Thursday, April 25, 2013

Dream Weaver, I Believe You Can Get Me Through...

I have had climbing dreams occasionally since I was a little girl - dreams that I'm climbing steep stairs or a hill. In just the past month or so I have had three similar dreams about climbing and not being able to get to the top. The first one involved climbing a stone wall up to a bridge; as I got closer to the top, I couldn't find a toe hold. In dream two, I climbed up a steep embankment next to a road where the soil was really loose. When I reached the top, I tried to pull myself up by grabbing onto a guard rail but I couldn't grasp it. In my latest dream, I was making my way up some stairs by climbing through the bars of the railing. Suddenly the bars got so close together that I couldn't get through.

I wouldn't say that I am overly fearful of heights but I sure like to have my feet on the ground. Several years ago, my husband and I hoped to hike up to the Longs Peak Keyhole. The view on the other side of the Keyhole is supposed to be pretty incredible. The Keyhole is only 1.5 miles beyond Boulder Field but it really isn't that easy because the rocks become more steep. I remember getting to the point where I was too afraid to take another step because my feet were slipping on the rocks. It was frustrating to be so close yet give up because of my fear. Yet I told myself it was okay because I trust my self-preservation instincts. 

Having so many of these unsuccessful climbing dreams so close together makes me think that my mind is telling me something, something that is really not that mysterious. I want to climb and I'm making progress but I can't finish the climb because I don't feel secure - too much anxiety and self-doubt.
Manitou Springs Incline

Remember the song Dream Weaver? It's interesting to see what Gary Wright said about the song's meaning:
'Dream Weaver, I believe you can get me through the night...' was a song about someone with infinite compassion and love carrying us through the night of our trials and suffering. None other than God Himself.
God has carried me through every single trial I have been through so I'll know he'll help me overcome my self doubts. He is truly My Rock.


The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety. - Psalm 18:2

Friday, April 12, 2013

Hunching in a Remotely Upright Position

I was at the airport looking for something to read on the plane and found a beautifully written book called Wild, by Cheryl Strayed. The book is about the author's solo hike over 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert to Washington State when she was 26 years old. I thought it would be an interesting book because it is about an outdoor adventure, but also because it describes the author's search for healing after the loss of her mother. I was right.

Last year, I watched the documentary The Runner about David Horton, a hardcore runner who did a 2,700 mile run of the PCT in 66 days so I had some idea of what the trail would be like from the perspective of a competitive ultra-runner. The film showed Horton crossing desert, snow and gushing rivers and dealing with the blisters and pain of running long distances every day. Horton is an extreme athlete who trains to run long distances so he was well prepared and also had a support team to supply provisions along the way. Strayed, on the other hand, didn't train for her 1,000 mile journey and did not anticipate how difficult it would be to hike long distances every day for weeks at a time. A friend mailed provisions and cash to post offices along her route but she was woefully unprepared in many ways.

Early in the book, Strayed described her preparations to embark on her journey. She had purchased backpacking supplies from REI but had not pre-filled her backpack to check its weight prior to starting her hike. The water she carried weighed about 24 pounds alone. I don't know how much the loaded pack weighed, but I would guess maybe 70 pounds because she said it was more than half her body weight. She hilariously describes being unable to even lift the backpack off the ground once she stuffed it with all the things she thought she needed for her adventure (a change of clothes, a thick fleece anorak, gloves, a couple of hats, rain pants, a two week supply of food, sleeping bag, camp chair, water purifier, collapsible stove, books and more). She finally sat in front of the backpack, strapped it on, rocked herself up onto her hands and knees and did a sort of dead lift to stand up "hunching in a remotely upright position."

The overloaded back pack, which Strayed eventually named "Monster," made it extremely tough for her to go the distance she intended to go every day. She carried more weight than her body was capable of handling without a lot of pain. Even the men she met on the trail were astounded that she was carrying such a heavy pack. Eventually, a more experienced hiker on the trail offered to go through her pack and help her eliminate the stuff she could really do without.

While I couldn't relate to many of the personal choices the author made while living on the Wild side, I can relate to her struggle to figure out her relationship with her mother. Like Strayed, I spent my childhood planning not to become my mother.  When my mom would say to me and my sisters, "Wait till you have six (or seven or eight) kids," I would say to myself, No way! That's not the life I want. I'm going to make smart choices about money. I'm going to have a career, not a series of low-paying jobs. I'm going to have a loving, respectful marriage. I'm not going to make the mistakes you made!


On the day that would have been her mother's 50th birthday, Strayed was finally able to see her mother as a complete person, as "an intricately painted mural," with perfect and imperfect aspects. It took me many years to come to that realization about my own mother. And while I chose a completely different path in life than my own mom, in some ways, I did become her after all. I became gentle and kind and generous and learned to accept people for who they are, even if it is not who I want them to be.

One of my early Non-Mom "role models"
Cheryl Strayed's journey in the wilderness was a life changing adventure. I can't imagine being brave enough or foolish enough to backpack alone. Fortunately, I live close enough to the Rocky mountains that I can do day hikes and not spend the night listening to coyotes howl. It's a great way to clear your head.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Thank You, Mrs. Quinn

I will be turning fifty in just a few months. I find myself looking forward to this milestone in a way I did not expect even ten years ago as I look back and see how blessed my life has been. With the passage of years, even the difficult times from childhood seem like blessings in disguise.

Growing up, my family was always poor, but the larger our family became, the worse things got. By the time I started sixth grade, we were a family of nine. My parents had already split up and reconciled more than once. That year it was becoming clear that there wouldn't be a lasting reconciliation. It was not a happy time in my life.

Back then, Holton, Kansas had three elementary schools, including a small school out in the country just for the sixth-graders (lower left in photo above). Sixth grade had three classes of twenty or so students. Mrs. Quinn's classroom, my homeroom, was located in a trailer outside the main building.

Innie Me helping Mrs. Tolin serve lunch
Mrs. Quinn was the Language Arts teacher. I remember writing short stories for her using ideas from some note cards. One of my stories was a tall tale about Cactus Cathy, who was like a gunslinger from the wild west, but she used her cactus spines to fight crime. Mrs. Quinn liked my stories and suggested that we send a few of them to Highlights magazine. So we sent off the stories and in due course I got a rejection letter saying thanks, but your stories are the wrong length for our magazine. I threw my stories away, believing they would have been rejected even if they were the right length. I accepted that I was not destined to be the next John Boy Walton.

When I was sixteen, we moved to another small town and I never saw Mrs. Quinn again, though I follow her posts on Facebook now. I have never forgotten that at a time in life when circumstances made me feel like I wasn't good enough, I had a teacher who thought I was good at something. Good enough to dream big.

The Rose lyrics (Bette Middler)

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun's love
In the spring becomes the rose.

Mrs. Quinn didn't just teach me sixth grade English or Math, she planted a seed that grew and blossomed into self confidence.

Mrs. Quinn, thank you for the role you played in my life story!