Lost in Technology

Last week my dearest friend’s 94 year old father passed away. It was not unexpected and in some ways a blessing as he had not been able to enjoy life for some time now. After days of her dealing with arrangements and details. I thought a restorative hike in the woods was in order. 

In our younger days we would go backpacking for days, deep into the mountains. Trail markers were sometimes helpful but were often missing or obscured by vegetation. Sometimes trails would be obliterated by storm damage or by beavers blocking streams which created new ponds where the trails ought to be. Our only navigation was a USGS topo map and a compass. Using our talents and powers of deduction we always managed to find our way to our destination and find our way back out again. 

However, this was only to be a day trip and we didn’t give it much thought. Being painfully out of shape, we googled “easy hikes” in the Adirondacks and choose one listed about an hour away. We threw some water, bug juice and a few snacks into a day pack and off we went. We drove about 50 minutes, got off the correct highway exit and quickly stopped for a bathroom break. Then we turned on Waze to lead us to the trail head. But Waze was saying we were still an hour away when we thought we should be pretty close. A little confused about the discrepancy we still followed it’s directions until we were on a dirt road. The road quickly became more of a rutted path which dead ended and we were now so remote we lost the Waze connection. 

“Do you have a map?” I asked. Nope. Great. Seriously, who goes hiking into a giant forest without a map?

I am amazed at how much I have ceded all my trust to my phone and the technology in it. Maps, Google assistant, phone numbers, banking, grocery lists. For all the information it makes available to me, I swear it is making me dumber. 

Anyway, we got out of the car to walk around and see if we could get any internet signal. No. But in that silence we did hear the sound of rushing water, decided to investigate and came upon this, reaffirming the notion that all who wander are not lost. 

Okay, we were lost in the sense that we had no idea where we were, but we were leaving M&Ms along the way to help guide us back to the car so we were pretty sure we could get out.

We decided to explore a little knowing that if we could hear the waterfall, we weren’t too far from where we parked. We spent our time picking our way along the stream bed, occasionally leaving more M&Ms when we strayed, until we ran out of trail mix and decided we wanted a real meal. 

We were tired, sore and hungry but the time out forest bathing was extremely calming and soul healing.

Following the sound of the water we got back to the car, turned around and picked our way back out to civilization.  As soon as we were able to get a signal I googled “restaurants near me”. 

Sometimes I think my phone is trying to kill me as it steals so much of my attention and drains my soul and my memory banks. But sometimes it finds an incredible restaurant in the middle of nowhere for two weary hikers to rest and rejuvenate. 

Feeling quite accomplished for the day I consulted my FitBit. It told me we had "hiked" less than a mile in the three hours in were in the woods. Less than 1 mile?  I hate technology.

Photographs and Memories

I had reason to pull out an old photograph the other day. It is a photo taken a few weeks after Daphne and I had been attacked and I am standing with a friend outside a house she rented, me needing a new, safe place to live. In the photo I am still battered and bruised, left foot crushed and casted, not being able to stand upright due to so many fractured ribs. I am expressionless. Hollow. My soul had been shattered.


I began exposure therapy years ago and one of my biggest concerns was that all the rehashing of those events would desensitize me so much that I would no longer remember Daphne and her pain and subsequent death. It seemed disloyal and something else I can’t find the words to describe. Not that I wanted to be constantly controlled by the emotional pain, but I also didn’t want to forget it either. I especially don't want to forget her,


It was once a very difficult photograph for me to look at. Now, although I recognize that I am the girl in the photo , I find that I am having difficulty remembering who she was. Who I was. This year, for the first time, Daphne’s birthday came and went and I didn’t remember it. For years I would go into a deep depression on that day, and all anniversaries connected to her or that day. In more recent years I would go to her grave site. This year it passed without any commemoration or even notice.


I don’t know if this is just a product of time passing that would have happened anyway, or more a result of the desensitization of exposure therapy. Do veterans lose their memory of buddies killed in battle? Do I need to be more intentional in recalling memories like I now need to be intentional when putting down my keys? I don’t know. All I know is that photos can fade and discolor very quickly if not stored and handled properly. I think the same must be true of memories.

Chicago Challenge

“I want to dare to exist, and more than that, to live audaciously, in all my imperfect, lumpy, scarred glory, because the alternative is letting shame win.” ~Shauna Niequist

At the beginning of 2018 I decided that it was time to challenge myself to expand outside my comfort zone. For years I had lived in a PTSD fog and then worked to obtain a very self contained, safe, controlled existence. Now, after finishing years of therapy, I thought I had reached a point on my mental health journey that I could and should push beyond my safe space. As my beloved therapist always said “don’t let your world get smaller.”


I decided to sign up for a Sierra Club volunteer vacation, travelling to a distant place and meeting total strangers. Of course, still needing a safety net, I choose a trip to Chicago where I hoped to meet one of my favorite bloggers. Then I invited another blogger and long time supporter, to join me. Happily they both accepted. Still, I knew I’d be travelling alone, meeting, working, eating and rooming with strangers in a hostel and generally throwing myself into an unknown city and circumstance.

As the trip got closer, I thought I was doing pretty well emotionally but my body said otherwise. My normal resting heart beat of 62 was quickly rising.

Still, I bucked up my confidence and arrived at the airport ready to go. I paid to board early and got my aisle seat but started to twitch when a man a had seen at the airport bar (at 6 am) took the window seat in my row. He then proceeded to order a double screwdriver. Breathe in, breathe out. Fortunately he kept to himself, watching a movie on his tablet and I got through that challenge.


I arrived at the hostel too early to check in but locked up my bags and met The Middle Girl who gave me a glorious tour of the some of the Chicago parks, public art and downtown area and I fell in love with Chicago.

We shared lunch and then headed back to the hostel to meet E and the rest of the Sierra Club group. After introductions and settling into our rooms - a small dorm room with bunk beds - we all went out for a Chicago deep dish pizza dinner. (I love Chicago but I am still a NY thin crust pizza girl) and I managed to get through a dinner with strangers, in my introverted way, with no major anxiety.


Others in our group then went out to a club while E and I returned to our suite, exhausted from the day of travel. There we found a man in the common area apparently our suite mate. Although we asked if he might join the men in our group across the hall, apparently he felt very comfortable in a suite full of women. I did not feel much comfort with him which apparently was quite obvious as he commented on how scared I looked. Damn. Insides went to mush. Challenge fail.


But the rest of the week went smoothly enough with lots of time to get to know E better, enjoying conversations with our 74 year old suite-mates who ran circles around us not only in walking, planting trees and staying up to party long after we’d gone to bed. We also did lots and lots of sightseeing,

And I even forced myself to go on the Ferris wheel

But the highlight of the trip was that The Middle Girl once again joined me and E to tour the Chicago Art Institute and its amazing collection of impressionists.

Overall I’d say the trip was a major success for me. Besides from meeting two of my favorite bloggers whom I am very honored to call friends, I think I handled the challenges fairly well which will only build my confidence going forward. There were certainly moments of discomfort and anxiety, sometimes having to retreat to a hallway bathroom (the only private space in the hostel) to get myself re-centered, but all that therapy and training got me through them. And having a black belt roommate didn’t hurt either.


Many thanks to Chicago and The Middle Girl and E for helping make my world a little larger.

Full of Grace

It’s been a while since I posted here.  One of the main reasons is that the eyelid stye I had developed in February became a cyst, which began to press on my cornea, which then gave me double vision in that eye, which had been making it difficult to focus, which gave me a headache looking at a computer screen for too long.  

I have now had surgery to remove the cyst.  Six shots in the eyelid to numb it (yowza) , then some sort of clamp under the eyelid, poking and prodding, cutting and then cauterizing.  I passed out. But a little over a week of recovery and my vision seems to be slowly returning to normal and I am immensely grateful.

Martha’s routine colonoscopy was all clear. She has a lot of cancer in her family so it was particularly good news.

The house siding installation is done along with the 8 days of banging and clanging and windows rattling.  My furballs are just starting to come out from hiding.

The shutters are up and I’m more or less happy with them.  I am still looking for some black hardware to dress them up but so far everything is 3 times more expensive than what the shutters cost me to build.  Even faux hardware is ridiculously expensive.

My garden is all laid out.  I put landscape barrier down and then make cut outs for the plants which eliminates a lot of weeding.  

Usually at this time my seedlings are outside during the day getting fresh air and sunshine but we have had the coldest, snowiest April on record. Every day has been cold, cloudy and gloomy.  Next week’s weather is looking a little more promising.

Hope springs eternal. Or there is eternal hope that Spring will eventually arrive.

Gimme Shelter

I have not been getting out into the woods this year the way I used to. No scrambling climbs up rocky mountains sides, no backpacking to breathtaking views on bald mountain tops. Age has taken its toll on my body. I have all but packed away the backpack and traded skis for snowshoes. I am adjusting to just pulling on boots for a leisurely hike carrying not much more than water and a snack in a day pack.


And so I was looking forward to an LL Bean sponsored group meetup, proposed as a 3 to 5 mile hike, or snowshoe, depending on the weather. What interested me was that the hike was to be in a State park very near to where my oldest daughter now lives, until she moves in a couple of weeks. We had never been there so we both signed up. But just as the pinky toe I injured four months ago was finally getting better, I re-injured it stepping on a dog toy in the middle of the night. Damn. And then we had a ton of snow and my body just cannot do 5 miles of snowshoeing. Nope. Nada. Not anymore.


But I was going up to daughter’s apartment anyway to help pack for her impending move so we decided to go to the park for at least a short walk.


We thought we might walk on the frozen lake but warmer temps earlier in the week rendered that not safe.








And we were definitely not going swimming.


There were many groomed ski trails but the park roadway had been plowed so we decided to walk along it and take in the views of the lake from there.


It was a very cold and blustery day and 30 minutes in my face was frozen, my toe screaming, and I was beginning to regret my decision to go hiking in such brutal weather when we came across this warming hut at the far end of the lake.







A small fire was burning and the warmth gave us much needed relief from the cold and wind.






There was a cozy corner stocked with nature books including many for children, and there were quite a few educational exhibits such as tree specimens and animal tracks. Although I was not pleased with the stuffed animal head.





I planted my butt on this couch for quite a while.

It was a huge improvement to the primitive Adirondack shelters I am used to when backpacking.





I could have stayed for quite awhile in its cozy comfortable shelter but we had to get packing so we hiked back out.. If the State could just provide more of these kinds of warming huts, perhaps with a stocked fridge, in the Adirondack wilderness I would definitely dust off the ol’ backpack and head back out there.

Morning View

Usually by March I am tired of the snow but this has been

a particularly beautiful snowfall

coating all the trees and making the world

look like a wonderland

Dick's

Yesterday Dick’s Sporting Goods announced they would no longer sell assault style rifles. They would also not sell high capacity magazines and that it would not sell any gun to anyone under 21, no matter what the local state regulations were.








I met the owner of Dick’s (Mr. Stack to me) very early in my career. He owned one stand-alone sporting goods store adjacent to the city I worked for and we were trying to entice him to open a new store in our downtown. It was a time when downtowns were dying and no one was investing in city retail.





But Mr. Stack had once worked in our downtown and had a soft spot for the city. He truly wanted to help in its economic development, even if it presented a financial risk to him. For about a year we sat and planned. I was pretty much an underling at the time but he and his family always treated me with respect and gave me a lot of confidence in my abilities.





When the new store finally opened the Stack’s always gave back to the community and were interested in the surrounding businesses’ success as much as their own. Mr. Stack’s son eventually took over the company and I was delighted when I learned that they had since expanded all over the country.





I was not surprised by their announcement yesterday as they always were always a family based, community oriented company. I am happy that they have not strayed from their roots and values.


Today I am going to my local Dick’s and buying something. Anything. I want to support them as they join the fight to turn the tide on gun regulations just as they supported me and my former community. I hope you will give them some encouraging words on their social media or, if you are able, go buy something. They have great camping gear : )