Tag Archives: Spain

It is not the change we fear, it is the unknown

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Traveling by oneself is a tremendous opportunity for growth.  It is also ridiculously scary, a little lonely, yet absolutely rewarding.  I remember two weeks ago, in Seattle, I was terrified and almost paralyzed over trying to figure out how to get all my stuff in a carry-on bag and instead having to check a bag because of my bike gear.  I was scared and didn’t want to leave my friends and the safety of the known, even though I was floundering in that situation and not making any progress with moving forward in my life.  And traveling is stressful, even though it is a good thing. It is stressful even when you are traveling with a tour group, your family and friends, even just in your own country.  Traveling by yourself, in a country where you don’t speak the language, with no reservations, no hotels, not even any itinerary, with no one with you to help you negotiate things adds a whole different layer of stress. What ends up happening, if you allow it to, is the stress of it can overwhelm you and suck the fun right out of what you are trying to do.  At that point, somewhere, you have to step back and just let it all go.

Two weeks ago, leaving Seattle with no plans and no agenda, I was totally stressed out.  I displaced the aggression from that stress on those around me, on the people that love me the most. We have all done it, rolled our stress onto those around us.  As we get overwhelmed and internalize, it is like a dam holding water back, when the emotional pressure gets too great, it will come out.  And it flows downhill to those relationships we know where our fear of losing them is the lowest, to the people we trust will be there and won’t leave us. Controlling the stress rollover and being open and honest with my fears and emotions is probably one of the things I could work on that would help my relationships the most.  Thankfully, most of my friends know me and know my intentions and what my fears are.  When I roll my stress onto them they come back at me in ways that relieve that stress, with humor and love. I owe them.

562331_10101391105869703_83408613_nSo here I sit, four more weeks to go. I have lost about 5 pounds from the physical activity here in Mallorca.  I am tan and rested. I am leaving Mallorca tomorrow for the unknown of Madrid. No friends around to help me figure things out or relieve my stress. I have been sitting here in a lovely coffee shop, with a view of the beach and the Mediterranean Sea, trying to make reservations while worrying about what to do with the bike gear I have and the checked bag I will be carrying around.  Shipping the bike gear back to the US from Spain is problematic because things don’t get there and it is about three times more expensive than just checking an extra bag. It isn’t worth it for the convenience of moving around the country with a lighter load.  One of the lessons I have learned from this trip is not to try to combine activities. If I come for a cycling holiday, that is all it needs to be.  Adding on 4 weeks of just casually roaming around Europe is an entirely different bag of clothes, literally.

As I head off into the unknown, I can feel the fear churning in my gut.  How will I maneuver around Madrid to get to the apartment I rented?  I have the public transportation schedule but have these bags. The place I rented is in a pedestrian only area so a cab is problematic and exorbitant. Where will I go after I leave Madrid?  How will I get there?  ARRRGGGGHHHH…..after a while, the questions just overwhelm me and it is in that overwhelmed state that I have to deal with it on my own, in a way that is constructive. That is where the real learning is happening for me. It doesn’t come from having a perfectly planned trip. The learning happens when my gut is churning with the fear of the unknown, when I have to negotiate and make decisions in the moment without just being able to rest in the comfort and safety of what I know. And it isn’t easy. It is however, priceless.

When I started reflecting on that, I realized that in Mallorca, I negotiated public transportation in Spanish just fine.  Only once did I get off the bus at the wrong stop.  When I did and realized it, I took it as a sign that I needed to see what that unexpected neighborhood had to offer.  I ended up in a neighborhood with no English speakers and had to order my lunch in Spanish. I had a lovely lunch, then I got on the bus again and got off at the right stop.  No problem.  So what am I worrying about now?  The reality is there is no reason to worry.  Ultimately, I am going to drag my backpack and my checked bag onto the public transportation system in Madrid and hope I don’t get robbed.  Simple.  I either will make it to where I am trying to go or I will make it somewhere else.  Either I will have all my belongings with me or I won’t.  That is the part that makes it an adventure.

Transition times of our lives are rough. Everyone thinks that making a change is scary.  It isn’t the change, it is the unknown that the change will bring.  In order to get to the place where the fear isn’t taking over, I have to embrace the very unknown that is the source of the fear. Which means letting go of worry and expectations for what might happen.  What will happen will happen. Worrying about it just takes away from the joy I get to experience right now.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. ~Helen Keller

Ginger sheep

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I see the world very differently from a bike than I do in a car.  It seems more up close and personal.  The feeling of the wind in my face, the smells, the sounds…it just allows me to appreciate wherever I am with all of my senses.  Cars tend to be isolating little worlds all unto themselves.  Scenery flies by like it is on TV.  On a bike, it is all real and raw.

coastlineFor the past 6 days, I have been on a cycling “holiday” in Majorca. I am not sure what I thought a cycling holiday would mean. Because I was unsure about riding in a new place by myself where I didn’t speak the primary language, I booked two weeks with a cycling company that advertised cycling holidays and training camps. I guess I thought they would spend a couple of days riding around with us, giving us a map and some tips on what to do or not to do to stay safe and within the bounds of local authority, some advice for coffee shops, scenic views, places to eat, etc.  I thought that they would have some organized training rides for the serious cyclists along with a more “do it yourself” version that just included suggested routes and stops for coffee/pictures.

It isn’t quite like that. There are definitely organized rides, all of which have been too difficult for me. People train for those BEFORE coming to training camp. Unfortunately, I didn’t do that.  So I have struggled a bit, felt like an abject failure at times on big climbs, felt some success at descending, and generally feel more fit today than I did 6 days ago.  5 more days to go…  The company, Stephen Roche Cycling Holidays & Training Camps, their ride leaders and management have all been very professional.  They want me to be successful and to enjoy my trip.  The problem is that as they are pushing me to “enjoy” by doing more physically on the bike, and I have felt a little pressure to perform and it has taken away from my fun of riding a bike.  What is hard is that, while I recognize how good it has been for me physically, I needed a jump start and in fact I wanted that to be part of my sabbatical plan, but it hasn’t been as good for me mentally.  Yesterday, there was a time that I hated being on a bike and all I wanted was to have it end.  My love for riding would be bad thing to trade for a little physical endurance that I could get from just hiring a private cycling coach.

Sunset

Sunset

For me, this is a holiday and what do people do on holiday?  They see beautiful places they wouldn’t have seen, they take a bunch of pictures, eat different foods, and get to talk to people from other places.  I prefer to do that from a bike, hence “cycling holiday”.  So far, I have been so into my own head of how badly I have sucked on the bike that I haven’t done any of those things.  I haven’t even collected one person’s story. I have been too self-absorbed in trying to climb hills, complaining about the bad food, and looking at the view of the wheel of the person in front of me pulling me along.

What is sad about that is that there have been some amazing people here who have fantastic stories.  I have listened to them at dinner but not engaged them in getting them to tell me the details of their stories.  I have just been content to catch bits and pieces as I have been (metaphorically) “licking my wounds” each day.  What a shame and an opportunity lost.  And that has been my problem with this training camp, for me, the cycling is second, the people are first.  But that isn’t why people come here.  They come here for the cycling first and the people second.  They might bring their spouse or mate who doesn’t cycle, but their primary purpose for coming here is to get better and increase their cycling skills.

Ginger sheep

Ginger sheep

For me the best part has been cycling around tiny country roads that are about as wide as the multi-use trail in Seattle. It definitely gets your heart started when you get passed by a car and there is another coming in the other direction on a road that is as wide as the Burke-Gilman trail.  I love cycling through the countryside and hearing the bells on the sheep as they wander through the pastures. There were even orange/red sheep (gingers)…I didn’t even know that sheep could be colors other than black or white!  Then one of our ride leaders told us it was what they dip the sheep in to keep insects at bay that makes them orange.  It was still cool seeing ginger sheep!

Baked goods

Baked goods

I love seeing the almond trees and the beautiful old Spanish homes. I bet it would be stunning in the spring when the trees are all in bloom. The small towns are amazing, tiny cobblestone streets, people chatting and doing business, lovely cafes with incredible assortments of baked goods.  Of course, most of the time I have been ready to vomit by the time we stopped for coffee so I haven’t eaten much of them, but they look delicious. There have been scenic vistas which take your breath away.

After returning yesterday, I went to a café on the beach and had a glass of wine and got my Hemingway on and wrote in my journal. I was trying to get my head back in the cycling game after being totally demoralized by my performance.  While I was there a tour bus went by filled with people about my age.  Tour buses are great, they let you see a lot of things really quickly.  But for me, they are like cars, great for transportation yet isolating little worlds of their own that let the occupants watch the world yet divorced from really being in the world. They aren’t for me. I would rather huff and puff my way up a climb at 7 kph while joggers pass me and see the world by bike.

As I was whining about my cycling performance, one of my Lounge friends, who recently had a heart attack, reminded me of something that I hope I don’t forget very often.  “Life is a gift.  Live it.” ~Don4. This day might be the only one I have left.  I should be savoring it, sucking the very marrow out of the bones of life.  That is what our time on the earth is for.

Here are some photos if you are interested

Majorca bound

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Here I sit at my gate for my final flight to Spain.  I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it.  Flying across the Atlantic, being in a German airport, it was just a few weeks ago that I did both of those things and cried most of the way. Here I am again. It brought back the waves of emotion I felt after leaving Africa.

A lot of people haven’t been able to understand what my problem has been. And I get it, they look at me as having this fabulous holiday to play. Well let me tell you, as someone who has suffered from and been able to manage PTSD symptoms for most of her life, any traumatic event fires all my emotional neurons. And before my readers poo poo what I am saying, everyone has experienced it.  It is that day of getting emotional and being an ass to everyone before you realize that it was the anniversary date of your partner telling you that she/he wanted a divorce, and when you realized it, you went AH HA…that is why I have been being such an ass. You didn’t even realize the latent emotions that were affecting you or why you couldn’t control them. It is that feeling of remembering exactly where you were and how you felt, even what the weather was like on 9-11-2001.  Or the emotions that are brought on from a smell from childhood, maybe the pumpkin cookies your mom used to make. Or maybe it is fall leaves blowing across a road that triggers it.

If we think that memories of things don’t trigger emotions and that sometimes we don’t realize what is happening, then we are fooling ourselves, because being human means that it is has happened to you at some time.  People who have long term PTSD symptoms feel that feeling magnified and intensified many times over and every traumatic event is a trigger.  We learn to deal, sometimes we deal with things better than others  Having support is key even when we don’t want to tell someone what is wrong (thanks Matt for messaging me all the way from Nepal when I was on the way to the airport.  You are the best.).  And what really sucks is telling people what is wrong and no one understanding how you feel.  They just wondered why I wasn’t all excited for the great adventure.

So I have been struggling. I know I am going to have a wonderful experience in Spain, but I didn’t want to get on that plane. Every fiber of my being was shouting at me to turn around and find a safe place to hide. But here I am. I am looking forward to riding tomorrow and getting all my emotion out in pushing myself physically on a bike tomorrow. I am nervous about riding a bike that isn’t mine, I have only rode steel and this is a carbon fiber bike.  I am not sure what to expect. But regardless…I am going to ride the hell out of that bike.

So that was just an update.  Hopefully by tomorrow or at least by Wednesday, I will have beautiful pictures from Majorca.  Cheers everyone. I am doing it, even though it is very challenging.  I am here, I am flying on planes and I will have some epic bike rides.  One day at a time, one second at a time.

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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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.