My own jointed bones and square inches of flesh are feeling stretched taut, full of love and friendship. Full of the happy sadness and sentimentality of leaving a place one loves. Last night thirty-odd favorite ski bum friends poured into my home with arms full of food, drink, gifts, and good wishes. Chris set it up as a surprise party, but with so many friends excited to talk about my trip and share their support, the secret was never going to be kept for long. It was a great sending-off; tomorrow as I lift off from the Salt Lake airport, I’ll imagine that the plane is being buoyed by my friends’ excitement rather than jet fuel. I’m excited to leave; I believe as Muir does, that it is easy enough to live out of sight of one’s friends, but only because I know that I’m bringing their love with me, and that they’ll be waiting for me when I get back.

The adventure begins tomorrow…

Linda works for an environmental consulting firm.  Last spring, knowing that I have a degree in English, she mentioned that the company was looking for a part-time editor.  At the time I was packing to hit the road for the summer, and knew I’d committed to snowmaking in the fall.  Interested, yes, but it felt like poor timing.  A month ago she got in touch to tell me they were still thinking of taking on someone new, so I sent in a resume and cover letter.  It was the most challenging job application I’d completed oh, since college, probably.  I haven’t applied for a serious, “professional” job in five years.  My food service, customer service, and outdoor/physical labor resumes are in tip top shape, but an editing resume?  Um.  Well.  Yes, I have this degree, yes I worked in a publishing house (seven years ago), yes I’ve always been very good at grammar and research, yes I’m a perfectionist and a good reader, but phew, finding solid work experience to back up all of those general acquired skills was challenging.  I spent the better part of a day compiling, wording, and re-wording my resume and writing a cover letter.  I wasn’t sure it would be good enough to get the job, but I told my parents about it, bragged to my boyfriend, and felt a warm, satisfying pride in actually doing it.  I can still complete hard assignments!  I do have some innate talents, five years out of academia!  Kari, Linda’s boss, wrote back immediately to tell me that my resume had been received and was “in the mix”.  Ah well, I thought, at least I tried.  It took another month for her to call me and offer me the job, but she did.  I was sitting in the waiting area in my local Firestone while the mechanics changed the oil in my car, and I accepted.  I started the next day.  That was three days ago, and I’ve been giddy every since.

What is this new job?  Say that Kennecott Copper Mine (the largest open pit copper mine in the world! the website brags.  I can literally see it from my house) wanted to dig another pit.  The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) provides laws and regulations that the mine must follow in order to do any expansion, so Kennecott would hire the company I work for to run tests, inspect the site for archaeological artifacts, and write up an Environmental Impact Statement, which I would then edit.  The writing is technical, but fascinating.  In two days of work, I’ve already learned about the history of the Shoshone-Bannock tribe of Idaho, and that one of the major issues with building a solar panel farm in the Arizona desert is the amount of water the farm would require.  I feel like I’m listening to NPR or reading National Geographic articles while working.  I love it.  I’m getting paid (well) to learn new things and use my college degree!  The best part (or, one of the best parts) is that I’ve been hired on a temporary/part time basis.  I don’t have to commit to working in an office for the next year.  Kari (who’s my boss now, too) told me they could have anywhere from zero to twenty hours of work for me a week.  I’m more or less functioning as a contractor.  And once I get the hang of the company’s style guidelines, I will likely be able to work from home, on my own time.  This is a dream come true for me.  I’m building skills and connections that will ultimately allow me to earn a living from home.  This is just the beginning.

So, a new job!  On top of still making snow at Alta (we should be finished any day now, except the weather won’t cooperate.  Salt Lake is stuck in an inversion: polluted, 35°F air in the valley trapped by high, 45°F air in the mountains.  I scrape frozen pollution off my car windshield every morning.), I’m coming up on the dates when I told Brighton and Solitude Resorts I’d be able to start work.  Weekends at Brighton, weeknights at Solitude (no housekeeping this time, just reception/bellman work at the Inn), and my daytime hours split between skiing and this new, professional editing position.  Plus, I have friends!  GIRL friends, even.  I’ve stuck around long enough to make meaningful connections with women whom I admire and respect.  And strangely, staying put seems to be helping me to achieve some of my greater life goals: writing, adventure, travel, baking… I’m writing more, and more easily, than I have in a long time.  Adventure lurks around every corner (motorcycling in Moab, downhill mountain biking, dating a man with a 10-year-old).  I’m planning my travels purposefully instead of randomly (at least for the moment).  The next trip is slated for mid-March, back to Peru, with a possible two week side trip to Colombia.  And while I still rely on store-bought bread for my own personal use, next weekend at Brighton I’ll be selling all kinds of baked goodies at the 2^nd annual craft fair.  Life is moving like a flooded river: fast, and full.  It is good.

Rocky was a meaty hunk of pit bull and mastiff who belonged to a fellow camper, a young man from Salt Lake who’d set up camp on the other side of the bluff.  We invited him to share our fire and our beer while Rocky and Fonzie, Jeni’s dog, frolicked and tromped around in the trees along the edge of the fire.  I excused myself from the campfire and walked between the moon shadows and juniper trees.  Sand colored bluff walls shone white in the moonlight.  Spindly towers and smooth buttes displayed patchwork quilts of light gold and dark red on the horizon.  I squatted and held my pant legs out of the way, when a loud snuffling announced that Rocky had followed me and was carefully examining the puddle I was making.  “Go on, Rocky!” I gently pushed his boulder of a head away.  After using the toilet paper, I set it aside and pulled up my pants and looked back just in time to see the white paper hanging from the dog’s mouth.  “No!”  I was incredulous.  “Drop it, drop it!  No, Rocky!”  Big orange eyes looked at me lovingly, and his brow creased with worry, but the square jaw flexed, and the small, white flag disappeared into the dog’s mouth.  He chewed once, twice, swallowed, licked his lips, and wagged happily.  “Oh, Rocky.”  The moon rose in the sky; Rocky and his owner returned to their camp, Jeni retired to the tent, and I made my bed outside.  I slept for a few hours, and woke to a loud, wet tongue in my ear.  “Rocky!”  I whispered and pushed him away.  He wagged his tail.  Perhaps he was looking for more toilet paper.  He curled up at my head, leaned against my pillow and fell into a deep, snoring sleep.  In the morning, he disappeared, leaving only a few short hairs and some red dust on my sleeping bag.

Jeni and I parked her Subaru right on the edge of the bluff and drew in the dust on the back window.  Pictures of our adventure together: waves for the Oregon coast, Crater Lake, huge trees, the mountains of eastern British Columbia, rain clouds.  Cartoonish finger drawings that reminded us of the lush, dripping, green of the Pacific Northwest.  “I love it here!”  I said, sitting in the old growth forest on the edge of the beach.  I compared Vancouver to my dry, desert city and spoke disparagingly of Utah’s lack of trees and waterways.  My lungs loved the soothing humid air; my hair and skin wallowed in the moisture.  We also drew lightning bolts and black clouds: rain.  I was excited to use my gaiters for hiking, but soon remembered how miserable it is to sleep in a wet tent, or to cook in a rainstorm, or to be damp for days on end.  A huge, bright sun filled one corner of the car’s window.  “Inti!  Gracias, gracias a ti,” we prayed in Spanish to the Incan sun god as we drove south into Montana and Wyoming, where the air dried our tent in minutes when we hung it on a fence.  Buttes, towers, mesas, and the moon filled the spaces in between, and I remembered the thing I like most about the west: open space.  I love trees, glorious, life-giving beings, but I also love being able to see the contours of the land and the expanse of the sky, and being able to sleep without a tent under the arch of the Milky Way.

I drew the last figure on the back window: a balanced scale.  Both climates stir my spirit.  Cold and hot.  Wet and dry.  Forest and desert.  Balance: I need them both; one helps me to enjoy and appreciate the other.  Nearly two years in Salt Lake City made me sick for adventure and the open road, and a month of travel with Jeni helped me see the value and allure of a settled life. Balance: enjoying and appreciating everything, everything that the world, my friends, my life, has to offer, flowing between multiple interests, commitments, communities, and locations.  So, balance is my catchword and my goal for the next year, as I return to Salt Lake City for a third winter of ski bumming.  Two goals: balance and keeping my toilet paper out of reach of hungry dogs.  Gravity and levity – there’s a balance to setting goals, too.

I’m sure it’s a surprise to no one that a little bit of me-time in the great outdoors has made me clearheaded and inspired to return to this space.  Surprise or not, though, it feels good to be back.  There’s been this huge pile of landslide debris blocking my path for so long.  I’m trying to sneak over the hardened, dried mud without dislodging any rocks.  If I climb up high enough, maybe I can see to the other side.  Maybe I can slip right over it and then start running, leaving it far behind.  I’m a little bit shaky, a little nervous and shy.  I could spook at any second!  I’ve tried to attack this blockage, force it out of my way and yell it down with angry words.  The earth only rumbles again and sends more dirt and trees plummeting downhill on top of me, building the pile higher.  I’ve tried to ignore it.  Carry on with things on this side.  Pretend it’s not there and that I didn’t want to go that way anyhow.  It pokes me when I do that, though.  I can’t seem to move very far away, either.  I can still see it, no matter where I move.  I’ve tried dismantling it logically, but taking it once piece at a time only makes the rocks and roots multiply, and I get dirt in my eyes and I am blinded, overwhelmed by the size of the thing.  I can’t make it go away, but maybe I can get over it, move on.

So I’m back, then, or trying to be, anyway.  I’m not over the block yet, but I’m moving that way, stepping softly but confidently (trying to be confident, anyway).  Reminding myself that the only person with the power to move forward is me.  I watched that movie, “Julie and Julia” two nights ago.  It’s a story of a woman who wants to be a writer, but has never finished anything she’s started.  She decides to start a blog about her love of cooking and her admiration for Julia Child.  ”524 Recipes in 365 Days!” was the challenge she gave herself.  Listening to the actress playing Julie Powell read bits of her blog, I remembered my own early blogging days, when I first went to NZ.  There was no art to my writing.  It was pure fun.  My only goal was to relay, as clearly as possible, the wonders, astonishments, lessons, and treasures of my first year traveling by myself in a foreign country.  My posts were honest and excited.  I described things as they had imprinted themselves on my eyes and soul, with only a few quick glances in the thesaurus when I was feeling particularly creative.  The excitement is tangible in those early posts.  No wonder so many of you commented back in the beginning!  I’m not sure when, exactly, this began to feel more like a job than a joy, but it’s been a sad, downhill ride.  The movie was a good one, very much a chick-flick (and I, being especially sappy these days, teared up during several scenes), but it hit me as more than a fun way to pass the evening.  There’s a scene where Julie and her husband have had a fight, and she’s alone in the apartment, lying on her bed, sulking, feeling sad, wallowing a bit.  She sits up, looks at her computer, lies back down again.  A second or two passes before she sits up again, and I imagined I could feel her taking a deep, resolved breath before she stood up, and moved toward the computer to write about the day on her blog.  The message I got?  It sucks, sometimes it really sucks, but if you just get off the bed, and do what you say you want to do, what you’ve committed to do, then good things happen.

Just do it.  This is not the first time I’ve heard that message.  Taped to the bottom of my computer screen is a small, rectangular piece of paper with the words “BE. RUTHLESS.” printed on it.  I wrote that little reminder over a year ago after reading a friend’s blog.  Lacy is a fellow artist, a professional actress in Chicago, whom I met traveling in Ecuador.  She was quoting yet another blog by yet another successful artsy person about the experience of learning to “be ruthless with oneself” in order to move forward and, eventually, be successful.  That little taped note has been staring at me for over a year, and I still haven’t been able to look it in the eye.  But today, I went for a (20km!) bike ride through the lush, tall forest that surrounds North Vancouver, and I thought about this space, and how perhaps it’s time to take the pressure off, and just write about what I saw and what I thought about today.  And today, somehow, it felt possible.

So I’m back, I think.  It probably won’t always be pretty, but I’d like to make it a habit again.  There are things that I get excited about, or frustrated with, and while I’d love it if you’d be willing to read about them, I’m mostly interested in simply being in this space and getting my bearings again.  It doesn’t matter if I’m writing into a void, what matters is that I’m writing.

Back in May, I moved northeast out of Sandy into Cottonwood Heights, a stone’s throw from the canyon where I spent my winter.  I’m living with two ski instructors, Tim and Connie, and their two boys (10 & 8), plus three cats, one turtle, and one black Labrador/Great Dane mix.  It’s a house they built themselves, custom-designed to comfortably fit their six-foot-plus frames.  I need a step stool to reach the top shelves of the pantry, and I have to stand on my tip-toes to work at the countertop. The house is full of light, music, and color.  The windows at the front of the house are open to a panorama of the Wasatch Mountains.  There are speakers in every corner, even in the bathroom, and Jack Johnson, Michael Franti, Joni Mitchell, and Bruce Springsteen are regulars on the playlist. Photographs of family and friends plaster the fridge, walls and tables. My room is huge and bright, with six floor-to-ceiling windows.  It’s a room that begs to be decorated and inhabited.  For the first time, my few backpacking possessions seem inadequate, and within a week of moving in I’d already arranged to have my favorite Peruvian rug shipped to me from NH.  Tim and Connie’s is a house that feels like a home.

Though I endure rather than enjoy the city life, staying in Salt Lake through the summer has allowed me to take pleasure in being a part of a community of friends and their dogs, of rock-climbing partners, hikers, strong, creative women and outdoorsy men.  Winter relationships have grown and blossomed.  Chris, or Koogs, my skiing partner, has become my best friend and boyfriend, and partner in most things.  Together we’ve road-tripped to Colorado and to Utah’s Shakespeare capital to see Henry V.  We’ve hiked and biked and camped; gone to outdoor concerts, festivals, barbeques and parties; dog-sat, floated the Weber River on inner tubes, and soaked in the Diamond Fork hot springs.  Having someone with whom to share the summer enriched each moment and experience.

One of the summer’s highlights was a trip to Moab, Utah’s red rock Mecca and the gateway to Arches National Park.  Chris and I left Salt Lake one Friday night in May as the full moon was rising, and spent the weekend camping on top of a rock, with no roof over us but the stars.  On foot and on borrowed mountain bikes, we explored Edward Abbey’s desert paradise.  Early spring in the Utah desert means vivid green life against red buttes and mesas.  Biking before sunset on our second night, we turned a corner and observed a small grove of mature aspens standing in front of a sheer red wall.  Their bark glowed green in the low sunlight, and their slender branches curved gracefully, elegantly, as if frozen in the middle of a slow, twisting dance.  In that cool, potent moment, I believed we had found the lost Ent-wives of the Lord of the Rings.

As the warmth of the summer in the desert west fades and I look ahead to a second winter spent in Salt Lake City, it would be easy to be fearful, to wonder why I’m not moving on, as my custom has been.  Instead, I’m excited.  I feel like a new stage is coming in the life of Susan the Traveler.  The wave of serendipity that I’ve been surfing has become an eddy, a current swirling contrary to the main flow.  Though the pace has slowed, the voyage continues, and I’m happy to float on these friendly waters, trusting the swell to carry me where I belong.  I’ve got a new set of telemark skis and my old job at Brighton back, and I’m ready to make the most out of the winter and enjoy my new community of friends.  Let it snow!

It’s been a cold, gloomy Sunday. 45F, rainy, gray. Bob’s away, picking up a friend at the Jackson airport, so I’ve spent the day nestled into the leather arm chair in front of the fire, reading, writing, and luxuriating in the cozy alone time. I’m leaving the ranch in less than a week, heading up to the Tetons and to Yellowstone before flying back home. This weekend has found me wistful and sentimental, both for the time I’ve spent on the ranch this summer, and for past harvest seasons at home in New England. I’m looking forward to being home again, but am content to have these last few days of in-between time in which I have little to do but sit and relax and enjoy my surroundings. I was watching a movie when Cal burst in, and was contemplating making hot chocolate, but whatever he’s got up those red flannel sleeves is bound to be worth it.

We speed along the rough drive between my house and the main one, swerving around puddles and rocks, Cal cautioning me all the while, not to look, not to look! As we pull up outside of the main ranch house, he skids to a stop, shoves the gear stick into park, and leaps out of the Gator. I can’t keep from laughing as I hurry to follow him up the stairs to the porch. “Come, come, don’t look yet, wait til you get to the porch, you’ll get the full effect!” He’s running, actually skipping up the stairs, as if the phenomenon we’re about to observe is on the verge of slipping away. Coming to a halt in the center of the porch, Cal turns east, toward the canyon, and flings his arms wide. “Isn’t it amazing?” he whispers, awed. The first snow has fallen on the Absaroka Range. The clouds, which have hung heavy and thick all day, have lifted momentarily, and the last light of the day illuminates the mountains’ rocky summits, now laden with a thick coat of white. The ranch, the pastures, the houses, and the canyon maintain their standard reds, greens, browns, and yellows, but above them, this tall rampart of white stretches bright. It is stunning.

After driving me back to my own house (slower, now that the initial rush and excitement have passed), Cal sits with me at the window (it’s too cold and wet to take up our usual spots on the front porch) and shares with me the wine he’s brought. He’s still wearing his battered hat. This has become a tradition. One or two nights a week, Cal (the man who owns the ranch where I live) will pull up in front of the house in the Gator, pull a bottle of Yellow Tail Shiraz or Grenache from under his coat, and smile mischievously as he suggests we share a glass or two and discuss the woes of the world. Tonight, we’re talking about literature, the way that styles change through the years and yet build upon each other in an endless sharing of references, imagery and ideas. “There’s not a word you say that I don’t have a reference to. You say a word, and it’s like – ” Cal mimes a stone skimming across water. His mind is crammed with references and experiences, which hum just beneath the surface, waiting for a word or idea to brush against them and bring them springing to life. The stories he tells, like the books he loves, have a way of blending together with their similar references or overlapping characters. It is hard, therefore, to follow the details of his life. He speaks intelligently, but broadly, and has a habit of jumping between stories without warning. Many a night, Bob and I have sat on the porch in the glow of the red tractor lights, and listened, rapt, to Cal’s tales: of being a Presbyterian missionary, and later a minister; of his frustration with the corrupt nature of politics when he was a state Representative for Minnesota and Ohio; of getting lost on a hike in New Mexico and being helped by a woman whom he later discovered was the painter Georgia O’Keefe; of living in Jamaica and the school there that is named after him; or of entertaining the president of Pakistan as a guest in his home in St. Paul. The timeline is vague, but the episodes are rich.

Cal is eighty-two years old, capable of quoting Keats and Wordsworth at length, and more in tune to the current political state of the world than either Bob or I. He has a great passion for the world and its peoples. With all his education and experience, he’s learned to pay close attention to current affairs, and also, to be willing to adjust his views as society changes. I love to sit with my arms wrapped around my knees, quietly absorbing the sound of his voice as he spins his yarns, or to try to see his eyes through his orange-tinted glasses as he bewails the miserable state of modern politics and religion. The three of us, he, Bob, and me, will sit and talk ourselves in circles, about the upcoming election and foreign policy, nodding our heads and wondering why the people in charge don’t think like we do. One night, he quipped, “Now that we’ve solved the world’s problems, I think I’ll be heading off. I’m glad we’ve sorted everything out. Now if only they’d listen to us!”

Thin but healthy, he has thick, messy white hair, and wears hats, gloves, long sleeves, and long pants to protect his skin against the sun while he works outside on the ranch. He lives for this place. His days are spent digging irrigation ditches, stringing barbed wire fences, driving spikes into rail fences, cutting down trees, spraying weeds, and driving off the stray cows that wander across the river and into his pastures. Back and forth across the property, he zips around in his little John Deere like a white-haired Energizer bunny. Bob and I can hear the sound of the Gator as he drives it through the fields and between our two houses, and whenever we hear it coming, we look at each other and grin – “Here comes Cal!” – and walk out to meet him on the porch. If he’s just passing through, we’ll chat, and then Cal will smile up at us, “Well, I can’t think of anything else to do, so I’ll just drive around like I own the place.” He is a master of the parting shot.

It’s become dark as we’ve been sitting here next to the window, philosophizing. The wine is gone, and with a satisfied sigh, Cal stands up from the table to leave, wobbling a bit as he rises. Touching me briefly on the shoulder, he adjusts the cinch on his robe, straightens his hat, and moves toward the door, declaring, “Susan, you are a lovely person, and I enjoy talking to you ever so much. Good night, my dear.” Pausing on the threshold, he peers into the cold, damp night, then sighs and smiles tipsily. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…” he quotes, then turns, and with a wink and a salute, steps out onto the porch and on his way home.

*moving on…*
The job is done,
my time has come.
I’m heading for the hills of stone and the plains of steam
after which I shall return to my home, sweet home,
to family and friends who are my very own.

(see you in NE – Oct 5)

Here’s a brief sampling of the points of difference between Kelli and Susan…

Picnics: “What do you mean you don’t want to use my Swiss army knife to cut the cheese? I swear I rinsed it in the lake the last time I used it!”

Beaches: “UGH! This is – ew! Gross! My feet are SINKING! Bleugh! It’s like quicksand! Augh! This is disgusting!”
“Kelli, it’s SAND and WATER!”
“Yuck!”

Shells to Susan = beautiful treasure. Shells to Kelli = dead animal carcasses.

Susan staying in private rooms at backpackers for NZ$60 or less = huge splurge.
Kelli doing the same = roughing it.

Despite the differences, the trip was by all accounts a success. I ate out at restaurants and went shopping, Kelli went a day or two without showering and hiked up mountains; we each made sacrifices and stepped out of our comfort zones, and we parted at the Auckland airport on Sunday evening, still friends, still smiling.

While Kelli soared off into the darkening sky, I turned around and drove back to the city, my smile fading into an expression of determination and resolve. It was time to sell Dr. Gonzo. Insert ominous music here. This was Sunday. Since then, I’ve papered the city’s backpackers with fliers, placed classified ads, entered an online auction, called dozens of classic car clubs and spent three days camped out at a dim, depressing garage with other backpackers in the same dire straits. “We’re leaving the country in __ days. Won’t you buy our car?? Please? Pretty please?” They call it the Backpackers Car Market, but at this time of year, it resembles less of a market than it does a hospital waiting room. I sit in the uncomfortable chairs next to the half-empty vending machines, listlessly passing the time trying to read and losing focus, talking idly with other backpackers from Germany, Slovenia, Israel, Czech, Luxembourg, South Africa, Netherlands, USA, playing long, drawn out rounds of “Nominations”. We sellers sit near the door like starving lions, ready to pounce on anyone who walks in wanting to buy, growling territorially at each new competitor who drives their car or van into the garage, reducing our chances of selling our own vehicles by one more degree. The air is thick and heavy with dashed hopes.

Today is Friday, and I am still in possession of one “Reliable, Well-kept 1980 Toyota Grande – $1,000 O.N.O”. I love my car, but at this point I will be quite wrapped (Kiwi slang = excited) to see the back of it. The good side of the whole thing is that I’m getting to spend a week with Graham (my former boss from the Godley Resort in Lake Tekapo) and his wife and his wee dog. That fantastic Kiwi hospitality stays true, even to the end. It’s going to be hard to leave this country.