Life's Tapestry

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonders forever."-Jacques-Yves Cousteau

The feeling that I've slowed down to a recognizable pace over this holiday break (one of the joys of teaching high school in the US=vacation) allowed me to step back, take a breath, and evaluate my current perspective. To celebrate time off from work, Jacob and I were able to a.) go out to eat with my Aunt, Uncle and beloved cousins Mitch and Alex, b.) hike into Silver Peak Wilderness, a 33,000 acre terrain characterized by the Santa Lucia Mountain range which sharply rises from the Pacific Ocean-a powerful intersecting of the land and the sea with steep cliffs of massive rock layers-humbling, foreboding, and beautiful, and, c.) visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and take a stroll down that legendary Cannery Row and become reacquainted with my childhood favorite author, John Steinbeck.

Much like my previous experiences driving down the 1 on the Pacific Coast, I'm in awe of the sharp, rugged, and power of this coast. It is a stark contrast to my memories on the beaches on the outerbanks of North Carolina as a child. South of Big Sur, and the Ventana Wilderness, Silver Peak lifts to 3,590 feet in the northwestern quadrant of the wilderness.

We began our hike in the southeastern quadrant right off the highway, starting through a section with thick vegetation dominated by that devil plant, poison oak. The trail was poorly maintained, and required a fair amount of bush-wacking of the Tanzania kind. Unfortunately we didn't have a machete with us-so just had to bear it and hope that the potent and illustrious antigen urushiol didn't bind to the proteins in our skin. I had a bad bout a few weeks ago, so I was particularly conscientious and intentional in my identification. We hiked into a section that gave way to desert like plants after we made it over the protective barrier from the moist fog hanging over the ocean. 10 miles in on the first day and we camped at a site, appropriately called the Lion's Den. Appropriate

because of the company we found ourselves amongst. Now, being a pacifist and an eternal optimist I guess I still harbor the naiveté of one who thinks people can meet each other on a very basic human level. And I'm still surprised to find that sometimes, beyond my control, people just aren't going to like me because of the way I look, present myself, or because of their own ingrained prejudices. Silly, but I thought, even as a former Peace Corps Hippie/Vegan I'd be able to sit down at a campfire with three young guys in army fatigues, leather boots, and a hunting rifle. Andrew, who introduced himself with a stiff-handshake and a welcoming smile, sporting a death tattoo, didn't turn out to be the nice guy that I thought he was. Even though we didn't get to singing kumbaya, we did sit around the campfire for some brief pleasantries before heading off to bed. I awoke to the sounds of drunken banter a few hours later and was face to face, once again, with the ugly reality that we humans are not very kind to each other. Thinking we were asleep the drunken army guys were plotting how they were going to show us "rich privileged kids with our thousand dollar gear" what life really was like. With references to silver platters and the like their obvious anger towards us escalated, so I finally woke Jacob up with the images of their rifle imprinted in my hazy, irrational mind. Fear is funny, and I've been in some pretty spotty positions before, but I guess I didn't expect to actually be afraid of backpacking in the US. In any case, as soon as Jacob got up to check our bags, after some vomiting, they went off into their respective tents, and I stayed awake waiting for the ambush that never came. Needless to say, we headed out of the lion's den pretty early the next day. The continued hike was on an old fire road that separated an army base from the wilderness, and gave us a lovely panoramic vantage point to view Big Sur Coastline to the North, the Pacific Ocean to the West, and the Salinas Valley to the East. After a few miles, an encounter with a horny toad, a small snake (which didn't rattle), and spiky cactus, we veered back into the lush vegetation to make a loop back toward our car. This part of the trail turned out to be stunning, with gurgling springs, waterfalls, fern-covered canyons, and meadows of grasses and wildflowers. I actually forgot about the encounter at the Lion's Den, and took time to relish in nature's wonder and embrace. Although our intention was to backpack for 3 nights, we ended up covering the entire loop we set out to do in two days, so decided to head back home with a few free days.

Thus, our trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I would love the opportunity for everyone to go check out this place that seems to reconnect us, in a very real way, to the creatures that we usually don't get to see, except if you are swimming and run into the stinging tentacles of a jellyfish.

It is the human drive to explore the enigmatic, while simultaneously harboring fear for the unknown. And the creatures in the ocean represent a world foreign, alien, and more like another planet than what we recognize on land. They allow us to brush our fingertips against the unknown. While standing next to the Kelp forest, a 28 foot underwater aquarium housing a diverse array of fish and life that typically only divers get to swim with, I had a pull on my soul similar to what I feel when out in the forest. In my heart danced Rumi's words, "There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don't you?"

It was fun to see families, kids, and adults all interacting with the world that we understand so little of, yet which makes up 75% of our planet. When we allow ourselves, as people to view life through the lens of another creature, it reminds me that some of the blessings that God, or gods, or the spirit instilled in our world are found spread throughout the natural world.

Seahorses are one of the only creatures of the animal kingdom where males have the physiological structures to support developing young. During mating, females, which house the eggs, transfer the eggs to the male, who then provides all of the post-fertilization parental care. They are fully equipped with marsupial-like pouches, to keep the developing embryo warm, provide nutrition, and protection.

Collaboration, patience, solitude, tenderness, madness, ugliness, beauty, toughness, and a serene gentleness; nature is full of the qualities and characteristics we like to think are special only to our species. But a healthy glimpse into our world with all of the contributors reminds us that we are but one yarn in the colorful tapestry of life.

I'm grateful to explore this reminder during my spring break, and have a fresh dose of humility that I'll keep with me as I head back into the home stretch for this school year.

Upcoming Pi Day!!!

I celebrate pi day not only for the nerd in me, but also for the birth of my favorite, friend-partner-in-crime. 

Yay for birthdays and for getting rings, and for spring. 

To celebrate we're going to go sky-diving. Having jumped out of an airplane only one other time in my life, I don't have a lot to go off, but I look forward to the natural high induced by going against all of our natural inclinations towards trying to fight against gravity. 

No we can't fly. 

But we can jump out of a plane. 

Anyway - Today is a good day.

Spring

"Afoot and light hearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune...” - Walt Whitman

March 1st. In Minnesota February and March represent the dread of winters end. Cold, wet, and dreary, the snow is no longer white-washed, but a weight on the life just starting to wake up below. In Northern California, February and March are beautiful. Flowers are opening, birds are chirping, the sun starts to shine earlier and earlier, and rainy days give way to glorious sunshine, and green blankets cover the soft rolling hills that lead into the Pacific. And I spent a weekend away with this simple, eternal beauty; freely provided by nature.

It's been a few months since my last blog. We successfully made it into a new decade of the 21st century. 

I coached a girls basketball team, went through the ebb and flow of a season with 11 14-year-old girls. 

Jacob and I moved into an 1800's victorian home in San Jose, CA. I hiked into Big Sur, Yosemite, Pointe Reyes National Seashore, and other various places in this part of California.

I wasn't sure what I wanted from a blog when I started this one. 

It might seem strange that I lived for 3 years in East Africa, and only now am I documenting my voice in the ostensible anonymity of the internet. I was just having a conversation about how strange it is that people share so much of themselves in the open-access world we live in. Yet, here I am. Just another of my many contradictions.

Since I've started, I figure I might as well use this space for a purpose.

We all seek meaning in our lives, and wish to tell a story. I've been trying to strike an internal balance since returning to the states, and it's proven to be an arduous task-what with the challenges of reverse-culture shock-the struggles of re-entry into a place I used to recognize as home. 

With a new set of values and a fresh perspective, my frustration has been manifested in an unfair judgement of Americans-I say, I don't remember people being so indifferent and narrow in their scope; I don't remember this lack of depth or foresight in interpersonal, political, or social interactions. 

I don't remember people being so disconnected from the world around them-the Earth they are indebted to. 

I don't remember it being so hard to find a common connection to the people around me; and most importantly, I don't remember feeling so isolated or lonely. 

Lucky for me, I have a friend and comrade to commiserate with. Not all people are so lucky.

Nowhere has this change in me been so apparent as in my rejection of a career. I don't know what I want to "be", by American standards; yet I feel more certain than ever before of who I want to be. I don't know what path I want to take in the workforce, yet I feel very certain of a path I want to take for my own self.

I went home for a week, to the cold Minnesota winter, and visited with my beloved family. Although I think readjustment has been difficult, the time I got to spend with my parents and siblings was a refreshing reinforcement of the unconditional love that I have and feel with family. No matter where I go, or what I do, or vice versa, there is that common history, ancestry, and shared formative years that will keep us together. While having a dialogue with my sister, I was able to see the reflection of the my values in her eyes. "Kit has three things that are important to her-Jacob, the PCT, and fluffy poop."

While not in this order, or quite as literal-especially for the latter of the three, they do reflect the values that I have come to hold dear to my heart.

1.Jacob, of course, is the primary example of the value I have for intra and interpersonal relationships. I do believe that the most important relationship any of us can and ever will have, is the relationship we have with our selves. As individual as Americans are, I still find it interesting that this is the one relationship that tends to be the most neglected, damaging and affecting the ability to form, nurture, and develop relationships with others.

I find that I'm able to put the necessary energy and love into my relationships with the people most important to me when I've fed my soul. When I'm grounded, or balanced, or centered, or however you want to say it; I'm able to empathize, really listen, and love others. And I am grateful to have found a friend and life partner in someone I admire, respect, and want to have the longest conversation of my life with, through marriage. I look forward to when we will recognize our commitment to each other in October with friends and family. And I'll get to call him my husband.

2.The PCT

An intersection and interaction of three countries, three states, and nearly 2700 miles of rock, sand, wind, desert, mountains, and snow-the Pacific Crest Trail is a childhood dream that is now within my grasp. Like the Peace Corps, the PCT represents a desire and drive I have to continuously challenge myself to grow and change and evolve. Together, Jacob and I plan to walk at least 20 miles a day for 4-5 months; a full-time job with the deadline every day as the setting sun, and the long-term objective of walking inexorably north before the snow or our bodies stop us. With our homes on our backs, and nature unrelenting; I want to see the wind, hear the rocks, taste the sky, and smell the mountain streams. I want to push myself past my limits, and challenge myself to force that interconnection between my mind, body and spirit. I want to overcome and work through the heat, blisters, hunger, injuries, and mental and physical fatigue. It's what keeps me going right now, and what I'm looking to. This blog is a journal and documentation of the preparation for the PCT.

3. The final value my sister so explicitly stated, was fluffy poop. And before anybody can say how disgusting that is, please let me explain. Being a vegan does change the consistency, density, and form of bodily waste. Now I don't necessarily value that change, but I do value the implicit values in a vegan lifestyle. I eat with intention, I think about what is going in to my body, and what repercussions my eating has on the larger living community. It's, as I mentioned before, a pillar in my life.

So, this was another dialogue into that open internet abyss. Hope someone could take something from it.

Until next time, I'm out.

V to the Egan

With a complete circumnavigation of the globe upon my return to the US, I feel in other ways I have also come full circle, returning back to the place I was before, but with a different lens. Many of the things that used to frustrate me before I left no longer do. Politics for instance. I remember writing opinion columns during my college years about the Bush administration in a very conservative part of the mid-west. I thought I was a sane voice amongst the disenfranchised. I no longer care so much, or feel the desire to get into political arguments. Open discussions are one thing, but most of the political climate is still rooted in the polarizing, simplifying, and misrepresenting of very complex issues. So I keep my mouth shut.

The other largest change in my lifestyle has been my introduction to being a vegan in the US. My change to a vegetarian diet was largely based on the lack of meat in the village where I was living, as well as a moral issue with slaughtering. I watched friends take the goat out back, and cut away without a blink. It catapulted me back to when I was 10 years old, fly-fishing in the mountains with my family, and not wanting to kill or clean my own fish. Or in college during my developmental biology lab when my professor handed out live, jumping frogs on the table in front of us, with a handout that described how we would be in charge of taking it's life. The process of pithing a frog involves first cutting off the top of the head, with a scissors going in the mouth, and cutting away up to the eyeballs. Next we were told to insert a long needle between the atlas and axis of the vertebral column, entering the brain stem, breaking up the brain tissue, and getting the frog ready for a dissection. I had a crisis in that lab. I couldn't bring myself to take it's life. And, amongst my fellow lab mates, I tried to contain it for fear of looking like a wimp. Guess I have a problem playing God. The other defining moment was in my first year as a Peace Corps Volunteer when a group of young, non-experienced slaughterers decided to try to kill our own turkey for thanksgiving. Without delving into the gory details, let's just say poor Grandpa Bibi (I made the mistake of naming that turkey) had a rough run-in with a knife. At one point he was running around the front yard with the knife sticking out of his head and blood running down his screeching face.

It was an inevitable route to vegetarianism during those two years in Kerenge, Tanzania, and I felt better about the control I had over what was going into my body, and the connection I had with the rest of the natural world. Aside from that, I also found that I had more energy. I started running again, and found I could go much longer than I ever had before. I never really enjoyed running as a hobby, except for what it did for basketball or soccer; but during my last year in Tz, running was an outlet. I had not fully decided to go vegan after living with Jacob, but I had pretty much adopted veganism out of convenience because we were cooking for both of us. He never pressured or prostelitized, but I did see the benefits from his lifestyle, and thought sincerely about it for myself.

I've had a lot of people ask me about my diet, and most of the questions have been as one person presented it, "so which box do you fit in, environmental reasons, animal rights reasons, religious reasons, or health reasons?" And I'm like, uh, well, actually, kind of, all of those boxes. Is there an "all of the above?"

Sometimes when I try to explain it, I end up sounding discombobulated, and people get really defensive about their diets, and in turn I feel like I have to justify myself. People are free to choose how they live their lives, and I, for one appreciate that right, and wouldn't want to cross that boundary and force my views on another. But this "diet", is actually more than a series of food choices for me, it's become a pillar in my foundation. And a welcome one.

I've had a tumultuous spiritual journey, shunning catholicism at a young age, and then trying to figure out where I fit in the spiritual world after that. After devising my own connoction taking from Christian values and Buddhist principles, I've sort of come to an equilibrium. And being a vegan is a part of that philosophy. I do think we are all connected, not just as humans, and I like to try to be aware of the impact I have on all living things. It's one area I can control, and have a say. Also it provides me with a medium to practice my faith and beliefs, without affecting or hurting others.

So that's my journey to where I am now. V to the egan is where I'm at. Animal free, and happy.

Silence

In silence, the high tide of our dark night engulfed the zenith.

Gurgling streams ran about our feet;

flags risen high, color springing forth,

raging or fluttering against the dying light,

carrying words for all sentient beings.

It was a colorful, calming dance, swaying with the wind.

Amid majesty, we were all and one with the world.

And we spoke, but in hushed voices,

and like the crash of distant thunder,

the sounds rolled between the white crests.

In, Silence.

Dar Cho

Dar Cho is a what prayer flags are called in Tibetan script, which is translated to a wish to increase life, health, and well-being for all sentient beings.

I'm beginning a new blog to recognize the start of a new phase in my life. My first theme is a general well wish for all who will read this, as well as those who won't. 

By putting my words out into the internet abyss, I'm hoping they will reach someone, and ultimately, do some good.

This is all I have today.

Out.