I have been travelling almost constantly since June of last year. I get a little shiver of happiness down my spine whenever I say that to myself...
I think I can (relatively) confidently say that I am running towards something, not away from something. It's an idea that's been bothering me, the thought that I might be blindly running away from responsibility and fear. Running blindly pretty much always leads to stumbling and hurting yourself. So, I wanted to be sure I was running while looking ahead.
It feels like I am. Every new experience is eagerly grasped, processed, and then gently set aside to make room for the next one. I'm not looking behind me, I'm constantly scanning my horizon for whatever it is I'm looking for. Still haven't exactly figured that part out yet, but I will.
In Montana, I was hard pressed to do any thinking. I was so constantly busy and stressed and physically active. And it was perfect. I was dragged, kicking and screaming, outside my own head and forced to just live in the fucking moment. Danger of physical death, no matter how small, will do that to you. The cold and the animals and the responsibility... they all forced me to think only of keeping warm, keeping them warm, and food.
It's funny, I don't actually remember much of my feelings while there. I have sharp snippets of sensory memory. Walking along a fence line in cloud shrouded sunshine, through sage and tall grass, surrounded by a skyline that just never ended. Oh, that's a wonderfully sensual memory. Walking with dogs, experiencing the smells and tastes of winter warmth, feeling the power of my body after weeks of hard work...
And I remember so many vivid dreams. While I was sleeping was the only time I gave myself to process things, and my brain was busy. I don't actually remember the dreams themselves, but i remember waking up every morning in wonder, stretching and smiling and trying to hold on to the amazing images.
I was stressed a lot of the time, due to the nature of the person whose house it was. I was under the yolk of her perfectionism, and it conflicted deeply with my own lackadaisical efficiency.
But that was good for me too. I needed to enforce my own limits in my life, and I needed to be in conflict with another strong set of limits to do that. Conflict is often my greatest motivator. Tell me I can't do something and watch me fucking fly.
Arizona is different. It's softer, and more my style. The home I'm in is messy in my way, and the people who own it are soft and nonjudgmental. I'm surrounded by cats, and there are a few challenges with medicine and feral kitties. But for the most part, my time is my own.
And I've been filling my time with walking, mostly. On weekdays, I walk through the washes surrounding the house during my lunch, taking a break from work.
On weekends, I drive out to surrounding hiking areas, and challenge myself to actually hike. I've hiked through canyons and up hills, and all over the desert itself.
It is... deeply soul satisfying. I am not a traditional hiker. I don't start and keep going till I reach a destination. Hiking, for me, embodies the concept of the journey being the destination. WHY would you set yourself in that environment, and then not take in every single aspect of it, no matter how much time that takes???
So, I stop and start, ramble and run, and I suspect I would be infuriating to hike with for most people. If I hear a bird song, I want to stop and find the bird with my eyes. If I see something beautiful, I want to stop and take it in, for however long that takes. If I smell something lovely, or interesting, or gross, I want to stop and find it and touch it, see if it's an herb or useful in any way. I want to pick up rocks, then discard them 50ft later.
When I am hiking by myself, I can do all this at my leisure. I have horrible memories of hiking, of the pressure to keep up and conquer, and never thought I'd want to do it again. But when I'm alone? It's addictive.
Also? It's highly sexual.
I was walking down this hill yesterday afternoon, after having pushed myself to go twice as far as I had before into this amazing canyon, and I was getting so turned on. All I could think about what what I wanted for my body, how amazing a joining against that sun hot rock would be, how good my hips would feel in that rhythmic motion.
(Granted, I haven't had sex since Thanksgiving. That's a long dry spell for me. And I'm waiting till March to push the issue, because I think it's good for me. At this point in time, I'd still be allowing myself to settle for something unhealthy. I debated going on a date last night, and stopped myself because I didn't trust who I would draw to me.
A part of that, a big part of that, is how I view my body right now. I don't see myself as sexually attractive. The negative aspects loom large, overshadowing my love for everything else. Because of that, because of my own emphasis of the gross and ugly, that's all that other people are going to see. I've learned that lesson over and over and over. When I am in sync with my body, when I'm in love? So is everyone else. When I hate it, I draw people who want to capitalize on that perceived weakness. Very few things get a predator going more than a woman who hates her own body. It's so easily manipulated. So, no dating for now.)
But beyond all that, hiking helps me think. Everything about this place helps me think. I am drawing, I am writing, I am interacting more with my friends and other people. I am coming back into the comfort of my head. It's not the insular kind of thinking I've gotten so used to. I'm not walled up in a small corner of my brain, cut off from reason and logic by walls of fear and discontent, forced to bounce back and forth between a limited number of thoughts that don't threaten anyones reality.
I am fully in my own mind again, and dear god, it feels wonderful. I'm reading history books, thinking about the connections between past and present and future, mapping the lines that comprise our world. Even as I'm in my own mind, I'm outside myself. I don't have to think only of me, concentrate solely on my own small world, as a defense mechanism against anything.
And OH, it's lovely. I am not, by nature, a self centered person. My concept of self naturally encompasses everything that's around me. When I become self centered, cut off, it's draining and painful. It's the part of me that's extroverted, this need to recharge my self from the experiences of those around me. And being able to take that in is vital to my happiness.
I worry, sometimes, about the time I'm spending alone. And just how happy it makes me. I wonder if I'm making myself so content with my travels and alone time that I'm making it impossible to make room for another person in my life. My revulsion at the idea of hiking with another human being, when I thought about it yesterday, got me to thinking about how easy it is to become settled and content in your own ways. And how much harder it becomes to take on a partner when you're content. Am I still willing to change and accommodate? Am I capable of balance when it comes to these things yet? I'm either bending over backwards to accommodate completely another persons life, or I'm completely alone and desperately happy with it.
We'll see. I'm giving myself time on this one. It's been too long stuck in one mode, and I'm acknowledging that of course I'm frantically happy being alone in my own skin right now. I'll enjoy it, let myself feel it. And go from there, see what direction I start to head in.
I think I can (relatively) confidently say that I am running towards something, not away from something. It's an idea that's been bothering me, the thought that I might be blindly running away from responsibility and fear. Running blindly pretty much always leads to stumbling and hurting yourself. So, I wanted to be sure I was running while looking ahead.
It feels like I am. Every new experience is eagerly grasped, processed, and then gently set aside to make room for the next one. I'm not looking behind me, I'm constantly scanning my horizon for whatever it is I'm looking for. Still haven't exactly figured that part out yet, but I will.
In Montana, I was hard pressed to do any thinking. I was so constantly busy and stressed and physically active. And it was perfect. I was dragged, kicking and screaming, outside my own head and forced to just live in the fucking moment. Danger of physical death, no matter how small, will do that to you. The cold and the animals and the responsibility... they all forced me to think only of keeping warm, keeping them warm, and food.
It's funny, I don't actually remember much of my feelings while there. I have sharp snippets of sensory memory. Walking along a fence line in cloud shrouded sunshine, through sage and tall grass, surrounded by a skyline that just never ended. Oh, that's a wonderfully sensual memory. Walking with dogs, experiencing the smells and tastes of winter warmth, feeling the power of my body after weeks of hard work...
And I remember so many vivid dreams. While I was sleeping was the only time I gave myself to process things, and my brain was busy. I don't actually remember the dreams themselves, but i remember waking up every morning in wonder, stretching and smiling and trying to hold on to the amazing images.
I was stressed a lot of the time, due to the nature of the person whose house it was. I was under the yolk of her perfectionism, and it conflicted deeply with my own lackadaisical efficiency.
But that was good for me too. I needed to enforce my own limits in my life, and I needed to be in conflict with another strong set of limits to do that. Conflict is often my greatest motivator. Tell me I can't do something and watch me fucking fly.
Arizona is different. It's softer, and more my style. The home I'm in is messy in my way, and the people who own it are soft and nonjudgmental. I'm surrounded by cats, and there are a few challenges with medicine and feral kitties. But for the most part, my time is my own.
And I've been filling my time with walking, mostly. On weekdays, I walk through the washes surrounding the house during my lunch, taking a break from work.
On weekends, I drive out to surrounding hiking areas, and challenge myself to actually hike. I've hiked through canyons and up hills, and all over the desert itself.
It is... deeply soul satisfying. I am not a traditional hiker. I don't start and keep going till I reach a destination. Hiking, for me, embodies the concept of the journey being the destination. WHY would you set yourself in that environment, and then not take in every single aspect of it, no matter how much time that takes???
So, I stop and start, ramble and run, and I suspect I would be infuriating to hike with for most people. If I hear a bird song, I want to stop and find the bird with my eyes. If I see something beautiful, I want to stop and take it in, for however long that takes. If I smell something lovely, or interesting, or gross, I want to stop and find it and touch it, see if it's an herb or useful in any way. I want to pick up rocks, then discard them 50ft later.
When I am hiking by myself, I can do all this at my leisure. I have horrible memories of hiking, of the pressure to keep up and conquer, and never thought I'd want to do it again. But when I'm alone? It's addictive.
Also? It's highly sexual.
I was walking down this hill yesterday afternoon, after having pushed myself to go twice as far as I had before into this amazing canyon, and I was getting so turned on. All I could think about what what I wanted for my body, how amazing a joining against that sun hot rock would be, how good my hips would feel in that rhythmic motion.
(Granted, I haven't had sex since Thanksgiving. That's a long dry spell for me. And I'm waiting till March to push the issue, because I think it's good for me. At this point in time, I'd still be allowing myself to settle for something unhealthy. I debated going on a date last night, and stopped myself because I didn't trust who I would draw to me.
A part of that, a big part of that, is how I view my body right now. I don't see myself as sexually attractive. The negative aspects loom large, overshadowing my love for everything else. Because of that, because of my own emphasis of the gross and ugly, that's all that other people are going to see. I've learned that lesson over and over and over. When I am in sync with my body, when I'm in love? So is everyone else. When I hate it, I draw people who want to capitalize on that perceived weakness. Very few things get a predator going more than a woman who hates her own body. It's so easily manipulated. So, no dating for now.)
But beyond all that, hiking helps me think. Everything about this place helps me think. I am drawing, I am writing, I am interacting more with my friends and other people. I am coming back into the comfort of my head. It's not the insular kind of thinking I've gotten so used to. I'm not walled up in a small corner of my brain, cut off from reason and logic by walls of fear and discontent, forced to bounce back and forth between a limited number of thoughts that don't threaten anyones reality.
I am fully in my own mind again, and dear god, it feels wonderful. I'm reading history books, thinking about the connections between past and present and future, mapping the lines that comprise our world. Even as I'm in my own mind, I'm outside myself. I don't have to think only of me, concentrate solely on my own small world, as a defense mechanism against anything.
And OH, it's lovely. I am not, by nature, a self centered person. My concept of self naturally encompasses everything that's around me. When I become self centered, cut off, it's draining and painful. It's the part of me that's extroverted, this need to recharge my self from the experiences of those around me. And being able to take that in is vital to my happiness.
I worry, sometimes, about the time I'm spending alone. And just how happy it makes me. I wonder if I'm making myself so content with my travels and alone time that I'm making it impossible to make room for another person in my life. My revulsion at the idea of hiking with another human being, when I thought about it yesterday, got me to thinking about how easy it is to become settled and content in your own ways. And how much harder it becomes to take on a partner when you're content. Am I still willing to change and accommodate? Am I capable of balance when it comes to these things yet? I'm either bending over backwards to accommodate completely another persons life, or I'm completely alone and desperately happy with it.
We'll see. I'm giving myself time on this one. It's been too long stuck in one mode, and I'm acknowledging that of course I'm frantically happy being alone in my own skin right now. I'll enjoy it, let myself feel it. And go from there, see what direction I start to head in.
Epic post, epic journey.
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