Bears and butterflies

Today, I was hoping to go hiking up to Ouzel Falls in the Rocky Mountains National Park but was turned away by the ranger as I didn’t have a reservation (a novelty due to COVID). So I went and did an impromptu hike from Meeker Park Lodge up towards Lookout Mountain instead. 

I tend to be somewhat of a planner so having to not only change my plans suddenly but also do a hike for which I had no maps at all (neither with me nor at the trailhead, which was quite “unofficial”) was a bit of a mental shift — but I embraced it with enthusiasm (I was mostly bummed because the trail to Ouzel Falls is supposed to be really beautiful). 

And all in all, I truly enjoyed my day hiking — my biggest satisfaction being the fact of conquering some fear of hiking totally by myself (I often go on hikes/runs alone but today there wasn’t a soul along the whole trail all day!) with no map and the real possibility of encounters with bears. And the biggest joy being the butterfly I saw perched on a tiny evergreen tree towards the end of my hike — as well as getting back to my car just in time before the rain started pouring down! 

Chosen families and wandering meteors

As I enjoy my vacation in Colorado, staying with my Austrian-American host family and going on daily adventures either with groups or on my own out in nature, I realize that, on one hand, I really have two or three chosen families, while on the other, I am spontaneously able to open up, meet and connect with people on the road, other adventurers, or “wandering meteors” like myself. 

With and within my chosen families I am truly getting the “re-parenting” that I need, healing the wounds from my own family background or upbringing by being around and integrated in healthier or more accepting families that have in several ways “adopted” me as a friend/auntie/son-daughter. 

On the other hand, if I allow myself to relax and be my spontaneous lively self, I am really able to meet and connect with other people on the road or out in nature who, like myself, are seeking adventure — other “wandering meteors”. These encounters bring me just as much joy as my chosen families (albeit of a different type). 

However lovely and important these two kinds of relationships are for me, though, I also realize that I’m still missing something. 

The relationships with my chosen families are deep and stable; the connections with the other “wandering meteors” are fun and exciting and can also be long-lasting, but often the latter are also, by definition, touch-and-go as I and the other adventurers cross paths for just a few moments, a day, a week, before each of us continuing on our own journey. As much as I enjoy both of theses kinds of relationships and tend to them spontaneously (as well as having the tendency to go on solitary adventures), I am realizing more and more than I would also need — and I actually am starting to miss — some adventure buddies (and possibly also romantic/sexual partners) who could be more constant in my life now.  

My chosen families feel like safe and loving havens; the other “wandering meteors” bring extra light and fun and excitement to my life for some brief moments, like a shooting star or a rainbow across the sky. But now I would also like a couple people who’d be willing and excited to share part of my journey, a leg of my trip, with me: some co-captains or mates or other sailors on my ship…

Climbing!

Exactly one week ago, I got on the road again — at last! 

I love traveling — especially road trips and being out in the wild — but hadn’t been able to do anything last summer, so getting away again this summer felt liberating. And today, I had another very special and exciting moment as I did my first ever multi-pitch climb: with a group and two guides, I climbed 800 feet up to the summit of the First Flatiron in Boulder, CO! 

I’ve been scrambling and climbing on anything I could find since I was a little child, often terrifying my parents, especially my hyper-protective and fearful mother (who is afraid of heights, among many other things). As an adult, I started to “officially” rock climb in the summer of 2019 and now I have around one year’s experience, most of it indoors. But I prefer outdoor climbing and the outdoors in general, so climbing the First Flatiron in 7-8 pitches today was fantastic for me. 

At first, I was scared. The climb in general wasn’t hard or really technical: it was mostly slab and then some ridge scrambling/climbing before the final rappel down. But it was way higher than I’ve ever climbed on rope or been so exposed. Indeed, the start was probably the hardest part for me as I had to get used to climbing with just the void on all sides except for the wall in front of me. For the first few steps, I even thought to myself, “I don’t know if I can do this all day..!” But then, I quickly got used to it: at first, by just focusing on the wall, on the climbing, on where I was placing my hands and feet without looking down or behind me; then, as I got more and more used to it and comfortable, I started looking around and truly enjoying the view along with the experience. At the end of the day, I think the hardest part for me to get used to was the rappel to get down at the end: that still felt a little shaky or weird to me. 

Apart from the amazing experience of climbing as physical activity and the gorgeous landscapes, it was also wonderful because of the human/social aspect of it. For today’s multi-pitch, I joined a group of five people who had already been climbing together for the past four days, but I was accepted and integrated into the group extremely quickly and spontaneously — which felt very nice. And on top of that, I really sensed an immediate camaraderie among us all: we were all sharing a fun experience, something we all wanted to do and enjoyed, but also something that involves some risks and requires group work and trust. Being in this together, having made this choice together, getting to the top, one pitch at a time, and then back down, was something we all wanted and also needed to do together. A feeling — among lots of other feelings — that I really enjoyed! 

“Boy meets girl”

Last night, I watched the movie “Boy meets girl”. It’s one of the sweetest, most delicate, positive or optimistic and affirming films that I’ve seen lately. 

In my opinion there are still several clichés in this movie, but there’s more cliché-breaking, in a delicate, respectful way, and that’s what makes it so enjoyable and compelling to me. 

I especially resonated with the film’s subtitle, “Love transcends gender”, and with the idea that two or more people can love and/or like each other regardless of their sex or gender, just because they love/like each other as persons: the details of the relationship and even of intercourse, while still being important, come after the feelings that the persons involved have for each other (and after consent). These ideas are often repeated explicitly, through words as well as actions, in this movie. 

I also liked, and resonated a lot with, the other explicit, inclusive message in this movie, namely: “you are perfect just as you are, sweet boy, or girl” — or anything including both, in between or beyond. A message that I probably didn’t receive enough while I was growing up but that I am fortunately more able to receive and give back now: to the boy-girl in me and to all the persons around me.

We’re having a hot spell in California and ants are visiting my kitchen again. They often seem to do so during a hot spell — a friend of mine who grew up here said they seek water… 

Whatever they’re after, they don’t seem to be interested in my food, fortunately — maybe because I have almost no sweet foods in my place… but anyway, there’s not many of them and they’re no real nuisance to me so I just let the few ants scuttle around my kitchen sink and stove — I ignore them, and they go about their business ignoring me. 

This morning, however, I was struck by two incidents that are certainly very common with ants but seemed particularly sweet to me today: the first was of one ant carrying a wounded companion; the other was of an ant carrying a crumb of something or other that she had found near my cooking counter and was taking somewhere totally unknown to me. I’ve seen ants do this very often, in real life as well as in documentaries on TV; yet, this morning, these two images struck me deeply, I felt some kind of kinship with these ants, and not even the vaguest thought of getting rid of them. When I saw the ant carrying a crumb of my food, I literally said to her, “Hello buddy, you found what you wanted?” 

Growing up as a child and teenager I didn’t really have much close contact with animals — a beloved pet dog that was put down when I was six (one of my earliest and most vivid memories), and a pet turtle that I adored but probably still saw from a somewhat anthropocentric perspective. 

I got closer to animals interacting with friends’ cats and dogs in high school and college. But it wasn’t until my early thirties, during a trip to South Africa, that I really got close to other animals and realized how sensitive and intelligent they are, how they can be moody and have their own unique personality just as humans do. 

I’ve always known rationally, scientifically, that we’re mammals, great apes; and I’ve always been respectful of & amazed by the natural world, especially from the viewpoint of botanics and geology. But I had never realized as deeply as I do now how much we’re just part of “one big whole”: now I understand this at a profound, instinctive level, and it’s a lovely feeling.

Crab-walk?

While most people my age are buying their own house, moving in with their one-and-only (or main) partner, educating their children or waiting for the right moment to have their own kids — if they haven’t already done all or some of this —, I’m doing none of this and I’m actually making sort of opposite plans. Pushing 40, I feel closer than ever to the way I was in my twenties, to my authentic youthful self who had my own dreams. 

I did try some of those things, mainly the living with exclusive partner thing for several years in my late twenties-early thirties. And then finally walked out on that — to everyone’s benefit! 

I’ve never wanted kids of my own, although I enjoy being around my friends’ children and even helping them out and/or being a sort of “aunt/uncle/buddy” figure to their kids. 

When I walked out of that relationship, over five years ago, I walked away from a whole lot, and rebuilt myself a life almost from scratch here in California. And now, in a seemingly comfortable situation living on my own as “young professional”, what I truly want is to live with buddies, to have fun or pleasant roommates with whom to live and also socialize — as if I were in my twenties! I feel like I’m moving backwards, doing a sort of “crab-walk” compared to most of the people my age, to most of my friends and acquaintances (except for some friends who are much younger). 

I tend to be on the introvert side of the spectrum but I’ve realized than I’m actually much more sociable than I imagined. I miss the group friendships and communities I had in college & grad school. I realize I’ve needed several years of solitude to get myself back on my feet or to “get my life going” as I had always wanted it to and was struggling to do in Europe; but now, I feel open to life & more interaction & connections again. Now my solitude feels like it’s turning into loneliness. And yet the type of connections I’m seeking and wishing for seem to be “out of sync” with my current official age…

So am I doing the crab-walk?

“Something just like this”

“Something just like this” by The Chainsmokers & Coldplay:

“I’ve been reading books of old

The legends and the myths

Achilles and his gold

Hercules and his gifts

Spider-Man’s control

And Batman with his fists

And clearly I don’t see myself upon that list

But I said, where’d you wanna go?

How much you wanna risk?

I’m not lookin’ for somebody

With some superhuman gifts

Some superhero

Some fairy-tale bliss

Just something I can turn to

Somebody I can kiss

I want something just like this 

I want something just like this

I’ve been reading books of old

The legends and the myths

The testaments they told

The moon and its eclipse

And Superman unrolls

A suit before he lifts

But I’m not the kind of person that it fits

I said, where’d you wanna go?

How much you wanna risk?

I’m not lookin’ for somebody

With some superhuman gifts

Some superhero

Some fairy-tale bliss

Just something I can turn to

Somebody I can miss

I want something just like this

I want something just like this”

… but it feels like the more clearly I know what I want, the harder it is to find… why?

“Beautiful boy”

I recently saw the movie “Beautiful boy” which touched me and resonated with me in various ways. 

There’s a boy in me. “Biologically” I am a female but I have always felt androgynous, sometimes wishing that I & the world were “neutral”. I’ve always felt a boy in me. And now, as my eyes and mind are getting rid of the veils from social/cultural conditioning, I see that boy when I look at myself in the mirror: a “beautiful boy”. 

I also see and feel the pain of that boy, like a hole in the soul sometimes — like Nic Sheff’s. And I realize that my intense exercising and my long summer solo trips on the road and/or out in nature often serve the same purpose as all the drugs Nic Sheff would shoot into his body: to try and anesthetize the pain, to fill that hole in his soul. To a certain extent, my hitting the road is as much of an escape as Nic’s shoving drugs into his body: I guess I’ve just been more fortunate in my choice of “drugs” — less damaging for my neurological system… 

But my road trips and adventures also serve the purpose of letting that “beautiful boy” in me come out fully — and now I see that’s always been the case for me. 

Alone

I’m feeling lonely. Today, it’s the “I am alone” aspect of the refrain “I walk alone” from Green Day’s song “Boulevard of broken dreams” that resonates with me. 

Last night, my loneliness was so intense that my chest felt tight. 

The causes of this extremely intense loneliness have deep, ancient roots for me; but last night it was triggered by something very specific: by a few different friends telling me about their fun plans for this summer with other people — with their partners and/or other friends but not with me. That’s when it struck me. And it hurt awfully, it hurt so much that the pain was even physical. Friends don’t invite me to do fun activities with them, they don’t plan fun things (like summer vacations) with me. Friends seek me out for a chat, maybe for advice, for a walk or dinner, maybe sometimes for a short half-day hike — and often, anyway, it’s me seeking them out first. But when it comes to bigger plans, plans that require more thought and that entail more connection, I am not included. This hurts. 

I must admit, it wasn’t always this way. There have been times, even many years, when I had individual friends or partners or groups of friends with whom I made plans and went on trips together and did fun, bonding activities together, even until quite recently (pre-COVID). So I realize that it’s partly been the pandemic that has exacerbated this situation or pattern for me. But it hurts awfully nonetheless, and maybe even more so because I know the beauty and joy and sweetness of planning and going on a trip or a weekend adventure with friends or partners. I know how fun as well as meaningful those experiences are for me, how bonding and important and joyful. I have missed these things terribly during the pandemic, as many of us probably have. But last night, all of a sudden, I saw that now, as the U.S. gets a “break” from the pandemic, many people are going back to joyful group plans and activities while I am not. For some reason that is not totally clear to me, my friends aren’t including me in this aspect of “coming back to life”. Why?

So then last night I called one of my closest friends here to share my feelings with her and possibly even find the causes or a solution to this situation. This friend is a wonderful person, both very empathetic and a practical problem-solver — and one of the few people who often tries to include me in the activities with her daughters and husband. She listened to me and tried to comfort me and offered some practical ideas to try and improve or change my situation. She also suggested some reasons why other friends or people in general might not be so keen on including me in fun free-time activities. She said: (1) “You are intense (I am intense, too)”; (2) “You don’t do dating and leaving those boundaries unclear is confusing for many people”. 

I understand both comments. I have been told before that I am “intense”; and my loose boundaries between “friendship” and “romantic partnership” (based mainly on consent and feelings rather than established patterns or rules) has been a source of confusion in some of my relationships before. So I know there’s a good deal of truth in both of my friend’s comments from last night — and I know they were meant to help me. But they hurt as well, because the result is that I feel there’s something “wrong with me”. It feels awful that I’m “intense”, like it’s a defect or a problem, something I should change or fix in myself in order to be likable or lovable or accepted by others. I also feel bad or weird or “wrong” about not dating officially or not always having strict general rules about friendship/romantic relationship boundaries. 

Does my being “intense” (whatever that may mean!) make me unpleasant to be around or someone impossible to have fun with? 

Does every relationship have to start out with a banner stating whether we want to “date each other” or not? 

I know that I am a joyful, playful and sometimes even quite funny person: I know it because I can see & hear myself but also because I have been told so multiple times. So why can’t I be considered just as a person who would like to share some fun & carefree time, like everyone else, when plans are made involving something fun together, like going on a trip or camping or backpacking? 

And please don’t give me the answer, “because you’re so independent”! Yes, “I walk alone”, I enjoy my freedom, I enjoy my solo adventures and road trips on my own, and always have made some time to travel/explore on my own; but I also like and need and at this point almost crave sharing adventures and fun, carefree activities with friends.