Persistance

I have not been on blogger since 2010 and had forgotten about it entirely. Reading through these posts made me cry. For our miscarriages and the kids I will not have. For my dog, who I miss every single day (we put her down in November 2011). For my husband and my marriage, that took a turn neither of us anticipated. For my Mom, who still has not recovered her health following treatment for breast cancer. For my father who passed away in January. This year there is grief. There is sadness. There are also many new beginnings. Stan has found the courage to be more like the kind of person he has always wanted to be. There is a thriving vegetable garden in our back yard--a physical manifestation of the joy he has found. My sister Tammy has found a path in life, she has laid claim to a dream, and is working to make it come true. She is facing her fears and finding ways to make her life happen, despite many unknowns. My other sister Korina, and I, have managed to form a tentatively peaceful communication. My nephew Alex is in college and seems to be finding his footing as an adult. Kim and I have been friends for 20 years, but since I left Moses Lake in 1998 we only talked a few times a year. Until the last 2 years, though 2 states apart we have again become inseparable. Somehow we found again that Best-Friends-Forever ground that we knew when we were 13--she has become an anchor for me in so many ways and I am grateful for her every day. And last but not least, I found PHYSICS!

I have been known to be an indecisive person... I'm finally at a point in my life where I feel ready to get to the bottom of all that. Reading those posts it is hard to believe that was only 2 years ago. I was reading a post from March, 2010 in which I talk about what kind of person I want to be. I recently told someone who inspires me, about the kind of person I want to be. The two lists were so similar, I was surprised and a little sad. That in two years I am still striving for the same thing. Am I any closer?

If you had asked me what 2012 would be like, there is nothing I could have said that would be anything like the reality. That should not be surprising to me, yet it is. I am always surprised by how different life ends up being than the plans I have made for it. I'd like to think I am closer to being the kind of person I want to be. But maybe that's one of those things that doesn't have a final concrete destination. I've thought before that our lives are more like a spiral than a linear journey, we do make progress, but we still cycle through the same issues, over and over again. As we change, we experience our memories in new ways, we learn from them in new ways.

I spent my early/mid 20's convincing myself that I wasn't scared of anything. That made me a hard and angry person. Then I spent my later 20's and early 30's realizing just the opposite is true, I am scared of everything. That has made me an insecure and ungraceful person. But there are a few things I have also learned about myself in the last couple years. I am persistant. I do not give up, not on myself, and not on others. I am not a quitter. Which is funny because I have identified myself as exactly that, as a quitter. I don't stick to things, I choose one path only to cut it short with a new path. I was so hard on myself for that. Then I realized--that isn't quitting! It takes great courage to realize that a choice needs tweaking, that a chosen path is not quite right. I have had several conversations lately with people who have reminded me of a few things...

~ It is never too late. It is not too late to be a different person than the one you are. It is never too late to change your career. It is never to late be in love, even if you have never been there before. It is never to late to open up, to let go, to be happy. It is never too late know yourself.

~ I am a persistant person. It has taken me 10 years and 7 different colleges to finally find what I want. That makes me a strong and admirable student. It is hard to accept when things don't go as expected but a person of grit takes that information, makes the necessary adjustments, and continues on.

~ I have the right to expect as much from life as I want. My daily life and my relationships are only as satisfying as the love and effort I put into them. Everything I do is my choice. I have control over nothing else and no one else. I have a lot to offer the people who are in my life.

So, am I any closer to being that person I said I wanted to be 2 years ago? I don't know. But the list I made a week ago was informed by so much more than my list of 2 years ago. And that says something.

Stan and I were looking forward to Spring Break... since Winter Break!

There are just some years where you really need to get out town, even for a few nights and there is nothing better for a tight budget than a camping trip. We both love the feeling of disconnecting, doing nothing all day, reading, sitting by the campfire, and seeing the stars. Since I moved from Moses Lake 12 years ago, I don't get to see a lot of starry skies and when I go camping I am reminded of that very important connection to the big skies we live under. Starry skies and oceans do that for me. Remind me of the true size of my problems and that no matter what, there is a ton of beauty around me, no matter what is going on in my personal world.

The impersonal nature of Nature does wonders for me. I need those close intimate relationships, those people who have known me for years, who know what the tones in my voice mean, how to read every look on my face, how to comfort me with just the right words, or to know the times when nothing can really be said to fix things, the people who make me laugh, the ones who stayed with me though they are miles away, the ones who did not disappear when things got tough or when I got lost in this big and confusing world we live in. There are people who chose to stay through the changes, who did not disengage. There are those who did not judge. I need all these people. But there is something else I need too. That impersonal beauty that is big, unstoppable, and neverending. I need my personal relationships to remind me that I am important and to empower me with love. Yet I need that nonpersonal and infinite backdrop of nature to remind me that my problems are not important and that my power is limited.

For that, I go camping...

We drove a day and a half, to something like 5 different sites hoping to camp on the beach. The beach was beautiful, the campsites, well not so much!

Mustard Blooming!

Would ya look at that geology?

Ended up in Los Padres National Forest. Oak tree country (we could have just camped in our back yard for that, but that would not have been as fun!)

Freemont campsite... Not many campers, good for us! Ceanothus in bloom, we have a lot of blue where we live, but not the white. Very pretty!

We were about 20 minutes North of Santa Barbara so we drove down twice for food runs. Here is the view as you drop down over the pass...

No words needed...

March is a magical month. This weekend is my Mom's birthday and I celebrate her existance with every cell in my body! This weekend my husband and I celebrate our 2 year anniversary. Our life is not easy right now for many reasons. Infertility is a heartbreak and I hope that we will get our miracle soon. My Mom has been through the wringer this year but she seems to be feeling a little better and for that I am grateful beyond belief. My sister Tammy is struggling too but she seems just a little happier than she did when she moved here and I am grateful for that. That brings me to my point... March is a magical month.

If there is one thing I have learned in this life it is that gratitude and appreciation are the keys to everything in this life. I just posted this in my friends blog because she made an entire post about gratitude. I decided that was something worth writing (or typing) about. I am grateful. Grateful for so much and so many. Despite all our hardships this year, we have not been alone, and we have not been without.

It is easy to let anger, frustration, and sadness overwhelm, and sometimes I let it.

But I do not want to be that person. I want to be the kind of person, the kind of friend, wife, mother, daughter, sister, who believes in the bigger picture. I want to hold on to the idea that things work out, I want to believe that life is good. I want to be reliable and strong, someone that can be counted on in a storm. I don't want to hide out in fear, I don't want to resort to worrying more about myself than my friends and family. Gratitude lets me believe in serving others, appreciation reminds me that there is ALWAYS enough, if I remember what is most important.

Gratitude and appreciation are the best foundation for relationships, for life. March is a month of birthdays, anniversaries, and last but not least: SPRING! Spring brings in everything new, it ushers in our hopes, our dreams, and reminds us that the magic of life is in all the little things... it's in the birds and the bees and all the flowers blooming; it's pulling out the deck chairs and sitting under the oak tree; it's about cleaning out the old; it's about letting ourselves change; letting ourselves be more; it's about loving all the intangible reasons that life is worth celebrating.

Working Hard For Her Money, Er, Bone

Moyo loves sticks. No I don't think you understand she Loves sticks. The bigger the better. None of those whimpy sticks. Basically, it is not a stick to her unless it is big enough to be called more than a stick... branch, limb, log... you get the idea.

So Friday afternoon Stan, Tammy, and I took Moyo and Kona to the trails for some unleashed romping and an early evening walk before dinner. It was a beautiful evening, complete with pink sunset and balmy breeze. The dogs did great, even Kona who got his first off-leash walk! On the way back Moyo found this giant branch that was longer than she was. This is pretty common for her, and she will usually carry it for a few minutes until some other fascinating-only-to-a-dog type of thing comes along to distract her. Well, this time she got into her mind that THIS stick was the ultimate stick and she was absolutely determined to carry it the entire way.

This feat required a lot of stopping, because well, have you ever tried to carry a stick longer than you and six inches in circumference, in your mouth? So yes, lots of stopping. Stopping involved rolling in the dirt to cool herself off, sort of like you imagine a pig doing. She carried it the entire way back until we got to the trail head where she promptly dropped it and did not look back. Of course, being the person I am, I read all kinds of wonderful doggy lessons into this walk with my dog. Here they are:

1. Playing and Working are not that different

2. Work with a smile on your face, even if said work involves sweat and dirt in your mouth

3. Work with a smile even if in the end, you don't get anything to show for it.

4. When the work is done, don't look back.

She was so incredibly proud of herself! (I was proud too, in my dorky dog-loving way :-)

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

When we were kids my Mom used to bundle us up in the Suburban and we would take off for a camping trip- girls only. We did not make reservations, we just loaded up, picked a lake on the map and drove there with our fingers crossed. Looking back, I have no idea how my mother had the courage to do that with three kids! But my Mom is great that way. As we have grown up, moved out, and acquired our own families, it has been 15 years since just us girls did a trip like that. So we decided my graduation would be a great occassion. We picked Big Sur, loaded up my Subaru and hoped for the best. We got very lucky because it was not quite the busy season and we found a campsite that was repairing the bridge used to get through its main entrance. We flagged a woman down to ask her about directions or something and she graciously said that we would be welcome to camp at her campground and gave us directions to the back way in! This meant that we got to camp along Big Sur River in a Redwood campground that was occupied by maybe 5 other families. We were only there for two nights but we had a wonderful time. It was typical weather for our area, foggy and cold, the first night and half of the next day, but around 2pm the sun came out and we got warm weather the rest of the day and until we went home the third day. Of course we went to the beach which was stunning as always and thats where most of my pictures are taken. We also had dinner at Nepenthe, which is something I make a point of doing anytime I am in Big Sur (thanks to my good friend Artana!). It sits 800 feet above the water so you can imagine the view. I took about 125 pictures just at the beach so I will try to be selective in picking just my favorites here!