A Sense of Community

Posted on August 30, 2013 by rangotti

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community. ~ M. Scott Peck

Village house

Ethiopia is not what I expected. The truth is, I am not sure that anyone could ever imagine what it is like until you experience it with your own senses. The sounds, the smells, the absolute essence of stepping back in time to the birthplace of humanity, none of that can be understood until you experience it. It is truly an amazing place.

The street near my school

Ethiopia is a contrasts in opposites. New, modern houses are built next to shanties. Horses, donkeys, goats, etc share the road with cars. Farmers growing teff to make injera and using wooden plows next to a modern university of stone and glass. Barefoot beggars share the street with men in Armani suits. People precariously cross the highway, dodging between buses, taxis and livestock. Beautiful new buildings are constructed with scaffolding made from eucalyptus branches. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to any of it. Some would call it chaos. I call it humanity.

Church on the hill

The sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of Ethiopia are like seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting time itself. It is the oldest culture in the world. Time is started at daylight, when the sun comes up, so dawn is 1 o’clock…a new day. Every morning at dawn, the monks from a nearby church greet the day with chanting and drums. I lay in bed and listen to the sounds as well as the oxen lowing in a nearby field. The smells of sewage are offset by the smell of freshly cut grass. The sour taste of injera, spicy wot, and the most amazing coffee I have ever had in my life make all my taste buds come alive.

Eucalyptus scaffolding

Having always traveled as a tourist, I am realizing that visiting in a foreign country is very different from living in one. It is strange and foreign land after spending my life in the sterile environment of the U.S., a place where everything seems so orderly by comparison. In the US, I turn on a faucet and have clean drinking water. I flick a switch and have dependable electricity. I pay a bill and have reliable internet access. I want groceries and supplies for my home, I can get it all at one store. Life is easy in the U.S.

Shanties

In Ethiopia, life is harder. The internet hasn’t worked in 3 weeks at my school (I came to am American hotel and had to pay $15 for a day of wifi), the power goes out on a daily basis, shopping requires several stops to different stores and paying the ferengi [foreigner] price, and then there are the daily difficulties of acquiring clean water. For me it is difficult but still easier than it is for most Ethiopians, because I have money and resources. For the average Ethiopian, it is much harder. To offset the hardships, people here depend on each other.

Modern housing

There is a sense of community, history, and belonging that I rarely see in the U.S. where we don’t need each other for basic survival. But in our isolation from each other, Americans also lose a sense of emotional connection that many (including myself) continually search for. Connection and community are two things go hand in hand. But to be connected, we have to be vulnerable to people. We have to open up and show others what we need and we have to meet those needs in other people in our community. For many of us, this kind of vulnerability is hard.

Brooklyn

Charlotte

So I begin this year of renewal and transformation. I am not convinced yet that I can do it, either the job I am being asked to do or just staying so long outside the U.S. I am already missing my family terribly. Spending the last week with Charlotte and Brooklyn has made me long for more time with them. I long for a sense of community of my own.

NOTE: I had a lot of trouble with pictures today. I forgot the cord to the camera that I had the majority of my photo on back at my apartment. So here is link to the ones I already uploaded to my drive. I will try to put the rest up later when I get back to an internet connection. http://sdrv.ms/1dxhsFh

A Birth, A Death, and a Wedding

Posted on August 25, 2013 by rangotti

Yesterday was a day of a lot of shifting emotions, not for me, but for my son. One of his best friends became a new father, another best friend died unexpectedly, and his wife’s best friend got married…all of which happened in the same day. I have empathy for him and my daughter-in-law. They are dealing with the up and down emotions of balancing two joyous events with a tragic one and trying to be happy for their friends while mourning the death of the other. Life doesn’t happen when it is convenient. Yesterday for my son, daughter-in-law and all their friends, life was divided by zero.

I sit here and listen to my son and his wife process their grief by telling stories of their friend and sharing pictures with their social group. I am reminded that our lives consist of our stories. They don’t consist of how much money we have, what things we own, or even what our jobs are. Our lives are about our experiences. At the end, the people who we have touched will tell our stories and share our photos. It is our legacy and reminds me to always treat people well. Life is about caring about other human beings. The most important gift we can give another person is the gift of our time.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ~Maya Angelou

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is all about perspective…

Posted on August 20, 2013 by rangotti

robin

One morning when I was newly single and still very emotionally fragile, I was walking in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood in search of breakfast early on a sunny Sunday morning. It was one of those rare mornings after a bad breakup that I was optimistic about being able to move on and carve a new life out for myself. A smile on my face, feeling confident, healthy and beautiful, curly red hair all askew, strolling down the street and all of a sudden, a man gave me the best spontaneous complement I have ever had. He said “top of the morning to you. Wow, the redder the hair, the hotter the woman.” It was unfortunate that he happened to be jumping out of a dumpster at the time and wearing a woman’s skirt and a pair of black pantyhose with a run in them, but hey, at that point in my life I was going to be thankful for a complement wherever I could get it. It is really just a matter of perspective.

I was reminded again this week that all my “realities” of life are a matter of perspective. The lens I am looking through, colored by my experiences, beliefs and emotion, distorts reality as I see it. Every single human being on the planet has a distorted view of their reality. It is only through communication that we can understand how others are seeing the same situation and realize the fallacies in our own perception of events. That is why communication is imperative in misunderstandings. If we refuse to communicate, we can never understand any but our own distorted reality of things.

Pure joy

My reality was distorted enough that I was having a pity party earlier this week. I am staying with my son and his wife, enjoying their company and the pure joy that radiates from my two beautiful granddaughters. Given that scenario, the true reality is, there is absolutely no reason I should have been feeling sorry for myself, but I was. My reality was colored by the fact that my son lives in my former home and every time I visit it brings back memories of my marriage. Added to the emotion of that was an unexpected visit from my ex, who is happily ensconced in a new relationship and I was just flooded with the “all that could have been, all that isn’t now” perspective instead of seeing the reality that is before me. After a virtual slap from my friend Jonathan, I decided enough was enough of that. I needed a big perspective shift to remind myself that my life is my own. I am not in competition with my ex. I am happy that he is doing well. That was the end of that whole line of thought. That was perspective shift #1.

My reality has also been distorted by not having a place to call my own or any personal space. It makes me cranky. Although I am an extroverted person, I need time to myself to recharge. This summer, even though I have had great friends to rely on that have taken me into their homes, having no space that is my own has played havoc with my whole emotional system. By emotional system, I am referring to more than just feelings. I am speaking of the hard-wired physiological, psychological and social mechanisms that human beings have evolved as a matter of survival within a family unit. Our emotional system includes the internal and external interactions and reactions associated with our basic human needs for food, water, sleep, shelter, territory, protection from harm, mating, and nurturing of young.

Living on the road and off the charity of others after a lifetime of having a home of my own, when I was always the person who others turned to for help, has definitely been a challenge for me. There have been many times that I didn’t think I was going to make it, that I was ready to go back to Seattle and start looking for an apartment. But with each challenge I have faced and overcome, I have grown emotionally stronger. I am learning to rely on people and to listen to my body’s needs and to convey those needs to others.

One of the hardest things I have ever done is to tell my children that I was going to get a hotel room this week. It has nothing to do with them and certainly nothing to do with my beautiful granddaughters. I would spend every possible minute with them. But I have realized that I have to take care of myself too or I won’t be any good to anyone. What I need right now, on this last week before I head to Africa, is some time to myself where I can go through my things once again and do a last packing. I need to have a place to spread out all my stuff and pack up the few things that I have with me that are staying in the States while organizing and purchasing enough supplies for my classroom and my personal life (shampoo, mosquito net, etc) that will last me until I get back to the States during the holidays. Unfortunately, I can’t do that with my beautiful children and grandchildren around because I love them so much I just want to focus on them when I am with them. I need a few days to focus on myself to get all those last minute things done.

So I have been stressing all week until I came clean and admitted to my children what I need. As I would expect from them, they are wonderful and they understand. Why did I ever think they wouldn’t? I really have the most amazing children ever. Telling them gave me the perspective shift that I don’t always have to fix everything for them, that I can rely on them to help me also. It made me realize that I can tell them about being scared and unsure of myself as I embark on this journey. I can tell them how much I am going to miss them and how worried I am to be leaving them.

The truth is I wonder if I have made the right choice and whether I have what it takes to do the job I am being asked to do. Do I have what it takes to live in a place that is so different from everything I have ever known? Am I a good enough teacher to teach math in a place where many of my students don’t speak English while I speak no Amharic? Will I have the courage to explore this new country I am going to or will I stay in the safety of the school area I will teach in?

My perspective right now is being colored by my fears and insecurities about where my life is heading in the next year. I need my family and friends to help me with that perspective shift, this week more than any other. The closer the time comes for leaving the more excited I get and at the same time, the more insecure I get. I think that is probably a very normal and human reaction. I just have to breathe, stay present, and be aware and remember to keep communicating to keep a good grasp on true reality not just the reality colored by my experiences and emotions. It really is a matter of perspective.

The Great Equalizer

Posted on July 27, 2013 by rangotti

I can’t believe how fast the summer has gone. All of a sudden, I only have on week left in Seattle, then a week in eastern Washington before I fly to the east coast to see my family in Maine and North Carolina. And then I leave the country. Where did the time go?

I have been surprised by the responses to this blog. I get emails and messages on a weekly basis from people both known and unknown to me. One of the common threads in all of them is to thank me for sharing my story and then to tell me how courageous I am. I always chuckle at that. If I give off the impression of courage, it must be because my terror isn’t coming across via the interwebz.

One reader told me that she always thought that people who are more well-traveled or intelligent than she was are unapproachable, that surely they have never been insecure or vulnerable. She told me she would try not to carry on a conversation with people like that because she might be seen as a “dunce”. All I could think of when reading her letter is that she is depriving all those people of the unique beauty and life perspective that she alone has. Because all of us, every single human being, has a unique story, outlook on life, pearl of wisdom, etc. And the only way to figure out who will connect to us is to risk vulnerability and share our stories.

I spent the last week doing professional development for teachers in a very rural place. In that time, I had the privilege to have dinner with three other women. The only thing we all had in common was that we were all teachers and we were all within 15 years apart in age. We came from very different backgrounds, ethnicity, lifestyles, etc. We spent four hours sharing our stories of joy, heartbreak, betrayal, mistakes, success. We laughed at the unpredictable nature of life and the blessings that come from unexpected places. It was wonderful and I have a greater appreciation for each of these women because I understand their struggles, the risks they have taken, the overwhelming courage they have shown to carve the lives they wanted for themselves. They were spectacular. I look forward to seeing them again.

When I first started writing this blog, I debated making it personal. I was just going to make it a travel blog. Then I realized that if someone wanted to travel to a place and find generic details they could just use Wikipedia or Lonely Planet. Those details mean nothing without the emotion and insight of my travels attached to them. Sharing those personal details are difficult for me, I struggle every time I hit the Publish button. But I always come to the same conclusion, let the readers take away what they need. If there is nothing there, they they can delete. Simple.

When I started, I figured I would be the only one reading this blog. So to have a reader tell me that one of the things they have learned from reading it is that “human emotion is the great equalizer. We all laugh, cry, feel joy, get scared no matter how smart, wise, famous, or wealthy we are.” If putting my feelings out there in this blog helped one person get to the understanding that all of us have a commonality of human emotions, then the discomfort of pushing the Publish button and letting myself be vulnerable is worth it.

Many people write and ask me for advice. For someone whose life has been so out of control for so long, I still am amazed that anyone would want my advice. People ask me how to get the courage to try new things, how to take risks, how to make decisions without worrying, and how to handle when someone laughs at you. Well here is what I know so far that worked for me:

1. Although hiding would feel good and safe, fear is where the fun starts. Changing my life started with facing my fears, one at a time. You have to do something you think you can’t do. Anything, just try something new. And then do it again. You gain confidence as you experience success.

2. Keep a journal. We have to believe our thoughts are important enough to write down. I keep a handwritten journal, I have kept it for the last 7 years. Those journals contain all my fears, desires, thanks, joy, anger, my crazy moments…all of it. Sometimes I have typed my handwritten thoughts out, like in this blog for example, but that isn’t the same as keeping a journal for just myself. I have to believe that my thoughts are important, even if no one else ever reads them.

3. Get laughed at. One of the things I know about confident people is that they realize that getting laughed at doesn’t matter. My amazingly confident son is a great example. He would be at the mall on an escalator and just not get off and fall. He did it on purpose just to get a reaction out of people. The trick is to laugh at yourself with people as they are laughing at you. You have to OWN it, whatever you did that made them laugh at you. It is all about confidence. One of my favorite TED videos: The shared experience of aburdity. My advice: be absurd and own it.

4. Go to a bar, restaurant, park or coffee shop (anywhere in public) by yourself. Yes, in public, alone. After a lifetime of being married and having kids and lots of friends, I didn’t know how to be alone in public. So I just stayed inside all the time. Finally, I realized I needed to get out because I was sad and lonely. When I first started dining alone, I would bring a book, sit at the bar, get a beverage and a nice meal and read. Now I can go anywhere alone, it doesn’t bother me at all. I love to sit and watch people. I remember those first times, it was scary. So here is the tip, if you are sad and lonely at home, go be sad and lonely out in a park where you are in the sunshine and there are people around. Watch people. Just sit, put a book in your hands and pretend to read, and watch people. You will realize they are just as insecure as you are. Or go and actually read or write in your journal, but get outside your house.

5. Tell someone something you don’t want them to know. Start with someone you trust. When I am getting to know someone, I always ask them two questions, one of those questions is “what don’t you want me to know about you?”. If that person can risk and tell me something that they think is a dark secret, the thing that they think would make me want to reject them, then I am interested in knowing them. Because it means I can risk the same back with them and that I don’t have to hide who I am. People who can’t do that with me are the superficial people I keep on the outer circle of my friends. I know them, I see them at parties or gatherings, but they aren’t someone I am going to be invested in keeping up a relationship with. I learned this lesson the hard way, by giving my trust to someone who was superficial. It was the worst mistake I have ever made.

If you want to be inspired to risk vulnerability, watch The Power of Vulnerability. Yeah…I know, I have a slight TED video addiction.

Things that are important..

Posted on July 22, 2013 by rangotti

Charlotte & Brooklyn

I have two beautiful twin granddaughters, Brooklyn and Charlotte. They are the most amazing children ever (spoken like a true grandmother). They are intelligent, inquisitive and involved with the world and people around them. As I have been getting ready to go to Africa, it had been weighing very heavily on my mind that I would not see them again until the holidays. They are growing so fast and I am missing so much of their lives.

So I made a decision. Even though I wanted to hike Kilimanjaro and had paid for the excursion, I want to use the time to go for a visit to two of the most important people in my life. So I am choosing to give up my trip to visit with my family. My daughter and her new boyfriend are going to join me so my whole family will be together.

It is the right decision, I would have been hiking Kili and not been able to get to Ethiopia until the day before school starts. This way, I will get there a couple of weeks early and be able to settle in, write lesson plans and get ready for school to start. And I get to spend a few days with those beautiful girls before I leave.

I have been overwhelmed with details of getting my stuff together, deciding what to take and what to leave behind, knowing that I really have no place to leave anything since I don’t have a house anymore. I am really having to think carefully about everything that comes with me. I want to have enough room in my luggage to bring school supplies and things that I might need for my classroom.

I have to admit, I have been struggling with it both emotionally and physically. The stress is getting to me. It has made it hard to write this blog and be positive. I make it harder because I expect a lot out of myself and I expect to be handling everything perfectly. Not only have I not been doing it perfectly, I have pretty much sucked at how I have handled stuff so far. From procrastinating on details that need to be taken care of to avoidance of the emotion of leaving, I have been making a lot of mistakes.

When something is right though, the universe will make it happen despite my attempts to derail it. Everything is falling into place. Visas have been arranged, travel is straight, vaccinations are finished, even the packing will get done. Because I had already culled my possessions when I moved out of my house, there isn’t a lot to go through now, so it really won’t be as hard as I am making it out to be in my mind. And I know that soon, I will be on a plane going to the birthplace of humanity and the soul of the world. I am excited, anxious, happy, and terrified all at the same time.

Jump and the net will appear. ~John Burroughs

Posted on July 18, 2013 by rangotti

I don’t actually believe the saying “Jump and the net will appear”. From what I understand about life, I think that sometimes we jump and we just hit the ground and there isn’t any net. Nothing catches us, we just fall flat on our faces. Yeah, I know…ouch.

I come from a family who believes in pragmatism. My brother, the one that is our mom’s favorite, buys a new truck about every 10 years. When he was 50, he bought a new truck and told everyone he was “two trucks from death”. When questioned on that, he would say,”I am 50 years old, if I buy a truck every 10 years I will buy another when I am 60 and one more when I am 70. Chances are, I will be dead when I am 80 so I am two trucks from death. I come from a family that is “that kind” of pragmatic. They approach life with humor, grace, realism, and incredible bluntness. My brother currently has a job where he has use of a work truck to commute and he only puts about 1000 miles a year on his personal truck so it should last another 30 years. He now calls it the “death truck”. When you go to visit, he will say “don’t bother renting a car, you can just drive the death truck”. Yeah…that is my family and they are amazing. I love them dearly.

Family vacation, circa 1966

My family has never been one on ceremony or flowery speaking. They understand life on an elemental level. Maybe it is because of the dramatic change of seasons in New England where they live, or maybe it is the harshness of the winters, I don’t know. I just know that they understand that there are seasons of our lives just like there are seasons in the world around us. To demonstrate that, when we had a family reunion, they would say “look around you, there are three groups of people. There are the young kids swimming in the frigid cold lake, the 30- and 40-somethings playing horseshoes, and then all the old guys over there talking politics”. When they themselves, in their 50s and 60s, started gravitating to the politics group, they acknowledged it and accepted it with that same bluntness and realism, knowing that they had reached another season of their lives. One of the best things about them is you always know right where you stand with them. They have hearts of gold, but don’t ask them a question you don’t really want to know the answer to, because they will give it to you.

When I moved to Seattle I was 44. My brother told me then, “Robin, you’ve got 30 more years. In your seventies, you aren’t going to be learning how to kayak, ride a mountain bike, ski etc. If there is something you want to learn how to do, you need to do it now. Otherwise, you will be like our mother who is in her seventies sitting around lamenting about all the things she wishes she had done in her life but now doesn’t have the capacity to do”. My brother isn’t saying I can’t learn anything or have adventures after 70, he is reminding me to take advantage of every moment of my life so I won’t have regrets. I remind myself of that often.

Ever since I started talking about teaching in Ethiopia, I have had wavering feelings about what I am doing. That is probably pretty normal with such a big undertaking. And of course, with my type A personality, I think I have to do it perfectly. Which means that I beat myself up whenever I have a self-doubt. I also have this crazy idea that I have to deal with it all on my own, without accepting any help from anyone else. Needless to say, the past couple of weeks have been ones of ups and downs. I have the feeling that will happen several more times before I am finally on the plane.

Saying goodbye to friends

The downs have happened when I have been overwhelmed by details of international visas, travel arrangements, all the unknown obstacles of long term international travel and work, dealing with my physical stuff here in the U.S. and dealing with the emotion behind leaving my friends and family that I love. The ups have occurred when I tell people about what I am going to do and they say, “I have a friend who lives/lived in Addis, let me connect you” and I get these emails from people around the world who tell me how much I am going to love it. They give me connections to great coffee shops, restaurants, and insights into things to do. And not just in the city, but things that will call to my adventurous side also. Places like the Simien Mountains, the Danakil depression, Gondar, the Blue Nile Falls, and Lake Tana and when I look at the pictures, I can’t help but be excited by the adventure. Those times I feel like I can totally do this.

Even more important, I have spent the first half of my life figuring out what my values are, what I believe in, and what I am willing to risk taking a stand for. This is an opportunity for me to be able to make a difference and it is an opportunity that not many people get. I understand how fortunate I am. Now it is time to put those values and beliefs into action…to put my time and effort into being the change I want to see in the world.

Some people can affect change in the world by what they say so eloquently. I have always envied those people who can articulate themselves so perfectly. I am not one of them. I, like my brothers, am too blunt and pragmatic. But what I lack in communication skills, I make up for in action, I figure out ways to make things happen. But in order to do that, first I have to jump, net or no net…because I only have 30 more years.

Maybe those bumps aren’t in the way…maybe they are the way.

Posted on July 13, 2013 by rangotti

Ferris wheel on the Seattle waterfront

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in the magic will never find it! ~Ronald Dahl

I have had several “ah-ha” moments this week which all have a common theme. Sometimes I get mired in my own fears, disbelief, and insecurity and when that happens, I lose my clarity on the world around me. Instead of trusting my instincts and believing that everything will work out, all I see are the bumps in the way.

But I am also the luckiest girl in the world. I am blessed with amazing people who give me shifts in perspective, essentially helping me open my eyes to what I am not seeing. And that is where the magic of my life occurs.

This week, I spent some time with a friend while he was in Seattle getting fitted for a new bike. I have known him for awhile online and he always seemed to be a bit self-centered in his online persona. I hadn’t spent any time actually talking to him in person so I was a bit apprehensive when I offered to be his tour guide while he was in Seattle. Come to find out, I was totally wrong in my perceptions about him and if I had let my original insecurity stop me from getting to know him better, I would have missed the opportunity to learn from his unique perspective on life.

He is a photographer and I have always been captivated by his work. He has an awareness of the world around him that comes out in his pictures; an awareness of himself, the world around him, as well as the people in it. In person, I realized he is probably one of the most adept people I have ever met for staying in the moment and being totally present with you. Without even seeming to pay attention he noticed details about the scenes and people that I, even living in Seattle, had no awareness of. He is someone who utilizes all of his senses and his intuition to understand the world around him and that is what makes him a great photographer. I didn’t realize it until I met him but that is what I was drawn to in his photographs. He captures the moment in an elemental way that activates all your senses and immerses you in the scene which brings forth things that you didn’t even know were there. Magic.

In talking with him, he told me stories of traveling around the world surfing and becoming comfortable in other cultures. He told me stories of triumph, failure, joy and agony and he embraced all of those things as what life is about. He told me his philosophies of life and gave me the space to be myself and share mine in return. He is the type of person I have always wanted to be…embracing life, accepting his mistakes with grace, being truly in the moment, caring about the people in his life, and just being wonderfully alive.

Since he left, I have been having a ton of difficulty in getting things ready to leave for Africa and I started going into meltdown mode. I was freaking out over logistical details. I could only see the obstacles, the bumps in the road. I made a post about my fears in my online forum and a friend said “maybe those bumps aren’t in the way…maybe they are the way.” BAM…that is the perspective shift I needed.

It made me think about the person I had just said I wanted to be. Someone who embraces all of life, both the part with bumps as well as those that are smooth sailing. Someone who can be truly in the moment, caring about people, fully alive…and it hit me. It would all work out.

I just need to be confident and trust myself. The path I am on is the path for me, I just need to keep walking.

Walking with the Raven

Posted on June 17, 2013 by rangotti

I flunked therapy…not the class, the actual experience of psychotherapy. Yes, that is right, I am too crazy for the mental health community to “help”. Today, I am going to give you a clear glimpse into my “crazy”.

I traveled from Seattle, stopping in Oregon then Nevada and down to California to visit Yosemite. I spent a couple of days of camping and cycling. Then I drove through Utah, spending some time at Great Basin National Park, before heading to Moab and doing some desert hiking and then to Colorado. I cycled in all of those states and I am getting more comfortable riding in new places by myself.

Cycling near Moab. Colorado River

I am starting to look forward to heading to Europe and even considering taking my bike when I head off to Africa to work.

Home sweet home

I also am getting more comfortable camping by myself in unfamiliar places and, in general, with the whole experience of living a very minimalist life. I am becoming pretty good at setting up and taking down my tent, I have had my first bear experience, my first injury by myself when I cut my foot pretty badly, and have been challenged by laundry, disorganization, and lack of electricity. My grooming has suffered and I am looking like the dirty filthy hippie I think I am. I seriously could use a spa day and some waxing. But that isn’t why I am crazy. Now I just look as crazy on the outside as I am on the inside.

What makes me crazy is how I see the world around me around me. In the last two weeks as I have traveled through six states and three national parks, I have seen some of the most amazing sights my eyes could have ever looked upon. Truly, I live in a wondrous land.

Ships made of stone

I have seen ships made of stone sailing on a sea of sagebrush. I have seen stone sentinels, guardians of the ancient places where men long dead once walked. I look in awe at stone monuments which allow me to understand how fleeting my time is upon this earth. I feel the magic in these ancient places.

Sentinels

I have seen the bones of creatures long dead and pots made by women who gave birth and raised children in caves that could only be reached by rope ladders hanging hundreds of feet above the ground. Can you imagine raising a two year old in a cave 200 feet above the ground, with no baby gates, and the only way out is up a treacherous rope ladder to the top of a mesa? The only thought to why they would do that would have been protection, safety. I allow myself to imagine the fear that it must have taken to drive these people to live in such a dangerous place. These are a people who have long been gone from this earth, leaving no history except for broken clay pottery and crumbling ruins of caves. We use their artifacts to recreate what we believe their lives were like. Will someone do that with our plasticware and ruins of skyscrapers?

I am crazy because I look around the world and I see the textures of the land. I see the contrasts in colors. I see beauty everywhere. I believe you can find beautiful things even in the most “ugly” of places or people. I see a land of valleys so vast they seem to be endless…the mountains that bound them so distant as to seem a mirage. The mountains that ring those valleys are so high they are like great stone ramparts cast before the distant sky. When you climb them, the decrease in oxygen is noticeable, your head hurts and your actions, even simple steps, take more effort.

There are barren valleys filled with salt, a world so harsh and desolate that it is amazing that anything can survive.

Yet everywhere you look, there are living organisms, creatures that eek out life in the harshest of conditions. There is cactus, sagebrush, tumbleweeds, lizards, snakes, birds of all kinds. And there are ravens.

When I was a younger, I had a rough time and was pretty messed up for a while. I had several Native American friends. One of them said to me at one time that I would never find my true spirit until I walked with the Raven. Whether that was said in a drug induced marijuana haze or if he really had a vision for my life, I don’t know. I only know that I have long had an affinity for corvids and on this trip, everywhere I have gone, every time I have had a powerful physical or emotional experience, it had been punctuated by the presence of a raven. Crazy huh? That is a hard thing to admit. Here I am trying to do some pre-sabbatical solo cross country cycling/camping trip as a warm up for heading off into Europe and Africa. I really am out of my mind.

I believe there is more to life than what we can see and hear and touch. Isn’t that what faith is? Believing in the unseen? Trust is another one of those things that isn’t tangible, yet we do it anyway. So every time I see a raven, I think of the prophecy. Who am I to say that it is too fanciful to be real? I am beginning to believe this trip is really what my friend was talking about.

At this time in my life, I am dependent on no one. This time, I walk freely with the metaphorical Raven, learning, growing, feeling, allowing myself to just BE. I am struggling to define my new place in the world as a single woman, an academic, a writer, a grandmother, a cyclist, and a traveler. Crazy.

Just Zen it, your body knows what to do. ~Shaun

Posted on May 17, 2013 by rangotti

I grew up skiing in Maine and I was pretty good. I moved to North Carolina when I was 19 and didn’t ski regularly again for 25 years. When I moved to Washington, the first thing I bought was a pair of skis. I was a comfortable and happy blue run (intermediate skier). But I would watch those people who would ski off-piste, through the trees, down fall lines, and on the steepest stuff I could ever imagine and I longed to be like them. I believed that I would never be able to do it, that I would never be that good of a skier. Then, I met Shaun.

Shaun is the best skier I know and for some reason, decided to make me his personal project. So he skied with me, he would give me advice, he helped me choose a new pair of wider skis for powder, he watched my form, he laughed with/at me, he became my friend. Then one day, we had a reasonable dump of powder and Shaun texts me the night before skiing and says “bring the fatties” (fat skis). I will never forget what he did when we got up top. Instead of the usual…”this is what I want you to do”, Shaun just shows me the run we are going to go down. Instead of waiting for me to go first and then giving me advice, Shaun just takes off and yells over his shoulder, “Just Zen it Robin, your body knows what to do.”

WHAT? I remember yelling “what does THAT mean?”. But Shaun was getting too far ahead of me so I had to catch up so I could ask him. The whole way I am mumbling and cursing to myself that he is giving me these directions and then just abandoning me to figure it out. When all of a sudden, I realize, I am skiing off-piste, through the powder and the trees. When I realize I am doing it, 3 things happened: 1) I immediately panic, but then realize that I am okay, 2) I yell to Shaun: “I am doing it!” and see him just shake his head and 3) I start giggling.

When I am pushing myself, stretching my boundaries, taking a risk, and being successful, I have an giggling problem. It has annoyed a few people who are no longer in my life because although I try to control it, when I do something I thought I never could do and have fun, it just wells up from inside me and I can’t help it…I giggle. And skiing through those trees and in that powder was FUN. Shaun knew that I had the skills to do it. With his help support and a few big pushes, I have no problem going through trees, down fall lines, and can pretty much ski wherever I want. But I still keep giggling. Life should be fun.

The reality is that I am a pretty competent person in a lot of things. What holds me back is that I can’t get out of my own head and overcome my fear of the unknown in order to do them. As soon as I get out of my own way, sure enough, I can do it. I believe many of us are the same way. So my advice…Just Zen it, your body knows what to do.

Where fear is, happiness is not. ~Seneca

Life Divided by Zero

The Journey of Becoming Undefined

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