Away

In this moment all is well.

I am safe.

There is nothing I have to do & nowhere I have to go.

I relax my body & my mind.

I am grateful for this moment.

 

 

 

 

This was my view this weekend. It was absolutely, blissfully, perfect. I've decided that part of the reason I escape when things become to hectic and life gets to be too much is because it is the one time where I can let go of my constant worries and really enjoy my family. I don't think about the house work, the bills that need to be paid or the things that I am failing at. I let it all go and really focus on and enjoy each of my four little miracles.

 

This weekend was brought to you by thing 1. My oldest child LOVES to fish, almost to the point of obsession. In the past this obsession has been one of the hardest things that I have had to deal with as a mother. Saying that he is a persistent child would be like saying that standing on the sun might be a little too warm to handle. He doesn't take "No" for an answer. Even when I say that I just don't see a way that I can get him to a fishing hole that day, he will retort with a long list of "What ifs". This is something that I don't want to take out of him, but something that is completely and utterly exhausting. Just thinking about his persistence is giving me a mild panic attack. I don't like saying "No" if I can help it, but he has three other siblings who have things that they want to do as well, and though I hate to say it, I can't please everyone.

 

As he has gotten older it has been easier to say yes, which is great for him and even more liberating for me. We live fairly close to three different ponds that are stocked on a regular basis. If I'm not able to take him, he can ride his bike to one of the ponds and fish to his heart's content.

 

Lately though, these little ponds just aren't satisfying him like they used to. So the persistence is back in full force. Now he wants to fish on real lakes or rivers. For the first time these requests aren't so debilitating. In fact, they seem to be exactly what I need.

 

Growing up we went camping almost every weekend. Our time was spent fishing, hiking, catching tadpoles and sitting around the fire telling silly stories and listening to the 8 track. My parents had a sweet case that housed some of the finest 8 tracks around. Our nights were filled with the raspy sound of John Denver, the Oak Ridge Boys and Johnny Cash. That was camping to me.

 

When we first had kids we tried camping a couple of times, but soon realized that it was so much work. We were both going to school full time and working full time and trying to be full time parents. Anything that required more than 50% power was just too much. So in the last 15 years we have only been camping maybe 5 times.

 

This summer we went again. Even though it is a lot of work it is exponentially easier now that our kids are older. It still took a full day to get everything packed up and ready to go, but that same amount of packing would have taken me a day and a half if I were doing it on my own. I made a list of things that I needed the kids to find and I worked on my own little projects to help us on our way. Besides the music, camping for me is all about the food. This time we had our traditional Tinfoil Dinners and popcorn cooked over the fire. We also tried Campfire Eclairs which were a HUGE hit!

 

This weekend thing 1 wanted to go fishing, surprise surprise, and instead of coming up with a list of reasons why we couldn't, I said yes. I'm sure there were things that I could have done around the house, or plans that I could have been making, but I bit my tongue and planned a fun day trip to one of my favorite childhood haunts.

 

The mantra at the top of this post is something that I read regularly and something that has helped me be more fully engaged and aware in the present moment. I have a terrible habit of not always enjoying a moment. I think as moms we are wired to think two to three steps ahead so as to anticipate any catastrophes. Something that is brilliant on one hand and life sucking on the other. You can only enjoy the here and now. Though it is important to plan for the possibilities of the future the experience of this present moment will soon become a memory.

 

I am so glad I said yes. We played in the water, snuggled on the beach, laughed at the silliest things and of course,  the boys went fishing.

 

This was our view coming down the canyon. (see, I told you the leaves were changing)

 

 

In the coming week I am going to share with you my plan to stay happy this winter, because really, it is just around the corner. 



Band-Aids

I want to travel the world

and breathe the air of new places.

 

 

 



When I was in college I had several anxious, worry filled moments. I worried that my grades were not as good as they should be. I worried that I wouldn't be able to stretch the money that my parents had given me to last throughout the month. I worried that I was disappointing my parents. I worried that I wasn't studying hard enough. All of these worries and the worries surrounding my upcoming marriage came to a head one spring morning and I found myself having a minor panic attack.

I knew that there were certain things that I would always worry about, but the crushing fear and inability to function that day almost took me out. I wandered around campus like a ghost attending my classes, but being completely disconnected from the present moment. I couldn't focus on anything but the pounding in my chest and the anxious feeling that I just couldn't get to the root of.

After class I walked into our lobby of my dorm and talked with one of my friends. I described my anxiety asking if he had ever just been super anxious but couldn't figure out why, to which he replied, "Yeah, it's kind of like you need to travel." I was sold! I knew if I could just get away from everything that was causing me stress I could relax. I knew that I didn't have a lot of money, but if I got a couple of my roommates together we could all pitch in on gas and could take a little weekend away. Since we were only a couple of miles from Lava Hot Springs we decided this was the perfect retreat.

So we packed up our towels and swim suits and piled into my little Toyota Corolla. About an hour into our drive we came to a familiar fork in the road. The previous year a couple of friends and I had vacationed in Seattle for spring break. We had fallen in love with the Ansel Adam's print of Multnomah falls in Oregon, so we planned a trip around the falls that turned into a brilliant get away. The fork that I was approaching on this trip would either take us to Lava Hot Springs if we turned right and Seattle if we turned left. After about 20 seconds of deliberation, with a hoot and a holler we turned LEFT!

The energy of the car immediately changed. Though we were excited to go to Lava Hot Springs the possibility of an adventure in Seattle held so much more mystery and promise. We gave no thought to the fact that we had no money, no change of clothes, no toiletries, we just knew that adventure was calling and we had no other choice but to answer.

By this time the sun was beginning to set and I worried for a moment that we might have bitten off more than I could chew. My Corolla was a stick shift and I was the only one in the car that could drive a stick. We left the dorm around 6:00 and knowing that we had 12-13 hours of driving ahead of us, I worried that I wouldn't be able to stay awake for the whole journey. But I also knew there was no turning around. Keep in mind that this was in a time before cell phones. (Some people had them, but they weren't intended for starving college students) So if we did find ourselves in a ditch, we would have to sit and wait until some stranger just happened upon us.

At our first stop I loaded up on Mt. Dew and chocolate. We were still giddy about our decision and were clucking out ideas about what we could do when we arrived in Seattle. By 1:00 am almost everyone had settled down and we were quietly listening to the radio. By 2:00 everyone in the car was asleep, including me, for the most part. I look back on that trip and wonder how we ever made it. We were driving through canyons with steep cliffs at a rate of speed that was barely safe for someone who was completely conscious and there were distinct sections of the drive that I just don't remember. It was not my brightest moment.

By 3:00 I knew that I was REALLY no longer safe to drive. We stopped for gas and I told my friends that we would either need to sleep there for a couple hours or someone else would need to man the helm. My roommate Mindy got a crash course in driving a manual transmission and we were on our way. I settled in to the back seat and slept for two hours straight without even the slightest inkling that I wasn't comfortably in my bed.

When we stopped for breakfast I was refreshed and ready to take over again. We continued our journey without further incident, unless you count getting pulled over and issued a warning for speeding by a lovely highway patrolman from Oregon.

I think we spent a total of 8 hours in Seattle but we sucked every last drop of fun out of the trip as we possibly could. We rode the ferry over to Bainbridge island and sipped on Italian sodas, we ate lunch at the diner featured in "Sleepless in Seattle" (pictured above), we strolled through Pikes Market and bought pastries and big beautiful grapes, we saw the space needle and just released ourselves to the notion of serendipity.

I bring this trip up, not to show you how fun and spontaneous I am (which you will hopefully discover on your own as we become better friends), but to come to the realization that travel for me is a band-aid. Since this trip I have found myself with an unrelenting drive to travel especially when I am feeling stressed or anxious. I work where I work to satisfy my wanderlust.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to speak with a therapist who taught me that anxiety and depression are best of friends. She said that many people with depression also have issues with anxiety. We talked through ways to cope with anxiety besides slapping on a band-aid, and I think that I have been able to take a step back when those familiar feelings begin cropping up and really analyze what is going on. That doesn't mean that I don't still have an immediate, unquenchable desire to get out of Dodge, it just means that when those feelings come up I look inside to make sure there isn't something else spurring that desire.

I realize, now more than ever, that I can't always just pack up and get away. I need to face my anxiety head on, clean up the wound and work on healing it. Even though travel is a LOVELY alternative to facing my problems, my problems will still be there when the thrill of the adventure has worn off and I'm left with a post vacation hangover.

The Slow Road

We must take adventures,

in order to know where we truly belong.

 

 

 





 

Last summer the hubs and I were able to go to Hawaii twice, once with the kids in February and once by ourselves in May. Working for an airline, we travel as often as our pocketbooks will allow. On our trip in May we rented a tandem kayak in Kailua, Oahu and paddled out to the little island in the foreground of this picture. I believe collectively they are called the Mokulua Islands and the one we landed on is called Moku Nui. On the right hand side you can see the beach, the middle of the island is a bird sanctuary and on the left is a beautiful little lagoon that has been carved out of the island by waves (but more on that later).

 

When we rented the kayak the guides gave us some very specific instructions on how to access the island, #1 for safety and #2 to help preserve the sanctuary. There were three little islands that were pretty close to each other. The first one that we came to was flat and pretty barren, so we decided to keep on paddling. The one in the background of the picture is completely off limits because the whole thing is a bird sanctuary. So we set our sites on Moku Nui.

 

We remembered that we were to access the island on the beach side, and we remembered not to cross over the middle of the island. We also remembered to watch the waves a couple of times before trying to cross any of the wet volcanic rock to avoid being swept out to sea. What we didn't remember was if we were supposed to paddle out to the first island, run parallel with the beach and then take a sharp left until we hit the beach of Moku Nui. Or, if we were supposed to paddle out until we had a straight shot of Moku Nui and then paddle parallel to the beach.

 

We did the second and quickly found that the first set of directions were the ones we were supposed to follow. We found ourselves mixing it up with waves that could topple our little kayak if we didn't fight to stay afloat. Looking at the picture, we were heading straight for the rock where the waves break on the corral, right where the dark blue water becomes aqua. So instead of paddling straight for the island we would have to turn our kayak and paddle into the wave, straighten out and paddle towards the island and then back into a wave again making little stair steps towards the island.

 

As the waves were battering us we thought about turning back, but by the time we discovered we were in trouble the waves had gotten pretty big and going back the way we came was more treacherous than continuing our journey. We couldn't turn towards Kailua because there was a narrow channel running between the beach of Kailua and the beach of Moku Nui that was perpendicular with our current location. Paddling straight for the shore of Kailua meant the very real possibility of being thrown into the coral and becoming beached. So we just kept paddling, digging in as deep as we could, knowing that with every paddle forward we were also being pushed back. Our progress was slow but long story short, we made it!

 

 

 



 

In the background of this picture you can see the waves that ran between the islands, they are only about half as big as the ones we were paddling into.

 

We rested for a bit and warmed up on the sun drenched beach and decided it was time for some more discovery. So we hiked along the volcanic rock until we found the little lagoon.

 

 

After testing the water and making sure we wouldn't be dragged from the lagoon out into the open sea we decided to jump in. We swam around with beautiful tropical fish and floated effortlessly in the rich warm salt water. The best part, we had the whole thing to ourselves. It was like we were the only two people alive on the planet. It was pure bliss!

 

I was thinking about this adventure last night as I was going over the events of the day. I had planned on waking up early and working out. I have been wanting to lose some weight for a while now, but in the past I have lost a good amount of weight, something happens and I become sad and I gain it all back again. I know what it takes to lose weight, but the getting sad part has halted me in my tracks. I am currently doing pretty well, as far as my mood is concerned, and the thought of getting to a sad place again scares me! So when my alarm went of yesterday morning that was the only thought in my mind. If I exercise, I will lose weight, I will get sad and I will gain it all back again which will just make me even more sad. So I hit snooze and that was the end of that.

 

I've decided to give myself a break. Instead of: constantly beating myself up with insults; restrictive diets that just make me cranky and cardio driven workouts I have chosen a more mindful approach. I will give myself time. Though I would have liked to have lost the weight yesterday, yesterday is gone and nothing will change that. I will move forward, making healthy food choices and expand my yoga practice. This, like my adventure to Moku Nui, may be the slow road, but it is a sustainable road. I may take two steps forward and one step back, but this is still progress. In the end I will arrive at my own little private island and I will be a better, happier person for choosing the slow road.