10,000 Hours and the Agony of Untold Stories

I quit my job last Friday.

It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made, because I have the kind of job that I’ve spent my entire young life working to get. The kind of job that’s taken me to heart-pounding waterfalls in Iceland, to the tops of volcanoes in the Canary Islands, to the beaches of Oahu, to the finish line of Colorado’s Leadville Trail 100, to the San Juan mountains to camp out and hike with one of the coolest families I’ve ever met. The kind of job that has let me meet, connect with, work with, run with, learn from, write about and write for thousands of amazing people all over the world. The kind of job that has people routinely commenting on my Facebook page with comments like, “Holy best job in the world!”

How does one decide to quit a job like that?

When I was in Hawaii last year to run and write about the XTERRA World Trail-Running Championships, I crossed paths with a wonderful woman named Kim Rogers—whose full-time job was as a travel writer for Outrigger Hawaii. This essentially meant a salary and expense account to traipse around the Hawaiian islands, hiking and surfing and kayaking and meeting wonderful humans, photographing her journeys and writing about them all in meaningful ways.

And, several months ago, after six years at that job, she quit, too.

I doubt if I can articulate my own reasons as well as she did in this blog post entitled "Why I Quit the Best Job in the World," but in it, she shared a wonderful quote attributed to Maya Angelou: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

When I was in elementary school, I understood this. In fact, it’s probably what got me through elementary school. I was young for my class, shy and socially awkward, an easy target for the innocent but nevertheless piercing sort of cruelty that children are capable of. In other words, I often felt grateful to escape school and go home. Though I loved learning, my favorite part of the day was composing stories in my head on my walk home each afternoon, then dashing up to my bedroom to start writing. I was brimming with novels and short stories, and they came rushing out of me with a ferocity I dream of someday recapturing in my adult life.

In his oft-quoted book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell suggests that mastery in any field requires approximately 10,000 hours of practice. I have no idea how many hours I’ve racked up putting pen to paper, or clacking away at a computer keyboard under the yawning emptiness of a blank Word document, but I can say this—despite majoring in creative writing in college and building a career thus far around writing-related jobs, the majority of those hours were between the ages of 7 and 17.

And I was confident back then, too. At age 10, I told my parents I wanted to publish my first book—a 50,000-word novel I’d written called Mrs. Graud. It was about a young girl befriending a hermitic, unpopular woman in the neighborhood who turns out to be quite kind, then reveals she has cancer, so the protagonist begins a fundraising campaign for the woman’s treatment. (On a sidenote, I recall drawing inspiration for this story from the Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat, in which Brother and Sister Bear bravely trick-or-treat at the house of an old woman rumored to be a witch, but who actually turns out to be very nice, as well as flush with caramel apples—which are better than Dum-Dums or Jolly Ranchers any day.)

Anyway, rather than resorting to stock responses like, “OK sure sweetie, you can do anything!” or “Haha, publish a novel at age 10? Hilarious!”, my parents told me if I was serious about getting published, I should do some research on what’s really involved.

So, I put together a 10-page (single-spaced, even) research report on how to publish a novel—preparing a manuscript, submitting a query, landing an agent, securing a contract, working with a publisher. I could learn a lot from my 10-year-old self. The report is filled with useful advice like, “An agent learns how to get the most from the publicity department, examines an author’s royalty statements, makes sure the author gets paid properly, sells subrights and licenses for a book, and is basically an author’s book’s greatest advocate. Agents are also helpful in the way that they can complain and yell at the editor about the things the author wants changed, so that the author himself won’t jeopardize his relationship with the editor.”

Outside magazine recently published a thought-provoking article by Ben Hewitt on the case for “unschooling”—a radical approach to childhood education that involves taking kids out of the classroom completely and letting them learn everything organically, “out in the real world.” It’s not in elementary school curriculum, for example, to have fifth-graders do research reports on book publishing. Not that I was ever “unschooled,” but how cool is it that I was encouraged to do something like that when I was young?

Every summer, though my parents always asked whether I wanted to attend camps or summer programs, like other kids did—and I did some (thank you YMCA in Estes Park for instilling in me a love for the mountains!)—above all, I just begged for free, unstructured time with which to write. And, I do wonder: Would I be the writer I am today without the thousands of hours I spent holed up with my imagination, exploring the characters I’d created, honing my understanding of language?

I still feel nostalgic for the reckless abandon with which I wrote when I was younger—not worrying about profitability, not worrying about how many clicks or shares something gets on the Internet, not ever doubting for a moment that my name would be on the bookshelf at Borders (RIP) by the time I hit middle school. Or high school. Or college.

Someone texted me earlier this week to say she’d heard that I’d quit my job. “Was this a long time coming?” she asked.

On one hand, no; when I took the job with Trail Runner, I certainly thought I’d stay longer than two years. I wouldn’t take back a moment of it, for I’ve grown immensely in these years—as a writer, as an editor, as a human being. And, I still plan to write plenty for Trail Runner—hopefully even more than I have the time for now.

On the other hand, yes, it was a long time coming in that I’ve spent the last two decades of my life talking about wanting to publish a book. Though I’ve been fortunate enough to tell many meaningful stories in my time at the magazine, I still have dozens more inside of me—ones longer than magazine format, ones not necessarily about trail running, ones waiting, if not demanding, to be explored.

Last week, I’d already made up my mind to give notice at my job when this happened: Midway through my 18-mile commute to work on a two-lane road, I came around a corner and had just barely enough time to swerve out of the way of a car that had crossed almost entirely over into my lane. We missed hitting one another head-on at 50mph by a matter of inches. It was just a few miles north of the spot where a young woman was killed in a head-on collision less than two months earlier. As I felt the adrenaline course through my body, my first thought was one of outrage—not at the careless driver who’d drifted across the highway, but at myself. I thought, “Damn it, if that car had hit and killed me today, I’d be so pissed that I never got to tell the world all my stories.”

Luna and Me

I'm not a car person.

But, allow me some sentimentalism: this month marks the 10-year anniversary of my obtaining Luna Moonshine, the '99 periwinkle-colored VW Passat that's been the only car I've ever owned. And, several days ago, I finally said goodbye and put her to rest in the hands of a VW shop here in Colorado.

Over our shared decade, we traveled roughly 100,000 miles together. She moved with me from Kansas to Ohio to Washington to Colorado. She road-tripped with me to Chicago (twice!), to Massachusetts to visit my good friend Becs and experience Trader Joe's for the first time, to New Orleans for three weeks of hurricane relief work after Katrina, to Kentucky for my very first backpacking trip, to the depths of the Cascadian jungle in western Washington for many a banjo jam session by the river.

She died a few times, including once at the end of a 20-mile gravel road in the woods, after which she had to be hauled out of by Cambajamba's jeep and a four-foot tow rope. She suffered sub-freezing nights in Ohio, rain storms in Seattle, snow storms in western Colorado. She was only ever in one accident. On one of the rare occasions I permitted someone else to drive her (those who know me know I was always protective of Luna), she was rear-ended on a highway exit ramp and had to have her bumper replaced.

In her final years, she cost me a fortune in repairs, not to mention in taking only premium gas for a decade; I'd be lying if I said I wasn't happy to be washing my hands of VWs and hopping on the Toyota bandwagon. But, that won't stop me from making an overly sentimental post here on my blog about our many good years together.

The Kansas days. Christine and Pat and I pack for our first road trip--to Chicago, for Lollapalooza, to see Weezer and Death Cab for Cutie and other high-school favorites. Luna was bumper-sticker galore back then, including but not limited to cliches such as: ART NOT APATHY; Compassion is Revolution; SAVE THE DRAMA FOR YO MAMA; People are Miracles; Every breath is a gift; ENJOY LIFE THIS IS NOT A DRESS REHEARSAL.

My first backpacking trip, in Mammoth Cave National Park, with Sahale, Ezra, Erika and Shari. It rained for 40 hours straight. Magical as the trip was, we cut a planned five-day trek short after three days and I was grateful to Luna for putting the "car" in "car camping" that night. As in, I slept in her front seat that night.

Piling into Luna in New Orleans with Ruth, Anna, Daniel and Adam after a long day of gutting houses.

My commute through northeast Ohio farm country from Oberlin to Elyria for my job at Dick's Sporting Goods--the first job to send me down a running/outdoors-related career path, and also introduce me to some incredible friends outside of the "Oberlin bubble."

Sunset over I-90 in Washington state, the night I arrived in Seattle after a 2000 mile drive from Kansas, and a few days' stopover in Glacier National Park to visit Shari and hike the heck out of some beautiful Montana trails. Real world, adult livin', here I come.

Cruising the streets of my new hometown the next day. Seyeon took this picture from my backseat, because my front seat was still full of moving boxes.

One of my first travel-writing gigs, with OutdoorsNW magazine--road-tripping to Oregon's Willamette Valley to ride my bike, go wine-tasting and write about it for the magazine! Thanks to Carolyn for entrusting me with the assignment.

Luna pretending to be a 4WD mountain car, playing chauffeur to my annual Christmas-in-Seattle tradition with Elodie and James--snowshoeing! In the Seattle years, post accident-and-bumper-replacement, Luna sports new hippie bumper stickers, including but not limited to: Run Happy; Namaste; I {heart} New Orleans; 50k Vashon Ultra.

The neighborhood cats in Seattle loved Luna.

Other creatures have also enjoyed sleeping on, or in, Luna. She played chauffeur to the most magical road trip of all time, out to the Methow Valley for the Angel's Staircase 25K with Tom and Elodie. (Flatlanders running straight up an 8000-foot mountain elicits midday car naps.)

Luna also earned me my favorite parking ticket, featuring the best butchering of my name EVER. I've seen Yikta, Yata, Yakita, Yita, Yika, Yikita ... but this. This was a whole new level.

Luna survives a long, cold, grueling drive from Seattle to Colorado at the beginning of this year for my new gig with Trail Runner.

My mom (visiting from Holland earlier this month!) and I saying goodbye to Luna in the VW lot here in Colorado where we left her.

RIP Luna. Thank you for 10 years of awesome!

Slowing down and deriving growth from solitude

Yesterday at work, my colleague Gina remarked, "You don't update your blog much, do you?"

Oh no. Have I become one of those bloggers? But it's true; the frequency of my postings have been on a steady decline since I started 'Proximity to Water' in 2009 - an average of 8 or 9 postings a month that year, down to 5 or 6 in 2010, on down to 3 a month in 2011, 2 a month in 2012 and ...

Well, I'm not doing so well in 2013.

In some ways, it's counter-intuitive. I've been enjoying unprecedented swaths of free time this year, and could easily churn out a blog entry a day if I really wanted to--but I haven't been.

It begs the question, why not? Here are several theories:
1. After many years of juggling part-time gigs, freelance work and temp jobs, this month marks my first full year of steadily working behind a computer for 40-hour, Monday-Friday work weeks. Sometimes the last thing I want to do at the end of my work day is stare at another screen.
2. Perhaps I'm just following up on the goals I set for myself this year, hazily defined as they were. One of my 2013 New Year's "Projects" was to spend less time online. I also wrote in February about unplugging from daily internet usage (outside of work), and no longer wanting to contribute to this phenomenon of everyone else's lives appearing, from the outside, so much better than our own. Sometimes I worry that, in the past, my blog has painted too idyllic a picture of my daily life--and it's this kind of internet-ing, in particular, that I want to shy away from. I want people to come away from my blog feeling inspired and connected, not jealous and alienated. Above all, I want to be authentic, open, honest--and yet, not at the expense of the privacy of people I'm close with. It's a fine line, and perhaps the more nervous I am of overstepping it, the less I share on my blog.
3. Or ... could it be that living in a city simply provides more fodder for blog-oriented content?

Okay, I say this a little tongue-in-cheek. I don't intend this to devolve into a debate over whether urban living or small-town living is better; honestly, I'm grateful to to have experienced both environments at this point in my life. I do find the differences compelling to explore, though.

Yesterday evening, I called my good friend Cam(bajamba) in Seattle, who picked up his phone and happened to be out to dinner at my all-time favorite restaurant in Seattle, Annapurna, with a boisterous group of mutual friends of ours. After their feast of authentic Himalayan food, they planned to hit up a new bar on Capitol Hill, my old neighborhood and stomping grounds. The good old pass-the-phone game was played. Birthday girl Angelina screamed my name into the phone in excitement over and over again, then yelled to the group: "Hey everyone, Yitka's coming back for July 4th this year!"

Hut Trip with Seattle friends, 2012

In that moment, I missed Seattle and my friends there more than I can possibly put into words. The ambient noise in the background of the restaurant, the voices, the clinking of glasses and dinner plates, the laughter ... all of it was in such stark contrast to my quiet living room here--made quieter by the fact that Steve's out in the mountains for several days this week--nothing but a gentle wind in the aspens and the sounds of the river in the distance.

My life here is about as far away as can be from my life in Seattle.

For the most part, I think I've adjusted well. I enjoy my job greatly, and I feel extraordinarily content with the life Steve and I have built together out here. I love our home, our routines, the food we make together, the trails out of our backyard, our fledgling garden ... Several nights ago, we grilled out on our back deck as the sun went down, watched as the deer came out in the twilight and the first stars appeared in the darkening sky. Yesterday evening, I baked muffins and brought them to a town potluck/picnic down the street, on the banks of the Crystal River, and got to know some more of our neighbors. Moments like these make me wonder how I ever lived in a city, no yard to speak of, bedroom windows pressed up to those of neighbors I'd never spoken to.

Baby bok choy just beginning to sprout on our sunny back deck

Here, I can do long runs in the mountains from my doorstep, or from any of a series of trailheads within ten minutes by car. In Seattle, I drove half an hour to get to the mountains, and had to time it so as not to hit rush hour on my way in or out and tack on an extra 30 minutes to my trail-commute. I don't worry out here about my car getting broken into at trailheads here, nor about not finding a spot in Wal-Mart-sized parking lots at popular trailheads, because most days out here I don't encounter a single other soul on the trails.

Backyard playground. No other humans anywhere.

Solitude can be beautiful--and often, immensely productive--but I think the experiences that arise in its midst can be more difficult to put into words than the external experiences I had in Seattle and found so easy to churn out blog entries about--the restaurants I ate at, coffeeshops frequented, events attended, urban routes explored, people met.

My evenings and weekends here are pretty consistent and predictable--make food, eat food, do NY Times crossword, go for a run or hike, watch Chloe hunt moths in our apartment, sleep. At the risk of this devolving into a cooking blog, a crossword blog or simply a gratuitous photo blog (not that there's anything wrong with those, but just seems like those niches have already been covered ... ), sometimes I wonder what is left to blog about from among my day-to-day experiences.

Food: Always an adventure here!

More food! Typical weekend brunch at our house.

And yet, perhaps this is just what the doctor ordered. After a few exciting years of hustle and bustle in the big city and a lot of focus on, indeed, my external experiences, I feel like small-town Colorado is helping me turn inward and work on myself in really meaningful ways. Though it's still early June, an almost-mid-year reflection on my progress toward my New Year's projects shows that this place is helping me grow in all the ways I hoped to this year:

• The Simplicity Project: I ditched a lot of possessions when I moved out here, I sleep in on weekends now, I've succeeded in no longer "glorifying busy-ness", and I don't feel perpetually "behind" on keeping in touch with far-away friends
• The Wellness Project: I'm sleeping more, spending more time outside, and eating 10 times better than ever before--mostly plant-based, unprocessed foods, nearly everything from scratch (well, + a healthy dose of coffee and beer)
• The Courage Project: Boom. I've been confronted with more criticism (mostly constructive) in the past few months than ever before, and feel like I'm learning to handle it better each time

Sometimes a little solitude is what we need most to flourish. For what it's worth, here is the best essay I've ever read on the subject: http://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership. If you do nothing else with your day today, read this essay. It changed my life when I first encountered it several years ago, and in some ways, can be attributed for the place in my life at which I now find myself--slowed down, more relaxed, and content with being a little less surrounded by people.

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.

On the glorification of busyness

This morning, I met up with a good friend and went for an early (but not crazy early), long (but not crazy long) run in the mountains outside of Seattle. As many of my one-on-one runs with ladies go, we wound up talking a lot about our lives.

At some point, she shared a mantra she's focusing on in her life: Stop glorifying busyness.

This, coming from a woman who works full-time at a fairly stressful job, but in a compressed schedule that gives her four days off each week to devote to things like raising chickens, growing vegetables in her garden, making jams and canning pickles, traveling, neighborhood bartering, and having some awesome running adventures here and there. To someone like me who hardly finds time to cook dinner once in a blue moon, she absolutely gives the appearance of someone who's figured out the balance thing in her life.

But, in our different ways, we confessed to struggling with this same issue of glorifying busyness.

What an apt phrase, I thought. I'm sure my mother would agree...I have an insidious habit of overcommitting my time and energy. Facebook friends and readers of my blog sometimes ask me, "Are you even employed? Where do you find the time for everything?"

I find it, of course, the way most everyone else in our fast-paced society finds it - by cramming it in. I multitask. I sleep less. I sacrifice time with friends. I'm a zealot for to-do lists. As I've blogged about here, I do things like read books while I'm on the treadmill, listen to podcasts while I cook, run up and down mountains between work and evening classes, or watch TED talks while doing crunches on my bedroom floor at 11:30 PM. I've gone from being an avid journaler who filled entire notebooks in a couple months to someone who hardly manages a few pages of written introspection each month.

Generally, I take pride in my productivity. I work hard; I play hard. "How have you been?" people ask me. "Pretty good," I say, "but busy!"

But does busy always equal awesome? Many times, yes; I wouldn't trade my adventures for the world.


Pacing at Cascade Crest 100: Photo by Glenn Tachiyama
But sometimes, awesome is also just a weekend at home, with no alarm clocks and absolutely nothing on the docket. For the past 12 consecutive weekends, I have had big (awesome!) things going on: being out of town for a race or all-day hike, having out-of-town guests stay with me, or staying awake for 40 hours straight to volunteer and run in the mountains. Of those 12 weekends, eight involved ultramarathon-distance runs. The last truly "unscheduled" weekend I had was June 2, and even then, it was two days before moving to a new apartment...hardly relaxing.

Part of it, I'll write off as an affliction of living in the Pacific Northwest. When so many nearby beautiful places are covered in snow for 80% of the year, I think it's natural to want to go soak up every hour of sunny summer daylight playing outside. But part of it, too, is indeed my tendency to glorify busyness. As if being constantly doing stuff somehow gives my life value. As if a to-do list can be an identity.

Where did that come from?

When I was growing up, I begged my parents not to schedule up my summers. Aside from our annual June trip to Colorado, where I happily attended a week of day camp to play in the mountains, I wanted my summers clear. I had novels to write, magazines to design, books to pore through, art projects to do, bike routes to explore, treasure hunts to design, and yes, I'll admit it, one summer, a virtual kingdom on Neopets to develop. (That was the year I had to explain to my parents and pediatrician that yes, I still had friends in the real world, too.)

Don't get me wrong: to-do lists have their place in my life. As I learned this morning, I'm not the only one who makes them on my fancy phone in bed at night. Oi vey. But how productive am I, really, when I put relentless, often exhausting, pressure on myself to do, do, and do more? Isn't it okay to sometimes just be?

This weekend I gave myself permission to just be. What a gift. Did I do nothing? Of course not; I read books and took naps and went for walks around the neighborhood and met up with good friends for tea, sushi, and backyard salmon grilling. I watched some Seinfeld over a pint of Haagen Dazs. I spent an entire morning in my PJ's honing my elementary programming skills. But none of it came from a list; it was all what I felt like doing spontaneously, in that moment. I feel calmer tonight than I have in ages, and am no longer panicking that I burnt myself out on running this summer. It's not the running per se that did me in; it's busyness in general that's left me metaphorically gasping for breath.

So. To my blog readers, to the bottom of this evening's mug of tea, to the almost full moon out my window: I am pledging tonight to stop glorifying busyness...at least for entire summers at a time.

Cheating my inner productivity-drill-sergeant

I intended to sit down and write an entry about habits, but I got so sidetracked elaborating on the first one I wanted to discuss - reading - that I guess I need to resign this entry to being solely about that. I'm all right with that.

Reading has been huge for me this year! I'm thrilled, because I struggled for a long time with giving myself permission to read. Curling up with a book often felt like too much of an indulgence. It still does, sometimes, but I've found a few ways to cheat my inner productivity-drill-sergeant and allow myself the indulgence anyway.

1. Track books I read on GoodReads. That way, even when I'm snuggled up in my papasan chair with my cat, a mug of tea, and a ratty paperback, I can feel like I'm making progress toward a goal - and I'll have something to show for it at the end.
2. Read while "hiking" on the treadmill. In training for the White River 50 this year, I was advised by the wise White River veteran Major Shark to get myself on the treadmill to train my legs for steady, steady climbing. Prior to this, I'd never done anything but run on the treadmill...mile repeats, check; 16-mile runs, check; Yasso 800's, check. But crank it up to a 15% grade and walk briskly for 6 uphill miles? Never before. Lo and behold, it's been great. Not only have I gotten in great shape, I can easily read half a book in one workout.
3. Vanpool! James and I got a new vanpool off the ground that runs from Seattle to Kent. (One of these days, I will devote an entire blog entry to the amazing vanpool program in King County.) We share driving duties, but when I'm not driving, it's a great opportunity to read. What better way to start the morning than being immersed in a fabulous novel for half an hour before even checking my email?
4. God bless the iPhone. After reading The Shallows a couple years ago and being quite sure I'd never find a place in my heart for ebooks...well, I've gone and done it anyway. Mostly because I can log on to the Seattle Public library's website on my phone and within 30 seconds, download a complete book - for free - onto my phone. Then, best of all, unlike regular books or even a Kindle, it's literally in my pocket all day long, ready to be pulled out and read while I'm waiting in lines, riding the bus, eating lunch, etc. I find all sorts of ways throughout my day to sneak reading a page here, a page there. I love it!

Did all that type-A stuff just spoil the romanticism of my bibliophilia? I hope not. I love books all the same - which is to say, very, very much.

It's just that...young adulthood has a way of making time accelerate, and that acceleration prompts a kind of nostalgia for the languid summers of childhood, swaths of unscheduled, uninterrupted free time to pursue whatever creative pursuits struck your fancy. Then you grow up, and time doesn't come around like that anymore. At some point, the question is no longer the presumptuous 'When shall I do this thing I really want to do?', but rather, an urgent, half-desperate 'Will I ever do this thing I really want to do?'

I believed, at twelve, that I could be a scientist. I believed I could be a writer, an actress, a professor of English in Rome, an acrobat in a purple spangled outfit. Days opened for me like the pulling apart of curtains at a play you've been dying to see. I had a microscope on my desk, shelves full of books and treasures that I found outside: rocks, wood, abandoned nests of hornets and birds, notes to myself for things to do tomorrow because I hadn't had the time today. I believed the way to ride bareback was to get on and go, the rising heat of the horse against your bare legs the only instruction you'd need. The how of everything was simply in the doing of it. - From The Pull of the Moon, by Elizabeth Berg

I miss having the time to pursue all the how's that pique my interest - to write a novel in my afternoons, to design my own board game for the heck of it, to teach myself to juggle in front of a mirror in my basement with hand towels and plastic bowling pins. I miss the limitless ambitions of the young imagination.

But I also recognize that simply missing free time doesn't make it magically appear. So instead of going around mumbling all the time about how I wished I had more time to read, I'm reading on treadmills and in vans and on my fancy phone. Pardon the pragmatism of growing up in the modern world.

Of course, there are limits to the number of things that you can "make time for", no matter how passionate and committed you may be to them. What I have learned so far, though, is that it's no good to throw your hands up in the air about it all. You can set new priorities, small ones, one by one, and eventually (I'm talking years here) they weasel their way into your daily life and eek out a little bit of room for new ones.

So. Reading, juicing, running, career building, today. Social life, PHP wrangling, banjo playing, new blog launch, book proposal, sleeping, traveling, tomorrow*. Ah life!

*figuratively speaking

Figuring out this life

Fall in Seattle is nice.
I don't often share things online that I write in my own journal, but I wrote the this a couple weeks ago, and I think it's worth a share (if you can stand the long-winded navel-gazing that these self-indulgent entries inevitably feature).

Nov. 4 - I don't have enough time and energy to tackle everything in my life that I want, to pursue all the paths that entice me. Every time I meet or read about someone on one of those paths, I think, "Yes! That's the thing I want to devote myself to!" I read a great novel, I want to be a novelist. I read Sedaris, I want to tell stories about my life that make people laugh. I stumble on an interesting blog that generates revenue, I'm sure that's what I'm cut out to do. I run a trail race, and suddenly running is all I care about excelling at. I go to a good bluegrass show and I'm obsessed with picking my banjo. I read an interview with a successful young entrepreneur and I'm sure I want to start my own business.

My parents can attest to the fact that this extreme enthusiasm for mimicry started early in my life. A visit to the circus inevitably inspired a homespun version in our basement in Kansas when we got home in the evening. I'd rope in my stuffed animals, my dog Sasha, my hula hoops. I taught myself to juggle plastic bowling pins, practiced enough gymnastics to pull off one-handed cartwheels and front handsprings. The rodeo, the Olympics, the carnival...anywhere fun and exciting my parents took me, I took home with me and recreated in the basement for an audience of two.

If I watched a game show, I'd make up my own version at home; pretending to ask my parents questions for a school project, I'd interview them individually about their favorite and least favorite things, then challenge them against each other later in game show format to see who knew whom best. If I visited my dad at his office at the Kansas City Star and he took me down to see the massive, noisy, ink-stained printing presses, I'd draw up my own family newspaper by the end of the week. I kept up the W Family Gazette for an impressive number of issues, flying down the stairs in excitement to deliver my product to the hands of my parents, crying out "Hot off the press!" and charging them a quarter apiece for their issues.

Believe me, I treasure this quality in myself. Creativity and a constant hunger for learning and trying new things certainly keep life interesting, and usually pretty darn fun. But it's not without its frustrations, too. My journal entry from two weeks ago continues:

I exhaust myself! I can't decide. Not that my decision needs to last forever, of course, but nothing's ever going to happen in my life if I spread myself too thin. I can't do the New York Times crossword every day, prepare great meals, read at least a book a week, keep up on current events, maintain my blog, have enough time for all the people I love, volunteer regularly, make time to write in my own journal, continue working on my Dutch, take web design classes, teach myself a half dozen programming languages, run 50 miles a week, keep the apartment clean, work on transitioning to a high-raw diet, do yoga, lift weights, ride my bike, meditate and develop a stronger spiritual core, build a photography portfolio, travel regularly, submit more of my writing for freelance publication, hike, snowboard in the winter, write letters to friends, maintain a social life that involves going out at least a few nights a week, stay in touch on Facebook, work and earn enough money to afford living in Seattle...and still get enough sleep! It's ridiculous, now that I've written all that down, how much I actually expect myself to do in my day-to-day life. Obviously, I have to make some choices.

And those aren't even the BIG goals. Those are just the average daily life goals, the stepping stones to the big goals. Big goals are things like: summiting Mt. Rainier, running a 100-mile race, publishing a book, making the world a better place in a really big way...

So, where does that leave me? The two weeks in Holland gave me the incredible gift of time for reflection on what passions continue to stoke my fire the most - and (surprise!) running and writing both emerged high. I've been looking into volunteering with local chapters of several nonprofits (you know, in my copious amounts of free time!), and I've been torn between 826 Seattle, a center that offers youth after-school mentoring, tutoring and writing workshops - and Girls on the Run, a program that helps young girls feel empowered and develop healthy habits and self esteem through running.

I use my deliberation over the volunteering choice as a metaphor for the greater internal debate - whether, at this point in my life, to make running or writing my bigger priority. Neither passion, obviously, will ever fall completely out of my daily life - but I've been doing a little of both for many years, and I'm ready to do a lot of one of them for awhile to see what happens. I'm fortunate, of course, that I've been able to do a good amount of writing in my working life so far - this debate is really about what my "after-work" hours will look like (until, of course, I can figure out how to get paid to run all day and then write about it!)

With this question nagging at me since I've been back in the states, it's no wonder that the following quote jumped out at me from a book I've been reading, Matt Fitzgerald's RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel. Deena Kastor, America's fastest and most accomplished female marathoner, said to Matt in an interview that in 1995,"I didn't feel like I had done everything for my running. I felt I had much more potential and I didn't want to walk away from it. I could open up a bakery or write a book at any time in my life, but I wanted to make sure that I got that running fever out while I was still young and energetic enough to do it."

And guess what? That spoke to me. I met Deena at the 2008 Chicago Marathon, after taking an impromptu solo road trip and obtaining a press pass to chat it up with the elite runners. She was softspoken, kind and every bit as inspiring in person as when I'd read about her in articles.


Deena, right before my starstruck-fan ambush.
So I'm doing it. I'm taking advantage of my youth and energy, and making running my top priority for 2012. My plans include: (hopefully) snagging a coaching spot with Girls on the Run, volunteering at as many trail runs as I can fit into my schedule, running higher mileage than ever before, training for my first 50-miler, qualifying for Boston, and above all, logging my second totally injury-free year in a row! Cheers for finding both form and footwear that work for me.


Three beautiful fall runs, three different pairs of shoes...can you tell I'm turning into a junkie?

Living it up on the other side of the world

Oh, what a trip this has been already! One full week here now, and happily, it feels as though I've been able to pack in a lot of great adventures, without completely overwhelming myself. Still plenty of time to relax, read, catch up with my mom and catch up on sleep.

With the exception of a few cold, rainy days at the beginning, we've had great fall weather here. Loads of sunshine, crisp air, picturesque clouds. I arrived via a 9-hour direct flight (the first time I've ever been able to fly nonstop from home to Amsterdam! Thank you, Seattle!) last Tuesday. I made a futile attempt to ward off jetlag by sleeping only 3.5 hours the night before my flight, thinking I'd be able to just pass out on the plane and wake up refreshed and ready to roll when I arrived in Amsterdam at 8:20 a.m. local Dutch time. Unfortunately, I decided to finally take the fancy-phone plunge and purchase an iPhone for myself right before leaving - and the thrills of being able to play with a new mobile toy in airplane mode on my flight, combined with chatting it up with a sweet German woman whom I sat next to, prevented me from sleeping much at all on the flight.


Almost full moon! Trippy to watch a sunset, moonrise, and sunrise all in the course of one flight.
My mom came to meet me at the airport, and we immediately hopped on the train back to Nijverdal, the small town in the east where she lives. Upon arrival in Nijverdal, I barely made it through the tour of her cozy, new little house before collapsing in bed for an all-day nap. Woke up for dinner and passed back out again shortly thereafter, for a total of 17 hours of sleep. Oi vey!

The next few days, we had a relaxing few days at home in Nijverdal. I got to know her daily environs a bit more - the neighbors (who fielded a few complaints about our rowdy storytelling and laughing into the wee hours of my first few jetlagged nights here!), the local thrift shops, the newly renovated town square, and what I remember best about my last visit to Nijverdal...the beautiful woods and heather fields on the edge of town. For my last few training runs before the Amsterdam marathon, my mom and I set out for the woods, and she walked one loop on various routes while I ran the same loop twice. We really lucked out with the blue skies and sun-spackled trails.


On Saturday morning, we set out for Amsterdam again by train - arriving to slightly warmer weather, and a sunny, glorious weekend day in the city. A longtime friend of my mom's is vacationing in Uzbekistan for a few weeks; generously, he left us the keys to his centrally-located Amsterdam apartment, as well as two ratty old bikes for us to ride around the city. Truly a blessing - I can't imagine being in A'dam without a bike!


Saturday afternoon, my mom and I biked to the marathon expo in the south of the city to pick up my marathon bib and t-shirt, then on to the house of Cinta - my host during my semester abroad in Amsterdam. Cinta, a longtime marathon runner herself, prepared a delicious, vegetarian pre-race meal for me (and herself! She ran as an official Runner's World pacer for runners trying to get a time of 3:45) of pasta with fennel, mushrooms, walnuts and cheese. Her girlfriend Tanja joined us, and the four of us had a wonderful time making up for lost time.


Me with Cinta and Tanja
We biked home at the end of the night, through the lovely Vondelpark, of which I have many fond memories of nighttime biking with Taryn (my fellow housemate at Cinta's from study abroad). It's really peaceful there at night, the darkness punctuated only by other bike lights, the silence broken by the steady whirr of your bike light on your front wheel...on many Dutch bikes, your bike light at night is powered by the energy of your actual pedaling - innovative indeed! I fell into bed at Gustaaf's flat, stayed up awhile reading the latest Jeffrey Eugenides novel on my iPhone before dropping off to sleep. Amazing, technology. (On a total sidenote, I'm halfway through it now and really enjoying the read, contrary to many of the early negative reviews.)

Sunday was the big day - Marathon Day! I think I'll save most of my ramblings about the marathon itself for a separate entry (because we've all witnessed how capable of rambling about running I am!), but suffice to say that it was a gorgeous day with a beautiful, flat course, and I ran about as fast as I hoped to.


Sunday evening, we celebrated by getting together for tea, and later dinner, with one of my mom's close friends from 40+ years ago when they shared their first apartment in Amsterdam together, and her husband and daughter Sabrina. A good evening, full of many stories and laughs too! My mom and Sabrina worked on devising a plan to keep me in Holland longterm :)

Monday, my mom and I hopped on our bikes and headed for the "Amsterdamse Bos" - perhaps my favorite, most cherished part of the city, and one of which few people, even lifelong Amsterdam residents, seem to be aware.


It's a big wooded area just a kilometer or two outside of the city, with an expansive trail system (both semi-paved bike trails and unpaved walking/running trails), lots of lakes and creeks, scenic farmland, and even - as I learned with surprise on a solo run there four years ago - wild boar-ish animals called "Schotse Hooglanders".


One such mellow fellow, just hanging out next to the trail.
The intention was to bike to my favorite restaurant in all of Amsterdam, a Dutch pannenkoekenhuis (pancake house!) with a pancake menu reminiscent of the indulgent breadth of options available at the Cheesecake Factory. Dutch pancakes can be sweet or savory, and include a wealth of ingredients we Americans typically only thing of putting in omelets or crepes...but we're talking full-blown, thick, bigger-than-your-face pancakes here, with any ingredient or combination you desire cooked right into the middle of the batter.


The Boerderij Meerzicht (roughly translated: Farm with a Lake View) is situated in the middle of the forest. Though we found it without trouble, we were disappointed to discover that it's not open on Mondays. Talk about a bummer! Happily, though, we biked back to the city and found ourselves some solid Dutch pancakes there instead.

Sunday evening I was able to get together with a fellow marathoner and friend from my semester abroad, whom I'd originally gotten to know through interviewing for my thesis paper. Over a pot of tea, a few glasses of port, and a block of aged Dutch cheese, we had quite the time catching up, too!

Today, my mom and I spent a relaxed morning wandering around the famous, outdoor Albert Cuyp market, enjoying some traditional Dutch "patat met" (fat french fries doused in mayonnaise and served in a paper funnel with a fork) before making our way back to Amsterdam's Central Station and on the train back to Nijverdal...


...which brings me to tonight! More updates to follow. Namely, the marathon report :)

Europe-bound

My life in passports! The very farthest left one is the Dutch passport I got as a baby, from the glory days of dual citizenship in my youth.
In exactly 11 hours, one Delta plane will take off from the tarmac at Sea-Tac and I will officially be en route to the Netherlands - my first trip abroad in 4 years, and my first time getting to see my mom since moving to Seattle 2+ years ago! My anti-jetlag plan is to get as little sleep as possible tonight (hence my starting a blog entry at 2:45 a.m.) so I'll pass out when I board my nonstop Seattle-Amsterdam flight and wake up totally refreshed upon arrival at 8:20 a.m. local NL time. We'll see how it goes ;)

As always, there are a thousand things to write about - and unfortunately, in my somewhat sleep-deprived stupor, I keep starting paragraphs and then not liking the way they turn out. So perhaps I'll skip any sort of meaningful writing this evening. The short of it all is that I do hope to have some more time to write in the coming weeks, to catch my blog up on my life - as well as write about my visit to the Netherlands and upcoming marathon.

In the meantime, a few images of the beautiful skies here during the past few weeks:


Sunset over the Olympic Mountains.


Sunrise over Lake Union (as seen from our balcony!)


This one's a sunrise too! Gorgeous.
Well, it's 3 a.m...I'm pushing 20 waking hours now, and not likely to last much longer. Toto, we're not in college anymore.

Living my fullest life

Yowzaz! Pretty sure this is the longest I've gone without blogging since I moved to Seattle. Perhaps if I get some major life updates out of the way, I won't feel as daunted by writing in my blog in the future, because the big things are covered and I can go back to writing about small everyday joys and more mundane musings. Here goes:

1. Alan and I moved into our new place on Lower Queen Anne! We had a successful housewarming BBQ/birthday party at the new digs with friends, our newly minted grill, and the most delicious homemade red velvet cake ever - kudos and thanks to my friend and baker extraordinaire Lauren W.


2. My temp copywriting job at REI Headquarters has been extended a few times, so I'm still commuting down to Kent daily to research, learn about and write about all the sweet gear we sell. Pretty pleased to still be working there! What kinds of things do I write? See here. Straightforward as our writing tasks often are, I am forever inspired by my colleagues' cleverness and creativity.

3. Yours truly has become a running/training/athletic MACHINE! Well, so I like to think. I got in a bit of inspired frenzy to sign myself up for a bunch of races. On the docket for the coming months are two full marathons, one half, and my third official ultra (50K). Oh! And I'm going to run 30+ miles around the perimeter of Mount Saint Helens in a few weeks with my friend and fellow Dutch/Swedish hybrid, Ged. Wish us luck!

4. Speaking of running...in July, a team of 11 friends and I tackled the Ragnar Northwest Passage 190-mile Relay for the second year in a row. Our team, the Alpacas by Day, Ninjas by Night, had a blast. I wrote a story about it for the REI blog here. (Beware: link does not always cooperate in Firefox. Try another browser if it doesn't work.)


I am blessed with good friends in this city.
5. Speaking of more running, I tackled my steepest, most rugged trail run yet last month, with my now-longtime trail running pals, Elodie and Tom - the Angel's Staircase run in the Methow Valley, about four hours east of Seattle on the other side of the mountains. 5000 feet of elevation change over 25 kilometers, peaking at 8000 feet, with stunning views in all directions. 6th place among women, I'll take it!


This ridiculously awesome photo courtesy of Glenn Tachiyama.




Beautiful views courtesy of race director James Varner, whom I interviewed and wrote this story on for Outdoors NW magazine several months ago.

6. Oh, and let's talk about where those marathons are that I've signed up for. I'm going to Vegas, baby! Running the strip at night - a nighttime marathon, how cool is that? Talked into it by my lunchtime running buddy at work, Logan (not that it was a really hard sell...)

7. But what's even better than Vegas? Answer: Flying over the North Pole on a direct flight from Seattle to Amsterdam to visit my mom and run the marathon there next month! Dutch Rosetta Stone lessons are in full throttle again. Can't believe it's taken me four years to get myself back to Holland, but it will great to see my mama and run 26.2 in the city that made me truly fall in love with running in the first place.


I took this photo in 2007. The marathon course runs along this river.
8. Alan took me to see Weezer on my birthday last month. In case you didn't hear the story (I love this story!), Alan and I were walking along a street in Seattle many months ago and passed a billboard advertising Weezer in Seattle on August 19. Knowing that I was once upon a time a big Weez' fan, he asked if I'd like to go. Snootily, I scoffed that the only way I'd go to a Weezer concert today was if they played Blue Album start to finish. We turned a corner and the next billboard we saw was, "WEEZER - Playing Blue Album and Pinkerton, start to finish." Wha?!! So we went! It satisfied in the nostalgia realm in big ways.


Yup, I was quite sure I could dig up an old photo of me in my trusty Weezer tee. Me, at 15, with my parents and Dutch cousins/family I haven't seen in years.
9. Been trying to ride my bike more lately...commuting a lot around on two wheels, including several bike trips up to Green Lake in the north part of this city, to go swimming with Oberlin friends - Ruth, who's happily staying another year in Seattle to continue working for Habitat for Humanity, and Shari, who spent the whole summer here leading kids' nature camps for the Audubon Society. Do I have cool friends or what?

10. So, I've been writing all this while sprawled out on a bunch of pillows and blankets on our balcony, looking at the night profile of the Cascade mountains, the shimmering Lake Union, the Seattle skyline all lit up, and even a good number of stars. Really, really happy in the new apartment! A good friend of mine whom I'll kindly keep anonymous recently paraphrased my blog as "Blah blah blah ohhhh Seattle, blah blah blah I'm so special because I love Seattle soooo much blah blah"...snarky, sure, but that's the nature of our friendship anyway (he's the big brother I never had!) and furthermore, I can't imagine a better summation of my feelings. Thank you, you know who you are, for stating it so eloquently. Indeed, I freakin' love this place!

11. Have we been over the fact that I get to have a reunion next month with this wonderful woman?


It's been a long time coming. Thank you, good world, for giving me the opportunities to work hard, play hard and accomplish so many of the things in 2011 that I hoped I could. And thanks to everyone in my life who's making this one amazing ride! You all are great.