Life: The Outtakes Reel

Photo by David Clifford

This week, as I was reviewing photos from my recent "work" trip to run trails in Iceland and write about them, I couldn't help but think, Damn, my life is freaking awesome.

... a sentiment which was immediately swallowed by my ongoing fear that I was once again contributing to that everyone-else's-life-looks-better-on-the-surface phenomenon that I feel, more and more, I want to devote my creative energies to squashing.

Truth be told, following an admittedly amazing week in Iceland (which was on top of an equally amazing long weekend in the Pacific Northwest for the wedding of my wonderful friends, Kate and Jeff), this week, my heart has been heavy. A number of people in my life, both dear friends/family as well as several close acquaintances, have been grappling with tremendous personal challenges, including, but not limited to: cancer, depression, divorce, unsatisfying marriages, corporate layoffs and other assorted rejections.

Thinking about these people I love and care about so deeply has made it difficult to concentrate on the regular, day-to-day aspects of my life. I hate feeling helpless. The ongoing question, for me, seems to be: can I somehow help people feel less alone in their struggles? I've had so many people hold my hand through the darkest periods of my own life in the past; I want to pay that forward. We all deserve to feel as though we are not alone in chugging through this life.

Perhaps it's the only child in me, but there's something especially terrifying to me about the concept of alone-ness. Not solitude, which I consider something different entirely—a proactive choice to spend quality time with oneself—but the case of having alone-ness cast over you, like a cloak. Isolation, alienation. Feeling a lack of connection to others in the world.

With all this in mind, I think I'm finally ready to share a blog post I wrote seven months ago, immediately after I accepted the job as Associate Editor at Trail Runner, but have left hiding in my drafts folder ever since (and, at the time, spun into this one instead ... )

See, one of the things I've felt sad about this week is some "restructuring" at REI's headquarters, through which several friends have lost their jobs, some of whom have been with the company for decades. Despite the fact that I never officially transcended my role as a temporary employee at REI Corporate, I felt very much a part of the family there. So, my heart hurts for them.

On the other hand, in many ways, I feel a lot of hope for those who will be leaving the company, willfully or not. Change, when thrust upon us, is never easy—yet it nearly always leads to growth, to some recognition that, in the long run, the change was for the better. I spent a year and a half trying very hard to earn a permanent spot at REI Corporate, certain that being a copywriter there was my ultimate dream job. Maybe, if I'd gotten it, it would have been. But sometimes it's easy to get so wrapped up in the immediacy of our own lives that we fail to recall the big picture of what it is that will really make our souls sing. Not ever being offered a permanent copywriting job for REI is probably the best thing that's happened to me ... after all, I wouldn't have been getting paid to run around waterfalls in Iceland last week if REI Corporate had ever made me a permanent employee.

So, in my effort to remind my friends that change, loss, and not getting what you hoped for can actually turn out to be amazing in its own way ... here's the unpublished blog post from seven months ago:

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While I've had a number of really fabulous opportunities come my way over the past few years, there have been many disappointments and heartbreaks along the way, too. Today, I feel like writing about my behind-the-scenes, my outtakes reel, if you will, along my convoluted path to my dream gig.

Before I went to college, I had some illusions about becoming a published novelist upon graduating with my creative writing degree. Then, toward the end of my time at Oberlin, I got it in my head to apply for the Watson Fellowship—a $25,000 grant to travel the world for a year and focus my energy on a single project. My project proposal was to travel to Malaysia, Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa, and Suriname, and look at the intersection of long-distance running and humanitarian projects. I wanted to be inspired by the amazing ways that people have used the simple act of running to accomplish so many things—to spread joy, to supply neighborhoods in need with shoes and other resources, to empower women and kids throughout the world, to raise money for villages and schools and water wells, to bring disparate communities together—and I wanted to write about those efforts, as well as develop the skill set within myself to launch my own running-based, global nonprofit.

But alas, I bombed my interview with the fellowship committee at Oberlin. I was rejected at the first level of evaluation all Watson proposals undergo. It crushed me.

By the time I graduated, I'd adjusted my ambitions to what seemed like more practical pursuits: getting involved in the publishing industry, copywriting for a marketing team, or possibly working in corporate communications.

But even those jobs were hard to come by, in the midst of a difficult economy. My liberal arts degree  spun me into a poet, but left out the bill-paying kinds of skills that most of us need to survive in the big, bad "Real World."

So I chiseled away even more at my dream, began applying feverishly for jobs that I only sort of wanted, in any part of the country I could even vaguely see myself living. Still living in rural Ohio at the time, uncertain I had the money to move to a new place without securing a job first, I felt scared, and increasingly desperate.

Reed College, in Portland, interviewed me for a job in their admissions office. They turned me down.

When I applied for a one-year communications fellowship position with the Oberlin Office of Communications, I didn't get offered an interview.

YES! Magazine wouldn't even entertain my application for an assistant editor position.

Brooks Running didn't want me.

A marketing agency called Merkle interviewed me for an editing job and I never heard from them again. There's nothing worse than getting rejected from a crappy entry-level job with a marketing firm that's light years away from your true passion. But, that happened. A few times.

Heck, I couldn't even get Road Runner Sports to talk to me about a $10/hour "Running Specialist" job hawking shoes.

I was spiraling to the bottom of my dream funnel.

The day Reed rejected me for the admissions job, I hit a pretty bad low. So I took a step back and asked myself, "If I could have any job in the world right now, what would it be?"

... and found that my answer, at that time, was, Writing and editing for an outdoorsy magazine in Seattle. So I decided two things: One, I was going to move to Seattle, no matter what. Two, I was going to reach out to Carolyn, the editor of a magazine called Outdoors NW that I knew was published in Seattle. Their website didn't even have a section for jobs or employment, but I figured I could learn a thing or two from someone who'd been in a pioneer in the world of outdoors journalism for decades.

The next day, my dream funnel began opening back up: Carolyn wrote me back and offered to meet me for coffee and chat. (I hadn't even moved to Seattle yet!) When I did finally move and meet up with Carolyn, we hit it off instantly, and she gave me my first freelance writing assignment, putting together some book reviews. So began my own fledgling career in outdoors journalism.

(One more "rejection" worth noting: I wrote to the magazine Northwest Runner around the same time. They never responded to my email.)

Small successes began building: 24 Hour Fitness hired me as a front-desk minion (which I quit after one week with that horrible company.) REI hired me to work part-time, seasonally, in their flagship Seattle store as a sales specialist in the footwear department. Outdoors NW magazine eventually brought me on as an assistant editor. I made it through an "audition" with Kaplan Test Prep to work as a private SAT tutor for high school kids in the Seattle area, and survived four weeks of intimidating tutor training, designed to weed out anyone who was too nervous or insecure. I couldn't sleep at night for a whole month, I was so terrified of failing ... but I made it.

Yet, the stumbling blocks were far from over. The next year, I landed the temporary copywriting gig at REI, but was sent back to work retail at the store when the team's freelance budget for the year ran out ... invited back to the corporate offices at the beginning of the following year, but nevertheless strung along as a temp for another full year.

I applied for a digital content manager position with the Washington Trails Association, my favorite nonprofit in the Northwest—and though I was fortunate enough to be one of only a few people interviewed out of the nearly 100 who applied, ultimately they went with someone else as well (though, notably, offered the nicest rejection ever, which left me feeling warm and fuzzy about the whole experience, and equipped with honest, helpful feedback on why they'd gone with another candidate.)

But it still hurt. I can't tell you how many times that week I reread the words of Max Ehrmann from his 1927 Desiderata poem: "Whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should."

Fast forward a year, and after all that, I've finally landed the gig I always wanted in the first place.

Career musings in my personal journal, circa 2011

The experience of failure, by the way, does not go away with earning a job title. This week, even with the best intentions, I managed to do a disservice to an amazing athlete by writing a headline that felt too much like a "bait and switch" to several disgruntled readers (including several folks in the greater trail-running community whom I've long looked up to), who didn't waste a moment letting me know in the comments section they thought my headline was lame.

One stroke of acceptance does not insulate us from criticism. But, with criticism come lessons, and with lessons comes growth. At least that's what I keep telling myself, anyway ... :)

Ehrmann's poem concludes: "With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."

Watching sunrise from the summit of Mt. Sopris (12,966 feet) this week

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.

Pants, metaphorical tsunamis, and my new gig

Too many adventures to write about, too little time! Let it be known that over the past few weeks, I have donned a variety of pants - literal, figurative, and otherwise. I've taken turns wearing my fancy pants, my mountain pants, my eating pants, and of course, my running shorts.

(Please note: If you're tired of reading about mountains and running, you can find a brief interlude from those themes buried in the middle of this entry: just look for Cee Lo Green!) 

So, two weekends ago, I went to Oregon with my friend Deby for yet another crewing/pacing gig. While Deby knocked out her umpteenth 100-miler this year, I tagged along for the road trip down to southern Oregon and a long weekend of rich conversations, glorious meals, evening hot-tubbing, and sleep-walking mountain miles.

The race, Pine to Palm, is Oregon's only 100-miler. After cruising for two days around the backcountry roads there to support Deby and the other runners, I'm definitely adding P2P to my Ultra Bucket List. Beautiful part of the country, great trails, tons of runnable single-track, thoroughly challenging course. The time cut-offs, unfortunately, were rather aggressive early in the race; paired with intense heat on a lot of exposed ridges and a couple aid stations running out of water, the conditions caused many runners to drop out in the first half of the race.

Strong, steady, and determined as always, though, Deby cruised through like a champ. A little before midnight on Saturday, I jumped in at Dutchman Peak to run the last 35 miles with her. The thin air in the Siskiyou mountains got to us quickly. Around 3 a.m., while trudging up a long section of service road, we both began drifting into walking sleep. It's the strangest sensation, to be moving, to drift off for a second or two, and come to stumbling along in the darkness...your legs still walking, but your mind completely shut down. We curled up on the side of the road for a short nap, but found neither of us could actually sleep - so we marched onward. When the sun came out, it proffered a welcome energy lift.

Perhaps the most amazing moment of the weekend came in the form of a kind stranger at the finish line, who let us borrow her car for several hours to go retrieve our own from Dutchman Peak. Prior to her generosity, we had hit a bit of a panic, realizing suddenly we were not on our home turf in Washington, where we're both accustomed to knowing a good chunk of the people there and could count on hitching a ride with someone. The two other runners and crews we knew had both dropped out in the middle of the night, so we were essentially stranded at the finish line, with no friends, no prospects, no money (left our wallets in our car at Dutchman!), no cell phone reception...and certainly no energy to backtrack 35 rugged miles on foot to get back to our own vehicle. Disaster! Thank goodness for the kindness and trust of strangers. We live in a good world.






All the time I've been spending doing this sleep-deprived rambling around in the mountains has been good processing time for my little heart. 2012 has undoubtedly cast some tidal waves of change in my direction. Metaphorical tsunamis, for better or worse, require a good amount of energy to handle.

As many of you know, I recently accepted a new communications job with a mobile start-up. It was a difficult decision to leave REI, as for 3+ years it's been an absolutely amazing company to work for. Ultimately though, I'm really excited about this new opportunity to further develop my skill set - and hopefully make a bigger impact than I felt capable of making in my old role.

I wake up every day with new tasks to tackle, whether they be drafting letters, writing video scripts, designing newsletters, or in the case of last Friday afternoon - greeting, schmoozing with, and being the face of my company for 400+ members from all over the country. I met good folks from New Orleans, Tulsa, Salt Lake, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and beyond. Really cool experience. Then jetted over to Seattle's EMP in the evening for our official launch party...rocking out to Cee Lo, scarfing hors d'oeuvres, and sipping Sprites at the open bar like the classy lady I am.





But putting on my fancy pants (or dress, as it were) didn't prevent me from totally shifting gears and donning my mountain pants again at 7 a.m. the following morning.

We've had a truly beautiful summer here in the Northwest. 40 consecutive days without rain, and more sunny, blue-skied, 70-degree days than I could count. It's a shame to reach mid-September without having tromped around even once in the stunning North Cascades - so this weekend, with the help of my new friend Steve, I rectified that. There was a tremendous amount of fog, but happily, we enjoyed the little island paradise of Mt. Forgotten, rising above it all at 6000 feet.

It was a rigorous hike that began in deep fog - but the upshot was getting the mountain (true to its name!) all to ourselves. We ditched our packs for several little exploratory scrambles around. Tasty Ramen mash, mountaintop Scrabble, and cliff-side naps in the sunshine sweetened the whole experience. Not to mention obligatory post-hike milkshakes.

North Cascades for the win.

And...I like my life! Thank you to all who continue to make it a good one.

What happens when I don't blog for a month

This evening, I went for a nice long-ish run through Madison Valley, arguably one of the nicest parts of Seattle, and ultimately down to the shores of Lake Washington. At the end of the road is a dock that pokes out over the lake. I was about 3.5 miles into my run at this point, and decided to sprawl out on the dock beneath the horizon-bound sun for a solid 10 or 15 minutes before continuing my run. To say that I felt grateful to be alive in that moment is an understatement.


This picture was not taken today, but this entry feels like a good excuse to share this shot I took about a month ago after running to Golden Gardens - yet another lovely Seattle park on the water.
The sky felt big today...full of those massive, puffy clouds that didn't mind sharing sky space with the sun - a rare breed here in Seattle. I had the dock to myself, and nothing but the sounds of the water lapping against its legs beneath me. The temperature was perfect lying-on-a-dock-in-a-sweaty-t-shirt-and-shorts weather. I could see to the tops of Cougar and Tiger Mountains both, my running playgrounds, and some of the snowy peaks in the North Cascades as well. Really lovely indeed. I couldn't stop thinking, I live here. I ran from my doorstep to this place. I live here.

I got together with Lu last week for dinner (Thai food, yum!) and dessert (Yogurtland, yum!) and a lot of overdue catching up. At some point, we got to talking about how easy it is to forget that Seattle is a city surrounded (not entirely, obviously) by water. Although a city of hills opens itself to the possibility of amazing vantage points and views in surprising places, there are also plenty of spots in the city that proffer no view of the water at all. My daily walk to work is one of them.

So, in keeping with the lyrics that inspired the name of this blog, I do appreciate the times I'm able to be near the water. It's a rare run I go on that doesn't have me running along, around, or over some body of water. I love it.

It has been a week of quiet, content moments like that, and catching up moments like the one over hot noodles and curry with Lu, and also a week of letting go and embracing change. As many of you know by now, I was offered a full time copywriting gig at REI Headquarters for the summer - an opportunity I am beyond thrilled about, though it has meant a swift departure from many other aspects of my daily life this past year.

In the span of two weeks, I went to my last (for now) web design class, my last (for now) in-office day at the magazine, and on Thursday, my last day (for now) selling shoes at the Seattle REI store. Although the goodbyes said this week are not permanent in the sense that anyone will be out of my life entirely...my day-to-day routine will indeed change drastically, and the faces I see at work every day won't be the same. The "goodbyes" of this week reflect the inevitable groan of change that happens in our lives, and dang, it's never easy, even when the changes are exciting.

Cobbling together part time jobs and classes and the occasional freelance contract project has made for an interesting, wonderful, and full (!) two years in Seattle, but I am hungry to try life on a regular schedule again.

Over a year ago, when I went through my last "Whoops, I have too much on my plate" crisis, I remember a conversation with my friend Tom about how being stressed out not only sucks up your time, but it also deprives you of creative flow. Without the ability to let your mind genuinely wander, unencumbered by the onerous need to constantly monitor your mental to-do list, making art or envisioning anything new at all is difficult. Creativity and innovation flow only once you've decluttered your brain enough to make room for their possibilities.

Happily, since being offered the job this summer and starting to wean myself off my current mosaic schedule, I have felt more balanced and content than I have in a long time. I haven't been stressed. I have read a bunch of books. (Ann Patchett! Toni Morrison! Hello again, world of literature!) I have had time for my friends and for myself, and it's been quite lovely indeed.

With Alan in town for nearly the entire month of May, we got in a lot of nice adventures, including a day of hiking and sunshine and waterfalls and breweries and bookstore browsing up in Bellingham.




Several weekends ago, Alan and Elodie and I spent the better part of our Saturday gorging ourselves on free cheese samples at Seattle's annual Wine and Cheese Festival at the iconic Pike Place Market. Did you catch the part about it being free? Drool. Alan and I came home and filled our fridge with blue cheese, young Gouda, coconut cheese (infused with coconut oil, for real!), smoked cheddar, and acted as temporary hosts to Elodie's trove of soft, stinky French camembert.


Homemade nachos with smoked cheddar. So much for my dairy and gluten avoidance.
I also managed to make it to two of four days of the 40th Annual Northwest Folklife festival - a big old hippie party at the Space Needle every year, that Seyeon took me to for the first time in 2005, and which was a big part of why I thought I'd love living in this city. Voted "Biggest Flower Child" by my peers in my high school yearbook, is it really any surprise I went to Oberlin College and eventually wound up here?




Let's see...what else? Two evenings of dinner parties with good friends in a row - Kate and Jeff's Memorial Day deck warming party, complete with grilled burgers and mini cheesecake tarts, and Megan and David's kitchen warming/anniversary party, complete with spicy Thai soup, chocolate-covered strawberries, and the best homemade bread, made by my favorite Dutch mother currently living in the continental U.S.


Sunset last night from Dave and Megan's living room window.
Speaking of delicious food, Lauren and I hit up the brand new Skillet Diner on Capitol Hill; I'm definitely becoming one of those urban foodie divas that wants to try out all the hot foodie spots. Aiee. Seriously though...plaid shirts on all the wait staff, beer and wine in mason jars, damn good fries, and again, all within walking distance of home.

Earlier in the month, Alan and I trekked up to the small, old navy town of Port Gamble with the Outdoors NW crew for the Beast Adventure Triathlon. 6 miles sea kayaking, 16 miles mountain biking, and an embarrassingly short 5K trail run at the end...Neal, being the rockstar he is, covered the first two legs of the tri, before I took over for the final brief running leg. The weather was miserably characteristic of the Northwest, so we both got wet and cold, but (well, I speak for myself) had a blast nonetheless.


The mountain biking part was very hardcore.


Coming down the finishing chute!


Team ONW!
I've gone for some lovely runs with friends, including exploration of the water tower at Volunteer Park with Zanna (4.5 stars on trusty Yelp; go read about how people give themselves heart attacks climbing the stairs for the best free view of Seattle, then imagine the two of us RUNNING up those flights...heck yes), and my first time cruising around Carkeek Park with Ron - a sweet morning run sandwiched between delicious, raw, Incan-superfood-charged smoothies. Why am I friends with so many men (well, two at least) who eat weirder things than me, run in Vibram Fivefingers, speak with exclamation marks, and have adorable little boys I wish I could hang out with all the time? Life is good.


Summer is in the air, and I am grateful as ever to be alive and here. Hello June!

Ramblerambleramble on life.

Many years ago now, I initiated a huge, huge project that absorbed hours of my life every day - part journaling, part artwork, part web design, all with a huge dose of self-reflection - and I didn't tell a soul about it. To this date, until this moment in which I'm deciding to write about it on my public blog, nobody's really heard about it. Bear with me.

During my sophomore year in high school, I was fairly depressed and angsty. I was going through a devastating breakup in my young life, having lost my best friend and the person I'd been sure I was going to spend the rest of my life with it, all at once. My mom had gone back to school herself and my dad was getting crushed under his workload, so I felt like they were both too busy for me - and even when they weren't, I shut them out in the stubborn way that only 15-year-olds can. I hadn't really blossomed yet socially, and the word "shy" was still the dominant adjective people used to describe me. I was struggling with everything from my self esteem to my body image, from feelings of hopelessness to a serious exhaustion with life.

But I was good at hiding it.

At the same time, I recognized that I had to do something drastic to get myself out of the hole I felt like I was in. I credit my parents fully with having loaded up my emotional toolbox in childhood with tools to cope with challenging situations. I thought about what I'd read in my one of my favorite books at the time, "Succulent Wild Woman" by SARK: a story the author relayed about a male friend of hers who'd whined to his mother about not being able to meet the right woman. The mother told him to stop worrying about meeting the right woman (which was out of his control) and focus instead on making himself into the right man (which was within his control) so when he finally found her, he'd be ready for her.

That was my thinking when, at 15, I launched my secret project, which I dubbed DMTM - "Discovering Myself Through Myself." Using techniques Mike had taught me during our relationship plus a lot of research on my own, I built myself a website on my personal computer. I never uploaded it to the internet, but instead kept it buried on my PC for personal access only. I designed a main menu that led to a dozen pages and sub-menus. I moved my personal journal onto the site. I kept other writing I was proud of on it, too. I put up scans of my sketchbook pages. I kept record of any and all dreams I had and remembered. I showcased my budding web design projects - all with no audience in mind but myself.

The focus of my project was to redirect all my angsty energy into something productive - an investment in my own future. I refocused my journal entries on positive thoughts of change, of learning, of growth, rather than on negative ruminations about how stagnant and trapped and sad I felt at that point in my life. I meditated. I went running a lot. I tried to calm my soul, and recorded the entire process on DMTM as it was happening. On the first day of it, I wrote:

So many people spend their lives so desperately seeking their own purpose on this Earth, and they are seeking for it so intensely that they lose sight of what’s right in front of them. Life. Reality. Humanity. Being. Existence. This. Now. My purpose is to find myself and be true to that. I am forever changing myself, changing who I am, to make others happy. The few times I don’t do this are when I write in my journal with the confidence that no one is going to read what I’m writing and while I am running and my mind is completely centered on that.

In a world full of people screaming to be individuals, I’m just like everyone else. I want to leave my own unique imprint on the world. I want to be special, too. I want to inspire. I want to be an individual. But I’ve come to realize I can’t do that merely by dressing funky or writing band names on my backpack or posting my poetry in my AIM profile. I have to start small. Before I can even think of advertising who I am, I need to find out who that is. I don’t do that by trying a million different self-images out on my peers and seeing which one everyone else likes best. I have to start with myself.

Psychosocial scientist Erik Erickson acknowledged in his work that, indeed, identity formation is the most crucial task of adolescence. (Check!) The next steps of young adulthood and beyond include the searches for intimacy (vs. isolation) and "generativity" (vs. stagnation) - so I suppose those are naturally my next life projects. The point of writing about all this is that, first of all, I'm infinitely grateful to my 15-year-old self, and second of all, the amazing thing about personal development is that you can do it for free, anytime, anywhere, and it always, always yields results.

A few years ago, when I first began dreaming of moving to Seattle, I imagined myself securing from afar a full time job in publishing or editing. I certainly never imagined myself working in retail once I got here. And yet, "things not going as imagined" can be such an unforeseen asset. On the bright side, I work for three fantastic companies, doing diverse projects and work at each, generally loving it all - all the while getting to reflect a lot more on what aspects I appreciate most in each, plan for my future accordingly, learn about different business models, and develop my own life skills along the way. I love that REI pushes me constantly to be a better worker, a stronger communicator, a leader with positive drive and energy. I love that everything about my job with Kaplan is pretty far out of my comfort zone, and made me miserably scared at first, but sticking with it despite my anxieties has led me to grow into a confident, effective tutor. And I love that all my work at the magazine so far has helped illuminate for me this path I'm interested in pursuing further academically...the overlaps between print journalism and internet media. Hello world.

It almost feels like cheating to be reading books on personal success, because they're full of wisdom and lessons that people have taken entire lifetimes to earn - and I can access them all now, at this age. That's powerful. I've just been reading a ton of books lately. I've stopped checking my email or Facebook when I wake up, or on my breaks at work. I read books instead. It's completely transformed my energy levels throughout the day.

It's part of the reason Seyeon and I bonded so intensely when we met at Stanford the following year; I recognized instantly that disparate as our personalities were, we were made of the same clay. I emerged from conversations with her energized about life, about thinking, about learning, about planning for the future. We're both feeding off that energy again in each other now, and our reading/hiking seminar on Mt. Teneriffe last week was only the beginning. We're both going to school this fall; after Oberlin, I was burnt out on school and vowed not to do any more of it until my adult self figured out for sure what I wanted to study and could pay for it with my own money. That time has come.

Happily, Alan's on board, too. I know it's rare for me to do this much personal rambling on my public blog, and probably most of you won't make it this far anyway (web stats show that the average person reads only 18% of text on any given webpage), but I'd like to state for the record that I feel really lucky to be in a relationship with someone who loves and supports me as much as Alan does, and furthermore, is making purposeful tracks of his own in creating the future he wants. Motivational speaker Jim Rohn once said, "You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with." True story. I'm a lucky lady.

Let me know if you would like to share book recommendations. I'm in a reading frenzy, and would love to share in it with you. So, no awesome photos of beautiful Washington this week. Just a lot of enjoying being home, reading and writing and relaxing and catching up on both sleep and cuddle time with Chloe.


Thoughts always welcome, in the form of blog comments, emails, Facebook messages, handwritten letters, phone calls, in person, or whatever other crazy medium you can come up with.

Probing the recesses of Yitka's post-college psyche

So, I'm at the (temporary) end of a long, dark tunnel of stress, and thus am putting forth a more in-depth, content-driven blog entry about some of my thoughts and emotions beyond "Seattle, woohoo" and "Coffee, awesome."

Actually, I'm not really at the end of any tunnel, temporary or not, at all - not even close - but I'll pretend! It was a twelve-hour work day for me, so I'm in need of some journaling and detoxing! I'm enjoying Seyeon's chocolate brownies with homemade cream cheese frosting, and a giant glass of soymilk. It's 57 degrees out - total jacket weather, which felt *great* on the walk home from work; I've decided to quit being a lazy bum and driving my car all 1.8 miles to my job. No excuses anymore. The fact that I can walk to work, the gym, the public library, the grocery store, my new doctor's office, or any of 452348238 coffeeshops is awesome, and I am taking full advantage.

So. Life after college. It's surreal to continue following the Oberlin blogs, for whom I used to write, and know that academic life is carrying on for so many other people, but not for me - and for the first time in my life, no one really cares what I do to occupy my time all day long. I was out on an epic run yesterday and passed a whole group of high schoolers at Seward Park. They were apparently on a school field trip, and it was so strange to think that all of them had a confined area in the park they could go, and chaperones to answer to, and a deadline at which they'd have to board the bus again and go back to school. Meanwhile, I could just run...literally, run away.

When Natalie was in town and she and Lu and I got together, we discussed how strange it is that our entire lives up until this point have revolved around working toward another obvious stage - getting through middle school to get to high school, getting through high school to go to college, getting through college to get to graduation. And then what? There are no certainties anymore! Some hopes, perhaps - a lasting relationship, maybe grad school, a steady satisfying career, a family someday - but nothing in our futures is certain anymore. Things are a lot more up in the air...as well as a lot more up to us, individually, than ever before.

There are enough stories out there of people hitting middle age and feeling that the time just passed them by. Regrets, often. I do not want to be one of those people. I was determined to hit the ground running out of college, and even though there were some hitches along the way (graduating in the worst year to be a college graduate in nearly a century, and with a financially impractical degree), I feel like I'm not doing too shabbily for being about 10 weeks into my new life in a new city: two delightful, rewarding jobs I'm passionate about, my name in print in an awesome magazine, being in the best shape of my life and plans to run the Seattle marathon in two months, the beginnings of some good new friendships, and plans to get an apartment with Alan in November.

I feel fortunate that my mind hasn't changed too much over the years. To illustrate this idea: the first computer password I ever created for myself, probably back in elementary school, was "author33" - because I wanted to be an author when I grew up, and because I thought 33 was the most magical number in the world. Miraculously, over a decade later, I still want to be an author, and anyone who's spent more than a few hours in my presence in recent years has probably heard me sing praises for the number 33. (If you haven't, please ask! I'd be delighted to elaborate for you!)

Anyway: the fact that I don't change my mind much certainly makes planning out my life at this point easier; instead of devoting huge amounts of energy to deliberating over what I want to do with myself, I get to concentrate my energies on crossing things off my existing life to-do list, one by one. Several years ago, at the very tail end of my blogging time with Xanga, I wrote a "Life Plan" entry, with the tagline, "The idealist in me needs some tangible dreams to hang on to this summer." It's cool to look back on that entry, written in the midst of a troubling, floundering time in my teenaged years, and see that in the time since, I've already accomplished six of the "tangible dreams" I wrote about that summer.

Again, as with the tale of my graduation cap (which, UPDATE (!!!) - was featured in the Oberlin's alumni magazine's current issue!), I kind of want to give my past self a high-five.

And, of course, there are new goals now: I want to be a recession success story! I want to move up with both/either of the fantastic companies for whom I now work. I want to start my own business. I want to climb Mount Rainier. I want to hike the Appalachian Trail. I want to head my own non-profit. I want to publish a work of nonfiction. I want to travel extensively in Africa. I want to learn how to design websites. I want to advance my photography skills. I want to grow my own food.

And there are revised ones, too: job at literary agency or publishing company? Meh...there are other career paths that interest me more. Dancing the funky chicken on my 75th wedding anniversary? Doubtful :) But I can live with all that. What matters to me now is just that I don't lose focus of the dreams I had going into college - the ones that propelled me through those four years, and to this city, and into the shoes I'm wearing today - the ones that whisk me away for hours of running along the shores of Lake Washington and carry me home through Seattle's winding, hilly streets at the end of a long day's work.

Ennui-less in Seattle

What a week so far. I haven't stopped going since Monday morning...not sure how much longer my caffeine resistance is going to hold out. Especially now that I've officially gone off the deep end by accepting a fourth job that will get me out of the house by 4:45 a.m. a few mornings a week.

But! So far, so good, despite my ostensible foolhardiness on the job front. However, multiple jobs lead to good things, like
- money
- feelings of purpose and accomplishment
- gratitude, especially in this economy
- many new friends


And those things lead to fabulous adventures like last Sunday night! REI hosted a staff beach party on Alki Beach - miles of actual beach (not just a strip of gravel and rocks that the city of Seattle seems to think can be referred to as a "beach"), with sand you can dig your toes into and everything. It's located in West Seattle, which means that, like the photo posted several entries ago taken from Gasworks Park, it affords a stunning view of the downtown skyline from across the waters of Puget Sound (Elliott Bay, in the case of Alki; Lake Union, in the case of Gasworks.)


I got off work at 7:30 on Sunday, swung by my coworker Zanna's houseboat on Lake Union to give her a ride to the beach bash, swung by home to pick up Seyeon, and the three of us trekked across the West Seattle Bridge with a mission - make it to beach before the bonfire was out and all the marshmallows roasted. We pulled it off!


We stayed late with a couple of other REIsters (apparently that's the lingo for us; I'm learning) around the bonfire, watching it go down, talking about life, trying to find the perfect placement in relation to the fire to keep from either burning up or freezing our butts off in the September nighttime chill.

In other magical nights in Seattle, I got together with fellow Oberlin alum (!) Zoe, who hails from Portland originally but is going to grad school up here. We missed connections a lot throughout our years at Oberlin, despite having been in touch (via the now ancient blogging website, Xanga) the summer before college even began. It was great to finally get to know one another a bit more, and in the context of the city. We went out for great Mexican grub on Broadway, then off to Gasworks Park for a lovely sunset, the longest falling shooting star either of us had ever seen (it started directly overhead and fell, over the course of many slow, beautiful seconds, to the horizon before finally burning out), and a long night lying on the grassy side of a hill overlooking the sparkling skyline.


Final other highlights of the week, in spite of the 60+ hours of labor:
- Seeing a really stirring, well-orchestrated performance of Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" at the Intiman Theater with Lu
- 8, 12, and 16 mile runs along Lake Washington Boulevard, with clear and stunning views of both Mount Rainier and Mount Baker
- Fabulous, killer cycling class earlier today
- Lots and lots of cookies and cupcakes, courtesy of Seyeon's spectacular baking skills
- The usual awe and wonder: mountains, sunrises, sunsets, Space Needle, I-love-Seattle, blah blah blah...


:)

Hallelujah! (Warning: self-indulgent celebration)

The job search is over! Several thousand miles and nine time zones away, my mother is having ice cream and a glass of wine at this moment to mark the occasion. So...

The Numbers:
43 Word documents in the "Job Search" folder on my computer (cover letters, tweaked resumes, writing samples, etc.)
22 job applications
7 interviews

The Gigs:

REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) - Sales Associate


REI ranked 12th in 2009 on FORTUNE magazine's list of The 100 Best Companies to Work For. Health insurance for everybody, plus unbelievable perks, ranging from FREE equipment rentals to discounts on weekend adventure trips, from 50% discounts on REI gear to partially subsidized bus passes and gym memberships, from personal athletic event sponsorship to free chocolate. Plus a 65-foot climbing wall, 25+ hours of paid training and 300 like-minded Seattleites to befriend! + Walking/biking distance from my house. Basically, I get to work at Disney World for Grownups.
Check it out>>>

Kaplan Test Prep - SAT/ACT Tutor
Intense job application process! Online application + initial teaching "audition" in front of a Kaplan representative and a group of peers + taking the new SAT Writing test to score qualify + second interview with Kaplan representative. My writing score actually took a ten-point dip from when I took the SAT II: Writing test at 17 (putting that $200K creative writing degree to work! Haha.) Never would have guessed my standardized scores would win me a job opportunity, but now I can work totally flexible, set-my-own-schedule hours helping people learn and pursue their dreams...what a job!
Check it out>>>

Outdoors NW - Freelancer, Intern
Well, this one's kind of informal, but I'm working out different ways I can collaborate with the magazine - writing stories, small editorial projects, learning more of the sales/marketing ropes of the publication business. My first official print bylines will be out in the upcoming Sept/Oct issue, and I'm downright thrilled to be working with a magazine that's so in line with my passions.
Check it out>>>


That's a sunrise over downtown Bellevue, as seen from Seattle
I even got to be picky enough to cancel future interviews I'd set up and reject job offers. Initially, I was thrown by the sense that all my efforts and carefully crafted cover letters were just disappearing into a dark, empty abyss. I thought I couldn't be picky, that I'd have to take whatever scraps of opportunity anybody threw me. Nope, absolutely not. It may be an employers' market, but I refused to settle. The result is that I feel absolutely fantastic about what's actually worked out, and though a couple months of unemployment and two cross-country road trips has wreaked absolute havoc on my bank account, I am more content than ever. But...it's taken more energy and positive focus than I can articulate. A dig back into a journal entry from several months ago can vouch for that:

May 14, 2009

Wow. Again...life! I feel unbelievably good in this moment. Nothing has fallen into place whatsoever - Reed fell through, didn't get the Communications fellowship either, backed down a bit on the summer scholars internship in Oberlin, flat out ignored job offers with the Oberlin City School district, and my home base in Kansas is disappearing - but I feel better and more settled in this moment than ever. I am going to Seattle. I just decided, today. It's as good as done in my mind, and I am so happy. There is so much pulling me out there, it's crazy.

I sense so much "right"ness about not getting these jobs, because something, some force in the universe, is pulling me to Seattle. I was talking to Jason at work a few days ago about the job frustrations, and he went a little into preacher mode, but I really did find comfort in his message - something to the effect of "God's closing doors on you for a reason, because he's got got much bigger plans for you. You just can't see them yet." He went on to say, "You're a smart girl, Yitka. Things will work out for you. Just have faith that they will." And that I can certainly have faith in. Rejection stings, but with the Watson, Reed and the Communications job all under my belt, it's getting better. It hurts less each time, makes me feel more confident each time that I'll be better equipped to deal with rejection in the future. Nobody became successful without getting rejected a thousand times along the way. As Sid nailed into my head, all success is really just a product of persistence. I CAN DO THIS.

I know the job market's going to be awful once I'm out there - Zephyr confirmed thus today on the phone - but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Thank you, Universe, for closing the necessary doors now and opening (I hope!) the right one, somewhere on the horizon...

The first week!

Apologies for the delay in updates! For being untethered, unemployed, and generally without friends here yet, I've managed to keep myself incredibly busy in my time in Seattle so far. But I do fully plan on continuing to post here, at least once or twice a week, about my new life as it unfolds and develops.


First of all, I think I'm completely disillusioned - in the absolute best of ways! Seattle feels like paradise to me - everything I ever dreamed it would be, and then some. The Blue Scholars song for which this blog is named, Inkwell, sums it up so well: Ain't nothing better than summer in the northwest. I know I'm getting a massively warped impression of Seattle, but so far, it has been sunny and ranged somewhere between 65 and 90 degrees every day here. Zero humidity. Almost no bugs or mosquitoes. I can see the Cascade mountains from my (screenless!) bedroom window. A vegetable garden with fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and snap peas and herbs below. Flowers blooming left and right. Living within walkable distance of downtown Seattle, runnable distance of the fantastic 24-hour gym I'm going to become a member of for the whopping deal of $30/month, bikeable distance of anything else I could ever need, and less than a hour's drive from vast mountains and national forests.


Look how beautiful my neighborhood is!
And just as I remembered, the trees are HUGE! Seyeon demonstrates:

I seriously feel as though I live in heaven now. (I'm told the grace period for the Northwest can last up to five years, before the rainy, overcast winters start to get under your skin...we'll see how I'm doing six months from now.)

So, most of my time is being actively absorbed with my job search - a daunting process that wavers between zealous excitement and energy-sucking discouragement. As much as I feel that blogging about the process would be of comfort to me (venting about the disappointments, celebrating the small triumphs and hopes at this point), I'm scared of jinxing anything, and so will leave it alone for now. With that said, in other news...

I got together for lunch with Zephyr, one of my friends I met in Amsterdam on my study abroad program several years ago. She lives in the Seattle area now, and it was delightful catching up with each other. Living with Seyeon is ever lovely - we're both in somewhat uncomfortable limbos of our own at this point, but not without big dreams and hopes for moving more in our ideal direction - jobwise and otherwise.

On a very happy note, I've been in email contact with the publisher of an outdoorsy magazine out here for several months. I sent her an email on a whim months ago, thinking she'd never respond, but lo and behold, she did - and last week, I got a "Welcome to Seattle!" email from her. She suggested I come out to CycleFest 2009 at Magnuson Park, an annual event where thousands of bike enthusiasts gather, picnic, listen to live music, get free gear, eat, drink, and be merry, and come sundown, watch the Tour de France broadcast on a huge, inflatable screen outside.


My bike is still back in Kansas City, awaiting eventual U-haul transport out here, but showing up to CycleFest was a great way to see more of the city, meet local outdoorsy enthusiasts (they're not hard to come by in the Northwest!) and get to know someone wonderful whom I think is apt to become a bit of a mentor figure for me here in Seattle. As I drove back from Magnuson Park, the sun was just going down over the water - stunning as this place is. I am content.