I've been out here for 14 days now. Hard to believe how fast the time goes. I hiked though Pearisburg, VA (which is the town you see in the picture above) two days ago and in the next couple of days I'll be in Daleville, VA.
I'm sitting in a small shelter approximately 661.8 miles from Springer Mountain in Georgia. It's raining a little bit. There are four others with me: two SOBOs and two other NOBOs like me. (Southbound and northbound.) It's a little magical sitting in a shelter while it rains. Part of it I'm sure is the knowledge that you're not hiking in it, I'm sure.
I've slowed down a whole lot. My feet have been hurting, so I pulled my mileage way down from 15-20 mpd to about 11-15 mpd. I decided it was better to not be miserable and not go as far than to go further and hate myself for it. It's amazing how important your head is when your hiking. If your head's not in it then you may as well be somewhere else. The other day I had a moment where I was done. I was ready to go home. That's when I decided it was time to chill out and smell the freaking mountain laurel.
Look how swollen my feet look in this picture (this was a week ago when my feet weren't doing very well):
My feet are doing much better; they have shrunk back almost to their normal size:
The tape around my ankles is protecting some healing blisters.
I had my first "zero" day (in which you go zero miles). I zeroed out at Woods Hole Hostel. Like my guidebook says, it really is a little piece of heaven. It's a small, self-sustaining organic farm and hostel. It's run by a lady named Neville and her husband Michael. They make amazing home-cooked meals... I got to hang out with the goats and the chickens and the ducks and the cows and the geese and the dogs and the annoying guinea hens for a day. It was a very wonderful stay.
A nice panoramic of the bunkhouse and the main house.
Neville doing the dishes. Notice the custom stained glass window with the Woods Hole owl.
She keeps all her spices in labeled mason jars on the shelf. She made fresh baked bread daily and we ate meals around the table.
After walking through Pearisburg I stayed at the Rice Field shelter. It was full of trash and the privy wasn't much to write home about, but the view! I sat out in the field at sunset and watched the sun say goodnight and simultaneously watched the huge super moon rise. It was amazing.
I'll leave you with a little bit of trail magic: some knock-off Crocs someone left at the hostel which I picked up and a beautiful view.
It's hiker midnight (9pm) and I'm signing out. This girl has got to sleep.
Day four on the trail: my feet are fairing...fair on the Chaco experiment. I have blisters in places that I wasn't ever expecting blisters. Like on the tips of my toes? What do you even do for that? It doesn't bother me too badly. As long as I have a long uphill to distract me. Yes, long uphills are a welcomed sight in my eyes. They are challenging; your feet never hurt while ascending; and they make you twenty times more grateful for a downhill when it comes. (And it always comes.)
I almost stepped on a snake today. (As per usual...) It was a blackish type snake with diamond like designs on the sides. It acted like it was going to get aggressive and rattled its tail like it was a rattler minus the rattles. The head was not in a noticeable triangular shape. Any guesses?
I hiked through the Grayson Highlands this week. I think that might be the highlight of my hike this time around. Such beautiful open balds. Rocky-tops everywhere. And PONIES. Yes, wild herds of ponies. I ran into three different herds or packs or whatever you would call them. So cute--it was ridiculous.
I just picked up my drop box in Atkins, VA, so if you wish to find me on map, there you go.
I ran into some real trail magic. There was a wooden lockbox all decorated on the outside and filled with everything a hiker could need on the inside: soap, snacks, band aids, tortillas, hand sanitizer, etc... Pictured below are some of the people that have been more or less on the same pace as me: Fat Toodles, Etc, and L Dog.
It's amazing that even cow pastures like this can just take your breath away.
So I hike, and I enjoy it. I love it. I makes me happy. And I love people who hike as well. They're my people.
I went on my first backpacking trip up in the Uinta mountains with my family when I was twelve and it was there I fell in love with long-distance walking. Six years ago I walked the last hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail in Maine with my mom and sister and it was then I fell in love with the AT. Two years ago I read the book A Walk In The Woods and it was then that I determined that I too must walk the AT. One year ago I started with my first section of the trail, walking over 450 miles from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Damascus, Virginia in 29 days. This year, as in tomorrow, I will start the second section of my walk through Appalachia. I plan to walk from Virginia, where I left off, to West Virginia.
Stay tuned for updates, pictures, stories and details about my ongoing love affair with the Appalachian Trail. It promises to be a grand adventure, as per usual.
That one time Talib Kweli and Mos Def rapped about home birth with a midwife...
The first verse talks about an invasive hospital birth.
That second one talks about a much nicer birth at home with a midwife.
Suddenly, I love Talib even more than I did before.
I am tired.
I am more productive at night.
I sleeeeeeep in when I can, do nothing on the interweb till 3 or 4 in the afternoon. THEN I start doing whatever's on the to-do list.
Sometimes I work.
Sometimes I attend births.
Sometimes I sit/hike/laugh with friends.
Most of the times I should be studying.
I am forever needing breaks.
I rarely get them.
I always need to be outside.
I'm wearing glasses right now because that's what I do when my eyes hurt.
I skype with people who I love. A lot.
I love to be at home.
I love to make things/food with my mom.
I love to be honest.
I love to love those who love to love me back.
And I love my new bookcase because it means that my books are not in boxes and I can look at them and read them. To have them in my very presence brings me a lot of joy.
Sometimes people underestimate me. They think I am like other people. Other women. Other humans. I've come to discover that (as much as I would LIKE to be like other people) I am not. I've developed an (un)healthy amount of apathy towards many things. My rational mind perhaps has a bit more of a pull than my emotional mind. I can't expect many things out of many people. I don't like to look stupid, and will always try to exude confidence in myself, as well as other people.
AT the same time: I understand the need for vulnerability, expectations, etc... among other things in life/relationships and the balance of these two sides of myself is the most delicate of things. I depend on my heart a lot to know what direction to go, what to say, when to say it, who to talk to, who to love, who to befriend, who to reach out to.
BUT, at the risk of sounding like I have a hard, calloused, tough heart, I will say this: I HOPE. And I believe that HOPE is much different from expectation. I carry a lot of hope around with me. I see things in people and I HOPE they can be or say or do or feel the way that makes them feel good about themselves and the people around them. I HOPE that people can make changes. Follow through. Be happy. Love themselves. I HOPE so much sometimes. I HOPE all the time.
And somehow that hope helps me to not lose hope in humanity and the people I stay connected to.
Watching the whole Boston Marathon bombing debacle unfold before my eyes, live, on the television, through phone notifications from CNN, on the radio, from the people around me, makes me question hope. Why do people do sad things. (I can't even put a question mark there, because to question it would make me lose hope in humanity, and I need to believe that the majority of people are good. Are kind. That they love. That they want the best. That they see the need for generosity and tolerance.)
You've probably seen this video posted a gazillion times already, and you've probably already watched it a couple as well. But it encourages me to keep on hoping.
Some of my favorite verses found in the Book of Mormon, Moroni 7:41-48, inspire me to no end. They are the heart and soul of what I want to be. I want to radiate hope and love.
41 And what is it that ye shall ahope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have bhope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life ceternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.
42 Wherefore, if a man have afaith he bmust needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope.
43 And again, behold I say unto you that he cannot have faith and hope, save he shall be ameek, and lowly of heart.
44 If so, his afaith and hope is vain, for none is bacceptable before God, save the cmeek and lowly in heart; and if a man be meek and lowly in heart, and dconfesses by the power of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must needs have charity; for if he have not charity he is nothing; wherefore he must needs have charity.
45 And acharity suffereth long, and is bkind, and cenvieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily dprovoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—
47 But acharity is the pure blove of Christ, and it endurethcforever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.
48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, apray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true bfollowers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall cbe like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be dpurified even as he is pure. Amen.
This past General Conference weekend I participated in the launch party for Ordain Women. I have always been interested in all things women's-rights/equality related, especially as they pertain to my church. I was deeply impressed by the website and this brought me out to the gathering held at the same time as the Priesthood session on Saturday. The meeting met my expectations to learn more about the ordination of women, feeling more connected with the other women and men involved with this movement and feeling the necessity of creating a safe space to have these discussions. After several presentations given by the panel of women, they up opened the floor for the audience to express why they were there, their personal experiences and why they support the ordination of women. I hadn't planned on contributing at this point, but as the mic was being passed around, I couldn't help but stand. This picture caught me mid-expression:
Here is the answer to the question SV asked, "What was she saying?"
In more or less words that were certainly better said at that moment I felt I had to rise and after expressing that I felt prompted to stand because of the pounding heart and other familiar pre-testimony-giving feelings, I talked about why I support the ordination of women. Here are some of the experiences I shared along with some other thoughts:
I was an LDS missionary once. I loved my work and dedicated myself to it. My favorite part of being a missionary was the express duty to love God's children. I fiercely loved the people I served in my mission. During an interview with my mission president, my sweet president congratulated me for my hard work. He then told me that if I was an elder he would have called me to serve as a Zone Leader (a sort of leader over a group of missionary companionships in a geographical area). At the time this was a wonderful complement, but as time went on and I thought about this, I realized this is something we should never have to say--to anyone. "If you were more or less this, then you could be something better or more important..." We should never make people feel like they are less than a person or less qualified to be something because of who they are innately.
I am now a student midwife. I have the great opportunity to help women through the process of birth in their homes. I can't tell you how many times in the past year I have found myself wishing for the authority to lay my hands on a woman's head or belly as she labors and to leave a blessing on her, to bless her body as it passes through the sacrament of birth. I have always expressed sympathy to the women who have desired to hold the priesthood, but I have never particularly felt moved to seek for this gift. I can thank my journey of becoming a midwife for changing that.
On the road to seeking equality, I believe that returning to the ordination of women will bring greater strength to families in the church. I believe that the correct parallel for motherhood is fatherhood, not priesthood. I believe that asking questions faithfully brings us closer to our Heavenly Parents. I believe in continuing revelation and am grateful my church does as well.
I love my church. I love my leaders. I have a small, but stalwart testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When I struggle, I hold on to the things I know and the things I believe.
I want dialogue about this. If you have questions, please ask. Leave a comment here, email me, visit the above link for Ordain Women. This isn't about proving points or telling people they are wrong, but about understanding and seeking answers.
I’ve learned a lot of things this week. Let’s just say it
was hard week. Like, really hard.
It truly pays to sleep when you can
Follow your instincts always
Keep a clear and sound mind under pressure
React with confidence or not at all
Be true to yourself and your personal integrity
Eat good food and drink lots of water
Communicate to reduce resentment
Hold it in when you need, and let it out when
you can, but never keep it inside
Crying is a release and shoulders to cry on is a
blessing
Writing helps the process of processing
Delegate
Ask for help and give help when needed
Take a day off
Know your boundaries
I hit a wall earlier this week (although it felt more like a
brick to the face). I let it get the best of me and felt horribly drained mentally,
emotionally and physically because of it. I’ve never felt so discouraged—I not only
felt like I can’t be a midwife, but that I don’t want to be a midwife. Then I connected with my sister midwives and
felt that release. A relinquished weight. The sharing of the burden. Those women understand like no one else can. They know the feelings you get. These feelings of sadness come and go—going
more than coming. The calling is still there. The calling to help, support,
love, teach, soothe and care for women throughout the process of birth. You
cannot abandon a calling. It’s part of who you are, and it will be with you
always.
The key is balance. And this is a theme that is a constant
in my life. I find the greatest happiness when I feel like I am balanced. And I
am so aware of my imbalanced ways right now, and I'm working on it.
I'm sitting at work, observing a patient who has schizophrenia. He's a very nice gentleman, and he talks to himself a lot. Earlier, I overheard him say what I thought was the portugues word for darkness. He probably was saying something else. I don't think he speaks portugues. But it got me thinking about this day and the past year simultaneously.
This day I woke up and it was snowing. It was dark and dreary outside as I drove to work and it made me sad. Oh I'm longing for Spring. And light. Light all the time. I want to wake up early to the sun and go to bed late with it as well.
This year had so many dark moments. A friend once said that I'm an extremely positive person. But not to a fault. I think I can realize the positives AND the negatives of a situation and be appreciative of both.
I think there's something important about embracing dark moments for what they are. Not to be taken over by them, but to acknowledge their existence and perhaps even purpose in our development.
Yes, I said I thought darkness was important. I do. Just as I believe light is important. Darkness is not a bad thing. Just different.
Sometimes you will find yourself reading a blog and you will have the following thought process:
1. this person is super full of themselves--how many selfies can you take of yourself??
2. why the hell am i looking at this blog???
3. oh shoot.
4. i can't believe i wasted minutes of my life reading that thing, when i could have been watching a cool youtube video (when i really should have been doing homework.)
5. guess i better blog about it. (when i should be doing homework)
6. and post a selfie of me doing what i wish i was doing right now.
Sometimes you need a little cleansing. Souls need it. And I needed it today.
I forgot about so many things backed up in my head and on my hard drive, and it was good to say goodbye to them. It feels good to be done. To press DELETE and not look back.
I sat in church yesterday and I listened to a man who knew that God loved him. I love listening to people talk about their personal relationships with God. It's sacred and you rarely get to be in the same room to hear such sincerity. I'm glad it happened yesterday and I'm glad I was there to hear it. It reinstated some faith in the conversion process. It still happens and it's still powerful.
My heart aches sometimes. Most of the time it's for inexplicable reasons. It's a picture. It's a song. Its a sentence read in a book. Then it hits and it kills me. I can feel the heart muscle tighten and we all know that tight muscles ache.
I wish there was someone I could go to to work this ache out. But then again, it usually dissipates before it becomes a problem.
The only thing that has ever been guaranteed to work for me is nature. Rolling mountains, wilderness, desert. Quiet nights, whistling mornings. Stars, moonrises and sunrises.
It makes me cry a baby bit.
This reminds me.
I hope my life is heading in the right direction. Serious doubts surface sometimes and those doubts are scary for me to feel.
Oh, take me away. I want crisp air. I want green. I want warmth. I want clean thinking.
This is why you should get to know someone in the wintertime. It might be the saddest time of the year.
The winds outside sound spooky. They are so strong and loud. They are knocking things around. They make me feel alone and lonely. The trees are swooshing and swaying and bending. I wish that I was out-of-doors so that I could appreciate that noise more. Then Julianna Barwick is playing and it makes me feel more alone and lonelier.
It's the best kind of loneliness. (Solitary loneliness that doesn't require anyone or thing but you.)
Birth
This time of year we talk a lot of birth. The birth of our Savior was/is one of the most important events to come to pass in the history of humanity. We sing songs about this event. We read scriptures about this event. But really we know nothing about the details of this event. Our conversation lacks important elements.
We see depictions of that night and they always seem to skip the pivotal moment. The moment of birth. We hear a cry and a babe magically appears, all clean and swaddled in Mary's arms. It reminds me of my mom talking about my own birth. There's a video of my birth and my mom always complains that the person taking the video didn't capture the main event because of issues of modesty--but that's the moment that hits me at a birth every time. Watching a baby come slowly and gently into the world is one of the most blessed and holy things to watch. You feel you are at the precipice of creation and connection of body and spirit. Why would you skip that?
No one ever thinks about the process or significance if this event. The details of Mary's labor and birth. How did her young body handle the oncoming waves? Those strong surges through her uterus. How did she process that pressure of the wee babe descending down the birth canal. Was it hard for her to relax in that strange place? The stable, among the animals.
As she transitioned though to second stage, did she yell or scream? Did she curse God? Joseph? Or did she go deep into herself to find the divine strength of her Mother in Heaven to help her? Did she quietly labor or did she moan or hum or sing or cry? Did she move around the stable? Did she do a birth dance?
Who were the women who helped her? Who were the midwives? Were they just carrying through with their skills, not realizing the significance of this holy child? Or did they hear the angels singing Hosannas and join in the praises?
Was there blood? Did Mary hemorrhage? How long was she in labor for? How long did it take for her cervix to dilate? How long did she push for? Did her perineum tear? What healing herbs, salves and tinctures did her attendants give to her? Did she give birth standing up? On her hands and knees?
Did the little babe latch on to her breast right away? Did the wee babe get bits of colostrum full of important immunities and nutrients?
OH TO HAVE BEEN THERE IN THE SAME SPACE TO FEEL THE BONDING ENERGY from that post-partum rush of oxytocin between Mary and the little babe. Oh the tears. Of joy, of perineal pain, of post-partum contractions.
What did the placenta look like? Did they cut it soon after birth? Did they leave it attached till it dried up and fell off? Did they wait for it to stop pulsing with blood till they cut it? Did Mary consume the placenta to take advantage of those nutrients and balancing hormones?
Oh how I would have loved to have attended our Savior's birth. Oh how I would have loved to have been with Mary and supported her and guided her breath and helped her relax her shoulders and forehead. Oh how I would have loved to reassure her when her eyes filled with doubt. Oh how I would have loved to be with Joseph. Oh Joseph. Thank you, thank you Joseph. I don't know if you were even with your wife. I can't imagine that being with a laboring in women was a normal practice at that time. But I imagine that you were there with her in that small, holy space. How could you have ever dreamed of leaving your young laboring wife? I can't imagine. She needed you and I see that you needed her. This moment was intimate and lovely. To see your wife transcend human weakness and pain and be vulnerable and open. What did it feel like? This wasn't even your physical child. How did you process that? This birth would be different then the births of your other children that would follow. How connected did you feel with this child? This holy child.
Oh how I would have loved to be with that young, young couple. That primagravida and her husband. That special moment when a mother finally has the Being she has been growing in her womb after forty weeks and a father finally feels like a father as he holds his babe.
It brings me to tears to think of that birth. That very special birth. The energy, the love, the blood, the tears, the cry of the babe.
I love the song Silent Night. I love that it sings of the holy silence following the birth. But I wish there was a way to sing praise of the birth itself. Of the blood, of the surges, of the moment. I wish that in addition to songs about the shepherds and the wise men, that there were also songs about the attending midwives. I wish this all existed because I think it's an element of the birth of our Savior that we do not choose to think about nor comprehend.
Birth is a mirror of life. If you have ever participated in a birth you see and feel this. There are so many parallels.
Thank you Mary. Thank you Joseph. Thank you silent midwives. Thank you baby Jesus.
Merry Christmas.
I'm back to school. After a period of prolonged procrastination it's time to buckle down and get things done. And of course this also will mean an influx of blog posts.
I will now be comparing the BYU library with the UVU library, because I switch between the two as my study locales.
BYU:
+you can park in visitor parking for free
+connecting to the Internet is really easy
-during finals it's hard to find a good, quiet place to do homework
-it's further away than UVU
+I have an obvious bias to the campus because BYU is my alma mater.
UVU:
-unless you get a visitors pass at parking services (which is not part of the main campus) you have to pay for parking
+it's a lot closer that BYU
-connecting to the Internet is a pain.
+it's much more spread out than BYU's library, so finding a nice place to study is easy.
+beards abound.
I know. It's faux pas to mention something for the third time in a row in a blog. Get some new material right?
(But let's just say that I've listened to Go Long by Joanna Newsom over 20 times on my iTunes on my computer, and probably more than double that on my iPod in the past week and a half. That's over 60 times. The song itself is 8 minutes long. That's over 8 hours of the same song. Nothing else sounds good to me.)
I'd like to thank T. Bell for the following:
Nature was here something savage and awful, though beautiful. I looked with awe at the ground I trod on, to see what the Powers had made there, the form and fashion and material of their work. This was that Earth of which we have heard, made out of Chaos and Old Night. Here was no man's garden, but the unhandselled globe. It was not lawn, nor pasture, nor mead, nor woodland, nor lea, nor arable, nor waste land. It was the fresh and natural surface of the planet Earth, as it was made forever and ever,--to be the dwelling of man, we say,--so Nature made it, and man may use it if he can. Man was not to be associated with it. It was Matter, vast, terrific,--not his Mother Earth that we have heard of, not for him to tread on, or to be buried in,--no, it were being too familiar even to let his bones lie there,--the home, this, of Necessity and Fate. There was clearly felt the presence of a force not bound to be kind to man. It was a place of heathenism and superstitious rites,--to be inhabited by men nearer of kin to the rocks and to wild animals than we....What is it to be admitted to a museum, to see a myriad of particular things, compared with being shown some star's surface, some hard matter in its home! I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am bound has become so strange to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one,--that my body might,--but I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature,--daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it,--rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?
Lately, a lot of things have been moving me to tears.
Every time I see this preview.
This movie.
This song.
The full moon tonight. Are you for real?
This article.
I am so grateful for beautiful things. Beautiful people. Most of the time I'm quite pessimistic when it comes to my opinion of the world and the state of things, but I still like to to hope the good in this world outweighs the bad.
These things help me believe that. They're small and extremely insignificant, but they move me.
Sometimes I like to do things by myself. Not because I prefer to do things by myself, but sometimes what I prefer is not what others prefer, and thus requires me to do them alone.
Movies: I'm not afraid to see them alone. If I really want to see something, I'll see it.
Snowboarding: I feel like I bro-out way too much when I ride, and so perhaps it's a good thing that I do that alone.
Being alone doesn't scare me.
But it's not what I prefer.
Also. I've been on the internet for a while. And I've borne my heart out to it for almost as long. That might not have been a good thing during my more tumultuous years, but I can't help that now. I was reading my livejournal (Yes. My Livejournal. I had two. I was so cryptic. So emotional. And I loved to say bad four-letter words.)
All this leads up to this point--today I went boarding up at Brighton. It was opening day and it was so perfect. Over 4 feet of beautiful dry snow. My legs are paying for it. But it's something that makes me so so happy. I've said that before. Several times actually. As I was looking through ye olde Livejournal entries, it was one of the only things that I consistently wrote about. Take this line from 21 Jan. 2004:
this smoggy, utah air makes me sick. physically sick. it's so full of pollution. i can't see the mountains. i can't see the sun, moon, stars or even the blue sky. it makes me so sad. driving up to brighton on saturday was amazing. as the elevation grew, so did the clarity. i could see the sky, and not only could i see the sky, but i could see the BLUE sky. up there you look down at the valley, and you don't want to go back. im going back up there on monday. i can't wait. it really makes me happy.
Or this gem from 04 Mar. 2004:
i went riding today, and now i can do jumps. im very proud of myself. i can't wait to go again.
11 Dec. 2004:
we went riding this morning up at Brighton, and it was probably the best thing that has happend to me all week. i was SO happy to get back on a board-you really have no idea how happy it made me.
13 Feb. 2005:
best weekend ever.dad and tricia flew in on thursday. 8 hours snowboarding on friday with the fam at brighton.8 hours saturday doing the same thing.my body is pretty much dying because i rode so hard, but i couldn't care less because it was my best yet.
18 Mar. 2005:
so happy. the kind of happy that happens when you catch 3 feet of air and land perfectly in the fresh powder below.
