Tag Archives: paragliding

Lesson Five: Be who you want to be

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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.

10294969_698382016907659_7457378898519029271_oOne 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.

10569073_10101954846563833_1474996086184191579_nMy 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.

418994_10101134467475103_715478501_n1397721_10101421659884213_539633773_oI 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.

385537_10100701118874173_1615401034_nWhen 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.

10338864_10203972469536322_8787165062454257996_nBefore 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.

Forgiveness

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I have come to realize, in order to be free of the sorrow of the past, I have to truly forgive with all my heart. So I enrolled in a 30 day course with Desmond Tutu, a forgiveness challenge of which I am almost at the end. In the course of doing the daily activities, I have realized how far I have already come down the road of forgiveness both for my ex-husband and the former therapist, the protagonists of two devastating events that have defined 7 of the last 8 years of my life. Most of the activities in the challenge I completed easily which showed me how far I have already come. But there came a point where I hit a wall, one made of crumbling emotional bricks. I realized the best part of this challenge was illuminating for me where I was stuck.

northern cascadesOne day, a week or so ago, the activity was a meditation where I was to envision myself in one of my favorite places, a place where I feel safe and which calls to my spirit. I was also tasked with envisioning myself with someone I trusted without reservation. So I envisioned myself sitting at the top of one of the mountains in the Northern Cascades with my friend Matt. The goal of the activity was to tell him my sorrow, to speak the words and tell him the hurt that I had endured and to let it all out. Since I have no secrets from Matt, he has heard the words from me many times, more than he has cared to hear them. He knows all my sorrow, even my darkest secrets that I share with no one else. So the telling of my story during my meditation and envisioning Matt listening was not difficult at all. But what came next was very difficult.

The second part of the meditation was to envision a box. Since I love boxes this was easy for me. If I was ever going to collect anything it would be boxes. I envisioned one of the shaker boxes that my dad made me before he died. Then the meditation called for me to take that story and to put it in this box and to name it The Box of Sorrows. After closing it up, the story sealed, I had to envision handing it to my trusted friend. That was the part where I was just paralyzed for a few moments. I was paralyzed to hand over what I have held onto for so long. But in order to move on, I have to forgive and in order to forgive, I have to first let go.

Matt getting ready to fly

Matt getting ready to fly

So in my mind, I looked into the eyes that I have looked at so many times in the past, eyes of a man I trust with my life, and I handed him the box in my mind. I did what he has always taught me to do when I am scared, I look into his eyes, trust, tell myself I can totally do this, and take the risk. So I held out the box and I just let go. He took the box from me, nodded, got his wing and harness set up and then he jumped and went paragliding down the mountain with my Box of Sorrows… my history and my fears, in his possession. Amazingly, as a mediation, it was like I was actually there. I felt it, deep in my soul, the moment of letting go.

So how did it feel? It was like the ultimate freedom. It was like everything else I have done the past year, letting go of the possessions, the apartment, traveling, changing jobs, all of it was preparing me for that moment. As tightly as I was hanging on, letting go lifted this huge burden I was carrying.

Part of me felt so strongly about it that I had a pang of fear that I had burdened my friend with my box of sorrows. But what I realized is that I already had been burdening him every time I talked about it without being able to let go and move on. Essentially, he had to help me drag that burden around in our friendship all of these years. So even though he had to carry that box down the mountain, he did it without struggle because he finally gets to be free of it also. And besides, he is also the strongest person I know. If anyone can carry that burden for me down the mountain, it is Matt. Then I got to follow, light of heart, centered in my mind and my spirit. It was very powerful.

And yes, I know I will get criticism for how “woo woo” this is. I don’t care. Every culture and religion in the world knows the value of symbolism and visualization so I won’t make any apologies for anything that makes me feel and great as I feel right now.

Namaste…

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P1070237Each place I have traveled, I have learned a few words. Namaste is hello and goodbye in Nepali. I traveled from Madrid to Kathmandu where once again, I am immersed in a third world country.  Just like with Ethiopia, it is a country with a soul.  The people are friendly, the country is magical and the feeling I get is like breathing in time itself.  It is a spiritual place.  And it is also a place where the old and traditional is mixed with the new.

Incense burners

Incense burners

I met my friends Matt and Amanda in Kathmandu, where Amanda was getting ready to fly back to the US.  We had time to go to one of the oldest spiritual sites in Nepal, Swayambhu. Matt’s guidebook says that the ancient stupa dates back to the 5th century.

Prayer wheels

Prayer wheels

It is said that an act of worship here carries thirteen billion times more merit than anywhere else.  It is definitely a spiritual place.  There are incense burners that are covered with hundreds of years of drippings of the prayers of pilgrims.

Prayer flags

Prayer flags

After climbing the 365 stairs to the main temple, Buddhist pilgrims make clockwise circumambulations to spin the prayer wheels on the outside.  From the viewpoint at the top of the stairs you can see the whole of Kathmandu.  The prayer flags snap in the wind above your head as you look down from the dizzying height of the staircase you just ascended.

P1070291

Matt the Monkey Whisperer

Tourists call the site “The Monkey Temple” because of the wild monkeys that live there. To me, that seems disrespectful once you have experienced the spiritual culture of the place.  But there are monkeys, lots of them.  They swing from the trees and the babies will swing from the prayer flags. They are pretty amusing.  Amanda said that it felt like being in the zoo with no cages.

After dinner and saying goodbye to Amanda, I went back to my hotel room.  Clean, economical hotels can be found for about $20 a night. For around $5 a night (my friend Matt’s price point), you can get budget accommodations. I am not sure what the $200 a night accommodations are like. I am pretty happy with my clean, $20 a night, terraced hotel room with its own bath with has a lake view here in Pokhara.

The next morning Matt and I met at 6:30 for our eight hour bus ride to Pokhara.  Matt looked like hell when he got to my hotel.  Come to find out, he had food poisoning the night before and spent the entire night vomiting.  I know it was a long bus ride for him.

Village child

Village child

Riding on the bus, traveling along the Prithvi Highway, which is the main truck route between Kathmandu and India, is a harrowing experience. The bus travels out of the Kathmandu valley up through the notch in the rim at Thankot and the experience gives the rider sweeping views of the villages, endless hills, rice terraces, and sugar cane, at least what you can see out of a moving bus window. It seems like an endless road of switchbacks, sheer drops and mountains everywhere and crazy traffic.

Prickly cucumbers??

Prickly cucumbers??

Grows wild on the side of the road

Grows wild on the side of the road

The bus stopped at a couple of places where you could purchase breakfast and lunch from roadside vendors that are mainly there to provide daal bhaat (traditional Nepalese dish) or rice to bus travelers and long distance drivers.  The guide book also says these stands provide prostitutes to the long haul drivers also, but I was too worried about Matt to be that aware of my surroundings.  I did however find several items that vendors had that I didn’t recognize and one that I did that was growing wild on the side of the road.

After arriving in Pokhara at about 3 pm yesterday, Matt dropped me off at my hotel where I have a lovely view of the Phewa Tal. Dinner was Indian food on an open patio looking out over the lake, the mountains and the temple at the top of a nearby hill.  Breakfast was muesli with banana curd. I am waiting for Matt to get well to join me for my first taste of daal bhaat which he says he could eat every day and never get tired of it.  I am not sure what I am going to do today, maybe just walk around a lot and buy some flip flops and clothes for warmer weather. I packed for Spain not Nepal. I missed yoga this morning because I was a slug-a-bed. I might rent a bike and ride around a bit or a boat and paddle out on the lake.

paraglidersRight now, I am happy with a book, sitting on the terrace with my milk tea watching the paragliders and the haze try to clear and just being still.  Namaste.

Note:  After writing this I got a call from my friend who, after sleeping for 14 hours is better this morning and going to fly. Yay!  I am glad he is well and hopefully we will get to taste some daal bhaat soon.

Eat, Pray, Love

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I have never read the book Eat, Pray, Love.  I understand basically how it goes: girl gets divorced and travels around for a year (paid for by her publisher) and “finds herself” by going to Italy and nurturing her physical self, then to India to discover her spiritual self, and then to Indonesia where she meets the man of her dreams. It was immortalized in a film by Julia Roberts. I have never seen the film either. I just want to go on the record to say that I am not trying to recreate a novel that I haven’t read or a movie that I haven’t seen.  But I have changed my plans and am going to Nepal.

In what has been a series of events from when I first started planning my sabbatical to now, life has just unfolded and happened the way it has happened. I have no regrets in anything I have done. Life is an adventure and best savored fresh and hot in the moment. Whether I enjoyed the taste of it or not, it all was meant to be experienced and learning happened.  And with that said, it is time to stop traveling and take a break for a little while.

So I am going to meet my friend Matt in Kathmandu on Sunday morning and head to Pokhara.  I am not sure what he has planned for me and I am sure that whatever it is, it will make a good story and probably end up with me jumping off something while screaming my fool head off or ending up in a Nepalese jail somewhere. Whatever the challenge is, when Matt asks me if I want to do it, my answer is going to be yes, with no fanfare, I am just going to jump.  What I hope to gain from this change of plans is a chance to see what my friend loves about Nepal and its people.  I hope to blog about it and take wonderful pictures to capture a world that, for one of the people I respect most in life, gives him tremendous personal joy and meaning.

Another hidden agenda item for me that has made me give up my original goal of heading to Andalucía is that I want to go to a yoga/meditation workshop in Nepal. Not because of any Eat, Pray, Love ideas. I am searching for inner peace and the ability to let go of resentments. I have had some success at that in the past, mediation and yoga have kept me centered throughout my divorce and the subsequent abuse and manipulation by my therapist.  But for some reason, since this spring when I gave up my apartment, I have struggled to maintain any kind of consistent practice.  Maybe because of the inconsistency in living arrangements or the moving around from place to place.  But that, along with all the other life upheavals in the past few months, has been effecting my physical and emotional well-being. It has been too much all at once.  I am ready to change that.  I am hoping to increase my knowledge of meditation and yoga practice so that I can manage more effectively on my own regardless of where I am or what life brings me.

So, this is my last full day in my beautiful sunny apartment in central Madrid.  What a beautiful, fascinating and lovely place. I highly recommend it as a place to spend a lovely, relaxing vacation.  I debated what to do today and finally I decided… nothing.  I am going to get the big camera out walk around and take photographs.  This afternoon, I am going to find some lovely tapas bar and have my last gorge on amazing ham, seafood, and Spanish wine. Then tomorrow I am going to move to a hotel near the airport for my early morning flight on Friday to Nepal.

When I get back from Nepal, I will spend 4 lovely days in Barcelona before flying back to North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with my son and daughter-in-law and the two most amazingly intelligent and beautiful granddaughters ever. Then a trip to Maine to visit with some friends from high school who I haven’t seen in 30 years (yikes!) and a visit with my wonderful Maine family before flying back to Seattle for a travel time-out.  I need to spend some time skiing with my friends, enjoying happy hours with Tony and Marisa, supervising Keri’s dissertation, laughing with Maurea, and just refilling my soul with some continuity and familiarity.

The traveling has given me clarity on where my greatest needs are.  I need to be exercising daily, meditating, doing yoga, spending time on my bike and skis which bring me joy, spending time with my friends who make me feel loved and supported, writing and reading for my research, and going back to therapy.  Yes, I said it.  I, the person who distrusts the mental health care profession more than anyone on the planet, am going back to therapy.  I realize there are some things in my life that I am ready to make peace with and that can’t happen without some help. Finding a therapist will be an interesting challenge.

Then, maybe this spring, I will be ready to travel some more.  But right now, I need a break.

What’s life without the crazy? ~OEH

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P1060122I went on a bike ride the other day with a friend.  After being off the bike since July except for a couple of rides, I have lost all my base fitness that I had this spring so I am fat, slow, and can’t climb for anything.  Tomorrow, I am leaving for Spain to ride with a bunch of men who either ride all the time or are professional cyclists. I am going to get my ass handed to me every day for 12 days.  And I paid to do it.  What to hell was I thinking?

After I finish cycling, I am spending the next 3 weeks going somewhere in Spain, but I am not sure where yet.  I am basically just going to figure it out as I go. For the past two days, I have been trying to squish my clothes in a carry-on so I won’t have to check a bag, but my cycling gear takes up too much room.  I have been a basket case of stress over it. I have 4 hours until my friend Marisa comes to pick me up to figure it out because I have to store the stuff that I am not taking with me.  So basically, I am taking the two bags that I have been complaining about all summer and trying to cull it down to half the size of either one of them. And that will be all the gear and the clothes I have for 5 weeks in Spain.  Yeah.  I am pretty sure I have totally lost my mind.  But, as my friend reminded me of recently, what is life without the crazy?

I like crazy.  It makes people interesting.  All of my friends are a touch crazy.  If they weren’t, I wouldn’t hang around them.  They have passion, take risks, fail and try again.  They are open, vulnerable, and courageous. They care about the world around them and the people in it. When having a conversation about being 50 years old and trying to establish an identity apart from wife/mother/teacher, a friend asked me a profound question: Who do you want to be?  My answer is: I want to be like them.

P1060183I want to be the person who rides her bike to work everyday, regardless of weather, because it is good for my mind, body and the environment.  I want to be the badass skier who will ski through trees, down chutes, thigh deep in powder and laugh the whole time I am doing it. I want to be the person that can jump of a cliff with a paragliding wing and fly, sailing up with thermals, looking down in wonder on the world below.  I want to be the person who will climb up a rock face and get stuck at a hard part and, instead of giving up, hang in the harness until I see the route and climb it.  I want to be the person that isn’t afraid to push my body in physical performance. I want to be a woman who looks out a nature and never takes for granted the beauty I see all around me, regardless of where I am. And I want to be able to take a decent photograph someday.

I want to be the person who can sit and listen to another’s pain without trying to fix it, to just be present for people.  I want to have a home where people can come, put their feet up, rest and feel at home and welcomed. It is funny, I cooked for Matt‘s roommates the other day.  I haven’t cooked like that in a while.  They invited their friends over, there was all this beautiful food sitting on the table, bottles of good Spanish wine, and amazing conversation.  Eating and making food is such a social activity.  Having lived by myself for so long now, eating by myself, I just appreciate those moments to feel part of a community, to listen to great conversation and ideas from creative and intelligent people, and to laugh.

So off I go to Spain.  My hope is to push the boundaries of my physical performance cycling. Then to traipse around the country meeting people, hearing their stories, laughing, sharing tapas, and drinking some fine Spanish wine.  And hopefully, in all of that, taking some beautiful photos.

my pictureThere is no great lesson in this post. Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”. What I am realizing through writing this is, regardless of checked bags or carry-on, all the things I am doing are consistent with the person I want be.  In order to establish an identity, I have to do behaviors that actually are consistent with the talk.  Who do I want to be?  I am her.

“It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question ‘who am I’ except the voice inside herself.” ― Betty Friedan

For today…

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image

Back in Seattle and dealing with the complex emotions of feeling like a failure but knowing with absolute certainty that I made the right choice in leaving Ethiopia in order to take care of myself.  Sometimes putting yourself and your own needs first is the hardest thing you will ever have to do.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about my next step. I debated cycling across America but I think I want to go somewhere that I can stay for a couple of months, in one place, that will allow me to have time to myself and a place of my own to write and catch up on my reading. Somewhere that I can rent a temporary apartment and just hang out.

In my heart, I just want to stay here. I want to go find an apartment and have a home. But I know that would be the worst thing for me. It would be akin to wrapping a chain around my neck and keeping me stuck. I have an opportunity to strip away all the layers of comfort and security that I hide behind, to let go of all the friends and support that I cherish, to stand alone. To not accomplish that would be a real failure.

When I contemplated sabbatical last year, my friend Len asked me to picture myself at the end of it. He said to think of what I would regret not doing. My reaction then and still today is two things. Professionally I want to work on my research on KinectMath and write. Personally, I want to cycle, learn to climb better, and take paragliding lessons (thanks for another addiction Matt) and I would love to ski and cycle in Europe.

In my life, I have always wanted to be a badass with adventure sports. I am not however, a natural athlete. I am uncoordinated and I am an old woman. I will be 50 years old on Monday. If I am going to do this, I have to do it now. So let the badass lessons begin.

I bandied about three places in the world that would also be conducive to having time to work, cycling daily, and learning at least one of my other activities. Moab, UT; Mallorca, Spain; and Queenstown, New Zealand. Moab is easy and I am fascinated with the desert, NZ is a little harder because although the language is English, it is further away and isolated. Mallorca is cheaper, was on my original plan, but the language is Spanish. And it is a climbing and cycling mecca.

Any additional suggestions or advice would be welcome. That’s where I am today.