My Unfortunate Psychosis/Abundance of Pretty Flowers -- Grand Junction, CO

I’m starting this post from the olive green, cookie encrusted (for which I take partial responsibility) couch at Main Street Bagels. As usual, the quaint downtown coffee shop is bustling with businessmen, bible readers, and toddling, hysterical persons under two feet tall. I am enjoying a decaf coffee called the Sleeping Goat (which I find particularly amusing), and doing my best to resist adding another layer of crumb to this couch by purchasing a tantalizing  gluten-free peanut butter cookie (for which I've developed a raging addiction).

June and July were my fleeting months of respite. I spent these sweltering summer days drinking too much coffee (even if it was decaf), putting my full-length play into proper format, resurrecting our themed dinner parties, feverishly designing yoga routines, and spending six hours a week looking after an exquisite flower garden. Regardless of how wonderful this laid-back lifestyle might sound, I was not at all satisfied. I am one of those obnoxious individuals who cannot relax unless they have absolutely no time to relax. I always feel like I ought to be doings something, making something, learning something, going somewhere, and if I am not doing all of these things simultaneously, I feel like I’m wasting my life and am riddled with guilt. My conscience frees me from this unfortunate psychosis only when I’ve successfully managed to overcrowd my planner for the foreseeable future. That said, from this month on, I’m delighted to announce that nearly every moment of every day shall be accounted for. 

I’ve recently taken a full-time position at Hands Up Homes for Youth, wherein I am a primary counselor for boys who have been charged with sexual abuse. At this facility, the convicted youth receive cognitive-behavioral and equine therapy until they are deemed safe to return  to the community. If they aren’t approved by the psychiatrist as harmless within two years of their arrival, the boys are either sent to jail or to another treatment facility. My job is to help the boys keep safe space, safe numbers, and to teach them how to respect boundaries. Hands Up Homes for Youth has a 70% success rate -- as in, 70% of the boys successfully complete their treatment and never re-offend. The work can be emotionally and mentally draining, and learning how some of these kids offended has given me very, very heavy boots, but the results make the labor more than worthwhile. I also thoroughly agree with the treatment method utilized by this center, and love that I get to be a part of it. Cognitive-behavioral therapy focuses on restructuring  flawed or negative thought processes. The boys aren't allowed to use words like "never", "but", "just", "always", "only", or any other words that minimize a situation or transfer blame. They aren't allowed to say "try". They must say, "I will do my best, and my best is good enough." These forbidden words are called "distortions", as they are seldom (look at me not saying "never") true. They are taught to take responsibility for their actions and a great deal of the program focuses on developing empathy. 

I love this type of work. I wish I could go into greater detail, but I very much doubt sharing detailed information is allowed.

My gardening job with Judy continues to delight. The ephemeral nature of flower gardening is an important grounding factor in my life, as I tend to think to the future so much that I overlook the present. Every day in Judy's garden is vastly different, and spending time watering, weeding, composting, and planting her backyard wonderland teaches me how to notice things. Little things. Things a hyperactive, head-in-the-clouds person like myself would be sure to miss under ordinary circumstances. 

But who wants to miss this?

Part of my job is dead-heading. This means I have to hunt out all the dead/wilting plants and cut them down to their most promising bud/leaf.

Judy's compost heap. Clippings from her plants and horse manure will eventually decompose into this:

Judy's mostly decomposed compost heap. Somewhere along the line, a tiny bit of bindweed infiltrated the wooden walls, and now the entire pile is infested with the invasive plant. Because of this, the ordinarily quick and painless procedure of spreading bucketfuls of decayed goodness over the lawn became painstakingly tedious. I have to sift through each handful, extracting the bindweed's telling, unwelcome white roots as I go.

I love that many of Judy's leaves are just as attractive as her flowers.

Judy has four cats. They all find immense satisfaction in rubbing up against me while I have sharp objects in my hands, or plopping down in front of me whilst I'm carrying something thorny/heavy.

I'm also enjoying comparing/contrasting gardening problems between the arid state of Colorado and the waterlogged country of Ireland. Unfortunately for me, they are so vastly different that nary a thing I learned in Ireland whilst WWOOFing has seemed to translate to my work here. In Ireland, we had to work to keep things dry. Rot and mildew were huge concerns to farmers. In Colorado, we have to bend over backwards to keep things wet. Judy's flowers wilt due to lack of water and they shrivel and die due to sunburn. 

Sunburn is unheard of in Ireland. FYI.

The weeds are also quite different. In Ireland, it was chickweed and nettle I had to keep a wary eye out for. 

In Colorado, bindweed and elm sprouts appear to be the flower gardener's primary nemeses.

Bindweed is exceptionally bothersome, as its roots can extend 20-30 feet into the earth and every root that gets broken off and blown away can grow into an entirely new plant.

I have begun planning for my next adventure. As of now, I hope to fly to Ireland in June of 2013, spend one month with George and Maria, one month in England, one month in Scotland, and then fly to the border of France and Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago with Alex. After that, I'll see where I am budget-wise and energy-wise. If both are faring moderately well, I'll stop by Southern Italy, Greece, and Turkey before I FINALLY move to Portland. Goodness.
Life changes so quickly. I'm learning to flow with it, though, and at this moment, I am absolutely thrilled with how the many quick changes have shaped my life.

Maroon Bells -- Aspen, CO

I'm starting this post from the wannabe papasan (which actually looks somewhat like a dignified, fluffed up camping chair) in my warped and bare apartment living room, legs stretched out onto the coffee table in front of me. I recline in absolute stillness, not because I have resumed my meditation practice and am working toward samadhi, but because moving my wrecked limbs -- pardon me, my thoroughly ravaged body -- results in excruciating pain. Alex lovingly slapped my thigh a few minutes ago, and I nearly bit his well-meaning head clean off. I believe I would have, had I been able to perform such a delicate, complex maneuver from a seated position. As it was, I merely screamed profanities at his apologetic figure as he retreated/fled into the bathroom. I am dehydrated and desperate for a sip of tea, but my mug of fragrant Good Earth is coquettishly resting on the table a good two feet in front of me, and I'm not about to sacrifice the well-being of my arms to reach for it. "Within arm's reach" isn't good enough for me right now. In fact, "at my fingertips" hardly suffices.

I hiked a mountain yesterday -- a very tall, steep, scree-full mountain. I cursed and cried and laughed and self-deprecated nearly to the saddle of the Maroon Bells. In the last 15 months, I've hiked an impressive total of one meager hill -- so how in the world did I find myself at the godly altitude of 13000+ feet, you ask? Well, I'm still not quite sure, but my body is certainly paying for the foolhardy, spontaneous, thrill seeking, I WILL NOT BE LEFT OUT nature of my mind. It's afflicted with a deep, overwhelming soreness that doesn't go away in the course of a day. I'm not counting on going to bed and waking up tomorrow feeling moderately better. I'm counting on going to bed and waking up tomorrow feeling significantly worse.

It all started Friday night over a pleasant, perfunctory dinner at my parent's house. My mother had thoughtfully prepared three enormous platters of gluten-free enchiladas topped with some manner of nauseating vegan cheese (forgetting that the only member of the family avoiding dairy was off babysitting somewheres).  Alex and Jason discussed the next morning's trip up to Lincoln/Democrat/2 others I can't remember, and I sat in silence, duly intimidated by their modest ambition to summit four peaks in one fell swoop. Then my father inopportunely butted into their agreeable conversation, committing the unforgivable act of bringing me into the thick of things by innocently assuming, "Aimee, you're going up with Chelsea, aren't you?"

Stunned, I cast Chelsea a nervous glance, managing to mutter, "No... no, I uh... I don't think I am."

"Why not?"

"Yeah, you're welcome to come, Aimee," Chelsea returned my dazed look of shock with a warm invitation.

Now, before all of the reasons why I should have said, "Gee, thanks for the invite, but I think I'd better stay home," become glaringly apparent, allow me justify my response of, "Umm... sure. Yeah, okay. Only fourteen thousand feet, you say? I'll be super slow, but yeah. Nothin' in my calendar, so why not hike an enormous mountain?"

Justification #1: I've always wanted to hike a fourteener. I live in Colorado. If one resides in this mountainous state for as long as I have, it's practically a requirement to have a fourteener or twenty under your belt and on your resumé. I'm surprised I haven't been deported yet, due to my inexcusable lack of climbing tall things.

Justification #2: I like Chelsea. I like Chelsea a good deal. Spending a day outside with Chelsea sounded like gobs of fun.

Justification #3: Getting out of Grand Junction. Although I've been presented with an unfathomable amount of wonderful opportunities in the past two months, I still loathe this town.

Justification #4: Alex was hiking one. I mean four. Alex was hiking four. Yoga has helped me to conquer a bit of my unhealthy competitive nature, but has not eradicated it entirely.

After I'd ruminated over my justifications for an intense 15 seconds, and uttered my irrevocable, resounding, "sure," Chelsea proceeded to inform me that she would pick me up at the unassuming hour of one o'clock in the morning.

My spur-of-the-moment "sure" sure started feeling a bit sour as I tossed and turned in apprehension that night, deliriously drifting off for a completely rejuvenating half an hour before I had to wake up to prepare my camel-bak and await Chelsea's text. I stuffed my pristinely expensive and unused bag full of lara bars, a rain jacket, a headlamp, my iPhone, my camcorder, and an extra T-shirt. Feeling extraordinarily prepared, a slipped on my barefoot running shoes, gave my groggy boyfriend a goodbye kiss, and joined Chelsea, Katelyn, and Chelsea's four jars of chocolate almond milk in Chelsea's Subaru for the two and a half hour drive in.

The drive was uneventful, and I even managed to doze off for a minute or two near the end. We reached our destination at about four in the morning, and made the unanimous decision to nap for an hour before we began our traipse up the slope. I contorted my body into an uncomely ball of elbows and knees and backpack, and forced myself into the uncomfortable state between sleep and awake. The state wherein you're so tired that you can't move, but you're awake enough to be appropriately pissed off at your body for not being fully asleep. Chelsea's alarm jolted me out of my fog of peevishness at around five, and we unhappily roused ourselves and began to gear up. Chelsea and Katelyn tied on sturdy hiking boots and slipped into outdoorsy sweaters and jackets. I spent an uncomfortable, embarrassing few moments wherein I realized that other than my frumpy grandpa cardigan (solely for the ride up), I'd brought nothing warm to wear. After abashedly sharing my unpreparedness with the experienced mountaineers in the front seat, Katelyn offered up one of her layers.

I will forever be in Katelyn's debt. I donned the long-sleeved shirt, strapped on my camel-bak, and tumbled out of the subaru.

The hike itself started off well enough. The sky was breathtaking, the company couldn't have been better (unless my friend George had been able to fly out from Ireland to join me), and I felt much more capable than I'd expected. There was a steady uphill slant, but nothing undoable or unsustainable. I began to feel confident. I puffed out my chest, inhaled the pure mountain air, I began to feel like a true Coloradan. With each painless step, my hubris increased, compounding into a series of thoughts similar to this: "Maroon Bells, you got nothin' on me. I may have been born in California and have spent the last year and a half doing absolutely nothing physical other than my yoga practice, but I'm a Coloradan, dammit. I grew up in the mountains. I have adopted mountain into my blood. Climbing mountains = piece of cake."

Group yoga pose in front of the second lake -- about a mile and a half in. 

Marmot! A fuzzy creature indigenous to the Rocky Mountains but world renowned for its indisputable cuteness.  

 Three and a half miles in, I was still feeling pretty good. Tired and a wee bit wobbly, but in decent overall health and spirits. However, my false sense of belonging and colossally misplaced confidence became painfully apparent as we reached the foot of the foreboding Maroon Bells and I got a good look at what was next to come. 

"So, Chelsea -- just how high is that beast?"

"Four thousand feet."

"And how many miles?"

"Two and a half." 

Panic attack, commence. A four thousand foot climb in a two and a half mile hike. This was most certainly not what I had imagined when I'd given Chelsea my "sure". Four thousand feet in two and a half miles seems like something one ought to train for in a manner akin to a marathon. 

After stumbling along for about thirty feet, the self-deprecating humor and tears began. The scenery lost it's beauty, as looking up merely told me how much further I had to hike, and looking down reminded me of how little I'd actually progressed. The only consolation I afforded myself at how very often I forced Chelsea and Katelyn to wait on my winded, broken self was that I had warned Chelsea that should I attempt the hike, I would be very slow. My left hip began to ache, the pain in my knees was nearly unbearable, and my calves and ankles burned with each step. Oh, the absolute idiocy of wearing barefoot shoes up slopes of scree. I can say I have a very intimate connection with the Maroon Bells mountains, as I felt every single angle and edge of the rocks on which I stumbled. 

It was this steep the entire way up

Near the saddle, we met a meteorologist and a guide on their way down. As clouds were gathering rather ominously over the mountains, Chelsea and Katelyn asked these knowledgeable folks what they thought we ought to do regarding continuing our climb. We were told that reaching the saddle would be feasible, but they recommending we not attempt the technical climb to the summit, as the risk of being caught in a rainstorm and stranded wasn't worth the magnificent view and bragging rights to which reaching the top entitles you.

I would have loved to actually reach the top, but I was far from devastated at being given a perfectly feasible excuse for heading back down the mountain.

Chelsea couldn't pick a signature pose, so she put a rock on her head.

This goat blocked out way to the saddle. Chelsea called to him in an attempt to move him off the path, and he liked the sound of her voice so very much that he decided to follow us fifteen hundred feet down the mountain. 

It didn't rain. We could have reached the summit, had the clouds not scared us off. Katelyn and Chelsea were rather miffed and disappointed. I made an impressive effort to appear disappointed. 

After scampering dangerously down the mountain scree (finishing off my knees and ankles), and walking the three and a half miles back to the car, we clamored in and headed down to Glenwood. After gobbling up a gluten-free bagel, a white mocha, and a chocolate truffle, I felt significantly better -- although walking was still tremendously hard. Teaching yoga is going to be excellent fun this week.