An Unintentional Mini-Memoir

I always think I know what's good and best for me, but now I'm having to humble myself & see that maybe I don't always know...playing god in my life instead of letting Reality run my life is always the dance that I am dancing. Example: it seemed perfectly logical to move to an area with weather that I loved after living someplace with weather that I hated for most of my life. I moved across country to that place and even though it is beautiful and lush and green & wet, I am not happy there. I have really really tried to be happy there. But since I have been back in Austin for over a month now, I see all the things I took for granted here: tons and tons of friends and a history that would make a most excellent mini-series or memoir. I moved here when I was 18 & that is when it felt like my life began. I went to that punk rock club the first day I moved here and my life has been steered by that scene since that day. So I am actually considering moving back here, even though I hated it so much when I left I felt so relieved to be going...I am also starting to let go of the fact that I cannot be happy unless I go back to McMurdo...it doesn't do me a damned bit of good to feed that story anymore...it's just a boring old sad story now and I have to focus on the continent I live on now, while still holding on to that tiny tin of gold glowing in my soul, the little glowing ember of joy that was burst into flame by Antarctica and will be stoked again when I go back. I am tired of tormenting myself about the dog. My sister brilliantly said "No one quits their job to stay at home and watch a pet age"...well, that is what I have done. I am not staying home 24/7 like my parents do with him, but I have given up my work, my happy place, traveling at the drop of a hat, going out late at night, and probably having a boyfriend take me seriously because of my neurotic focus on the dog. He is 17. How much longer can it last, and yet I love him dearly. And then there is the yoga. The hot 90 minutes a session yoga. It is hard. It is really hard, and sometimes I don't know if I can take another minute of it, and then it is over. I feel like I am a part of something really amazing doing this yoga...and I almost want to devote a lot of my time to it because I feel so good after doing it. Since I got back from my trip to Europe, I've totally forgotten about it! It's like I almost never went! I went through 7 days of HELL not sleeping on a 14 day trip, then come home with NO adjustment issues whatsoever.

Fully intending to drive back to Oregon this week, I was delayed a week by another health issue with the pup. He needs to be monitored closely over the next 10 days so I am staying in Austin two more weeks. I thought it would suck because of the weather but I am having a good time. Every time I go to see friends I meet some wonderful person & have some epically good hang and intimacy. I went to a music show last night where I felt the bones of 35 years of my history with Austin weaving it's warm & loving soulful hands around my heart...yes it is like my heart is being massaged by this web of history in this town. The friends, the history, the 35 years...the 35 years that Antarctica was just a part of. A big and awesome part...but I remember being as headily intoxicated when walking by Les Amis for the 10 years after Raul's closed as I am now by remembering the Ice. Yes, I get it now...as usual the truth is revealed through the process of writing: Seven of those 35 years were Antarctica...but the other chunks had juicy life stuff as well: 1979-83 was college and the wildest 4 years a person could have in love with a music scene and a city. And we knew it was something special that we precious few were swept up in...it is magical now, even when we have reunion shows. Then NYC for a couple of years, which I could write a book about, but all that needs to be said about those years is that by some miracle I survived it. I lived very very dangerously there...but I was SO IN LOVE with the city...I would walk around New York no matter how hung over or love sick, and the city would hold me...the city would hold me...but I couldn't take the lack of support and friends so I moved back to Austin...85-87 were some crazy years...worked full time and partied hard on the weekends...worked crappy jobs & felt like a loser cuz I wasn't using my degree...fell into some hard times and bolted to Nebraska for a fresh start - lived there for 3 incredible months and moved back to Austin in Fall of 87, started my first UT full time job and worked there full time (with a few breaks) until the middle of 2004. From 87-89 I was really wild...hung out with a guy named Tom Smith I met at a Raul's Reunion & was off  & running on an even drunker, crazier binge...man I was just partying and running around and going to clubs and slam dancing for 10 years...I was TIRED! I met the man who was to be my husband in 89 or 90, and we married in 91. I had a full time job and so did he & we bought a cute house. I painted a lot and had art shows and became steeped in religion and quit drinking and the marriage fell apart. It was very sad, I did not know how to be happily married & did not understand why I was so miserable. So in the middle of 1995 we divorced & I was single. I was 50 pounds overweight and 34 years old & was scared to death that I was going to fall apart. Nothing could have prepared me for the 5-6 year euphoria that followed: getting really skinny & feeling like I was 19 again and had just moved to Austin except I was sober and gorgeous! I was absolutely boy crazy again. I dated bikers and big tattooed guys and rock starts and crazy guys, I had a biker boyfriend who got in a crash and had a serious head injury...I had tons of girlfriends and we all hung out at the same coffee shop stoop every single night for YEARS! I finally met a super guy who moved in with me & we had 3 happy years together. It was with him I adopted the dog I still have. When this boy moved out and moved on I got even skinnier and went into a knew level of babeness (and insanity). I was nearly 40 now, and had never looked better, felt more badass, and was a known artist..my life was so exciting & I wanted a prize, and I got it in the form of what I thought was to be my dream man. I GOT him! We dated for two years and he wanted more (which is what they all want) and now we are friends. Thank goodness I'm friends with most of my exes. He told me to "dream BIGGER" when I was going on & on about my terrible work life...it planted a seed. I decluttered my house in a frenzy, sold the empty house, bought a condo with the cash & was debt free! The freedom of that made me dream of bigger possibilities...I hated the condo - it was a lemon. I was also dating someone who turned out to allow me to hit "bottom" in my relationship issues. It was insane...he was crazy & so was I. We had intoxicating chemistry & good hang out but he was scary with his unresolved anger. By early 2004 I was really sick of my life and the patterns and office work and I was sitting at my desk at work & a little voice whispered in my ear "working in Antarctica" and that is exactly what I typed into the google screen - what popped up was the hiring website for antarctic workers & I felt my entire universe shift & every fiber of my being knew that I was going to do whatever it takes to get there...I had found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life...I had finally finally found it...I put 8 hours a day into networking with Ice people, polishing my resume & buying a plane ticket to the hiring fair...I worked my ass off for it & it paid off.

There is an entire blog devoted to my life on that continent...it has been the single greatest joy of my life, and this section of the 35 years was the cherry on the cake. Or more like the cake, with the other parts being the cherries....those 7 years were so beautiful, so carved out for my personality, so beyond anything I could have ever imagined for myself..you know...it's all I ever talk about on the other blog, so not time need to be spent on it here...

Feb. 2011 redeployed back to the US and to my mom telling  me she would no longer take the wee pup for me to go to the Ice. I used this fact to make the decision to move to Oregon -I had a man there so it made it easy...the first few months were great but then I found myself calling to get a job for the next season on Ice..ugh, 3 years in Oregon I've blogged about too...three different moves, tons of different jobs...and not a deep connection at all to the place. Nope. Some sweet things as a result of my really hard work I put into it...but no, it will be very easy to say goodbye to Oregon. (But I still might keep my sweet ski cabin).

So here I am at the 35 year mark of when I first moved to Austin as a terrified 18 year old...and feel like that girl again as I'm thinking of doing it all over again...moving to Austin after a time away was always so fun - but this time I am a middle aged woman who probably is not desirous of the typical middle aged women things. The world feels wide open & filled with possibility once again.

A tiny treatise on trying to become a better skier as a life goal in one's 50's

I came into this ski week with very high expectations. I took my first lesson ever here 8 years ago this same week and have been coming back closing week every year. I had been progressing a little each year & could feel it a lot in my 6 days on the mountain. Two years ago I had gotten about two weeks skiing in on Mt. Hood and had gotten a lot faster so that my 7th year I felt very confident. Last summer I moved to Mt. Hood and got 40 days on skis before coming to Taos this time and expected to be put in a very high level class. I got here a day early and got a big day on the mountain before class started and for the first time did not feel intimidated by this macho & rugged peak. So when I got put in the same level class as last year during ski off (where the head of the ski school watches you do a few turns & assigns you to a class) I was shocked. I saw someone I had skied with for years in a higher level than me. I saw that there was only one class lower than me & couldn't believe what was happening. Did those 40 days not make me better? I was told that just time on skis made a difference but it apparently didn't. I wondered if I had not improved at all & what, if anything, I had gained by doing all that skiing. And it was hard: the decision to move someplace where I didn't know anyone, buy a cabin, buy snow tires & drive up to ski by myself in total fear & awkwardness. I met some folks on the mountain & we would meet up at the resort & ski together but they were at a much higher level than I was. I found one ski buddy & we started going up all the time. He was very fast & I asked him for help & he told me some things & made me feel lame for "not improving." We had some huge powder days & I couldn't ski it, and he would say "then you can't ski" & we would fight & grouse at each other driving down the mountain as I let my ability at this sport control my self esteem while he obsessively texted his girlfriend. What else did I have? I had defined myself by being an Antarctican for seven years. I was no longer an artist, no longer an old Austinite, felt lost in Oregon as it has never felt like "home" and was putting all my eggs in one basket. I really wanted to be an expert skier & felt that I had failed after putting in all those days.  Deep down none of this really felt like "me" but that was also what was so alluring about it - stepping into a life that was nothing like I'd ever been in before.

What is interesting to me now is WHY I want to be so good at this...I had never wanted to ski until I took my first snowboard lesson in 2006. I saw this energy and excitement on the mountain that was intoxicating. I failed so badly at my snowboard lesson that people suggested I take up skiing first. I had to wait til the next year though as I'd broken my tailbone on my one day out. I had never played a sport before. In junior high we had to do volleyball and softball & I was terrible at them. I was so scared in volleyball at how aggressive the other girls were that I made excuses to not play. I only liked track and gymnastics, finding out that I am not much of a team player. I started jogging in high school, started again more seriously after college & fell in love with running. Did it 3 times a week for half an hour for about 15 years. Did aerobics and weight training mixed in there too...and always walked a few miles a day. Discovered yoga about 10 years ago and love it about as much as anything I can imagine. I am not one of those people that hates exercising. I really love it, only if all I can do is a brisk walk around town or through the woods. But skiing is a sport. A very strange and mysterious one in the beginning. And I have never been good at sports. I was always good at writing and art and handicrafts but I was not naturally athletic. When I ran for years I still never got fast in a 5K. I dropped out of track in high school because I was the slowest one. I couldn't stand being the worst at something because I'd been so good at so many things naturally...but I think that is ultimately why I chose to commit to skiing: my first week was so bad, I was so scared and the last one left in beginner school, but that final day when I successfully took turns down the bunny slope I had a breakthrough that I've never forgotten. I have met people who started skiing at my age who do double blacks and I have yet to do them. I am timid about terrain I've never done, and won't do anything new without an instructor. So my class this week started off with us all being about the same with one really slow person...the slow person dropped down a level, we picked up two really fast people, and all of a sudden my class was 3 super fast people who just bombed down the mountain with me trailing far behind. I had never seen this happen in 8 years of ski week (where my class was not a perfect fit)....and the past few years we did moguls & trees and this time we weren't going to do them. I ended up after a lot of drama being dropped to a lower level class that had almost beginner skiers in it. Now I was the fastest person in class but was not being challenged. But I accepted that this was supposed to be about "fun" and not being a superstar, and besides, I have far surpassed where I thought I would have ended up in my ski career.

Something else was off at Taos: me. I usually blossom & dazzle there, but this time I felt this shroud around me...like I had gauze around my heart and there was a hardness, a bitterness that I did not want to look at. Yes I knew I was sad about not deploying for the third year in a row (and now possibly looking at a fourth) but was the cumulative effect of having my dream deferred turning me into a bitter old crone? Or was it something else? A dark veil seemed to come over me when I saw couples interacting in tender and romantic ways. A man turned his wife on the dance floor and his eyes melted with love for her. My life has had none of that of late. I was seared, and wondering if I had used up my boyfriend allotment for this lifetime...I mean, there have been a lot of them....and a lot of them have been awesome, and the one thing I knew is that I would always have one - until now. I'm not going to go into some new-agey tie in about how being single is awesome and one has to love themself first - cuz I'm out her in new territory for me & it is terrifying. I mean the programming that our culture has about old single women & sick cats and fat stomachs - that is not me...I love solitude & doing my own thing, but I like having companionship & a partner too...I'm not sure I'm very good at it, but for some reason I'm terrified I'm never going to find someone - gosh just writing that seems lame - it's not like I'm hideous or anything. I skied today & felt bored - bored because I am tired of groomers & no longer afraid of off piste...I took off by myself into crud & trees & baby jumps all with success. Maybe I didn't turn into an exper skier this year, but I will next year. Grand Masters here I come. Look! A puppy!

I love my little dog with his bum eye..he is more fragile now & I am more trapped - not being able to leave him alone as long as I used to because of having to be medicated every few hours...I wonder, if when he dies & I can actually try to get back to the Ice, if it will be the same glorious infusion of life that it was for so long...and this time was not wasted..I did some really bold things that I will be proud of but increased my sense of isolation. There is no guidebook for a single middle aged woman who still has lots of fiery passion for things she wants to do. I actually have women friends my age who are besotted with their grandchildren. The horror!  Effing Hell get me back to he child free work camp! Forward is the only way I can go.