A Match and A Compass

Posted on May 23, 2026 by rangotti

My brother didn’t have a cell phone until 2025. He would say “all I need is a match and a compass”, then he would ask you to Google something on your phone. When I was trying to think of a title for this post, that’s what I continued thinking about.

For this trip, I am using an app called FarOut. It shows you the trail, gives locations of shelters, towns and water. Gives elevation profiles and mileages. And, most importantly, allows for users to comment the most recent details. It has been a great help. But all I really need is a match and a compass.

Compass

One of my favorite characters I met this week was a guy with a trail name of Compass. He probably got that name because he wears a compass around his neck. Over the course of many years, Compass has “section hiked” the entire trail. Section hiking is when you do smaller chunks of the trail instead of the whole thing all at once. Many people section hike parts but to section hike the whole Appalchian trail is an incredibly difficult feat.

When you hike just a few weeks at a time, on each hike you are just finding your rhythm and it is time to go home again. To have the mental fortitude to come back over and over for 2200 miles is impressive and, in my opinion, harder than a thru hike. And Compass is the only person I have met that actually has done it although I am sure there are more.

We romanticize the thru hiker, but the section hiker is just as valid. This is really a “choose your own adventure” sport. Each person gets to decide what works for them and no one way is more valid than another. It’s just different.

The reason I think section hiking is harder is because the mind is a challenging thing to control and going out for a few weeks at a time repeatedly when you could be home with your friends and all the conveniences of modern life takes a lot of control. I don’t think I could do it. So kudos to Compass. You are a rockstar!

Compass (taking the photo). In the background are Captain Woody, Spiderman and Bee

I’ll quit tomorrow…

The trail gives me something to learn every day. Maybe it is something about human nature. Maybe it is something about myself and my character. Maybe it is something about nature. It really could be anything. But all of that learning doesn’t come without struggle.

As a career educator who studied how people learn math, one thing I am sure of is that learning doesn’t happen when you do everything right. Learning happens through mistakes and struggle. Anyone with the tenacity for it can learn math, there is no math gene. I learned math because I am stubborn. I refused to quit. It’s no different with the trail.

An example of the struggle. One thing that annoys me every morning is packing my bag. Everyone around me seems so efficient with putting their stuff magically in their bag. I have to take everything out of my bag so I have stuff all over the place. The reason is, my sleep system (sleeping pad, pillow, and bag) which I used the night before goes in first since I won’t need it until that evening. Then my food bag, which is the heaviest thing, goes in closest to my back so that the weight doesn’t pull me backward. Around that goes all the other squishy stuff filling in all the nooks and crannies of space like my med and repair kit, my electronics bag, my puffy jacket, my fleece, my cook system (stove and pot) and my extra clothes. On top of that goes my tent and then my rain gear. I want my rain gear closest to the top in case of an unexpected shower. I dont want to dig through my pack to find it.

For me, the first three weeks on the trail, this repacking has been an exhausting production. And everyone around me seems to have it figured out. So many times, I get it all packed and do the check to make sure I didn’t forget anything and see some item (electronics bag, I see you) and have to start pulling it all out again to get everything right. It’s frustrating. And it makes the little voice in my head whisper “you can’t do this”.

Guess what? Three weeks in and my packing efficiency is getting there. Still not there yet, but I have learned. And the voice is quieter about that now. That’s how learning happens.

However, this week, the voice is screaming to me about my lack of athleticism. “You can’t do this. Other people are faster, younger, stronger, more capable…” So I started telling the voice, “I’ll quit tomorrow.” The voice is too ignorant to realize that tomorrow it will be today so “tomorrow” never comes. Yeah, it might be corny but it’s working for me.

Rebar steps on a steep and brutal section in NY

The point of what I am saying is, if I waited to do everything perfectly, this trail thing would never happen. Because I can’t know what I am capable of until I do it repeatedly and learn by doing things wrong until I get to where I can actually do it. This whole endeavor isn’t about success or failure. It’s about trying. Every. Single. Day. And let me tell you what, that is some hard stuff. You have those days where you feel like a complete imbecile. And others where you feel like a total badass.

This isn’t easy. Every day comes with physical struggle and mental doubt. Every day I long for my friends, family, comfort, and security. But I remember the words of Abraham Maslow who said “In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back, into safety”.

I am choosing growth. So I’ll quit “tomorrow”.

Bee

“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” ~Mary Oliver (From “Sometimes”)

Body, Mind, Spirit

Posted on May 15, 2026 by rangotti

One of the best things that has happened to me on this trip was meeting Prophet (sorry I dont have a picture). He is a young guy who I met while we both were taking a rest at a shelter. He is an old soul who is very mindful and thoughtful. Super guy.

A couple of days after I met him, I was going along and had about 16.5 miles in and was just done. The next shelter was 4.1 miles away at a pretty steep incline so I opted to stop and camp by a stream. It was about 6:30 pm. Before I had even got my tent out, Prophet comes by and says “Bee, we have to go. It is going to rain and we won’t make it through the rocks on the next ridge in the rain.” When I was reluctant, the sun came out and he said “look Bee, the sun, it’s our sign that we have to go now”. So I said, “go on ahead, I am going to pull out my rain jacket and I will be right behind you”. Prophet took off and a couple of minutes later, I followed and hoofed it up this steep incline. When I got to the top, there was this boulder scramble. Like a “put your poles down and use your hands to get up the rocks” kind of place. And there, in the rocks, Prophet had waited for me. He is a good man.

For the next couple of days we talked about the trail and there were two areas in particular that he really helped me. The first was in lowering the weight of my gear. My pack wasn’t crazy heavy, but it was probably 28 pounds. I weigh 130 so I really don’t want to carry above 26 pounds (20% of my body weight). So we went through my gear and eliminated 3.6 pounds of extraneous stuff and then I switched out my bag and my bear can (THANK YOU SHAUN FOR THE MAIL DROP!!!!) and saved another 4 pounds, so 7.6 pounds in all. So my bag is now sub 22 pounds, fully loaded (food, water and base weight). And that is HUGE. It probably is the best thing I could have done to increase my chances of making it to Katahdin.

The second thing Prophet did was wax philosophical about the trail. He told me that there were 3 parts I would go through: body, mind, and spirit.

Body

The first few weeks on the trail, your body is going through a metamorphosis. Your “trail legs” come in and become motors. For women, you gain weight in muscle. I have always been pretty athletic but my body is changing, it is become hard and the body fat is falling away. I am losing my soft curves.

And it is hard. There are so many days that my body is just wrecked, where everything hurts and I am wondering what to heck I am doing. The rocks in Pennsylvania (appropriately dubbed Rocksylvania) have been pounding the hell out of my feet and legs. So many days, I have doubted if I could go on. But as Prophet has said. “Bee you have to commit”. Sage words.

Our bodies are amazing things. They can do so much more than we realize. Like pushing 4 extra miles on a 16.5 mile day up a crazy incline and rock scramble. I just had to commit to it and once I did, I was there. And my 62 year old body was even keeping up with the youngsters.

Mind

I have only started experiencing the (in the words of Green Day) “subliminal mind f*ck”. One example, I had told myself I would give myself the day off when my mail drop came. But it ended up being a day later than expected and to try to get my body to behave and just walk on the day that was supposed to be my zero day (for zero miles) was like pulling out my teeth. It was crazy hard to convince my body to keep going. It didn’t help that on that day, I was climbing this stupid steep rocky section when the bottom dropped out of the sky and the rocks became slick as snot from the rain. I was cold, wet, struggling and just wanted to quit. I powered through another 20 mile day that day. I didn’t think I could do it.

The AT is called the Green Tunnel and it can be a lonely place

But the real mind work comes after my body is conditioned, then the boredom and every day monotony of thru hiking sets in and I will have to convince myself to get up and walk. And I sing the same song to myself while I am walking. For me, it is The Song that Never Ends. If that doesn’t drive me crazy, nothing will. But if I can overcome the mind play, the reward I will get is the spiritual part of the trail.

Spirit

After a couple of months, once my body becomes accustomed to what it is doing and I tame my mind, that’s when the rewards come. The trail “talks” to me. It gives me a problem that I have to solve to move on. Maybe it is a shelter where I thought I would stop that has a sign that says “large rattlesnake living under the shelter” which means I have to move on further than I wanted. Or maybe an area with no trees to do a proper bear hang of my food or a really long stretch with no water and I have to figure it out.

These things allow me to think flexibly, to overcome obstacles, and ultimately succeed. It gives me space to think. It allows me to appreciate and be grateful for the beautiful world I live in. And to be grateful for this adventure I got to have. It calms my soul and helps me be more mindful and listen more. It allows me to ignore the cacophony of the modern world. I just put one foot in front of the other, one blaze at a time, one problem to solve, one crisis to avert. And there is a serenity that happens. Life takes on a different meaning than all the accolades, awards, titles, bank statements, etc that I chased in the “real” world. I realize that none of that matters.

At least, that’s what I think will happen. I hope the trail teaches me how to appreciate the people in my life in powerful ways. I hope it reminds me what is important. One thing it has already shown me is that the natural world that is our birthright is what I should be focused on not the crazy world that humans created with its virtual space, cars with drivers that have road rage, buildings to work in while people live on the street, etc. Every time I go into a town to resupply, I feel my anxiety building. That’s a weird, artificial world that is focused on the humans that created it rather than what I personally need to focus on which is the natural world we were born into. It is a different space to be. But that’s just what I am learning right now. Who knows what the trail will teach me or how long I can last?

Bee (200+ miles and counting)

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”

Today’s quote comes from a poem call Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. Here is the whole thing if you want to read it. https://allpoetry.com/poem/15374223-Wild-geese-by-Mary-J-Oliver

In the beginning…

Posted on May 6, 2026 by rangotti

I have to admit, even though it is hard, I am not sure when I was this happy. And I am learning so much. So let me break it down for you.

Kindness

The best part of the trail so far has been the people. My first night, I met three section hikers who I shared a shelter with.

Snowball, Diet Coke, Wildflower and Bee (my nose is red because it was 40°)

Diet Coke and Wildflower met the first section they hiked on the trail in 2023 and have been friends ever since. Every year they meet up for three weeks and hike another section with the plan to get it done when it is done. Snowball was out for a weekend of backpacking. They are three of the kindest people I have ever met. They gave advice, shared their stories, and just made me feel so at home. I got to camp with Diet Coke and Wildflower the first few nights.

On night two, I met Wolfpacker and he and I bonded over both being NCSU alums. He is a retired English teacher and we found a common love of literature and poetry, particularly dealing with topics of nature. He gave me a great reading list I am going to tackle. And he was willing to let me contact him to discuss what I read. I love to talk about books with people.

Wolfpacker will always hold a special place in my heart for his willingness to be vulnerable and authentic and share his story with me. I was touched and hope that my listening helped him a little. That’s what telling our stories allows us to do, it takes some of the pressure off and allows other people to help carry the load. I believe as humans, we are all here to ease each other’s burdens.

I hope Wolfpacker and I become great friends. He is a wonderful human being.

Trail Magic

I got a taste of my first trail magic also. When I was running out of food and needed to resupply, I met a couple in the park that was offering rides into town. Planning on spending a night to see the town of Gettysburg, I took them up on their kind offer. Shortcut (named because most of his shortcuts end up being longer) is a thru-hiker but I forgot the year of his hike. He and his wife Victoria picked me up, gave me cold beverages (I cannot tell you how much of a treat a cold beverage is) and then graciously gave me the most wonderful tour of the Gettysburg battlefield.

As we rode around, all I could think of is the tragic deaths of all the men who fought in a war over the ability of human beings to buy, sell, and own other human beings. Gettysburg is a powerful reminder of the worst and the best that humans can be. Every person in the U.S. should see it in their lifetime. It hits hard.

All of these people I have mentioned, and all the others I have met, have filled my soul with hope, something I have been missing for a long time. We don’t all have the same religious or political beliefs but none of that matters. They are kind. That’s what matters and it is restoring my faith in humanity.

Learning

When I decided to hike the trail, I needed a “why” to motivate me. I knew the trail would teach me a lot, but what I most hope to learn is how to ask for and let other people help me. Everyone who knows me well knows that I am fiercely independent. I don’t allow a lot of reciprocity in my relationships and that needs to change. By never accepting help, I take away from others the bonding and feelings of joy we get from helping others.

The trail taught me a huge lesson regarding this. There was a spot when climbing up in the rocks that I couldn’t see the white blaze that marks the trail. It was on a tree that had fallen over in a windstorm. I wasn’t sure which way to go, it was pretty steep and very rocky (hello Maryland and Pennsylvania).

A typical rocky and steep section of the trail with the white blaze on a tree

I looked around on the ground and I could see where the fallen leaf litter was crushed by footprints. Those are the footprints of all who have come before me and they will be followed by all who come after. That’s how life works. We don’t walk this world alone. Lesson one hit me right where I needed it to.

Trail Names

Since I started talking about this journey, everyone has tried to get me to pick a trail name. I resisted because I wanted the trail to give me a name. Usually it has a funny story behind it. Here is mine.

I have a good friend who is a beekeeper and he has been teaching me about honeybees. I am terrified of bees. But I have been pretty excited about all I have learned. Every time on the trail that I was challenged or discouraged, I would see a bee. They seemed to be reminding me not to be scared. And in typical Robin fashion, I was ready to launch into my dissertation on all I know about honeybees when the trail gave me the name Bumblebee. Wait, is a bumblebee and a honeybee the same? Okay Honeybee. Wait no, Bumblebee. I didn’t know. So I asked my friend and he said “Bumblebees are a big fat solitary creatures. They don’t make honey and they live in the ground. Honeybees make honey but are technically an invasive species of bee but they give us sweet stuff.”

And then he told me that, in Pennsylvania (where I was), there is a species of bumblebee named Bombas Perplexus which means perplexing bumblebee. Hmm. When I looked up the picture, sure enough, those were my bees. I was going to give my bee dissertation, which would have been completely wrong because they weren’t the same bees!! Who knew??

However, in my life, I have been solitary, sometimes fat, and always perplexing. But I am walking the trail in order to be be sweeter. So I guess I am a bit of all of those. So it’s just Bee.

I am having the time of my life.

Bee

“Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another.” — Yuri Kochiyama

The Journey of 2000 Miles…

Posted on April 30, 2026 by rangotti

After years of not blogging and stopping my blog in the middle of my last sabbatical, I have been at a loss as to how to get started writing again. So here goes.

Recap:

In 2019, I was elected to be the chair of the faculty senate at the tri-campus University of Washington. It’s a 3 year term where I started as vice chair, then chair, and then chair of the committee on planning and budget. During this time, I regularly met with the president and provost in my role as the voice of the faculty in co-managing the university. In 2020, covid hit and I was one of 4 people in the room making the decision to be the first university in the country to go to remote learning.

At the end of that gig, I went on sabbatical when I shattered my ankle. When they operated on it, I wasn’t sure I would be able to ski, run, bike or hike again. After 4 years and a ton of PT, my right leg is still smaller than the left from all the time I was non weight bearing. But I do have it back to 80-90% of what it once was. Some days are better than others.

When I went back to my faculty position, I had difficulty adjusting back from the intensity of the work in the senate office as well as dealing with the limited mobility I had. My way out of stress is through activity so I had no outlet. This was compounded by my department who also had difficulty having me come back. So, in 2024, after not being able to recover from the stress of leading the university through one of the most challenging times, I retired from the University of Washington and took an administrative job at a small rural community college. In 2025, after learning a friend my age (62) had alzheimers and another died of cancer, I realized that, if I am lucky, I have about 10 more years of good health left. The years of chronic stress at the university have been hell on my body.

So on my 62nd birthday, I fully retired. After working for over 45 years, I was definitely undefined, divided by zero. I had no plan for what I would do. I just knew I couldn’t continue the life I was leading. I was adrift and the sea of my life seemed like it was raging. At that time, a good friend let me use his off-grid cabin in Arizona to have some time to think and then, in a crazy twist of fate, another friend asked me to help with a volunteer project in the Mojave desert. Those moments were beacons for me.

I realized what I wanted to do in retirement was to find the adventure girl buried in me after a lifetime of responsibility and get her to come out and play. So I started to think back to when I was young and what I always wanted to do. The answer was quick. After growing up in northern Maine in the shadow of Mt Katahdin, watching hikers come through town at the end of their hikes, I always said I would hike the Appalchian trail. So here I am, on the trail.

I am attempting a flip flop hike. I started in the middle and am hiking north to Katahdin. If I make it, then, after a week or so with my family, I will come back to the middle and hike southward through Shenandoah and the Smokies. The whole adventure, if I finish it, should take around 6-7 months. Only 25% of the people who start actually finish. I have no grandiose ideas that I will be one of them. But what I do know is that I would always regret if I didn’t try. So, even if it just becomes a section hike, I am going to make the attempt.

I have been training and practicing for the last 5 months. I am in the best shape of my life even with my spicy foot and ankle that barks at me at the end of long days. I know there will be challenges of storms, falls, and days where I won’t want to even get out of my tent. I know the mental game will be the hardest. I also know that I am privileged to even have to opportunity to go on this adventure. The choices of my life and things that have happened to me have led me to this moment and that is a gift that I am damn grateful for.

So, follow along if you are interested. I am going to try to blog once a week whenever I am in a town washing clothes and charging electronics. If you have questions about my adventure, just ask and I will do my best to answer them. You can ask me anything, yes even about pooping.

As you can tell from my writing, I am not using AI and I pledge not to. So accept the grammar issues, spelling errors and typos from writing this blog with my phone. Remember that I was a math professor, not a creative writer. Also, I am not selling anything or monetizing anything. It’s just for fun. I think mostly, it’s to help me with the mental game and your questions will help me with that too. I will try not to be preachy but just give an honest reflection of the joys and the sorrows.

Each week, I will leave you with a favorite quote. Here is the one for this week:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Cheers!

Just a girl, walking along undefined,

Robin

The road…

Posted on June 26, 2022 by rangotti

And so it begins again. I am officially homeless with all my belongings in a 5′ x 10′ storage unit or in the back of my car. I performed my last work related task last week going to a workshop in Virginia. When that workshop was over and everyone prepared to go home, I realized, I didn’t have a home and the reality of sabbatical really hit me hard. This isn’t a bad thing, it is just a different thing. It unsettles me a bit. As a person who likes a routine, the thought of being adrift, living in other people’s homes and lives for over a year is a little unnerving. However, it is definitely an opportunity for growth and collecting stories.

When you are on the road, you have a lot of time to reflect in addition to listening to a lot of NPR. When I left Seattle, I had the privilege of having my adult son with me while I was driving across the country. It was wonderful to have an extra person to help with driving, bikes, and gear. We got to see some mountains, buffalo, the great plains, all while arguing the merits of the metric system.

It was also great just to get to spend some time with him. The older we get, we realize that the time we have with loved ones is finite and I will take every opportunity in my life to develop and foster my relationships.

Life takes so many twists and turns. Relationships begin and end and we have to appreciate what they give us while we have them. As I read through this blog, I realized how my relationships over the last decade since my last sabbatical have changed. Some have become stronger, others have faded, and some of them are no more. From all of them, I have grown and learned and become the woman I am today. The memories and knowledge of the love I have received are what makes it possible to face the unknown, the lack of routine, and the chosen path of homelessness I am embarking on. The love we have in our lives is the foundation of our strength and I will never take it for granted.

And it begins again…

Posted on April 15, 2022 by rangotti

As I am getting ready for my second sabbatical which will start in 7 weeks, I spent the evening reading through the posts from the last sabbatical. All I could think was, who wrote this? What an incredible person she must be! And then I laughed because, she is me. I wasn’t going to write another blog, but after reading the last one I realized how much I gained from both writing and reading it. Thus, I decided to write again. This blog is for me, for my story.

This sabbatical will be a little different. I realize that, at 58 years old, this will probably be my last sabbatical. So what do I want to do? My life and career has come full circle. I have risen as high as one can go in an academic career. I am a full professor of mathematics and I am the recent former chair of the faculty senate for the entire University of Washington during one of the most challenging periods in history. Personally, I have blossomed into the strong, confident, free spirited woman I am. I am proud of who I am and what I have accomplished. So now it is time to give back.

As I said in a previous post, “you have to dance with the one that brung ya”. So I am going to position the end of my career in the same place that it began, in rural schools, working with teachers. I am headed off to Maine, where I grew up and where my brothers live. Professionally, I am going to spend the year working with teachers in rural Maine, writing some articles, and maybe a few grants. Personally, I am going to spend my time staying healthy, learning, and socializing with my family. I want to spend some time with the incredible men who grew up with me. I have spent time with my sisters as adults, but I have never had any extended time, other than vacations, to spend with my brothers as adults. I want to deeply understand the men they are, I want to learn what they have to teach me, I want to see all the places that they love, and know the people who share their lives. I am who I am because they are a huge part of my life, I want to understand the impact they have had on me.

And so it begins again. I am culling my things, putting stuff in storage, packing up the things I need for the next year, and getting ready to head out. This time I am sure of myself and the road I am taking. It will be a great ride and an incredible story.

Jessica and Ethan – 11/29/2015

Posted on November 28, 2015 by rangotti

Twenty-eight years ago, the universe gave me a gift. I was given the privilege of being the mother of an amazing daughter. Since the moment they laid her in my arms, I have adored her. We are so different in so many ways, it was always a mystery to me how she understood the things she did with no help from her mother. I am a tomboy, makeup confuses me, and I am totally devoid of any ability to be stylish or match colors together. My daughter is the exact opposite. She is stunningly lovely and from the time she was a small child, she picked out her own clothes, styled her own hair and had a special affinity toward shoes and purses. A dancer, cheerleader, interior designer, my daughter is very feminine.

The challenge for me as a parent was to let her be who she was and not try to make her into me. I am a very linear, direct thinker. My daughter’s thought process is like being on a tilt-o-whirl. Her mind goes from one idea to the next, it is something to behold and I wouldn’t want her to be any other way. My prayer while she was growing up was to always let her have the space to find her own way and to always accept her for who she is.

Emerging Designer of the Year

She is one of the most creative human beings I have ever met. Whether with a paintbrush, a CAD drawing, or her own feet in dance, she has always had a way to see things in her mind’s eye that I could only imagine and she is able to portray those images through whatever artistic medium of her choice. She is brilliant and I have always been amazed and sometimes intimidated by her. She is beautiful, successful and a wonderful person.

With the birth of a daughter, at some time a parent’s thoughts will turn to the future and the day she will get married. I don’t know why it is that way, but it is. I am no different. I remember that moment, looking down at this beautiful baby, hoping that I would one day see her wedding day. I remember wishing for my daughter that her wedding would be everything she wanted it to be: a beautiful bride, a heartfelt ceremony, a wonderful husband, a sunny day, surrounded by people who love her. All those things have come to fruition for tomorrow is my daughter’s wedding day.

There are so many things I want to tell her, so many things I want her to know. There are things I have told her over and over, but she doesn’t believe me. As she gets older, I hope she will someday see herself the way that I see her. My daughter is beautiful, capable, fierce, independent, intelligent, and creative. She has a presence that shows an understanding and awareness of the world around her that I have never had. She lights up a room when she walks into it, she makes everyone feel welcomed. She is gracious, charming and elegant. She is a force to be reckoned with and a joy to behold. She is a steel magnolia. And tomorrow she becomes a bride.

Who is this man she has given her heart to? He is kind, generous, compassionate, caring, funny, smart, and he looks at my daughter with a love that is tangible. I could not have envisioned a better mate for her. He believes in her and encourages her to reach for her dreams. He lets her be exactly who she is and does not try to change her into something that would destroy her amazing spirit. He is a wonderful human being. Like my daughter, my son-in-law is also a creative person. His paintings are so poignant, so thought provoking, his talent takes my breath away. Together, their lives will be filled with emotion, beauty, color, freedom, spirituality, and romance.

So on this eve of their wedding, the joy in my heart overflows. Tomorrow, I get to watch this child that I have loved with all my heart marry the man that fills her heart to completion. It will be an honor to see them pledge their lives to each other knowing that they are stronger together than either one is separately. Regardless of details, their day will be perfect because they get to be married to each other.

first communion jessica ~So to my wonderful daughter, I want you to know that all I have ever wanted is for you to be happy and have a well lived life. I want you to believe about yourself the things I know about you. You are unique. There is no one like you. I want for you to not be afraid to give your whole heart to the man you love, it is the key to being happy in your marriage.

~To Jessica and Ethan, here is my practical advice. Love each other. Treat each other with respect. Dance around your apartment. Talk to each other. Listen. Compromise. Remember how you felt at this moment. And if you ever have a dispute that you can’t seem to resolve, get naked.

And always remember that I love you with all my heart. It is an honor to be your mother.

Happy Wedding Day Jessica and Ethan!

Love,

Robin

Passion and Pixie Dust…

Posted on November 1, 2015 by rangotti

The other day, I clicked on my memories in Facebook and when I did, this old blog came up. When I read what I wrote two years ago about the person I wanted to be, I had to be reminded that I am that person. I have the characteristics I admired in my friends, I have grown and allowed myself to become what I wanted to be. However, just like with many lessons in life, sometimes things need to be revisited.

View from the porch with the fog rolling down the valley

A year ago, I came off sabbatical, got a fabulous house, moved into a fantastic new job that challenged me and had the thought of “I have arrived”. Hmmm, it is almost like I regressed and forgot all of those lessons I learned. I have been in this “stuck” headspace, feeling something deeply lacking in my life and divorced from any sense of community. I have been on autopilot. So I realized it was time to renew the blog, and write another manifesto for where I wanted to go now.
Recently, someone pointed out to me that it is my spirit and passion that draws people to me, not my intelligence or sense of adventure. It reminded me that my friend Matt once said, “Robin, you have this beautiful carefree spirit that you put walls around by intellectualizing. Let that spirit out. It won’t appeal to everyone, just the people who want to be in your life.” I think I need a little more practice on that area.

So I started writing the manifesto and asking myself some questions like, now what? Where do I go from here? Where am I going in this life next?

The first words I wrote on the page were that I want to live my life with integrity and transparency, honoring the strengths that I have found in myself and not making excuses for the weaknesses. I want my words to match my actions in everything I do in life. Two years ago, I set out on a journey that made me focus inward and that journey was successful in helping me to be the person I am today. Now, having met all those goals, in order to move on, I have to focus outward. How am I giving back to the world that has given me so much? What am I doing to make my community better; personally, professionally, locally and globally? And how do I allow that spirit and passion to be infused in everything I do? Because to live with integrity, I have to let that spirited, passionate woman come out in all the areas of my life.

Software designed to help people learn math.

Professionally, I have a pretty well articulated vision of what I want to do and who I want to be. With the help of a great group of colleagues from around the country, the vision remains crystal clear and I have no problem striving toward it because it flows from my passion. I want to be an integral member of a department that is willing to take pedagogical risks to research and find the best practices in mathematics education for all students for the 21st century. I don’t want mathematics to be a gatekeeper, weeding people out of STEM disciplines. I want it to be a gateway for any student who chooses to walk through the gate on their way to whatever career they desire. I don’t believe we will solve the problems of the world by doing the same thing over and over again. We need new ideas from places we haven’t thought of for humanity to move forward. That means more scientists, engineers, computer programmers, mathematicians that are from underrepresented groups in those fields. I want my voice to add to the conversation of how to make that happen.

Nana and Brody dancing in the kitchen

Baking Easter Cake with Brooklyn and Charlotte

Personally, I haven’t had as clear a vision. I just know that I have been feeling a soul-sucking lack of community lately. The only time I feel that I am fully connected and being myself is when I am around my grandchildren. With them, I am this carefree spirit, willing to take personal risks of looking stupid or failing, in order to achieve real connection with them. A whole continent separates us, so I don’t want to spend our precious time together having to peel through layers of social constraints. I am present with them, in the moment, and in the moment we don’t care what our hair looks like, how fit we are, or what our bank balance is. We are just there.

Joy

I listen to what their dreams are, take into account what they want and need, and then allow myself to be outrageously myself while I try to meet those needs in ways that encourage their growth. And through their failures and successes, I listen to their laughter which, in turn, floods my soul with happiness. We dance around the kitchen, bake cookies, go to the library, play in the park, look at nature, pretend we are horses and gallop around, we make mistakes and celebrate tremendous successes. The word that defines how I am with them is carefree. I am a Nana who is doused with pixie dust that I want to spread al over them.

Climbing Seminary Hill during the 7 Hills of Kirkland Ride

I want to find a community in which I can be that way, where I can let that spirit and passion be present and be accepted. Matt is right, to find that, I have to be that because people who will accept me will gravitate toward it. So my personal manifesto is to embrace my crazy. I want to be that person that lets her spirit and passion be first and foremost in her life. In looking outward, it is that carefree, passionate part of me that will impact my local and global community the most. There are lots of people in the world who are more intellectual than I am, who have way more financial resources than I do, who are more beautiful, more fit, more creative. But there is no one that has my unique spirit.

Rachel riding a coffee ride with me. I know I have made as much of a difference in Rachel’s life as she has in mine.

So who do I want to be? I want to be a Pixie Dust spreader. I want to be this carefree person who uses her passion (for adventure, art, cooking, travel, cycling, mathematics, learning, people, and whatever else happens to interest me) to engage with other people, especially those who have not had the same opportunities as I have, not for my own self-gratification but to give back to a world that has given me so much. I want to be a person who asks about other’s dreams and goals, who listens to what they need, and then who helps in whatever way I can as they make their dreams come to fruition. I want to be supportive when they struggle and I want to celebrate with joy the accomplishments of their hard work and watch as they thrive. I want to be a person who commits my time, resources and passions to people that are willing to try, to risk, to live. I want to give back to the world to honor all the people who did that for me.

“Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.” ~Howard Thurman

Begin with the end in mind

Posted on September 30, 2014 by rangotti

I have always found transition times to be challenging. That includes good and bad transitions. It is hard to believe that I ever had the courage to go on sabbatical this past year or to take many of the leaps of faith I have taken throughout my life. So many people think I am this free spirited adventurer. I laugh at that a lot. What no one sees is what is going on in my head.

As I finished sabbatical, I have been blessed with no only a year of amazing adventures, but from many things that have happened to me in the last month alone. I have to admit, I am a little overwhelmed. I have a new grandson who I got to hold before he was even an hour old. My lovely and talented daughter is getting married and I got to see her try on the dress that she will get married in. I have a beautiful new home, a new office and a great new job. I love my students. So why am I overwhelmed?

It is a transition time, and for me, my life has been filled with a lot of negative changes. I can handle those. I expect those. It is almost harder to handle the positive ones, to step in and feel deserving of the wonderful life I have now. I have been in a funk, almost paralyzed to get anything done. Today, I am attempting to change my paralysis and get back to my routine and taking care of myself. In order to do that, I realized, I have to start somewhere, so I am going to start at the beginning.

Over a year ago, I filled 8 boxes with my treasures. Those boxes, my gear, a few clothes, and a rock where the only things I had left. I had given up all my other possessions: house, furniture, dishes, all of it. I stored them in my office and now they are in my garage. Today, right now, it is time to unpack those boxes and face my life. It is time to get unstuck.

Lesson Five: Be who you want to be

Posted on August 30, 2014 by rangotti

One of the best things about writing this blog has been all the responses I have received from people around the world. Some said “thank you for sharing so openly, it has helped me realize I am not alone”. Some have told me their stories. Others have asked for advice, questions such as “I am over my head in debt, how do I pay it off” to “I am not happy in my life but I don’t know how to change it, can you help”. I am not qualified to give anyone advice. I can only tell you how I dealt with similar problems.

One of my greatest take-aways from sabbatical is that I don’t just have to be who I think I am. I can be who I want to be. All my life, I have wanted to be this adventure girl. I wanted to be joyfully spontaneous and just willing to try things on a whim. I wanted to be athletic and participate in adventure sports such as mountain biking, kayaking, skiing off-piste, paragliding, climbing… you get the idea. I also wanted to be the sophisticated urban dweller and world traveler. I put those dreams aside when I had children and raised my family. I was responsible, a great high school teacher, a good university professor, a decent mother and wife. I took care of everyone. When I got divorced an moved to Seattle, I was a frumpy, middle class, 44 year old housewife from a small town in North Carolina, and I thought those kind of adventures were behind me. If you have read this blog, you realize that moving to Seattle was when I met Matt Tony, Ken, Rachel, Shaun, Deloa, Melinda, Rachelle, Keri and so many more great friends.. the list goes on and on here as well as all my friends from the Lounge and my own children, Patrick and Jessica who have cheered me and encouraged me every step of the way.

My friends opened my world and my mind to all the things that were possible, regardless of my age, weight, marital status, debt, … none of that matters. Those were all excuses to keep me paralyzed to whatever dysfunctional fear I happened to be harboring at the time. The one single thing I needed to learn was that all I had to do was try. I didn’t have to be perfect or even successful the first time, or the 27th time, I just had to keep trying. It didn’t matter if I was laughed at, judged, or taunted. I have learned that those kinds of limiting comments from other people aren’t about me, they are about the shallowness and fears of the person who is uttering them. I don’t take those kind of comments personally anymore. I am a different person. I am the person I have always wanted to be.

I set out on a journey to carve out a new identity. I thought that meant discovering who I am. It didn’t. I realized that it meant creating who I am. It is funny, as I have been reflecting on sabbatical and all the years since I moved to Seattle, my train of thought started with “I didn’t”, and “I am not” until about a month ago when trying to write this blog post and I asked myself, “so what HAVE you done?”. It was a perspective altering question.

I have rolled a kayak, climbed mountains, and jumped off those mountains in both a harness and with a wing on my back. I have skied through powder, down fall lines, under chairlifts and on glaciers. I have ridden bikes on several continents, in varied conditions with incredible people. I have ordered great wine and decadent food in restaurants all over the world. I have met new people everywhere I have gone and listened to their stories, learned about their lives, and shared the fires of the passions that light up their souls. I gave away all the trappings of my former life, my furniture, clothing, and emotional baggage. I have lived without a home or safety net to return to. I have fed endangered vultures from my hand both on the ground and while gliding in the air looking out over the Himalayas. I have traveled alone, with no plan and no itinerary, going where I wanted, seeing what interested me, meeting new people. I have faced loneliness, fear, isolation, sickness, different cultures, ostracization, and just about every human condition you can imagine.

When I read that list, what is clear to me is that I am not the person that I was anymore. I am strong, courageous, adventurous, athletic, urban, classy, loving, compassionate, giving, open… in other words, I am the person I have always wanted to be. How did I, a non-athletic, frumpy, boring, small-town, middle-class housewife do it? How did I learn to roll a boat, ski off-piste, order great wine, solo travel, talk to strangers, and give up all my possessions? The answer is simple, I tried. I set out on a course that was hard and just kept going. Overcoming obstacles, wanting to quit (many, many times), I learned and grew. I refused to stay in the dysfunction I was in and did the work necessary to have the life I wanted. Even though that sounds simple, it was the hardest, yet most rewarding thing I have ever done. I have no regrets.

Before I left on sabbatical, I had a chance to change course and stay in Seattle to be able to get the perfect house. I wanted that house so badly, I almost didn’t go on my journey because of it. The house was just an excuse to hide my fear however. Instead, I listened to my advisors and went on sabbatical anyway knowing that there would be another perfect house when I returned. I have thought of that house many times while I lived my homeless, nomadic life. In the last couple of weeks I started house hunting again. Guess what? THE house, the same one, was available and now it is mine. So for all my worry, I took the chance anyway and walked away from the safe choice. Now I have a house again or at least I will on Sept 15 and not just any house but the house I dreamed of. Until September 15, I am hanging out with my beautiful granddaughters waiting for their brother to come into the world any day now. So at the end of this incredible year, not only am I a new person but I will have a new home, a new job, and a new grandson.

It makes me happy to know that I am setting a great example for my grandchildren that life isn’t about limits, it is about challenging what limits us. Our biggest limitation is believing that we can’t change who we think we are.

Life Divided by Zero

The Journey of Becoming Undefined