About 1.5 years ago I created this list of adventures. On checking in on myself, feeling low about not having followed through, I realize that indeed, I have completed a significant number of these.  Here’s the original list with my notes so far.

What does this mean? It means two things: 1. We should all encourage ourselves to get out and get active exploring new possibilities, and 2. I have been very busy and need to give myself a massive break!

Oh wait, and 3. I AM TOTALLY SCARED OF CAMPING ALONE!!!!!!!!

The list:

• Camp alone – Have decided HELL NO! There are bears and cougars. That was crazy. Ok, ok, maybe.

•  Travel to Europe  – Yes, and I want so much more of it.

•  Learn to Make Thai food – um, sort of? Ok, mostly I ate Thai food, but oddly enough I now work for a company that takes travelers on culinary tours of Thailand. Coincidence? Creepy? Amazing? 

• Take art classes – Yep! I learned to paint in oils. Too much fun.

• Hike 12 new trails – um, maybe 4. So I need to make up for that.

• Go Clamming/fishing/crabbing for dinner – Indeed, tons of crabbing! 

•  Grow something – Yes, I am ging to say that I have been working to grow the new rowers program through our rowing club. I’ve also raised chickens. Check.

• Create a podcast – Nope. Still haven’t.

•  Feed Someone – Yes! Our new neighbors have become regular diners.

• Volunteer outdoors – Yes! We love our parks Dept.

• Write a book – Working on it! Several! 

• Act – Starting in on this now. Whew.

• Build something – Hmmmm. I’m not sure. I think I still need to.

To say this last few months has been draining on the feminists of the world would be a gross understatement. I wish I could tell you I am going to “avoid politics” but that would be a disservice to myself, to my daughter and to my many wonderful fellow humans who are suddenly in a place of incredible uncertainty. Will I have more to say about the state of our government? Most certainly, and barring WordPress falling the way of Orwell’s 1984, I’ll share them here with as much free speech as I can muster.

It is a very hard time to be political.

For 13+ years I have, above all else, made sure that my children were primed for life. I have also always worked, but more often than not, for less than my value and also often less than I would like to. This has been my luxury. Our family’s salary may not be grandiose, but it has certainly sustained us and plenty of adventure to boot. So, while we occasionally turn down invites to exotic locales, and often spend nights around the kitchen table hammering out our tiny budget (looks like no eating out this week, but I signed little miss up for ballet), we have not suffered in any sense of the word.

But many have.

I’m writing this because sometimes, in that little place between regal and poor motherhood and impressive working woman, I swim in a gray land of self-doubt. A land so vast, and so camouflaged that it mostly seems like self-pity. I look terrible when I’m there.

This last year has opened so many adventurous doors, and I see only more on the optimistic horizon. Doors, it turns out, often cost money. As much as I love being available at all times for my kids and also for my community as a persistent volunteer, my work/mommy balance has to shift in the near future in order for my mental-mommy self the chance to afford the growing cost of their perfect childhoods.

And so, self-worth.

There is nothing so dark as a woman’s doubt in herself.

Despite feeling as though I have a life’s worth of experience, and a bucket full of “can do” spirit, when one looks to the greater world and says “what am I worth to you?” the answer does not, as it turns out, feel good. Unless you’ve picked a clear cut career, one with exact definitions, like say “software engineer” or “Pediatrician” there are too many variations on what you, the creative type, are supposed to encompass. Are you a good communicator? Go into marketing? Wait, do you have two years experience as a social media guru? InDesign? No? Nevermind, become a teacher – they communicate? Don’t have a credential? Great, in 2.5 years you can have one, but you should get a masters first if you want a good teaching job. No? Perhaps a receptionist then. It only pays $11 an hour, but since you’re so good with communication you can write about the misery you feel as you imagine you small child sitting in aftercare, which costs coincidentally exactly what you’re making.

Self-pity.

It’s usually at about this point in the mental stream that I land on “I will write a book,” and I tap away at the computer for a bit until I am distracted by the kids, or the school nurse calling, or my disabled brother needing something paid for, or the chickens crowing outside, or a moth flitting by. It’s my pride really, settling at my old laptop on my cluttered desk in my tiny bedroom. It’s my 37 year old ego shaking its fist at life. It feels sorry for me.

This brings me to motherhood and self-worth.

If I were a social worker (for which I do not have the degree), would I pity my small pay check and limited budget? No. I hold such people in high regard. Similarly, if I were an environmental activist, choosing to live minimalistically and work for a small wage lobbying for earth rights, would I feel judgy of myself? No. I would feel I was a super-human fighting for the greater good. So why, why am I so disgusted with my super-mother self? Why isn’t this a badge of honor for me when I’m dwelling at my lowest points? AND…why do I let intensive mothering overshadow any spark of a career?

I think the answer is, fear.

I am an excellent mother force. And I am maybe only marginally the same as everyone else at everything else. Why commit to another job if there is a risk of not being good at it, right? I think we all must ask ourselves this, at least the sane members of this tribe.

I also harbor an irrational fear of my children needing me. A fear that something tragic will happen and that I might not be available to catch them. The psychology behind this is not pretty. All the same, for every moment I am not within reach, I imagine the worst.

I wish I had some prophetic end to this post. Some big circle, that closes neatly and with my self-esteem and self-regard leaping forward into 2017. I’m afraid it doesn’t though, sorry to be a letdown. This is more, for me, the beginning of a conversation with myself about what is valuable and what is not. We are a tremendously delicate time as women. There are angry, horrible men out there who are getting their shot at scaring us all back into our kitchens. They are threatening our children too, in education, in body, in environment.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that what I have been doing is valuable, because I’ve hand-raised two amazing humans, but if I am going to step further out of their circle, it better serve some incredible greater good at this point.  I’ve spent a lifetime making my way through it all with them by my side, and now I want to help others get through it too, not just earn money and increase my own wealth. I want to make us all wealthy somehow.

And now I must decide my self-worth and share it.

 

It was bound to happen.

You see, we bought a house and we moved this year and we’ve now traveled to Europe and there was no way that was all just going to happen on my husband’s salary alone.  Part of all the adventure in life is the general cost of living.  As much of my adult life has revolved around my kids well being, and less around our financial future and improvement, it is clearly necessary for me to make a financial contribution, at the very least.

So last year at exactly this time, when I was supposed to be regaling you with my many adventures, I sat down at the computer to type. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind really, creating content about other people’s adventures, as it turns out. But I’m back, exactly one year later, with a new commitment to sharing and spreading my adventurous spirit.

Let’s try this again, shall we?

 

It’s raining here.  I know, what a cliche,- of course it’s raining in Seattle. Duh.

But really, it’s raining here.  Today, January 23rd, is the first day that I have felt that sinking damp feeling.  The moisture is everywhere.  We are huddled, once again in our house, avoiding the great outdoors.  The cold is in our bones.

Luckily, I have work as an excuse. It may be a Saturday but I’ve taken on several writing projects and this moment is as good as any to knock some typing off my to-do list.  This is also an excellent way to avoid hiking in the rain, which I haven’t quite mustered the urge to do.  I’m sorry, it’s true, I’m totally avoiding.

This poses an issue I think:  How do Seattle’ites keep active?  Really truly active?

I haven’t been running because of an active injury to my ankle, and I wouldn’t want to really, the rain dripping down my cheeks, getting into my eyes, down my neck. Yuck. But I’ll blame the ankle.  Hiking isn’t so rough on me physically, and yet I look outside, shiver and then shut the door. Another day maybe. A clear day (insert hysterical laughing here).

I sure am racking up my hiking trips, aren’t I?  Will I overcome this desire to stay dry and warm? Will I adventure out this winter into the wet? We shall see.

 

Let’s qualify my third of 12 hikes as having happened.  

On our first night in Scotland we sort of pressured our friends to let us come stay with them.  I didn’t understand the resistance – as these are the types we would expect to come to our home anywhere, and we would absolutely come to them anywhere – I thought that was just understood.  And yet, when it came to staying with their mom and dad in the Scottish countryside (where they were also visiting) there was this hesitation.  I tentatively made plans to do it anyways, and fretted all the way there that we would be a huge inconvienance. I understood the issue on arrival. It was a country house and as such had country quarks and these dear friends was perhaps a bit worried what we’d think. Boy did she have us wrong. The traveling Courtway four are not scared off by much and least of which is the Scottish countryside.  And as a side, the house was lovely.  What we arrived to was the most glorious leg of lamb, perfect potatoes and lots of hugs and laughter.  Also, very comfy beds – more of them then we needed.

On waking to a full Scottish breakfast (“hi, my name is Meloni and I like black pudding and HP sauce”), we decided to take on the “mound.”   

The English and Scottish countryside had a rough week before our arrival. Floods ravaged northern England and Southern Scotland, and West Linton, where we were staying, was no exception.  Slogging up a dirt road through sheep pastures we took a sharp right on a right-of-way across a farm to the remains of a Roman Fort.

People, let me stop you here so we can digest.

A Roman Fort.

For fucks sake, American’s have no clue how old the world is.   No, really. We walk about preaching our constitution, and our historical East Coast colleges and blah, blah, blah. I was standing, hiking, running, jumping across and around a roman fortress parked high on a hill with views of all the surrounding countryside.  Some thousand or more years before Roman Warriors stood here, in a rock fortress (freezing their arses off), totally wishing they had worn something other than sheets and sandals.  Here, in the Scottish countryside where sheep now graze and puddles form. Amazing.

I certainly didn’t expect to double up my need for hiking with my trip to Scotland, but here it is and it was glorious. Again, I want more and I want it in summer. Scotland, you will see more of me!

 

Now that the whirlwind has ended, and we are back home, I can finally settle down and digest the adventures that we were lucky enough to have.  England and Scotland (and Iceland) were so much more than we could have wanted or expected and there just really isn’t anything to say except –  YAY!!!!!

From Reykjavik, to Oxford, to Stratford to Bath. From Salisbury to London to Edinburgh and back.  Every place carried some weighted depth that altered us in experience.  More than anything I found that I was back in my head again, like I was this summer as we traveled by car across the United States, digging into my own stream of consciousness and knowing I need to be creative and to write and to explore the world.  I felt that way when I started this blog, and as we hurdled ourselves across the English countryside (on the WRONG side of the road), I was back there, in my head, feeling really excited.

Travel it seems is a unifier in these stories. Travel shakes me up, shakes us all up and I think, as much as it scares me, that I need much more.

But let’s pause and reflect on where we went on this adventure, this small three weeks in Europe.

Iceland

A land of quiet, and not especially friendly people, who love children and Elves.

Oh, Iceland.  You are so elusive and exotic in all your volcanic rock, chubby horses, lack of sun and mountains of snow.

We scheduled a 9-hour layover at the beginning of our trip with the hopes that we could escape the airport and see a little of this far nothern country.  This also served the purpose of waking us up by force our first day in Europe, so that our clocks could reset.

The truth is that all you can see in winter is a little of Iceland as the sun is only up for just over 3 hours at the winter solstice.  So, in the pitch black of night, which was actually 9a.m. in the morning (the pictures here), we took a bus to Reykjavik in search of breakfast.

I’d noticed our flight attendants on the trip over from Seattle (all looking a bit femmbot’ish with blond hair, square shoulders and nearly identical jawlines), weren’t exactly warm and fuzzy to us.  They were however, gushing over my youngest, literally bending at her whim.  Now, I think she is gorgeous, but this was a bit much.  As it turns out, it wasn’t just them and it wasn’t just our daughter. Children in Iceland seem a treasured thing.  Not a soul we encountered smiled at my husband or I (not one), but every one of them took time to greet our kids.  Fascinating.  Strange, but fascinating.

Elves as well seem to take top priority for Icelandic society, not that I can disagree, and they are literally everywhere.  It was Christmas time and so the elves were especially frisky, dancing in video projection across public buildings, climbing the walls of the airplane cabin as stickers. Amazing. When you live in a land where the sun just won’t shine for several months of the year, dancing elves are pretty much a necessity I think.

We marched about in the dark in Reykjavik until we found what seemed the only breakfast place. It was, sadly, called “Laundromat” and was attempting to serve American style diner breakfasts.  This wasn’t our goal, but it was the best we could do.  The coffee was hot, the eggs were yellow and it worked.

A quick stop at the Icelandic Knitting Association’s shop for some wool and then we were back by bus to the highlight of the day 9during daylight), swimming at the thermal pools (The Blue Lagoon).

Just pretend with me here that you too are swimming in a pale blue green natural pool, the bottom of which is covered in volcanic rock that has been coated in a thick hard white silica, creating soft bumps and curves to slide your feet over.  The volcanicaly heated water is warm like a bath in most of the pool (and the outside temperature is like an icy knife), but then, closer to the vents it gushes hot, burning your skin if you get too close. Japanese tourists abound, as do locals, and curious foreigners from every walk of life. Everyone traveling through Iceland had stopped at the pools that day, by my count.

After an hour or so of soaking we braved the short run for our towels and then went to vigorously fight the silica out of hair in the locker rooms.  Actually, my daughters hair was stiff with silica for the next week, but who cares, it was all for fun.  Back in our parkas we headed to the bus and back to the airport for another non-friendly ride to England.

There is so much more to explore here, I know, but for now our little stop in this land of opposing personalities is enough to tide me over. Next time we’ll try for summer, and a little more light. Maybe then the locals will talk to us? Maybe.

 

 

 

 

From far off and away on a grand adventure in the UK (BIG YAY!), I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

This year has been full of twists and evolutions, and as it comes to a close, I’m looking forward to the kinds of deep winter evaluations that let us look deeply into what we want from life.

With a heart full of adventure (or 13 of them), I wish you all an excellent winter rest as well.

~Meloni

 

Six weeks into painting classes and still the overriding feeling is total terror. Total terror.

I have been learning the craft of oil painting from an eccentric and amazing teacher here on Bainbridge. She is a flurry of activity and bubbling over with stories that help coax us from one frightening learning concept to the next.  Just when I think I will collapse from  internal stress (Do I put yellow here? or do I put green? ), our fearless teacher struts up, grabs a painting knife and smears purple across my seamingly gray sky landscape. Voila, she is right every time, and the sky is purple in the dark clouds, and I breath and swipe right behind her.

This is how I spend Tuesday nights.

Despite how far I’ve come (and truly, if you saw the pear I painted, well…watch out Van Gogh), each week is the same roller coaster trip, filled with dread. Each stroke is impossible somehow and sometimes during class the teacher actually tells me to put the brush down and breath.

This is not very me?!  I like to throw myself at things and smash into them until I figure out how they work. Painting though, well, painting makes me feel vulnerable and scared of imperfection.  I’m paying attention to this.

What is it about being an artist that is both such a calling and also such an impossibility? I think we must all have a little bit of artist in us but at some point, somewhere along our life’s early journey, a message was sent that we shouldn’t express it.  We aren’t good enough. Maybe it’s dance, maybe it’s singing, maybe it’s painting – we all have something buried in there, I think – and for some it’s crying to get out.

I didn’t realize how deeply I harbored a fear of this craft, and truly how hard it would be to learn.  This is science, and alchemy and emotion on canvas and I am just a whimsy it’s allowing to participate.  Painting is not for wimps. Whew.

Pictured here is a work in progress. Fort Ward Park view of the Sound.

It is with a heavy heart today that I printed out our tickets for the Eiffel Tower and then packaged them like a gift to give away.

We were given the definitive “No Way” by my husband’s employer. Travel to France, no matter how over cautionary, was not going to be allowed.  Instead of wallowing we are actually delighting in the change of events (apart from the obvious financial hole it is creating). While many parts of our trip to France have been mostly refunded, a few items were/are non-negotiable.  Our chunnel tickets, bought with the express intent of whisking our children under the sea from one European country to the next? We have to eat those (or travel again in the next three months which is not probably going to happen). It’s taken us 14 years of being married to finally jump across the pond.  14 years of moving and re-establishing over and over again with a career on the move, never with enough time, or energy or money to make more happen, to travel.  Europe has seemed nearly impossible until now – Europe twice in one season – forget about it. It’s ok.

Today, in a small win, I realized I could pass-on our tickets to the Eiffel Tower to someone else.  “Oh what fun if those could really be used up?” I thought   Who did I know that would be in Paris at the New Year? Wait, wait a minute, hold on… the friend. The friend whose wedding I’m still not invited to. The friend whose wedding I’m still not invited to even though I hoped in the darkest parts of my ego that it was a mistake and I would get the invite late and I would send an enormous gift in lieu of our actual presence, because I simply adore her, and she was at all my big life events and I am so there with her in spirit. That friend will be in Paris on New Year.

I texted her to ask – was it something she needed?

Awkward moment-fogged in the reality that there is a really big pink elephant in the room.

She did.

More awkwardness, I’m sure, on her end of the phone.  It’s certainly awkward over here. Lots of awkward.

She sent her address and then offered to pay for them.  I don’t want her to pay for them. I don’t want anyone to pay for them, they are to be a gift now.

I walked to the local bookstore in search of a wedding card for the wedding I’m not invited to.  I feel myself torn between anger (I’m being honest here) at being left out, and sadness that I was left out. I’m also perplexed. Did I offend her?  Then I remember, and this is constant zen work, that this is not about me. This wedding is about them.  I picked a card, a lovely one. I debated overcompensating and sending some glorious cookbook or a gift card to Macy’s (where she is registered, I looked), along with the glorious card – but that feels a little passive aggressive. I’ll just send the tickets. Stop yourself, Meloni!

“It’s ok” I chant to myself, “you left people out too.”

My feelings are hurt, I need to be real, but I don’t need to punish anyone by making things even more awkward. Where is the healing in that?

And so, Paris.

On December 30th this friend and her new husband will scale the Eiffel Tower by elevator to the 2nd floor. There they will look out on the wonder of Paris, and bask in all this last month has meant to that iconic city. They will kiss, I hope, and build on a bond of love. They will fortify that city.

That’s going to have to do for me, to be enough. That will be my grace.

On my list of lists I wrote “Volunteer Outdoors”.

I’m not sure what this one was about, other than to make sure I stayed accountable to community – something I think we all should be doing.  Volunteering, of course, shakes the ego off and reminds you of the greater good.  Volunteering feels good! Volunteering requires time, and so a lot of us let it slip to the side. Still others, and I sometimes fall in this bracket, let too many volunteer opportunities consume the day.  I have what’s called “Helium-hand”, and it causes me to take pity on non-profits at an alarming rate. I am that mom, the one who gets sucked into every fundraiser, and school clean up and, well… you get the point.  Though I value my time helping my children’s school and activities, I wanted to make sure that this year I volunteered for me.  What an odd concept when you really think about it.

Anyhow, I think (but I can’t be sure) that my plan was to volunteer “outside” to kind of mix things up.  This could be more complicated than simply stuffing envelopes or teaching 2nd graders to paint, theoretically.  This was about getting me out to the “we” of our new community and in turn allowing me to see a little more of where we now call home.  At Energize.com ( https://www.energizeinc.com/art/why-volunteer) they speak about the reasons people volunteer. According to this website, it’s not always best to view volunteering from an altruistic viewpoint. No, indeed, volunteering really does go both ways in the best scenarios, and both the volunteer and the recipient can gain from the experience – instead of exhausting one or the other.  I think looking at volunteering as purely selfless is what limits how and why people do it in the end, they feel if they give themselves completely, then they are done (until next years quota).  Truly, when I volunteer for a good cause, the kind of cause that sits warm in my bones, I get way more than I’ve ever given and I leave feeling full – not drained.

Last week I helium-handed a local parks and recreation official who needed volunteers for their annual Ski & Snowboard swap, which raises money for the local ski-bus for kids. Though I wasn’t outdoors (hello, it’s 32 degrees while I type this), I was at the business of hustling used outdoor equipment for a solid 8 hours, and it actually felt good to get out in the community, despite my lack of ski boot sizing knowledge.  Outdoor volunteer badge checked off? Nah, I can’t even. However, if we get to next July and I’m desperate, then I’ll swing back to this.  Instead, I am now looking forward to what adventure awaits me.  If my week only allows so many given away hours, how will I spend them outside? What volunteer opportunities will open to me, and what doors will they open for the future?