This weekend I went to Pittsburgh to help a friend move. It was sunny and warm and I ate well and lots of ice cream. I came back and it rained violently but I walked the dogs anyway because they don’t care about rain. The next day I helped clean beer cans, wrappers, and red […]
My niece said for her birthday she wanted to spend the day with me IN BINGHAMTON. I thought about this a lot and realized that for her whole life I’d been telling her that I couldn’t stay, I had to go back to Binghamton. I had to make sure she believed that Binghamton was a […]
I got to see the sign for Peter”s Kill Area Climbing Permits UNavailable change to AVAILABLE this weekend. And I think that’s what joy looks like. It looks like opening day at your favorite place. It looks like sunshine in late March. It looks like a cold, hard day that is also beautiful. This time […]
“Look, it’ll be a hard day” is what I say to myself when I know the day (or days) ahead will be long and difficult. It’s a quote from Mad Max Fury Road when Max is suggesting they punch their way through three armies to storm the keep. When he says it, it’s the understatement […]
I find that we all tell ourselves stories about who we are. The reality is that we aren’t actually the person telling the story, we’re the person listening to it. This is important to remember because you have to be careful what stories you tell yourself. Sometimes you tell yourself that you can’t or that […]
I’m still coming to terms with the fact that what I want to be when I grow up has changed. Like, they just don’t tell you that might happen. They ask you what you want to be when you grow up and if you’re one of the lucky ones, maybe you know and you have […]
I haven’t taken a poll or anything but I’m reasonably confident in saying people are afraid of trying new things. I use this conversation with my husband as evidence: Me: I really kind of HATE doing new thingsHim: Me too, I just wouldn’t do it There’s comfort in the familiar. There’s fear, anxiety, discomfort and […]
I feel bad for people who don’t adventure outside. They will never know the unique joy of Epic. In the old days it would be long poems or songs, narrating the great deeds of heroes. These days, it’s social media and the stories we tell the like-minded to get a “cool” and the rest to […]
I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t even know I could do it. The entire time. I didn’t know I could. The entire time. But I did. I hiked two high peaks in February. We started at the AMR parking lot in Keene Valley, NY. This was followed by a really annoying miles long […]
My husband told me once that he didn’t like olives but one day he decided he wanted to like olives. So he ate olives until he started to like them. I told him that was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. Why would you force yourself to do something you don’t like just for the […]
