2015

It is finally time, to say goodbye to the year 2014. I love the spirit of reflection a 'new year' conjures. It forces you to acknowledge,'yep, another one down, how'd you do? what could have been better? what are you proud of?'

This past year has been monumental for me, more so than I will admit. With it's inception, I felt lost, as if no place or person or purpose would tie me down, or make the fuziness of my viewpoint vanish. Sitting at the same place I was when I wrote this 'retrospective' post last year, hindsight is my friend. 2014 seemed daunting, but I breathed through it and unearthed some meaningful lessons.

In the past year:
I drank coffee while listening to the rainforest of Costa Rica hum
I packed up my belongings in my Jetta and drove to Montana, then to Portland to sleep in my sister's bunk house
I wrote dispassionate cover letters and scowered craigslists' pages like some 'how-to' guide to getting your shit together
I tickled my nephew to pieces, fed him, fell asleep with him on my chest, became inspired by his daily discoveries in our de-glammed quotidian existence
I listened to the rain and did my yoga and was rejected by more jobs than I am willing to admit
I slang coffee without latte art and contemplated my worth
I moved into a house with a duo of twenty-somethings and got a 'real' job at a behavioral healthcare facility
By clients, I was yelled at, laughed with, hit on, threatened, bullied, and enveloped into the strangest kinship
I learned how to listen to people, to bear witness to their experience
I am still learning how to leave my 'work at work'
I logged grueling miles up trails and over bridges and through logging roads to train for the Portland marathon (that I ran in 4hours, 4minutes)--with the deep pain, I felt daily endorphin-induced ecstasy
Running taught me how to let-go, to be one with the uncomfortability and keep going--that everything comes in waves--the pain, the numbness, the blisters, the adrenaline
'just for fun' with my college friend, I hiked 50 grueling miles in 72 hours over ancient lava fields and oceans of obsidian in Oregon's Three Sister's Wilderness--toenails and arrogance as collateral
I giggled with my room-mates, danced in my kitchen, had weekly 'family dinners' picnic style in our lawn made out of fresh-picked vegetables from my first garden
I fell in love on top of Table Mountain in the Columbia River Gorge and haven't looked back since.

And here I am, in my kitchen at my parent's house, in the same computer nook I wrote 5th grade poetry and googled how to properly adorn a condom. In years previous, I would be ruffling through contact lists to 'make a plan' for the best evening ever--to get that kiss with a perfect stranger. My plans for tonight consist of a casual dinner with an old friend, and then reading bad online astrology predictions for Aries in 2015 with my sister and my puppy before we fall in an undefined mass of goose down and wool socks on my parents bed, most likely between 12 and 1am. And I've never been more pleased. Everything comes around.

Time is not how we see time. It is not measured in days lived, but in lessons learned.
So here is to another year, making those gyri in our overwhelmed melons groove towards balance and content! 

Wait--By Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

Start Where You Are

I find myself swimming

In an infinity pool—

logging the miles

for some outside demand.

Is this life? Just a series

of punch-ins-punch-outs-

happyhours-and-feelings

oftimelost?

I did it: I got a great place to live, great roommates; a job in my field that is challenging and constantly expanding my skillset; a city I’ve come to know and love that surprises me with her hidden gems; a fellow social-justice aficionado boyfriend who tells me I’m a goddess and refills my jameson without pause. I make enough money to be comfortable, but still tight enough to feel like a ‘struggling (I don’t want to say artist).’ Still on my parents health insurance. Fucking killing it, right?

Then why

am I choking

on tar,

impending doom?

‘You’re wasting time,

You’re stagnant.

You’re not peterpan.

grow up.’

 ‘a single moment is all we need to establish our human will and attain truth.’

fuck yeah

you can change everything in a moment!

But what  about sustainability?

Fucking zen masters—cherry blossoms in a blizzard.

‘DO MORE!’

she says--How guilt-ridden and pathetic,

negating the real truth

that I was born whole

and that nondoing

is a more powerful currency

than any form of accomplishment

in this society built on objectification.

I cherish those moments late at night before I get off my swing shift when I zip up my raincoat and meander outside to breathe fresh air. I watch people utilizing their street-skills—charisma to snag a pull on the bottle; resourcefulness to pick up half-smoked cigarette off the concrete; audacity to snag someone’s tarp from their neatly stacked pile to secure their own survival.

We have moments of pure truth and understanding.

They tell me of their home planets,

That justice will be served for WWII,

That Jesus is coming.

I glimpse into their world and it all makes sense.

These homeless angels are crippled by their ability to feel

—pain, suffering, prejudice, and institutionalized oppression.

The rest of us numb in heated homes with ‘could-be-better’ wages and expensive hobbies.

It doesn’t add up. The people doing all the work

—the cooking, cleaning, building, nurturing, counseling, advocating, caretaking—

get fucked by the system. What an exhausting insight to behold—breathing new definitions.

Social Work: the art of balancing self-preserving ignorance while kindling fire for change.

With this awareness, I too feel crippled by the depth of corruption

Crippled by the paradox of change-within and change-without.

The yogis say to ‘make yourself whole,’

—how can one integrate when surrounded by souls swept out to sea by tides outside their control?

‘Our human body appears and disappears moment by moment, without cease, and this ceaseless arising and passing away is what we experience as time and being. They are not separate, they are one thing, and in even a fraction of a second, we have the opportunity to choose and to turn the course of our action either towards the attainment of truth or away from it. Each instant it utterly critical to the whole world.’

Paralysis by questions of purpose

direction, and intent—a diagnosis met by many aficionados before me.

The answer is there is no answer.

The fact is we are all alone—

single islands of consciousness

in this vast illusion of import.

The only meaning we can glean

are the stories we tell ourselves of ‘truth.’

Sometimes I drink chardonnay in the afternoon like my mother and sisters before me and gaze over the precipice, contemplating the time it would take me to fall and the feeling of inertia and gravity and time suspended. Even for a short while…

Sometimes I sit by the window like my jade bonsai, phototropic, growing towards the light in the shade of doug-firs during my 15 minute meditations and I feel like ‘I got this, I am whole.’

up, down, same thing. 

*The quotes in italics are taken from the character Jiko, a 104 year-old zen buddhist/feminist nun in the book A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Ms. Dunham's Genius

"No, I am not a sexpert, a psychologist, or a dietician. But I am a girl with a keen interest in having it all, and what follows are hopeful dispatches from the frontlines of that struggle."

Lena’s new book, Not that Kind of Girl: A young woman tells you what she's 'learned,' is a comforting hug for all of womankind. Her stories meld together in a dry fondue of awkward sexual encounters, body dysmorphia, loving friendships, and general angst that encompasses the experience of young girls and women in our society. I found in her book a sense of comradery—which is certainly what she sought to forge. She reaches across the page like an empathic friend giving you the last bite of the chocolate croissant upon recounting a night of questionable consensual sex. Cause let’s be honest, all young women get ‘fucked’ by society in many ways, shapes, and forms. Ms. Dunahm, with her trademark wit and biting candor, unapologetically calls out said-‘fucking’ and breathes hope into the future of femininity without sanguine reverie or direct condemnation of patriarchy. Men and women alike, to give a unique insight into some themes prominent in young females’ experience, should read this book and honor a creative luminary of our generation, Lena Dunham.

Yoga Ruins Your Life

Here is a little edit from a great yoga studio that I've had to pleasure to practice at. It's called the yoga workshop in Boulder, led by renowned Ashtangi Richard Freeman. Just a nice peek into the wild world of Mysore style Ashtanga yoga. I've been yearning to dig deep into my daily practice again now that the marathon is over. Videos like this remind me of the 'tapas' or fire I feel when I practice. Enjoy.


Yoga Ruins Your LIfe from Yoga Workshop on Vimeo.

The Portland Marathon

At the starting gate!

7am pre-race hugs

crossing the St. Johns bridge. mile 17

hugs from my monkey after finishing. Feeling nauseous and proud :/

#teamKendall

sister support <3

Taffy loves my medal

Time for beer

 

Yesterday I ran 26.2 miles nonstop, averaging 9min 20sec per mile. I didn’t chafe, my blisters were minimal, I never felt out of breath—it was exhilarating and exhausting. And man oh man did I get my fill of endorphins cascading down my spine, hamstrings, and calves. It’s easy to paint the past through rose-colored tints—once an accomplishment is finished it doesn’t seem as daunting. But I’ll be honest when I say that this marathon has been a journey and then some.

I signed up for the race way back in March while I was predominantly sedentary, coming off a stint of living in India and getting almost zero exercise. My base was maxed at around 6 miles, running like 11 min miles or something ridiculous. Needless to say, I wasn’t in the best shape of my life.

Why did I register? Why does anyone register for these things? I think I felt a sense of “fuck it, I can do it,” mixed with an urge to get my ass kicked and have something to focus on other than my overwhelming ‘newness’ in this city I just moved to. Mostly, I yearned for that sense of freedom that accompanies being able to run far and fast and through the shits and through the leg fatigue until those surges of ecstasy course through your veins.

You could say I caught the bug a year ago when I decided to run 21miles on my 21^st birthday. I trained for about 10 weeks, ran it alone on April 1st in the national forests around Missoula, Montana, having setup ‘water stations’ the night before since my college buddies were too hungover to commit to helping me out. During training, and after the run I felt like I was satisfying some primordial beast within, pushing mental/physical limits and also my understanding of myself.

There is certainly a zen-component to running long distance. It is reminiscent of intense Ashtanga yoga sessions, where you are forced to dive deep within yourself and just keep moving through the motions, the breath. Of course it takes a while to cultivate this meditative relationship with running, at least for me. At first, I would attack training runs—listening to pump-up music without any sense of pacing and wear myself out. Soon you learn that you have to relax into the run, relax into the uncomfortability building up in your shoulders, your feet, your quads—and lean into it, cherish it almost, because if you push through you feel higher than any drug could ever make you.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how I can live my yoga without having a rigorous daily practice. Maybe I’ve been hanging around Ashtangis for too long, such that I feel guilty for attributing so much time to an activity other than the primary series. But I’m starting to see how the principles of yoga can be applied to many discaplines. And what yoga is really about is becoming a better, more mindful human; it shouldn’t matter the path through which you attain that. Patience, letting go, being present, dissolving ego-driven action—all of these practices have been strengthened through my running (although Guruji would cringe at the tightening of my hamstrings).

These were my mantras yesterday whilst pounding the pavement in a sea of neon bodies: “focus on the breath; loosen up the shoulders; easy posture, light strikes; if it feels like work, you’re going too fast; lose yourself in the movement.” And I fucking did it.

I remember at one point during training, my brother-in-law was asking me how it was going and I replied, “After this marathon, I’m never going to run again.” Maybe I have retrograde amnesia because I’m already looking up ultramarathons around Portland for next spring while I lay lathered in Tiger Balm, muscles crippled from the previous day’s ventures. Here’s to pushing limits and sweating profusely!

thug kitchen

This shit is hilarious. I'm totally buying the book. Check out some awesome plant-based recipes on their site. This is one of my favorites.

Scott Jurek--Ultrarunning Machine

I first heard about Scott Jurek while reading Born to Run--a book written by Christopher McDougall about the Tarahumara running tribe and as a call for minimalist, meditation-based running. He speaks about handling discomfort mindfully--using breath, awareness, and just keeping on until "those little glimpses of flow, or easy movement" carry you away. This feeling of freedom, of pure bliss, of being able to go forever while the fountain of endorphins trickle down your scalp-- disengaged from modern day mental clutter and boiled down to just one foot in front of the other, despite the immense pain and your muscles screaming at you to stop--this is why I fell in love with distance running. Hopefully I can take in some of Scott's wisdom, as well as stay focused on the reasons I got involved, and apply it to my race in one week! First marathon here we come.
 


 These are some of my favorite quotes:

"You're tapping into that primitive, body function survival things going on. And also, there are times when I'm running and even though I've been in discomfort for 20,30,40 miles, sometimes it just feels like I'm floating and that I can run, you know, forever. And those little glimpses of like, flow, or just, I guess ease of movement is what I think a lot of people are searching for with endurance sports."

"Discomfort and adversity are somethings that life, is really full of. I've learned a lot from the ultrarunning sport that I can apply to my life because...there are plenty of times when I'm out running when it hurts just as much as everyone else. And it's about accepting that as part of the journey. In order to get to the top of the mountain, the discomfort and the fatigue and the struggle is part of it and I think, once you appreciate it, you don't try to avoid it."

Three Sisters: 50 miles, 3 nights, 4 burly humans

I woke up at dawn today, still in sync with mother nature's rhythm from the backcountry. I hobbled down the stairs to make my coffee and greet my garden. My feet look like I dipped them in a pot of hot acid (fucking blisters) and my mind is on stimulation overload from all the man-made hustle. It's amazing what a few days 'unplugged' will do for the mind.

A 50 mile loop in 4 days around the base of three magnificent volcanoes in the Three Sisters Wilderness in central Oregon. The four of us set off on the first day from Portland. 6am! We planned the night before. 9:30 rolls around and I'm having my second french press coffee and a bagel, waiting for the crew to get their shit in order.

Due to inevitable miscommunications and obvious coffee breaks, we hit the trailhead around 3pm--needing to huck 12+ miles before sundown. Heads down we trucked into the 'burnzone' on the east side of las hermanas. Apparently there was a huge fire here last year, so all the water-sources marked on my trusty map had dried up. We were in a pickle, cruisin at 20min miles, takin no breaks, trudging and trudging trying to find a creek to camp by. To no avail--we set up camp in the dark in a pile of ash and nibbled on cold pop-tarts before collapsing into our tents.

 

 Dawn brought a new light. Although we were all itchin for some coffee...we ate a few power-bars, rolled a few spliffs and set off at first light--ready to charge 15+ miles and get the fuck out of this burnzone.

 3pm: We had hot lunch at Green Lakes--oriental flavored top-ramen and three cups of coffee. We all took a nap under the alpine sun and soaked our feet in the glacier melt. It was glorious. Only 5 more miles to go for the day!

 I don't even remember setting up camp that night at Moraine Lake because I was so delirious from blister pain and pure exhaustion. Me and Jesse fell asleep giggling with altitude-fuzzied brains before sundown. I woke up to this scene--the pup Isabel tryin to play fetch and the South Sister basking in her morning alpine glow.

 We joined with the Pacific Crest Trail this morning and wove our way through Doug-Fir forests and alpine meadows. Each of us in the groove of truckin, chattin, eatin, and laughing. I love the way the wilderness sluffs off pretense and rubs people into a clan of sorts.

We cut out early and set up camp at Reese Lake because it was too good to be true. All alone at this crystal clear lake with the South Sister towering over-us--her crater echoing power. We laid in the meadows reading, swam in the lake, built a fire, and gazed at the stars.

 Dawn on our last morning. We knew it was gonna be a tough day because we didn't meet our expected mileage the day before. 6am. 13 miles togo. 4 humans and a pup in rough shape--held together by spliffs, advil, and duct tape. We set off in silence for the last, most beautiful leg of our trip.

Jesse feelin it ALL

 At the top of Opie Pass. These volcanoes make for such desolate landscapes. I felt like I was knocking on the gates of Mordor trudging up those switchbacks.

Las Hermanas

The North and Middle Sisters

Map questin

  We all felt like we had tested our limits with this hike. I love the feeling of getting my ass kicked by mother nature. Placing one foot in front of the other up and down mountain passes, through pain, sunshine, and rain is humbling---it quiets the soul from all the menial bullshit of day-to-day life. It puts in perspective the reality we humans create and prioritize beyond the power of nature.