Category: Outdoors

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Moscow

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Friday night I hiked up Neville Peak in Espom with the full moon lighting our trail up, even with clouds blowing past and over the moon.  When the racing clouds did open to clear sky, the moon was as bright as a spotlight shining on us in the dark woods.  At the top we could see the darkness of snow showers coming at us across the valley below, then spitting at our faces.

Yesterday afternoon I got on a plane to Moscow, and today I hiked through the Kremlin and across Red Square, again in spitting snow.  The grandeur and glory and energy of a great city swirled around me, and the sharp wind cut into my clothes, reminding me of the coming winter.  For now, I’m contemplating a hot meal, a full night’s sleep in a warm bed, and two days of hopefully interesting and productive meetings starting tomorrow.

And I’m up to 25,691 word on my NaNo!  Nothing like a long plane ride to get some writing done.

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Yes and No

David and I hiked to Flat Mountain Pond on Sunday, with Betsy and Cathy.  It was a lovely hike, to a long, remote pond in the White Mountains, made more delightful by the chance to spend time with our friends — they enjoy being active and outdoors, like we do, and they are also among the most intentional people we know.  They pay close attention to how they spend their time, where they’re putting their energy, how they’re living their lives, and make sure all of that is lining up with what they really want.  As a couple who “dropped out” for a year and traveled across the country, they were among my most enthusiastically supportive friends when I told them, over a year ago, that I was going to be leaving my job at the Coalition.  They thoroughly supported my willingness to try a new life.

Given how hectic our summer and fall has been, this was the first chance we’ve had to hike with Cathy and Betsy for over a year.  I was eager to talk with them about my ever-shifting ideas about how to best use my time, how to balance acceptance of consulting jobs I’m being offered with my desire to write, how to structure my days, how to figure out what exactly I’m doing.   It’s not that I expected them to have answers, but I knew they would understand the questions.

And coincidentally, I had just gotten an offer from Cathy’s sister Anne, who I know well from her work on violence against women at the national level, to represent her organization at a U.S. – Russia Civil Society Partnership Program meeting in Moscow in three weeks, taking part in the gender equity workgroup.  I’ve been to Russia twice to do training on domestic violence, and have planned programs for two delegations of Russians visiting New Hampshire, so I was an easy choice for Anne to approach, knowing she wouldn’t be able to get away and accept the invitation to participate herself.

But do I want to go to Russia in three weeks?  Do I want to get involved in what might be an ongoing project?  How much exactly do I want to work, and stay engaged in the movement to end violence against women?  Do I have the energy to spare that a quick trip to Russia will use up?  Do I really want to do this, or do I just not know how to say no?

“Work begets work,” was one piece of advice Betsy gave me.  And she also said she always asks herself, when considering whether to take on work for her own consulting business, “Is this going to help me get where I want to go?”  This was all bouncing around in my head on Sunday night when I went to hear Kay Ryan read her poetry in Concord.  In talking about coming to know that she wanted to be a poet, she said it came down to asking herself, “Do I like it?”

The short story in all this is that I said yes, and will be going to Russia in a few weeks. The longer story is that David and I are both deeply involved in helping each other sort out what exactly we want to be doing with our lives, now that the huge structure of demanding jobs isn’t dictating the basic work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, laundry, grocery shop, sleep, work, eat, sleep over and over again schedule.  What we’ve come to affirm is that we’re in a mode of figuring it out.  Saying yes to something for this year doesn’t mean I would say yes to the same thing next year.  Or I may be out there looking for more opportunities like this, rather than waiting for them to come my way. Is this taking me where I want to go.  Do I like this?

There is no Grace and David Four Months Into Having Left Their Jobs Rule Book.  We’re making it up as we go along, paying attention, keeping track, staying present, asking the right questions.  And having fun, like in the photo above.  That was part of Sunday too.

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David Has A Blog

Today’s news — David has a blog.  Check it out: oldmanbadback.  Be sure to read The Number 4160 in the grey menu bar.  Otherwise he has two reviews of hiking packs he’s recently tried, and much more to come on staying outdoors, fit and active in the face of aging.  Adorable photo of him too.  Lucky me!

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The Northeast Kingdom

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We just spent two days in the Northeast Kingdom, and while I bristle at male gender references to almost anything, it is beautiful country.  The term is used to describe the northeastern corner of Vermont, and is reported to have first been used by George Aiken, a former Governor of Vermont and a U.S. Senator, during a 1949 speech.  Not surprising, that the term “kingdom” came from a man, but it is a gloriously scenic area, and I was there visiting one of my most brilliantly feminist friends — by that I mean her gender analysis is spot on and constant, underlying her fundamental views of how the world operates, which is probably why I was thinking about the “kingdom” thing in the first place.  But what do you call the land a queen owns and governs?  A queendom?

Beyond all that, we had a grand time.  We arrived on a sunny and warm October afternoon and enjoyed the view of Lake Willoughby from the camp porch, Jay Peak in the distance.  We ended up spending much of the afternoon sitting on the dock, late season sun warming our faces and backs, snacking, talking, listening to the water slap the rocks. David and I even went for a swim, though the water was so cold I could hardly breathe.

Yesterday morning, while Carol and Steve did camp close-up errands, David and I went to hike Wheeler Mt.  Within a few minutes of starting the hike, we were climbing slabs of granite that form the western cliff face of the mountain.  The foliage was stunning, with hillsides of yellow and orange rolling off into the folds of mountains around us.  It was so glorious and exhilarating, I knew I needed to hike more.  So after going back to the camp and helping Steve and Carol with more closing-down-camp chores, including completing the item on the list “Finish drinking all beverages and eating all the food,” we left to hike Mt. Pisgah.

Pisgah forms the eastern wall of the notch that Lake Willoughby slices through.  From its ridge the views of the lake, a long rectangle of wind streaked water directly below, and the Green Mountains in the distance, were remarkable.  We’d timed the hike so we’d get out of the woods right at dark, not having to worry about being any where by any time in particular.  Afternoons like yesterday are when the reality of having left our jobs is most striking.  Want to hike more?  Okay, let’s do it.

As we walked back to the car, the low sun lit the yellow leaves of the hardwoods at the base of the ridge into a canopy of autumn glow.  Just before the road, we crossed a boardwalk over a beaver bog, and the nearly full moon was rising in the east.  A beaver swam back and forth across the small pond, and twice came to watch us watch him.   We looked out over the silvered tree stumps standing in the still water once more, then got in the car and drove home, the big moon riding with us, feathering the dark ridges with a ghost haze, easing us back into a week that isn’t full of work.  Yes, we are blessed.

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Frost, Snow, River, Mountains

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We just got home after hiking to the summit of North Twin Mountain today.  The trees on the horizon are black against the last light in the sky, the sun long gone below the horizon.  And it’s only 7:33.  More darkness coming.

But it was glorious in the mountains today.  The Little River was running hard and clear over its bed of boulders, a color without color, the cleanest sheen of light green imaginable.  I’ve written about this river before (poem below), the last time I hiked North Twin, when I was bagging the 4,000 footers.  Today two of our friends on the hike bagged the peak for the first time.  Once you finish your own list, there are always friends to accompany as they work on theirs.

The views were perfect — the full Presidential Range strung out from a ledge on the northeast side of the ridge, then the Franconia Ridge stretching south from our lunch spot on the western facing ledge.  But the close views were beautiful too.

Last night was the first frost of the season, and once we got above 4,000 feet, we saw our first snow.  Clumps of ice were falling out of the spruce trees and collecting in heaps of white on the green moss, already speckled with snow.   But the sun was warm on the ledge, and on us, as we ate, and talked, trees across from us still holding glints of ice.

The Little River

There must be a story to a river
so wrongly named, so wildly big
in its crash of water and rock falling

from a fold of mountains, tricky
with its slick stones and ice needles thrust
over shallows like webs. We cross as if

stepping on the chest of a sleeping beast.
We find an old campsite, logs circling
a cold fire ring beside a green pool.

We listen as we make up stories, listen
to the confluence of gravity and water, wonder
how big is cruel enough not to be little.

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Droid Post

I’m back in Stone Harbor, on vacation. Yes real vacation. No gardening (though cooking all the garden vegetables I brought with me), no cleaning out the storage pod in the driveway and reorganizing the barn (David’s new studio in the barn is done), no cleaning out the decades of accumulated stuff in David’s parents’ house in Lancaster (which is what I did for the last two days until I was bone-achey and as dirty as I ever get). We have 5 more days here and Adrienne, Matt and Emilio are here until tomorrow night.

Today we sat on the dock with Emilio at high tide, when the water rises over the walkway a few inches, and introduced him to salt water. He loved it and happily splapped the water and sucked our salty legs.  Tomorrow I want to plop him in a pool of water at the beach.

Then days of reading, writing, sleeping, thinking. The one major drawback is the lack of reliable internet. So I just downloaded a WordPress app. Thus, my first post via my Droid. Workable but tedious. One finger typing is way slow as you all know.

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High Pressure

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Scattered rain showers moved through last night as we ate take-out Mexican food in Adrienne’s back yard on Long Island.  Those dark clouds must have been riding the edge of a high pressure system, because today was clear and dry, with hot sun and cool wind.

That high pressure wasn’t inside me, though.  I’ve been thinking I have nothing to say yet about what it’s like post-job, post-Coalition ED, post-high pressure busyness.  But I do.

We came to Long Island yesterday to take a baby break on our way back to New Hampshire — we needed some time on the early life side of the life=death equation.  This morning we went to Sagamore Hill, the estate of Theodore Roosevelt on Cold Spring Harbor on the north shore of Long Island.  We walked through a small forest with enormous oaks and tulip poplar trees out to a boardwalk over Eel Creek to the small beach along the harbor shore.  Back on the estate grounds, we walked through the fields up to the house.  By the front door was a grand old copper beech tree, planted by the Roosevelts in the late 1800’s, with a trunk like a leathery animal and a towering crown.

Once we got back to Adrienne’s house, we got to be on Emilio duty.  I gave him pear and zucchini pieces to gnaw on, fed him a bottle, let him play in his crib and on the floor, and did some dinner preparation.  The afternoon hummed along as if on a smooth track.  At one point late in the day, Emilio was on my hip, sleepy and a bit dazed, while David lifted his hand out towards him opening and closing his fist, to see if Emilio would mimic him.  Emilio lifted his arm slightly and opened his hand.

At that moment I realized I didn’t feel any pressure or any need to be anywhere else, doing any other thing.  I’d gone for a beautiful morning walk on a crystal summer day and spent the afternoon taking care of a baby.  “Ah yes,” I thought, “this is different.”

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Haiku Habit

Still getting up and squeezing in a morning run before a day of work, still finding only a tiny space for language lust in my brain, thus the continued haiku habit.

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Wild blue flag iris
Loon laugh warbling overhead
Morning rain relief.

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Swimming

We swam in Long Pond today, our first open water swim of the season.  Coming down to the water, the sun was low across the pond and full on summer hot.  Two years ago the water didn’t warm up enough to swim until well into June and we were still wearing wet suits in July.  Last year I heard from my neighbors, the second week in June, that they’d been swimming Memorial Day weekend.  It’s been a hot week, so after a hot day of gardening, we thought we’d try it.

The water was dark and thick with pine pollen and plenty warm to swim.  After a winter of crawling up and down the 25 yard pool at the Y, minding the lane, making room for other swimmers, turning every 30 seconds, turning, turning, chlorine scent on my skin all day, using up the boredom of the back and forth to try to zone out, it felt gloriously free to just swim.  Arm out and up to the sky and turning my face to breathe and seeing the trees on the shoreline, swimming and swimming and swimming and only turning after covering the quarter mile width of the pond.  This is swimming; this is summer.