A Love Note to the Seasons

Several days ago, one of my coworkers came back from a sultry lunchtime run, panting, drenched in sweat, and said, No more lunchtime runs for me. It’s no longer the season, I guess, now that noon here on a sunny day generally sees temperatures in the high 70s or low 80s.

In contrast, last summer in Washington, after a long mountain run in the middle of a cool, cloudy day of what I recall to be July-ish, my good friend Tim proclaimed, “Today was awesome! You know you must be a real runner when you’re grateful that it’s overcast so often in Seattle!”

And indeed, for all my years in mild Seattle, I was far too busy being giddy about having escaped Midwest summer humidity and bitterly cold winters to consider what I might be missing. Yet, now that I’m living in place that once again has very distinct seasons, I feel grateful for them—despite dreading summer temperatures forcing me to give up the lunchtime runs I've so been enjoying this past month.

And ... random snowfall on May 1 = not cool, Colorado! Forgiven, only, by the fact that it was sunny and all melted by 3 p.m.

Perhaps it’s once again a case of cognitive dissonance, of my trying to see the best in whatever situation I find myself in, but watching Colorado transition from winter to spring to what feels like summer (at least on days like today) has been pretty darn mesmerizing.

When we moved here, Redstone was silent, semi-deserted, muted by the snow:

Now, it looks like this:

Slowly, seasonal residents have returned, tourists have come to visit, and the town feels as though it’s come alive. Across the street, the Crystal Club Café—all shuttered up in the winter—opened for business for the season today. Tonight, there are lights and voices and laughter outside … children playing corn hole, bikes flying down the street, music playing, the happy clink of pint glasses.

Trails are (finally!) opening up for running. 

I’d been lamenting the fact that the only places I’d run here yet were all dusty, exposed desert trails, scattered with twisted juniper trees and sage bushes—beautiful, no doubt—but not like the deep, lush, fern-and-moss-laden forests of Washington that I love. Last weekend, though, I ran the Avalanche Creek Trail out here for the first time, and was amazed to find myself running under a canopy of tall pines that felt far more Washingtonian than Coloradoan. 

There are still snowy patches here and there, but soon enough, it’ll be a spectacular 24-mile out-and-back to a series of alpine lakes … and with a trailhead just five minutes away from home.

The Crystal River has risen tremendously in the past few warm weeks, as snow has melted off up high and transformed the Crystal from a trickling creek into a roaring river. 

Taking a short break on a run near the "Meatgrinder" Class V rapids

We can hear the river now from our living room windows. Earlier this week, our beloved hot springs down the road disappeared for the summer, as the river level has risen and rushed right over the top of it—but it feels okay; it will come back when the water falls again for autumn.

Seasons are soothing in this way. They’re predictable, but not so much that they’re lacking the delight of small surprises—the sound of birds in the spring, the first summer night that permits a nighttime stroll in a T-shirt, the turning of the leaves in autumn. Seasons are an antidote to stagnancy; they promise forward movement, without threatening irrevocable change. No matter how drastic the season is, you can be sure that it, too, shall pass.

It’s different from the kind of changes we experience in our lives, which are indeed often both unpredictable and irrevocable—for better or worse.

2012 saw more changes in my life than any other year recently. Not counting miscellaneous freelance projects I juggled, I went through three different jobs—four, if you count the new one I started in January 2013. I experienced the end of a 3.5-year relationship and the beginning of a new one. My income fluctuated wildly. I went from having run one ultramarathon a year in 2010 and 2011 to running more than a dozen in 2012. I moved to a new apartment last summer, then six months later, moved halfway across the country. Needless to say, by the time I got to Colorado, I was a little tuckered out, and ready for some steadiness.

And very quickly, I cultivated just that—living in a quiet town in the mountains, going to work five days a week, doing all my runs on pretty the same couple of snow-free trails, settling into a peaceful evening routine at home of cooking and crossword-ing with Steve.

While much comfort can be derived from this kind of stability, the flipside is that it can also feel awfully scary. Even if you enjoy your routine, you might wonder, So … is this the way my life is going to be forever? Given that I’ve struggled a good deal in the past few months with homesickness for Seattle, wondering if I’ll be able to make the same kind of friends out here that I had there, the prospect of nothing ever changing again hasn’t exactly been a thrilling one.

We need change to continue thriving. The seasons are reminding me of this. I feel fortunate to have Steve in my life, to feel the warmth of an amazing support network of friends even from hundreds or thousands of miles away, to have the kind of job I’ve dreamt for years about having...

Tough day at the office last week! Our gear guide photo shoot, part I at Mt. Garfield

Gear guide photo shoot, part II, Grand Junction, CO

...to have a home I love coming back to at the end of the day … even yes, I feel lucky to have a hungry kitty who, without fail, paws me awake at 5 a.m. every morning for breakfast.

Gratuitous Chloe photo

What I’m learning out here is that I can have these big rocks in my life that anchor me, while still pursuing growth. I can be stable without being stagnant. 

In closing, I’d like to state that while I still believe Seattle is the best place on Earth to be a long-distance runner, I am eager to see what Colorado's got in store for the summer. It's a tall order to compete with Seattle, where there are hundreds of miles of amazing singletrack in the city or within 30 minutes of it, that stay mostly snow-free and runnable year-round. Trails don’t get shut down for eight months a year to help preserve elk herds. It never gets hot enough in the summer to make midday runs uncomfortable. It never gets cold or snowy or icy enough in the winter to make runs unbearable. And as for all the rain … personally, I always feel like a million bucks when I go running in the rain—like my own personal sprinkler cooling me off every step.

However. I’ll admit that the sunshine out here has wooed me—and I move forward with an open mind. Come on, Colorado … I’m here, I'm optimistic, I’m ready to love you, too … show me whatcha got.

Chair Peak, Crystal River run-off in the foreground, as seen from Redstone this evening

On the unfolding conundrum of life

I have been woefully inattentive to my blog of late - but not for lack of having things to write about, but rather the opposite...too much! Too many adventures! Too many ideas! I've had the hardest time sleeping lately, because my mind has been overactive since the start of the new year.

I love new years. Metaphorical or not, new beginnings are powerful places from which to draw out change, to make new commitments, to drop old ones that aren't working anymore. December 31 is always a catalyst for me, and this year was no different.

As I sat down a couple weeks ago to write my annual epic New Years journal entry (a tradition I have kept steadily for one full decade now), I reflected on 2010 - its triumphs, its ground-breaking or otherwise memorable moments, its times of transition, and the unfortunate few things that persistently stressed me out a lot! As is my tradition, I try to turn as much of my rambling year-end commentary into productive insight and fodder for a better year ahead. My overarching conclusions for this time around?

I'm proud and invigorated by many aspects of 2010:
- holding down several jobs that have both given me great pleasure and taught me infinitely about myself, the way I relate to others, and the business of life
- traveling to do what I love: meeting new people, taking photographs, and writing stories
- taking on a new level of commitment to long distance running that carried me to many beautiful mountains, trails, and islands in pursuit of the runner's high
- taking the time and energy not only to go back to school but also to figure out what continuing education program would truly stir my soul (and then going for it!)
- making the most of this beautiful city and state I live in, and not taking this landscape for granted
- focusing new energy and investing in my personal health and wellness
- cutting down on the turnover in my life that practically defined it during my college years...i.e. thoroughly enjoying the fact that I am still living in the same apartment, with the same wonderful person, enjoying the same amazing friends, working for the same great people, and waking up each morning to the same mountain range on the horizon, that I was last year. Three cheers for the first full year in nearly a decade that I haven't MOVED.

...but for all the good, there have been things at which I can do better, too. My number one priority for 2011 is to stress less. It's really been spectacular, reflecting now, how quick I've been to develop huge amounts of anxiety over the most mundane things. I didn't always used to be this way. If I trace it back, I think it generally goes back to senior year of college, the first year I tried to balance school, work, AND single-handedly organizing a community 5K race in Oberlin. While the school/work balance would have been okay, the race-directing thing pushed me over the brink of acceptable stress levels, because for the first time in my life, I felt that there could be no relaxing; if I had a moment to relax, it needed to be devoted to something productive. And I haven't really managed to get off the Efficiency Train since, which, though sometimes useful, generally moves too fast for its own good...

What stressing less looks like:
(or)
Excuses to share a few photos from recent months with my non-Facebook friends:


At my good friends Cam and Avey's wedding in October


80s-themed holiday work party.


First foray into winter hiking, Washington-style


Snowboarding for the first time in Washington! Mt. Baker


Snowshoeing on Christmas


Me and the parrot, hanging out at home.

So, not only for my sake, but for the sake of friends and loved ones around me who have occasionally suffered, too, at the hand of my stress levels, I am committing to stop that nonsense in 2011. This will mean: less perfectionism, less procrastinating, and less pressure on myself. (Out with the P's!) So far, so good.

With that said, I will NOT let go of the urgency I feel in my daily life - the urgency to get to work on the things that matter in this world - so that when I leave this Earth, expectedly or unexpectedly, 70 years from now or tomorrow, I can leave in peace with the confidence and knowledge that I did everything in my power to leave this place better than I found it. It is on that note that I will bring in the holiday, and take this moment in the blogosphere to reflect on the man we remember, honor, and celebrate today.

I am borrowing the following quote from Seth Godin's blogpost today - and Seth Godin, of course, borrowed these words from Martin Luther King, Jr. How powerful words are when their relevance transcends the boundaries of era or generation. The urgency King speaks of is what makes great leaders, and it is what I will continually strive for in my own life as well.

"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." - MLK

2011

Snowshoeing in the mountains.


Future string band.


Sunrise this morning.
I can feel it in my bones; it's going to be a good year.

(More regular blogging to resume soon.)

My first juice fast

From my blog entries here to the new kitchen appliances to my raw food musings and experiments to the dinner parties I've been sharing with many of you lately, it's clear that I've had food on my mind a lot lately! I've been cooking much more than ever before in my life, as the new blender and juicer have amped up my confidence to buy copious amounts of produce at the grocery store. If I can't find a way to prepare it (I've lost every single eggplant I've ever purchased this way...*sigh*), I can always just toss it in the blender!

My reading list has also been pretty heavy on the food and diet spectrum lately:


So, I've been toying a lot lately with the idea of doing a juice fast. I have, undoubtedly, a ridiculous sweet tooth, and I often eat beyond the point of satiated comfort. (Why do you think I run so much?) Incorporating green smoothies into my morning routine has already helped me cut out coffee completely and maintain steady energy levels, even without ample sleep. I recently talked with one of my coworkers who juice fasted for an entire month, and saw huge health and energy benefits because of it.

Well, I decided yesterday to stop toying with the fasting idea, and just go ahead and try it - just a 24-hour one. I had dinner around 5 p.m. last night, went to school, went to bed, woke up, made a big glass of my Unpalatable Chlorophyll Juice and several mason jars to go, went for a 5.5 mile run, drank some more juice, walked to work, drank more juice after my shift, walked to school, sat in class for 3.5 hours (which took me into the 25th hour of my fast and beyond!), then walked home. And...ta-da, I felt great! No real hunger bothers or rumbling stomach or anything. Some cravings, sure, but those happen even when my mouth is already full of food and chewing, so I can't blame it on the fasting. Being out of the house and away from food all day certainly made it easier. Overall, it was much less of a big deal than I thought it would be.


Unpalatable Chlorophyll Juice in action: the last swig in my mason jar.
My run was especially excellent. I'm sure running (and doing sprints at the end!) are not what you're supposed to do while fasting for the first time. It would up being about 29 hours total with food...honestly, probably the longest stretch of time I've ever gone without food in my whole life. Even fasting for Ramadan with my host family in Turkey was only a 16-hour fast or so...though there was no juice or water then. But you know what? I'll trust my body's intuition over someone else's opinions any day - and I've felt great all day long.

I considered briefly extending the fast through tomorrow since I felt so good...but ultimately decided against it, not wanting to get ahead of myself. Went grocery shopping instead - which is definitely a crazy idea when you haven't eaten all day long. I must have looked at least mildly ravenous, because in spite of my modest $53 grocery bill, the checkout guy who was scanning my food said, "Dang girl, you must have been hungry today!" Fresh apple slices with Trader Joe's Blue Stilton cheese was a most excellent way to ease out of my fast.

Postscript.
And now, because I failed to post this when it was timely...why you shouldn't try to drive your car in Seattle when it snows:

Lake Serene, Baseball, and Missing Kitty Shenanigans

Can rainbows redeem my lack of blog entries in a couple weeks?
At Camba's recommendation, Alan and I hiked to the scenic Bridal Veil Falls and Lake Serene yesterday. It was a gorgeous day for it, and in keeping with my promise to myself to rein in my schedule, I had a whole day off to enjoy the outing. Good thing, too, as it being the last day of ski season at Stevens Pass made Highway 2 an absolute mess to get back on in the evening. Alan and I wound up stopping in the tiny town of Gold Bar for post-hike burgers to try and wait out the traffic jam heading back west - an effort that helped mildly, but which we supplemented with GPS navigation to make our way back on winding, county roads rather than sitting in standstill traffic on Highway 2. (Appropriately, Cake's "Long Line of Cars" came on my stereo's IPod shuffle during all this.) Overall, the drive back was more or less a trial effort in our plans for summer of 2011 to drive Alan's 1968 Chevelle from Ohio to Seattle, avoid interstates and chain restaurants, taking scenic state roads instead and exploring Mom-and-Pop places the whole way.


Bridal Veil Falls.
But back to the hike itself. We had a phenomenal time on the mountain - gorgeous, sunny weather that greeted us at the trailhead with spring warmth, but rewarded us with cooler breezes in the denser, shadier forests toward the top.


The route we hiked, about 8 miles roundtrip, traversed everything from scenic valley overlooks off the sides of sloping mountains to dense old-growth forest, from picturesque, cascading waterfalls to deep, slippery snowfields.




Understandably, there were many others out on the trail, but we also had large stretches to ourselves, including a quiet, secluded bench by the side of the still-snow-covered Lake Serene at the top.


In other adventures of late: We went to our first Mariners game on Saturday evening, and watched a decent victory over Detroit. (Sadly, I had to work until 3 p.m. and so missed out on the Sounders' triumph over Kansas City earlier that day.) We walked to the stadium from our apartment in the pouring rain and even soaked as we were by the time we got there, felt lucky to not have to mess with stadium parking.


Although I still maintain that soccer games are approximately 300 times as exciting and exhilarating to watch as baseball games, I nevertheless enjoyed the novelty of what was probably my second professional baseball game ever :)

And, in misadventures of the week...Chloe has been getting herself into all kinds of reckless trouble. Two days ago, we returned home to find that she'd somehow managed to more or less strangled herself with a plastic bag (notably, with a "Keep away from infants and small children" warning label on it...but what of cats?)


And this morning, we slept in and had a conversation a bit like this:

Alan: Hey, did you hear that racket Chloe was making in the kitchen last night?
Me: (Laughs) Yes...she's crazy.

Then it slowly seemed to dawn us both that it was late in the morning and no kitty had come pawing at our faces for breakfast (a daily event that almost always chronologically beats my alarm clock.)

Me: Chloe?

And...nothing. I got up in horror, searching the apartment high and low, before realizing we'd left a tiny window in the bedroom just barely cracked to let in the breeze last night - and sure enough, there were tiny kitty pawprints in the dust on the ledge outside of it. My heart sunk.

I can write about it now with some lightness, but let's be honest - I was a serious wreck this morning, walking dejectedly around the block with Alan, shaking some food in a tupperware bowl and imagining all the miserably, lonely mornings ahead without my beloved kitty cat. Our neighbor across the hall saw us poking around behind the apartment and mentioned that Chloe had jumped up on the ledge of their bedroom window at about 6:30 this morning, scaring the living daylights out of their dog, Lucy. They hadn't seen her since.

After several laps around the block and no hope in sight, Alan and I returned to the apartment. Plodding up the staircase to our back porch, with tears just on the verge of pouring out my ducts...there she was: Chloe, wedged almost completely out of sight, down between the back stairs and the adjacent trellis. There were leaves and twigs all over her face, her claws were out, her body taut and shaking slightly. Not a motion had been made on her part when we'd shaken her food container multiple times within a few yards of her. Our best guess is that Lucy must have barked up a storm this morning and scared Chloe so badly that she'd stayed frozen in hiding there until we found there.

Here I'd been imagining her having all sorts of adventures in the big city, feasting in dumpsters, nuzzling strangers' ankles and trotting off down to Pioneer Square without me...but there she'd been, about eight feet away from our back door, waiting in frozen terror for God knows what. Regardless, I'm relieved to have my kitty back home safe again, doing somersaults all over my lesson books as I attempt to prep my tutoring lessons. I can only hope her kitty shenanigans will mellow back out in the coming weeks...


Postscript: Trees in the Northwest are awesome.

Sun, snow, mountains and bratwurst in 24 hours

This week was A Big Deal in the life of Yitka. I went on my first business trip.


My room!
While the term "business trip" might be conjuring images of airports...laptops in briefcases, business suits and meeting rooms, the click of heels walking on the marble floors of hotel lobbies...this was a different kind of business trip. (I do, however, insist on calling it such.)

Instead, I packed a notebook, swimsuit, hiking boots and my long-untouched Nikon D60, and hit the road after work on Wednesday.


"The road", as it were, was the lovely Highway 2, a route which quickly earned its place among the ranks of (1) the Florida Keys, (2) Highway 1 down the southern California coast, and (3) the entire state of Montana, for Yitka's Favorite Drives in America. I was on route to stay a night at a lovely mountain resort/retreat center buried deep in the wilderness outside of the small town of Leavenworth, Washington, and do an in-depth interview the following morning for a story assignment with OutdoorsNW.

Despite several warnings from friends and acquaintances that Leavenworth, WA is a magical place that's been known to steal the hearts of Seattleites, I suppose I was still half-expecting a sad sort of town with a bunch of prisons.

Instead, I got this:


Adorable Bavarian town nestled in the mountains!
I honestly had no idea what to expect from Leavenworth. But upon the "Wilkommen in Leavenworth" sign along the main drag, I got the idea: little Bavarian miracle town! Surrounded by snow-capped and Evergreen-coated peaks like, I enjoyed a bratwurst for lunch. I bought a couple greeting cards from their local bookshop (I can't ever pass up a rack of well-made greeting cards, and I have discovered a new favorite company.) I took a stroll down by the river. All lovely.

The Sleeping Lady, the resort itself that I stayed at, has been around for 15 years. It originally catered primarily to corporate retreats as a place for team-building, but it's evolved into a family leisure travel destination and personal center for rest and spiritual rejuvenation as well. I couldn't have asked for better timing; I was just lamenting in my journal a couple days ago how much I missed the hammock on my porch in Oberlin, the pond and waterfall in my old backyard in Kansas...basically, just personal outdoor space to relax in at any time of day. Happily, the camp was largely empty and so I had an entire evening to explore and play there in genuine quiet.


After one of the most delectable dinners of my life (freshly caught and grilled salmon with butter sauce, sauteed bok choy, freshly baked bread with fancy brie and chevre cheeses, fresh rhubarb with creme fraishe for dessert...most of the ingredients from local sources...as local as the organic garden fifty yards outside of the resort dining hall), I did something I've never done before: walked into an empty bar - the "Grotto", the resort's cozy onsite tavern - where I sat down, ordered a drink, and spent an hour or two chatting it up with the bartender. We actually had a really awesome conversation, and I appreciated how much easier it is to seek and find human connection in the quiet of a small mountain town than it is in the hustle and bustle of a city. I may love Seattle, but I'll never fully shake the Midwesterner in me...

I followed that up with a solo nighttime soak in the resort's outdoor hot pool - a natural rock hot tub of sorts, with steaming, crystal clear water, and all nestled below a grove of evergreens (and in the case of two nights ago, a gorgeous moon), at the foot of snow-capped mountains. Talk about relaxation. I slept like a baby on one of what are reputed to be the most comfortable mattresses in the world. And awoke to...

Delicious breakfast! Yummy scrambled eggs, spelt bread with rhubarb jam, 19-bean salad, chicken apple sausage, fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice...and my interview! Won't write much here, despite wanting to...but I'll save my excitement from that for the article itself, which will run this summer.

The drive back home later that day involved a snowy traverse over Stevens Pass.


This next picture is one of my favorites from the whole trip...I was driving, rocking out to my music, looked up at the mountains and realized that I was right below the "snow line" - the horizon between the elevation at which it was actively snowing, and the elevation at which it was just raining...the line between which is entirely visible in this photo:


Awesome. What wasn't awesome was traffic coming back into the city. My drive out there was about two and a half hours. My drive home was four hours (four and a half when you include my numerous stops along the way to get out and photograph the scenery from the road.) Damn you, 520 and I-5. Sigh. But otherwise...truly a marvelous little getaway trip. And an exciting story to get down on paper ahead of me...

P.S. Also!!! A seriously awesome plug for a classmate/acquaintance/fellow creative writing major from Oberlin, Miss Lena Dunham, whose feature-length film, Tiny Furniture, just won "Best Narrative Feature" at SXSW in Austin, Texas! Trailer here.