Colorado livin'

How is life in Colorado?

I've answered this question several dozen times in the past month, and no doubt I've given slightly different answers every time—but for those I talk to less regularly, here are some bits and pieces of how my life has changed since leaving Seattle.

From an outsider's perspective, the culture in Carbondale feels pretty similar to that of Seattle: a left-leaning community of outdoor enthusiasts, dog lovers, NPR listeners. The restaurants have vegan and gluten-free alternatives and plenty of microbrews on tap. When people ask what you do, they mean "What do you like to do on the weekends?", not "What do you for work?" Beards, Subarus and coffee dependence are prevalent; work attire is plaid flannel and jeans. The local grocery has banned plastic bags. Everyone loves Whole Foods.

So every now and then, I'm floored by some of the differences. On the pro-Colorado side...when people pass me on the sidewalk here, they look me in the eye and say, "Hi!" This happened approximately once in every 99 encounters with passersby in Seattle. I love how astoundingly warm, friendly and hospitable people are in this valley. Steve and I moved into our new home in Redstone the day of the Super Bowl, and we hadn't been unloading our Uhaul twenty minutes before a neighbor rolled up on his dog sled to offer to help us unload and invite us to his house for a Super Bowl party that evening.

Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed at how magical this place feels. If it's cloudy one day, it's pretty much guaranteed to be sunny the next day. The sky understands; we did our time, we deserve some rays. The sky in Seattle did not understand this. 

While I worried that my blog name would no longer be apt once I left my beloved Puget Sound, I do, in fact, still live in proximity to water. I live across the street from the lovely, rippling Crystal River, and a five-minute drive from an awesome natural hot springs that makes for terrific post-run soaking.

The Crystal River

On the pro-Seattle side...apparently no one here has ever heard of recycling. Not only is there no recycling pick up at our house (let alone yard waste/compost pick up!), the closest drop-off recycling center is 25+ miles away. Putting glass bottles, cardboard boxes and even banana peels in the trash can feels like nails on a chalkboard to me—yet, at some point, doesn't driving all those miles counteract the environmental benefits of recycling in the first place? We just have to be all the more mindful. 

Snowboarding is not cool here, the way I like to think it sort of was back in the Northwest. I get asked all the time, "Do you ski?!" To which I say brightly, "I snowboard!" Inevitably, the inquirer's face falls. "Oh," they say. Oi vey, the disappointment in their eyes!

The restaurant scene in town also leaves something to be desired. It's pretty hard for anywhere to compete with Seattle—but oh, I am homesick for my malai kofta from Annapurna, my phad see ew and red curry from Jamjuree and phad thai from Amazing Thai, my injera at Queen Sheba. Carbondale has decent pizza, Mexican food and all-American diner grub...but the ethnic options are sorely lacking. With that said, I really have nothing to complain about, because the eating at home is fabulous, and I'm undoubtedly saving oodles of cash not eating out anymore. 

Steve's Amazing Thai rendition. Amazing is the correct adjective to describe what is pictured here.

Teaching my body to run at altitude has been an another beast entirely, which I could ramble on about at length. I think I'm finally starting to turn the corner on what's essentially felt like a month of miserable, asthmatic slogs in the snow—but more on that in another entry. (Soon!)

Adventures in unplugging continue. I’m compelled to share the following excerpt I came across in a productivity book published in 1976. From a section called Information Overload:

“The office duplicating machine, the mimeograph, the offset press, the videotape recorder—all these and many more products of modern technology have one common goal: the production and distribution of more and more information to be absorbed by the human brain. But no one has come up with any ideas for increasing the human brain’s capacity to absorb more information. Most people are already taking in more information than they can usefully assimilate. Why multiply the input…[and] make it difficult for you to concentrate on the big picture?”

– from ‘Getting Things Done’, by Edwin C. Bliss

I must confess I have no idea what a mimeograph is—but funny how much things change, and how much they don’t change at all.

My jeans, for example, will stop wearing out rectangular holes in the right butt pocket, where my iPhone dwelled in Life Before Redstone. My internet-less evenings have afforded me swaths of free time I never imagined possible alongside a 40-hour-a-week job. Granted, this probably is also due to the fact that I went from having 30-40 friends I regularly spent time with in Seattle (thanks to the communities of REI folk, Oberlin alumni, and the Seattle Mountain Running Group) to having precisely two friends here—if you count my cat.

Then, there are things that have not changed.

The addiction to checking things, to hoping someone has reached out in some way, has not disappeared altogether. After Mt. Sopris interrupts my car radio’s reception, I spend the better part of my drive home from work fantasizing about the letters, cards or packages I might find inside our mailbox. After several weeks in our off-the-technology grid experiment, Steve and I succumbed to the lure of the modern world and got a landline in our cell-phone-receptionless new hometown—so now I wonder, too, if we've gotten any voicemails.

The frenzied checking continues.

Granted, it’s mediated. On Facebook, there are roughly 700 possibilities for people who might interact with me at any given moment. My iPhone has 217 contacts on it, at least a couple dozen of whom I’ve texted with semi-regularly.

In sharp contrast, there are exactly four people in the world who currently have our landline number, so the possibilities for voicemails are slim—“your mom or mine?!” Though a few more folks know our mailing address, the mail quietly shows up only once a day, six days a week—not 24/7 the way the Internet is incessantly alerting, notifying, pinging, poking. Back in Seattle, I’d developed the habit of checking my email first thing in the morning, on my iPhone, while still in bed…turning off my alarm clock and opening Gmail with concurrent swipes of the thumb.

FYI that’s dumb.

As I am again composing this blog entry offline at home for posting later, I am now off to look up “mimeograph” in my dictionary.

P.S. A number of you have asked me to share pictures of Redstone and our new home. As I wrote before, I hope to stop participating in the look-how-great-my-life-appears-when-I-present-it-this-certain-way-on-the-interwebs business…so just know that all these come with a necessary disclaimer to shred any perception you might have that life here is perfect: I'll reiterate the complete and utter lack of decent Thai food here. Also, because I do not have the Internet and Facebook to look at pictures of other people’s cats, I spend inordinate amounts of time taking pictures of my own. It's a pretty unglamorous life here, I promise.

Okay, now on to the good stuff:

Our street! Population 94 now.

More from our street

Looking toward Coal Basin, the snowshoeing paradise across the street from our house

Inside Coal Basin

Running up by Hanging Lake near Glenwood Springs

I generally see more deer than humans on my runs

Sunset run on the bike path near my work

Enough of that snow! Let's go inside, where it's cozy. Here's home sweet home.

Chloe knows what's up.

The day she figured out she could climb up and down the loft ladders was an exciting one indeed. Cat paradise, this place.

Unplugging: Meditations on Breaking up with the Internet

Snowshoeing Coal Basin, across the street from home

To drive from Seattle to the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado takes about 18 hours if you do it straight through—in a normal car. However, in a 14-foot Uhaul van hauling a loaded auto trailer and climbing mountain passes at a rip-roaring 40mph, the trip takes closer to 30 hours. And when the Uhaul place takes two hours to rent you your auto trailer the morning you need to leave, and when heavy night time fog swallows your vehicle whole, and when said Uhaul van comes with no CD player, no tape deck, no auxiliary port, and an AM/FM radio that offers few stations deep in the mountains…well, let’s just say that Steve and I had a lot of time on the road for conversations two weekends ago.

Among them was a discussion of the merits, or lack thereof, of Facebook.

Who hasn’t fantasized about quitting Facebook? I know I have. The wasted time scrolling glazed-eyed through my Newsfeed, the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) or uncomfortable jealousy that can ensue when perusing evidence of others’ adventures, the reality that while some posts can indeed introduce us to great ideas or articles or images or quotes, the vast majority do not.

I once heard the analogy that comparing your life to someone else’s based on Facebook is like comparing your own backstage to someone else’s highlights reel. Most of us can probably relate to this—the occasional twinges of inadequacy or insecurity when we look at other people’s lives from the outsides. If I had a dime for every time one of my college classmates (or really, any of my twentysomething friends) has posted on Facebook about what a failure our fellow class of ‘08 Oberlin alum Lena Dunham has made them feel like…well, I’d be a wealthy young lady indeed.

Most of us have probably contributed to this ourselves, too. We don’t intend to—after all, we’re trying to paint a nice life as much for ourselves as for the audience of our friends, family, and acquaintances. What we choose to share on Facebook is not false, nor even necessarily an exaggeration: people do get happily engaged, they take beautiful trips, they have cute babies, they land dream jobs, they wake up and feel genuinely blessed and grateful to be alive—and they absolutely deserve to be able to tell the world about it.

But I think it’s important to stay aware of how the details we broadcast about our lives are inevitably selective ones. As Steve articulated so well on the road that night, those details are often different, more carefully chosen, than the ones we might share in a one-on-one chat with a close friend—just as details were carefully chosen for mass email updates before there was Facebook, the way Christmas letters were before mass emails, and the way grandmothers were before Christmas letters.

It’s a fine line, though! Sharing our lives with each other online can serve great purposes. We can inspire one other, build communities, have dialogues about meaningful issues, stay current on the lives of friends we might otherwise lose touch with.

Indeed, there are plenty of such legitimate things for which I have enjoyed using Facebook. For one, getting my current job. I wouldn’t be in Colorado now if Trail Runner hadn’t posted on their Facebook page that they were looking for an assistant editor. Two, being a part of the trail running community. I met 95% of my trail running friends in Washington through the Seattle Mountain Running Facebook group. We used Facebook to coordinate runs with each other—so even at 5 a.m. on a cold, snowy Friday morning, I was able to find people to run up Mt. Si with me before work. Our Facebook group helped me feel part of a team in what’s essentially an individual sport, and fed me a steady stream of inspiration to hit the trails and live life to the fullest. Three, Facebook has made me feel less far away from my mom—who lives eight time zones away from me, across the Atlantic Ocean—because she can stay up on my day-to-day life. She sees pictures of the adventures I go on, gets notified when I update my blog, can trade comments back and forth with the friends I’ve made in my adult life.

Every time I’ve ever entertained the thought of quitting Facebook, my ego immediately protests: ‘That’s some crazy talk!’ I have fears: the fear of disappearing from people’s radar screens, the fear of being lonely, the fear of feeling out of touch, the fear that no one will read my blog if I don’t let them know on Facebook when I’ve written something on it. Will I still feel like a real person if I’m not on Facebook? It sounds ridiculous to ask this, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind; someone tell me I’m not the only one.

But after giving all my fears a little air to breathe…I feel pangs of excitement. I consider how much negativity Facebook has brought into my life. Ironically, it’s often made me feel farther away than ever from people I love. I know for a fact it’s done the same to many of them, at least upon occasion—I don’t have time to call or write a friend of mine across the country (or world), but I have time to make a Facebook album? That doesn’t feel good for anyone—and many of us are guilty of making someone in our life, at some point, feel less important to us than Facebook.

I often lament that I’m not in as good of touch with important people in my life as I’d like to be. You all know who you are; I could be better. It’s not that I don’t have time to sit down for an hour and write a long, meaningful letter to you; it’s that I’m throwing away that time Liking things instead, telling myself that logging on to FB helps me “unwind.” Where my mind came up with this propaganda, I have no idea.

Facebook doesn’t relax me; it makes me anxious. Like Nicholas Carr wrote in The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, social media makes me feel like a rat running around a maze, pressing little levers in hopes of triggering a moment of pleasure—the fleeting high of someone commenting on a status or Liking a photo. Facebook has made me virtually incapable of sitting still or taking a walk or waking up in the morning without feeling tempted to pull out my iPhone and check my Newsfeed, hope for those exhilarating little red numbers next to my friend requests, my inbox, my notifications. I’ve checked Facebook in bed, during dinner with friends, during work meetings, in the bathroom at bars, while in traffic (I’m particularly ashamed to admit that one, but I’m being candid here), while hiking in the woods, and plenty of other places I no longer want to interrupt with technology.

As Steve and I drove farther and farther away from the bustle of the city, deeper into the quiet of the mountains, and the more we talked about all this, the stronger my conviction: my life would be better off without Facebook.

But, I’m not going to up and quit today. First of all, I’m writing this blog entry from our new home in a tiny mountain town, where we have no cell phone reception or Internet—so even if I wanted to quit Facebook right here and right now, I couldn’t. This blog entry is being composed in archaic Microsoft Word, and will benefit from fresh eyes in the morning before I drive into town for work and broadcast it to the world.

Second of all, my desire to let go of Facebook does not mean I want to give the world a hasty, impulsive peace-out. I don’t want to disconnect; if anything, I want to reconnect. I want to make my interactions more meaningful, more personal, more…joyful, even. And that will take some planning.

Third of all, I actually use Facebook a fair amount in my working life now—to help manage the Trail Runner Facebook page, to track down photos or contact information for stories, to stay on top of buzz in the greater trail running community.

So while my fantasy of quitting Facebook altogether is louder than ever, I’m still not sure it’s realistic (yet). What I do feel is realistic, however, is drastically changing my habits with it—beginning with the fact that Steve and I have no plans to get Internet in our home. If we want the Internet, we can pay six dollars (still roughly less than or at least equal to the cost of gas to drive into town) for a 24-hour block of it—which we plan to do perhaps once a week. It's more expensive than offering to chip in for and share our neighbors' wi-fi, but we figure we'll be more likely to succeed in unplugging if the temptation isn't omnipresent.

These disconnected evenings have been a fascinating experiment indeed. After a few stubborn clues in Friday’s crossword had us stumped, we might have been tempted to Google the answers we needed. Alas, there was no Google to consult. So we took a walk and came back to it with fresh eyes—and our brains, able to come up with many of the answers that had previously eluded us, undoubtedly got a better workout because of it.

Is it necessary for everything in our lives to be so instantaneous after all? Is the state of not knowing something knowable a state we can learn to be patient with? I forget; I went for a snowy road run after work one day last week, and reached for my laptop when I got back to map my run online and calculate the distance I’d covered. But did it really matter that I didn’t know exactly how many miles I’d run?

When I got home from my run to find an empty house, I wanted to text Steve to see where he was, but of course, I couldn’t. Was it the end of the world to not know where he was, or when he’d be home? Of course not; I survived. And I thoroughly enjoyed the old-fashioned flutter of excitement in my stomach every time I heard the crunch of car tires on the snow outside, wondering if it might be him. I relished my eagerness to swap stories about each other’s days—of which we knew nothing about, because we hadn’t called, texted, emailed, or posted on Facebook all day long.

So, if my friends far away don’t see full albums of photos of my day-to-day life, will we perhaps have more to talk about and more to share with each other when we do catch up? I sure hope so. I will still write and share photos occasionally on my blog, but I won’t use it as an excuse to not also write or call those I love. I especially want to be more conscious of not painting slanted images of my life on my blog. At the risk of getting uncomfortably personal, I hope I can give a fair and balanced report of my life here.

A final note: the last thing I want this entry to be is a high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou declaration of my rejection of social media and the Internet. I don’t think either is evil, or that everyone would necessarily be better off without them. But here, now, withdrawal from daily use of the Internet in my free time—and in particular, of Facebook—feels like the right move. Drop me a line at yitkawinn@gmail.com with your phone number, email address and/or home address, and a note on how you’d best like to connect with me. 

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Bonus Reading

• On how perfect everyone else’s lives seem from the outside, and rejecting the pressure to seem perfect: http://www.danoah.com/2010/09/disease-called-perfection.html
• A 2008 piece from Nicholas Carr on whether Google (as a metaphor for the Internet) is making us stupid: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868
• Flickr founder and entrepreneur Caterina Fake's examination of FOMO (fear of missing out) and social media: http://caterina.net/2011/03/15/fomo-and-social-media 
• Culture blogger Anil Dash's embrace of JOMO (joy of missing out), in response to Caterina's blog: http://dashes.com/anil/2012/07/jomo.html 

The Trouble with New Years Resolutions

Thanks, Parents!

At this time last year, I sat down and blogged about three projects I'd decided to focus my energy on in 2012:

• The Gratitude Project: Committing to starting my Thanks, Parents! blog, and spending more energy in general being grateful, rather than irritated, frustrated or impatient.
• The Gazelle Project: Wanting to be a bigger part of the running community, prioritizing injury prevention, running higher mileage, and becoming a stronger uphill runner
• The Energy Project: Getting organized, procrastinating less, prioritizing sleep, and being more conscientious in general about how I nourish my body - including forgoing alcohol for a year

On the whole, I was successful with all of these: I blogged about gratitude all year long, my running life flourished, and I made it the whole year without booze. There was something very valuable to me in the exercise of setting just three major intentions for the whole year. It allowed me to really, truly focus on those "projects" as I called them - and for the first time in the decade+ that I've been making resolutions, actually feel I accomplished everything I wanted to in that year.

Speaking purely from my own experience, I think there are two major problems with New Year's Resolutions, which explain why most of us fail to keep ours.

The Too Specific Problem
I know, SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) goals, blah blah blah...and I'm all for specific goal-setting! But I think you can set yourself up for failure when you frame resolutions as specific goals, rather than as general intentions. If you look at the specific, measurable aspects of my projects, I failed on most counts.

Let's take my Gazelle Project. I wrote in last year's blog that some of my specific running goals for 2012 included: a sub-20:00 5K, a sub-6:00 mile, and qualifying for Boston. Of these, I accomplished zero. I didn't even wind up running a single 5K or road marathon.

Instead, however, I ran not only my first 50-miler, but my first 100-miler. I went from having gone on exactly one group run with the Seattle Mountain Running crew to going on dozens of training runs, road trips, and race adventures with new friends. When I sent the word out to my newfound trail running buddies of 2012 (well, except Glenn, who's known me since the very beginning of my trail running life, back when it was still a solo sport for me, not a community-driven one) that I was leaving Seattle, nearly a dozen of them showed up for my farewell snowshoeing adventure on New Years Day.

Snowshoeing at Commonwealth Basin with my SMRG buddies

At the beginning of 2012, I'd never even been to a 100-miler. By the end of 2012, I'd volunteered at several, paced at four, and even run my own. I went from running one ultra in 2010, and one in 2011, to running over a dozen (Fatasses/unsanctioned ultras included) in 2012. I volunteered at more races than ever before, and also ran more total miles than ever before (1800+ for the whole year, up from 1300ish in 2011). So...did I keep my resolution to develop myself as a runner, or not?

Calling it a project, and giving myself un-specific, un-measurable goals like "being a bigger part of the running community", "preventing injury", and "running higher mileage" were actually far more attainable and valuable in the long run than any of the specific, measurable running goals I tried to tack on, too.

The Too Many Problem

"Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years." - Attributed to both Bill Gates and Anthony Robbins...not sure who said it first

I think we often expect too much of ourselves. In addition to the three major projects, I had many supplementary goals and ambitions for 2012. Some of these happened: I read at least a book a week all year, I landed a full-time writing job by the end of the year, I did more yoga. On the other hand, plenty of them didn't happen at all: I didn't take banjo lessons, I didn't eat less refined sugar, I wasn't diligent in budgeting and tracking spending, and I still can't do a pull-up.

But...I think that's okay! It's perfectly fine to aim big, but I think it's also important to be patient with ourselves. None of us pull it all off. So...I think that three, from now on, is my magic number for New Year projects: three big, ambitious ones to which I really, truly commit myself and my energy. Of course, there will always be other ideas, other goals percolating in my mind - but above all, let me not lose sight of the big three.
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With that, I present my 2013 Projects.

The Simplicity Project

I've moved a lot in the last few years. There was a little window of time where I managed to stay in the same apartment for over a year. Aside from that, in my adult life, I haven't lived in the same space for more than 3-8 months. In fact, I've had a dozen different residential addresses in the past five years alone. The good news is that, every time I move, I get rid of more stuff. More things feel superfluous. This all feels immensely rejuvenating; instead of stressing about the fact that I'm once again renting a truck and moving my life halfway across the country, I'm embracing the opportunity to lighten up.

In 2013, I'd like to keep things simple. I want to be more relaxed in my day-to-day life; I've left a cushy corporate job in the big city for the passion gig in a tiny mountain town, and I'm hoping the shift in scenery can help me simplify the expectations I have for myself. Life is about being, not doing.

Sunrise in Glenwood Canyon

I want to be more spontaneous in daily life, rather than setting a tight agenda and always feeling rushed. I want, as I blogged about several months ago, to stop glorifying busyness. I want to have the patience to meditate, to not set an alarm on weekends, to give myself permission to spend hours reading a novel or doing a jigsaw puzzle, to keep my mind present during more of my daily life. I want to live amid less clutter, and be less attached to material things. 

Well, except running shoes: a vice that, on a sidenote, my new job will be no good at discouraging. Below, on the left, is my new boss's entrance hallway at home. On the right is my own. Oi vey. At least I know I've come to the right place. Speaking of which, trail running friends and blog readers alike, drop me a line if you're interested in wear-testing shoes for Trail Runner. I need folks from all over the country, so speak up!

But, really. I'm serious about simplifying.

The Wellness Project

This will follow some similar themes as last year's "Energy Project". Of last year's three, it's the one I feel I did most poorly on. I made some strides - forgoing alcohol and juicing daily for most of the year, establishing "Health Home" with James, picking up yoga again, trying to bike commute more, etc - but I still feel I have a long way to go in this realm. So I'm repackaging it for 2013 as a Wellness Project :)

In this, I would like my life to include more: sleep, juicing, cooking with whole foods, salads and veggies,  green smoothies, tea, running, yoga, reading, journaling, meditation, being outdoors, love
...and less: Facebook, internet, iPhone use, refined sugar, dining out, spending money, caffeine, processed foods, meat and dairy, stress and anxiety, hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock

The Courage Project

Here's something that may come as a surprise to those who've met me in my adult life: I was a pretty shy kid with a lot of insecurities and a big inferiority complex. I had a rough time for many years, making new friends, "fitting in" socially, feeling I had much to offer to others. I can say with confidence that I've overcome most of that - but as with anything in our childhoods, the shadows of those memories still trickle into the cracks of my adult life. To this day, I have a strong need to be well liked, to seek the approval of others. Am I perfectionist? Often, yes, more than I like to admit.

Without getting too psychoanalytic here, I know that there are many things about this coming year that will prove challenging in this realm. Having my writing and editorial skills spotlighted in front of a national (and opinionated!) audience is scary. Learning to not take criticism personally will be a tough, but necessary, lesson.

I'm also struggling with all the fears that come with moving somewhere new, and having changed virtually all aspects of my life over the course of a few short months. People here don't really know me yet, and it will be a while before I can feel myself around them. I miss my friends, the familiarity and comfort of my old life in Seattle. It will all come with time, I know - but for now, it's hard to feel like a blank slate again.

Rather than letting myself be swallowed by these fears, I hope to see them as the opportunities they are, and grow from them.

During my few months with Solavei, I was fortunate to have a great boss who nudged me out of my comfort zone daily, who always challenged me to take on new responsibilities I didn't initially think myself capable of. This was a hugely valuable learning experience for me (thank you, Rudy!), and one I want to continue building on on my own in the coming year. 

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So there you have it. I think that because I was able to accomplish so many of my concrete, external goals in 2012, I'm necessarily deciding to focus on more abstract, internal goals in 2013. That feels good. 

We're not in Washington anymore: Luna Moonshine, my ever-capricious VW who almost broke down the day before leaving for Colorado...didn't know if she'd make it all the way, but here we are!

There's a great deal more to say about adjusting to new life in Colorado, but this blog entry has gone on long enough already. Suffice to say, for now, that I have gone from a world where the essentials are waterproof jackets, poncho pants, and GORE-TEX boots, to one of chapstick, sunglasses, and insulated gloves.

Most other things, I'm pleased to report, have stayed consistent: the abundance of fleece, Patagonia puffy jackets, tea, coffee, dogs, Subarus, dirty hippies, wool socks, and microbrews.

More soon. Happy belated new year, all!

Sayonara, Seattle - and other exercises in letting go

Six weeks ago, I wrote this on my blog here:

I think one of the great things about transitions, whether you're initiating them yourself or struggling to adjust as they're thrown your way, is that they offer the opportunity for radical transformations. What's more invigorating than giving yourself permission to be seven again, dream big, and believe anything is possible?

Even if I don't always go into specific detail, there are often deeper things going on in my life that inspire me to blog about the things I do. Though I couldn't write it publicly at the time, the impetus for that particular musing on change was this: my dream job had just posted online, I knew I was going to apply, I knew I'd have a reasonable shot at it, I knew that getting it would mean moving to Colorado, and between the lines of that entry, I was asking myself, "Where will I find the courage to leave Seattle?"

Seattle as seen from the top of Mt. Si, Photo by Angelina Kovtun

Seattle, my favorite city in the world. Seattle, my home away from home, my circle of friends and colleagues and running buddies who have become like family. Seattle, with its glittering bodies of water, mountain range frames, majestic bridges, hills, hidden stairways, spectacular summers, and plethora of gourmet ice cream shops. Seattle, with its cat people and tea drinkers and book lovers and tech nerds and musicians, its beards and flannel and coffee. How do I say goodbye to a place that feels more like home to me than anywhere I've ever lived?

How do I leave the friends who play banjo by the river in the summertime, who go on rainy, ridiculous night hikes in the wintertime, whose idea of a good time is flying over the Cascades on Google Earth Flight Simulator? Or constructing Seattle icons out of gingerbread? Or donning union suits to snowshoe to a backcountry hut with a front-seat view to Mt. Rainier?

High Hut Trip 2012, Photo courtesy of Cambajamba

How do I say goodbye to my tight-knit circle of lady friends, with whom I've shared uncountable brunches, lady hikes, and evenings of putting on our eating pants and trading head massages? How do I leave the amazing runners with whom I've shared hundreds of miles of mossy, fern-laden trails, strangers I've carpooled to races with who became quick friends, the various crazies I've bunked with pre-race at Orcas Island each year? How do I not run all my favorite Northwest trail races in 2013? 

Angel's Staircase 60K in the Methow Valley

How will I miss my friend Brant's annual Time Travel Bike Ride from 1 a.m. to 1 a.m. each November when Daylight Savings ends?

TTBR, 2011 - Photo retrieved from the time space continuum

How will I miss the annual July 4 Cavalcade of Revelry, watching a thousand fireworks shows along the horizon from the theater of the Cascadian wilderness?

Cavalcade of Revelry

This place has been exceptionally good to me. My mother's jaw hit the floor when I told her over Skype that I'd applied for a job in Colorado. "You'd leave Seattle?!" she exclaimed.

"Only for this job," I said.

This job. If you'd asked me a year ago what my dream job was, I'd have told you, "Editor at Trail Runner magazine." And now, here it is. Here I go, bound for one of the only jobs in the world that will allow me to combine my two greatest passions - writing and running (trail running, even!) Everyone in my life has been unequivocally happy for me, even down to some of the most diehard corporate types I currently work with. Even they have beamed at me and said, "Yitka, if you have the opportunity to go do what you love, do it. And don't look back."

I cannot embark on this new adventure without paying proper homage to the experiences and people that have led me to this moment. When I first moved to Seattle, I'd had a few outdoorsy experiences. My parents, after all, are both lovers of the great outdoors, and had taken me on plenty of summer hikes in the Rocky Mountains, windy camping trips at KOAs in the great plains of western Kansas, canoe trips down the Missouri river, ski bus trips to Keystone and Breckenridge. But these adventures were few and far between - twice, maybe three times a year.

To get to the point I'm at now - having built a day-to-day life, social world, career, and identity even out of my love for the outdoors - took a lot of little perfect storms between then and now. It took meeting my best friend Seyeon at a summer program when I was 16; she'd grown up in Seattle, and had an inkling by the end of that summer that I'd thrive in this place.

SLC snowboarding with Seyeon, 2007

It took the editor and publisher of Outdoors NW magazine in Seattle taking a chance on a total stranger (me!) who emailed her for advice on breaking into the world of outdoor journalism. Thank you, Carolyn, for believing in me, for publishing my writing before anyone else would, for valuing my thoughts and ideas, and for being equal parts mentor and friend.

It took getting utterly lost in the streets of Seattle in my first month here, back in 2009, to stumble upon the flagship REI and impulsively ask for a job application. It took a friend of a friend, and a lucky coincidence, to learn about a Meet and Greet REI was holding to hire new employees. It took making quick friends with my coworker Tom early on there, and having him talk me into signing up for my first trail run.

Tom and I atop Angel's Staircase (Neither our first trail run together, nor our last)

It took other early REI friends, Cam and Jeff, taking me out for epic hikes and bike rides, and constantly inspiring me with the unmatched authenticity of their passion for the outdoors.

Mountain biking with the boys, circa 2010

It took my first manager at REI, Jamie, believing in me, inviting me to join the Outdoor Industries Women's Coalition, and passing my name along to REI Corporate when they needed a copywriter. There, I temporarily filled in for a woman who'd also soon become a close friend, and the big sister I never had. Thank you, Jeannette, for Googling my name when I applied to fill your shoes during your sabbatical, and for convincing the powers that be that I'd be a good fit. A thank you, too, to the head editor of the REI blog, Steve, who gave me a chance to write about running for a national audience for the first time.

It took another boss-turned-mentor-turned-friend (with 'running/training buddy' thrown in the mix, too!), Lauren, to help me find my path this past year. As anyone who's been fortunate enough to work with or for her can say, she has a true gift for putting air beneath the wings of your dreams.

It took many miles with many friends in the trail running community here to crystallize my love for this wonderful sport - amazing, peaceful, soulful miles with Elodie, Tom, Glenn, George, Deby, Jenn, Ben, Van, Ras, Kathy, Tim, Angel, James, Jonathan, Linh, and so many more...you all have inspired me beyond words.

It took a chance encounter with a guy who walked into the Seattle REI last May in need of new hiking boots, whom I serendipitously ran into on a mountain trail again months later - and eventually, who sat with me for the better part of a Saturday helping polish my cover letter for said dream job. Thank you, Steve, for your unyielding support, encouragement, and enthusiasm.

There are so many others who've helped me along the way; I couldn't possibly name you all in a single blog entry. At the end of last year, I declared that I wanted to make gratitude a priority for 2012. I intend to carry this tradition into the years ahead, and so I hope I continue to give thanks to all of you who've thrown me a stone, helping hand, or otherwise to help me navigate the waters of my life.

So. It's scary to leave people, and places, behind. Leaving Kansas was hard. Leaving Ohio was harder. Leaving Seattle will be the hardest yet. It's scary to go somewhere new. And yet, above all, there is something dazzlingly wonderful about changes. This is going to be a good one, I know.

Mt. Sopris. My new Mt. Si?

See you soon, Carbondale.

Sayonara, Sallie Mae - and other exercises in gratitude

Despite making gratitude one of my projects for 2012, I missed writing a Thanksgiving blog entry this year. Not intentionally...just was busy, I suppose, making the most of a holiday spent in sunny southern California. There were beaches to run barefoot on, trails in the Santa Monica mountains to climb, copious amounts of food to be enjoyed. Life is good.

This year, I have so much to be grateful for - good health, an able body, amazing people in my life, a lovely place to call home, many powerful communities that I feel fortunate to be a part of, a career in which I continue to learn new things every day, a great boss, awesome coworkers who are tolerant of my quirkiness - including, but not limited to, my desktop terrarium (thank you, Camba!), oversized headphones, mason jars with green smoothies, and a propensity for running long distances.

Lest I allow my blog to sugarcoat my moods, though, I must confess: I've been seriously crabby and down the last few days. It's probably part catching a cold, part not running enough, and part life miscellany. So, on a sidenote, a special thank you to those who've had to put up with that...you know who you are. Thank you.

In no particular order, I am also grateful for: dark chocolate, endorphins, train travel, cousins, persimmons, Spotify, donation-based yoga classes, the Seattle Public Library, my juicer, Skype, earl grey tea, down jackets, and the fact that my freezer is broken so I have an excuse to eat all the ice cream I just bought.

And tonight, a very special shoutout to my parents - to whom, as always, I pretty much feel I owe the world.

This week, I paid off the remaining balance on all my student loans. Since I spent my last dime moving myself out to Seattle three and a half years ago, I have been slowly socking away money to work toward this goal. Now that it's a reality, I have this to say to my parents:

(More thank you notes to my parents here.)

Indeed, there is much to be grateful for. As always, choosing to focus on gratitude makes even a long, stressful, exhausting day a good one. Amazing how that works :)

Reclaiming sea changes, endorphins, and my lunch breaks

Autumn has been my favorite season everywhere I've ever lived - the changing colors, the crisp air, the hearty seasonal foods, the excuses to wear hoodies and drink tea and curl up inside with a book. Perhaps above all, what I think makes me love it is its fleeting nature. The leaves are such fiery colors for such a short period of time, you can't help but be dazzled by their ephemera.

Glorious autumn hike in Salt Lake City last month

I haven't always been so fond of fleeting things like fall. (Metaphor alert!) I'm pretty sure I can pinpoint gaining my appreciation for transitional times to my blissful, liberating summer at Stanford. Following that, at 16 years old on the plane back to Kansas, just a few days shy of my reluctant return to high school, I wrote this in my journal:

I need to not be afraid of letting myself LIVE and fully experience the things and situations and people that bring me joy, no matter what the rest of the world has to say about it. If this summer has taught me anything, it is probably just more selfishness - life is way too short to let fear of risk bar you from truly living. It's too short for wallowing or complaining or ruminating or reliving the past. I am not going to waste another moment of my life complaining about "life in Kansas" - what a waste! 

Rachel wrote me a letter where she talked about wanting to put our angst aside and jointly make senior year our best ever - and reading that made me think, 'Hey yeah! That's within our power!' I want to have outrageously high expectations for this year, just like I did for this summer, because I do believe that many times in life, you get as much out of something as you put into it.

I am on my way home, leaving something behind perhaps, but I have too much to look forward to in the future to dwell on this particular ending. Life is full of endings, of final chapters, of goodbyes, and we cannot let ourselves dwell in them, or we will never appreciate the innate beauty of new beginnings. Even in giving up certain aspects of our pasts, we take with us (consciously or not) the things we have learned, the memories we have made, the experiences we have had, the emotions we have allowed to shape us. The doorways are open everywhere, just waiting.

A photo I took from the plane window as I was writing that journal entry

I think one of the great things about transitions, whether you're initiating them yourself or struggling to adjust as they're thrown your way, is that they offer the opportunity for radical transformations. What's more invigorating than giving yourself permission to be seven again, dream big, and believe anything is possible?

It's why I'm a sucker for New Years.

Those who know me know I'm also a sucker for the Space Needle :)

It's also why I often observe the new moon by burning a candle and writing in my journal about areas in my life I'd like to focus my energy on in the coming month. (Many thanks to my lovely friend and mentor in Ohio, Monique, for introducing me to this tradition.) And it's why, even when the world feels like it's spinning wildly out of my control, I think back to a fable my mom always told me when she'd remind me, "You never know if something is good news or bad news."

(Turns out, it's almost always good news.) On January 1, 2012, I wrote in my journal, May this year be filled with positive and necessary change! I guess I asked for it this year. As 2012 draws to a close, I've been reflecting a lot on the changes that have happened - and also on the ones I'm still working to initiate, on the coattails of larger transitions in my working life and personal life alike.

Life, as always, is a work in progress!

One of those changes is finding innovative ways to temper a busy, full-time work schedule with enough adventure to keep me sane. The last few weeks of October this year saw at my indolent worst. After IMTUF, I went for a grand total of three runs the entire rest of the month. Yikes! And I'm ashamed to report I've eaten lunch at my desk most days, rather than taking a moment for myself to go for a run or read a book or just sit still and breathe.

Jason, a friend of mine who came to work in marketing for REI after many years in a high-pressure, high-stress corporate environment, gave me this (paraphrased) advice before I started my new job: "Take your lunch breaks. Go for a run, or ride a bike, or work out. If you set that expectation on day one, people will just accept that you're the kind of person who goes running on her lunch break. If you wait too long before setting that routine, you're more likely to get stigmatized for trying to take a moment for yourself in the middle of the work day."

At the time he gave it to me, I felt convinced I'd follow his advice to a tee - but once I got started in my new role, I absolutely got wrapped up in the work-around-the-clock mindset. It's tough, when you're settling in to a new place; you don't want to be perceived as the slacker among a crop of hard-working folks. And I'm not! I'm a hard-working Midwestern girl; slacking is not in my nature. But here's the catch:

I am so much happier, calmer, and more productive when I get outside and get my endorphins regularly. So these past couple of weeks, I'm happy to report that I've made big efforts to re-prioritize that in my day-to-day life.

• I signed up for a gym membership (with a lap pool!) in my office's building, so I can work out on my lunch breaks - and I found a lunchtime workout buddy in my coworker Rachel.
• When the weather is decent, I'm biking the 26 miles roundtrip to work, instead of driving. (If I did this every day for a year, I would save over $4000 on tolls, gas, and wear/tear on my car!)

The scenery's not too shabby either

• I'm reclaiming weekday sunrise summits on Mt. Si, before hitting the office. Always worth it.

7:30 a.m. this morning

• Steve and I are doing a power vinyasa yoga class once a week (and biking to and from it!).

Life is good. I feel fortunate to be alive and healthy. I don't know what yet lies ahead, but I am optimistic. I've felt an awakening in my soul, and will conclude this rambling entry with my favorite quote, from Howard Thurman:

Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Farming in Flannel, or Weekend WWOOFing

First and foremost, thanks to so many of you for the wonderful comments on my last blog entry. I've never had so much positive feedback on anything I've ever written. In many ways, getting to share my story with you all and receiving so many wonderful responses has pretty much been on par with the happiness I got from crossing that finish line :) So thank you, thank you, thank you. May we all continue to share our stories with one another - and be stronger, wiser, more joyful, and better connected because of it! 

(In the interest of sharing, here's one of my favorite inspiring reads of the past few years.)

Second of all: let's talk about how awesome Vashon Island is. Several months ago, I wrote about Vashon here on my blog and said this about it: A perfect little getaway from the city, Vashon boasts a lively community of folks, including many artists, musicians and, evidently, runners. It's always a treat to visit this rural, small-towny oasis.

The context in which I've visited Vashon (three times, prior to this weekend) has always been for the annual Vashon Ultra in June - my first 50K ever, back in 2010, and an event for which I feel a strong affinity and sense of loyalty. Every year, I've vowed that the next time I visit Vashon, I'd actually spend a decent amount of time there, seeing something other than the road from the ferry landing to the race start, and the 10-mile loop of trails that comprises the race.

This past weekend, I finally made the pilgrimage - with a weekend of work trades set up to structure the weekend. Steve, who's been interested in WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms - learn more here), coordinated with a small farm on the island to exchange a couple days of manual labor for a weekend of room and board. I had set up my own work exchange elsewhere on the island on Saturday (thank you, Claudine!) to trade writing/website assistance for an amazing massage/bodywork session - before meeting up with Steve at the farm for a little taste of WWOOFing.

So let me state for the record that I'd be a liar to say that I truly experienced WWOOFing this weekend. More or less, I pretty much just mooched off the labors of Steve. While I was off drinking tea with Claudine and getting a 5-star massage, this guy was hacking through blackberry bushes, shoveling (literally) horse shit and seaweed and grape leaves into compost bins, and assembling a large-scale rainwater-collection system.

I did show up in time to participate in the grand adventure of digging up potatoes. Quite the treasure hunt in the dirt! After much shoveling, we finally unearthed some good ones - which were promptly boiled, mashed, and set out on the dinner table.

Our kind hosts, Scott and Andrea, cooked up a storm for us on Saturday night. It felt like Thanksgiving - with foods that were almost entirely grown in their garden. Salads filled with homegrown sprouts, apples, spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes, and sunflower seeds - all harvested that day (or that week, at the very least). Mashed potatoes, mashed squash. Unbelievably tender pork from a locally raised pig. Berry cobbler for dessert, with fresh blackberries from their yard. Heaven? Pretty darn close.

Scott and Andrea are very focused on simple living - making and building things from scratch, repurposing everything, bartering whenever possible, spending less money rather than racing to make more. At the risk of over-romanticizing the island life, I will say that there was a stark contrast in the pace of their daily life from my own - even just the notion of having time to sit down together three times a day for a genuinely relaxed, home-cooked meal...that was nice. (Surely I can, at the very least, afford to reclaim the lunch breaks I've already begun to lose sight of in my new job? Starting tomorrow!)

The weekend's takeaway, for me, was similar to that of the delightful "Team Sprout", whom Seyeon and I stayed with during our first foray into couchsurfing years ago in Austin: time is money; money is time; live humbly, and you can experience a different kind of wealth entirely. 

Much like couchsurfing, this experience made me hope to someday have a home (and garden!) big, warm, and welcoming enough to host strangers. I love the idea of meeting travelers from all over the world, sharing fresh food and terrific home-cooked meals, learning about one another's habits and beliefs and life experiences. It's an amazing thing to be welcomed into the home of a perfect stranger, and be given a glimpse into their daily life.

In the morning, after a hearty breakfast with Scott and Andrea, we put on our work boots and hit the garden again for a couple hours. I'll be the first to admit: for as passionate as I am about food, I know astoundingly little about gardening/farming. It was awesome to see what broccoli looks like growing on a plant, before it's been harvested. I loved seeing how enormous the beets were in the dirt.

      

The stems of the Swiss chard were such a brilliant pink. 

The tomatoes in their greenhouse, of course, were ten times more flavorful than anything you can find in a grocery store. I wish small-scale food production was part of our educational system. Sigh.

They were kind enough to send us away with bags of fresh greens and vegetables, a big bouquet of hand-picked flowers, and a bottle of wine (which will be eligible for opening in 70 days...) from the Andrew Will winery where Scott works.

We spent the afternoon exploring Maury Island Marine Park (connected to Vashon), which was gorgeous - and even made us feel like we were on a real beach on the ocean, tidal waves and all! :)

Although this entry has been almost entirely focused on food, I've neglected to mention the two other ridiculously amazing dinners of the weekend. It would do my blog, and the meals themselves, a serious injustice to leave out mention of them entirely:

1. Delicious dinner at the Preston household, featuring bacon/mushroom pizza, squash soup, blackened chicken in cream sauce, and creme brulee. My friends got fancy!
2. Sunday shabu-shabu dinner at Deby's house: traditional Japanese hot pot meal with virtually endless bowls of rice, noodles, meat, shrimp, gyoza (dumplings), tofu, and vegetables...all followed by copious amounts of homemade mochi, filled with red bean paste. Yummy.

One thing is for sure: I died and went to food heaven this weekend. It was a bit of a rough transition back to Earth today...

A big thanks, as always, to everyone who made this weekend a stellar one. I shared so many wonderful meals with people I only just met this very weekend, or a few months ago, or in the case of a select few (Cam and Avey, this means you!), a full 3+ years ago now. All of you, in my relatively brief time thus far in this beautiful corner of the world, have become like family to me. I thank you for bringing color to my life!