

5) THE END."

-From Elizabeth Gilbert

quiet time + open space

This is my new yoga space :). 
Come over!

letting go of squirrels; people too.

We found a ground squirrel in Yosemite last week, on the stone steps up to Vernal Falls. His legs weren't doing what legs are supposed to do and Nick picked him up, snuggled him into my sweater. His little body relaxed, his back legs spread out like how my dog does when he is trying to cool off on the kitchen floor. I know nature will be nature, but we hoped to give him a fighting chance. Especially because when I put him back on the ground to see if he'd scurry away, he laid very tired and drunk in pain over the top of my shoe. I ran my finger softly over his spine and he breathed slow with no fear.

The staff at the nature center told us they don't care for injured wildlife, and I understood. We walked down a path, stepped over a barrier, and Nick laid the squirrel under a big tree where no one could see him. Just a tiny ball of fuzz under towering cathedrals of granite. Nick poured a little water into a piece of bark, and every drop of water I had in my body started coming out my eyes as we walked away. "I can't believe we're leaving him here," I said.

And I think he died, slipped away quietly. There are a lot of ground squirrels in Yosemite, though. There are a lot of people in the world, too. Sometimes, you're the one being left under the tree. Other times, you walk away hurting and guilty. Either way, we're all just the wildlife of this world and nature will be nature.

roots and rabbits.

My brother David is wild like many animals you can't trap in the wilderness. 
Completely illusive. Completely too fast. Completely free. 
And who has searched for his identity is many places I don't know exist. 
He has walked around the planet and with nothing on his back. 

We were kids and we were rabbits once; free.
And for years, I've watched him dodge the trappers and the predators,
The hopelessness that seeks to crush tiny bones. 
Somewhere along a trail, I tripped over my own roots and watched his heels disappear into the distant sun.
The sound his feet made echoed for miles.
Sometime I sit in this cell made for innocent people and
I wait to hear the shuffle of his feather light movements, 
Asking me to follow him, running back into the wilderness.
I swear I'd break every last window here, abandon every ship I've failed to sail.
We would always be rabbits,
never never never coming back. 

walla.

My town is full of ghosts. 

There are roads I've driven down, different each time.

The fields are never the same

and the ditches widen with every rush of winter water.

Full of shadows of people who were truly kind.

And people who smoked their cigarettes around the corner;

it bled into the bedroom window.

Street blocks frame pictures of dead days.

Mailboxes we graffiti'd.

Rooms we filled with music and kisses and homemade meals.

There were animals who ran away to new families, after the fireworks.

I wonder who else has stood in the doorways of our old place on College Avenue. 

Maybe also who wept there. 

Have they found the things I lost there?

My town is full of ghosts, 

And homes I've built and will never return to. 

But it is still my town. 

I will always remember you, 
static whipping from underneath wool socks;
and fingertips hardened by stones.
But a heart softened by smiles from strangers.
Monkey feet and planets for eyeballs. 
You were an explosion in the sky, 
and you lit the ground a blaze around me. 

building things; building love.

Nick built me a new kitchen table yesterday. It has that nice dusty Home Depot smell to it and after we sand the shit out of it, we're gonna stain it a dark chocolate brown. It's going to double as extra counter space. We keep talking about finding a good piece of property and starting work on a home; noting places where we can find discounted or scrap wood, and how so-and-so is getting rid of this or that and maybe we could get it for free, etc. The table is just the beginning. Building something is a slow process, it takes patience and resolve, love and determination. Sometimes its fun to just wing it, other times you gotta plan it out; put pencil to paper and draw a frame. So we're starting with the table, and we'll take our time and one day, we'll get to put up some real walls and sit back to admire what we've been building for so many years.  

important things.

Being thrust into the working world has been a big challenge for me this past year. Maybe cause I stepped into it pretty willingly? I thought it was imperative to start a career. And yeah, it's important to figure out what you'd like to do after college, what kind of career you'd like to build. Important to pay off my student loans, too, which is going to take a while. But the more I sit at my desk, no matter how meaningful the things I'm doing are, it's just not all its cracked up to be. We are not made to be sedentary, but to move along with the seasons and work with Mother Earth traveling along side us. Money is not everything. Don't let pressures from parents, friends, and teachers push you into something you don't want to do. Go into the world with equal fear and excitement for whatever you will do.

There are things that are more important to me than work:

Being outside and climbing rocks, hiking, being in awe of nature.
Making sure my pets are happy, active and healthy.
Eating well and making cooking a fun experience.
Being careful about what I'm consuming of this planet's resources.
Treating others with respect, daily. Smiling at folks. 
Spending time with Nick Ham, loving him with big love. 
Letting the beat of my heart align with the beat of music, and the beat of my dancing feet on the ground.
Allowing a good amount of "me-time" to regroup in my own head.
Letting my creativity take me places, instead of trying to control it.
Feeling warm and well fed.
Warming those who are cold and feeding those who are hungry.
Finding ways to live a little more simply, each day.
Practicing writing, as I have all my life. 

I may have a full time job, but in the words of Sean Chiasson: "My soul cannot be tamed!" 
Neither can yours. Do what you want to do. It's okay if you want to take a year off. 

lost in my mind.

I don't always share. 

I like thinking that whatever feeling a song, 

a piece of art, 

a memory, 

a hike alone in the woods, 

a solo late night dance party, 

a sip of coffee, 

the sun on my naked skin 

gives me is...just for me. 

Those things that make my heart beat faster 

and feel vibrant are 

only felt and understood by the soul 

embedded in only me. 

It's okay to be lost in my own head,

I'm the only one who knows me 

the way I know me.  

"Come...take my out of this dull house! 
Let me have all the freedom I have lost...
For I would ride with you upon the wind, 
Run on the top of the disheveled tide, 
And dance upon the mountains like a flame."
-Yeats 

“The trick at every turn was to endure the test of living for as long as possible. The odds of survival were punishingly slim, for the world was naught by a school of calamity and an endless burning furnace of tribulation. But those who survived the world shaped it--even as the world, simultaneously, shaped them.” 

-The Signature of All Things

"As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can." 

John Muir

where things are.

we often think joy lives somewhere
here or there-
often, not where you stand. 
but joy is a gift inside of you,
waiting for a Christmas morning
to be opened up and spread out
like sunlight off the endless sea. 

another list.

Things I've been thinking about...

My butt, and how much it hurts from doing squats with Kate every day.

Relating to my listeners, "it's not what you don't have in common, it's what you do."

Getting creative in the kitchen.

The walls of Zion National.

How to catch the cat & trim his claws.

Jesus as a tree, deep rooted and continuous, reaching into the sky. 

Flossing my teeth. 
Missing the desert, the one between LA & LV. 

Gotta get rid of some shoes, I have too many. 

Remembering to eat breakfast. 

from Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott

stories coming to you.

When I first started doing work in radio, I tried to quit. The very first time I had to be live on the air, the person supervising me had to physically hold me to the mic. It’s terrifying, just like any first time. My first time driving, I felt the same way. The time I was kissed, I felt the same way. Any first time, even if it will be like freedom after a few seconds, can be frightening.  

Now, coming back after six months of weakness and missing the Northwest, I feel such peace in the studio. The music pouring over the giant speaker mounted on the ceiling to the noise cancelling headphones I can place over my ears to experience utter silence (for once!). The calm settles on me as I imagine my mother, my best friend Kate, within arm’s reach, listening to me tell the radio stories.

But it reminds me too that many people have left this town-- it almost feels like I’m telling stories to the air. I’ve walked to the highest point to see the city from a bird’s view and I’ve told stories into the air there too, hoping they’d settle down on the streets and on top of people’s heads. Maybe even reaching far enough to touch the ears of long lost friends. Radio waves only go so far, but the wind I hope will reach them.

Let it sink in.

This is the song my soul has been singing all day long. 

Sums + Totals

It's been a while, hasn't it? It impressive how much Nick and I have packed into the last month. A total of 2 car accidents, from which we both walked away unhurt. 1 narrowly avoided accident, to which we were the first on the scene. I held a girl's hand as she took deep shaky breaths, and I called emergency services while standing in the middle of an icy highway.

A total of 1.5 drives up and down the West Coast. Moving into 2 different apartments back in our college town. A total of $136.00 I spent at Costco to fill that apartment with food, something that was unheard of back in Hacienda Buena, my beloved fifth-wheel trailer in California. Celebrating Christmas 3 times now, all with different groups of people. A total of 10 days spent at my old job doing new things. And innumerable hugs and well wishes from so many folks; people we left in California, people who have received us back with open arms.

If one can be so open and honest, it would suffice to simply say that I felt stuck in California. Stuck in a job that held no hope for the future, stuck financially because of living in an expensive area and filling my gas tank, stuck in a spiritual rut of anger at my church. And as I did the sad equations in my head, there was only one place I wanted to come back to.

The radio station is the last place I thought I'd end up at. And so I am surprised at how totally okay I am with being here; with my little radio family and living in my little house of best friends. 

(Total number of times I've visited the humane society this week: 3. And I've come home empty handed because as Nick keeps reminding me, there is no room in my apartment for a homeless, hungry Doberman.)

There is such a desire to fill up my life with goodness and love. To fill my days at work being useful, to come home and be happy, to go play outside or even visit the gym and be healthy, to read and be educated. And always, to simply move forward, wildly and freely, with zest and energy. 

PS: Come visit me! :)