Nightswimming

There was a time in my life-my skinnier, single life, that I was a proficient nightswimmer. Large bodies of natural water: lakes, oceans, sometimes the eddies of a river, would unwittingly accept my sweaty armpits and oily hair as I checked the swim off as my daily shower. I'm pretty sure my sister Niki contributed her urine upstream from me a few times as well, bless her little heart. The girlfriends and I would sneak into the night, shed our clothes as we screeched off of docks or cliffs, and become mermaids at best, fish in the least.

Then came marriage, motherhood, pregnancy, weight gain, bills, diapers, and the fixing and cleaning of 3 square meals a day. So nightswimming and it's inclusive stress-relieving benefits, fell by the wayside.

But last fall I said enough is enough! I realized a beautiful reservoir was just down the road. I realized the night would hide my no-longer-smooth thighs. I realized I had some new girlfriends that would screech off of docks even though we were all mothers and wives. "Come away with me in the night" I said. And we did.

And so it was that I got a call inviting me back into the water for the first time in 2010. Just hours after my sister Niki left town (blessing?) me and the girls went away into the night.

First test to know if it will be a great night. This little poem my dad taught me as a girl:

Red Sky at Night

Sailors Delight

Red Sky Morning

Sailors Take Warning

Here's Sara and I taking clues that it will be a good night while we wait for Heather to come.

Heather wins!..and with glasses on no less! In the end, she chose french fries. Hmmm, maybe nightswimming may be a danger to my health after all?

Naaah.


Here's me timing my camera to see how long it will take to get a picture of Sara in mid-air jumping into blue.


Instead I got this. Oh well.



Aaaaahhhhh.


This is why I got the call this time. Heather is ready to POP next week and was delightfully weight-less in the blue.

My other highlight of this night (apart from the fact that I was nightswimming) was the reality that the last time I jumped through stars into blue (last fall) I was 30 pounds heavier! Still not ready for the public swim, but the salad a day plus consistent exercise is slowly but surely making a difference! Wahoo!

Thanks ladies! Call me anytime! Sorry we missed you Wendy and Rebecca (and even Niki).

Favorite nightwater picture ever here.

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fire and ice

Dear Snowbird,

When I came to your mountain as a hotel clerk back in the last century, I expected a whirlwind adventure in the interim of getting residency status for the true blue Aggies. I was fresh from Idaho, with two years under my belt at the religious still-sweet-as-elementary Ricks College.

What I did not expect, because your "little" canyon provided granite for the Salt Lake Mormon Temple back two centuries, well I didn't expect to be the minority mormon upon your hills. I never knew the "F" word could be an expletive, verb, and adjective at the same time, and also that it could be an exclamation of joy.

I also didn't know the beloved blissful joy of snowboarding in dry powder up to my knees, the prize of first tracks, or how an elevation climb above city smog could clear my lungs as well as head. I never knew that working weekend graveyard shifts would translate to me finishing up the nightly audit, only to have hours to sit alone looking upon the mountain clear of riders and trees, with moonbeam brandishing the snow with silver glow. I didn't expect to lay spiritual claim upon Dick Bass' massive physical investment, but claim it I did. Claim it I have. Snowbird belongs to my heart.

Though my process of ownership was independent, I found a new camaraderie that was surprising. Thirty-something resort bums with seasonal lives on the mountain in winter, on the river in summer, and who were in better shape than most people my age. Their livelihood kept them in the sun, active, happy, and alert. Gordon, my lodge bellman and a thirty-something goofball, taught me how to drop down powder-filled chutes while he glided effortlessly on telemark skis. "Link 'em like sausage! Link 'em like sausage!" he would yell as I jumped up to drop my board the opposite direction, dropping several feet with each effort.

Pat, the forty-something bellman and Gordon's river guide, only gave away his age because of his bald pate. He could slide down a mountain on telemarks faster than most punks on boards or skis.

Being new and in transition, I began to understand why they did it. It was free, beautiful, and adventurous living. It was my first drug.

Yet, somewhere in the back of my head, during my note-taking and life-planning I wondered how to hold on to adventure, health, and vitamin D into my thirties as well as they did. I looked upon Gordon and Pat as my peers, but one day I turned to them and wondered: "Do you have kids?"

Proudly, I was shown a picture of a pre-adolescent son on the other side of the country. The boy lived with his mom, he was good at A, B, C, and he would see him for a couple weeks that summer.

I smiled to see a mini-version of my friend, but sadly recognized the fallout from this prolonged lifestyle. While I'm sure that a ski bum "family" exists somewhere, I'm not doubting it would be a pretty rare thing, what with the need to raise babies, drop roots, have neighbors, communities, and school-mates.

So then I left, went to school, served a mission, boarded during my breaks, and eventually got married and became Mrs. Olsen. And this is what I said to myself in my head:

It's time to really grow up now. You need to cut back on road trips, snowboarding, and eating out. You need to pay bills, act like a grown up, and be a good wife and mom!

So I did.

And now? Decade plus later? I realize that I was partly wrong!

I haven't snowboarded in ten years! My snowpants don't fit me, and I'm too cheap to pay 100 smacks for new ones when I dread to be the weight that I am. I don't even WANT to go on the slopes, for fear my former self would mock me to shame...alone...at night...remembering my mountain and my dreams for growing thirty.

As my reaction to being a good mom, I totally pushed away my physical and spiritual NEEDS for mountain, for powder, and for lifetime passports to all National Parks.

I'm just starting to realize this. It's taken me a decade to figure out I can mostly be a good mom, and partly be a ski bum....if I didn't have those darned beautiful fat-producing pregnancies to throw me for a loop.

Balance is the key people!

So I sit, and wonder how to gain it back. Wonder if it's worth it. I mourn for that floating powder shredBetty lost somewhere inside my soccer mom-ness with square arse. I see women my age, hitting the slopes while their kids are in school, and think that maybe...with 3 salads a day for 3 years (sigh) I could be a little bit of a ski bum again and return home invigorated and ready to lift and serve my littles to greater mountainous heights.

Signed,
My Own Worst Enemy

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fences

Before I was Mrs. Olsen, Memorial Day was mostly about camping trips, parties, or pre-season fun in the metropolitan state of Utah and their homegrown amusement park, Lagoon.  Blame it on my good genes, all my contributing DNA we're alive and kicking 2 and 3 generations back throughout my Apache Avenue childhood.  Who's graves were there to visit?   Memorial Day was my teaser for summer fun just around the corner.  

It was okay.  For a season.

But now I live in a valley that was settled by my and The Mister's ancestors back in the day.  The day meaning those white folks that built permanent structures in the earth, and feared the natives, and sought religion, and worked their asses off for food.  The whole bit.  So for good or bad, they came and threw down roots.   Here in my little valley we visit their pioneer graves at an old country cemetery just a few miles from my home. 



This was back in 2005 when I was growing Vanilla Wafer in my gut. Check out Rainbow Girl in her little rain jacket. 

Look at the rolling hills! 

The settlers named this valley, Avon. They said it looked like Stratford-on-Avon, that beautiful Shakespeare country someone left in pursuit of property, religious fervor, or the American Dream. I'm sure that no matter what they were fleeing, or seeking, they missed their native home a little and welcomed these smiling hills.

It's pretty rare to get The Mister of the House to smile in a photo. Somehow, it works here.   But don't for one minute think our Memorial Day festivities are all somber.  We like to bring some life among the tombstones, and this guy (father of The Mister) usually brings a frisbee. 

 Throwing frisbees is our way of coming to the fence of those that have passed to the other side, and saying We remember!  Look how we move!  Do you miss it? Can you fly?

Tonight after visiting graves, picnics, frisbee, and sun we were chilling at home and watching a movie.  After playing in the backyard, Rainbow Girl rushed in, heart-a-fluttering, to tell us that the neighbor's horse had just escaped from his pen.  Here's the guy right here.  He shares a wall with our feathered ladies of Bok Bok Cottage.

He's probably looking off to our (other) neighbor's pasture. He's been looking over there for a month. Ever since the empty meadow became home for 3 horses, all running together and eating grass. I've been listening to them neigh and whine at each other ever since.

And then....pop!  rush!  he was free!  He bolted to the front of his property, then turned fierce and majestic, tail pitched like a flag, horse on a mission.  Our movie paused and the neighborhood froze.  Folks gathered on their porches.  

With a jolt, the horse cut through a newly seeded yard, then galloped through a vibrant barrier-free yard, turned a corner and trotted in front of our house, and then a rush to the fence along the pasture of the tri-posse that's been egging him on for a month.  Here I am!  And the 3 stooges rushed to the edge and leaned their long necks across and nuzzled.  In their excitement, they all galloped from one edge of the pasture to the other, for one moment pretending that they were a fearsome four-some. Then they softly returned to the edge of the pasture and leaned across the fence and nuzzled some more. 

And then it was over.  Back to reality, there came the bridle and orders for home.  Triumphant, the horse was led back to his lonely pasture and his side of the fence.  

And I treasure this knowledge: that on this Memorial Day in 2009 we came to the fence, and those on the other side understood and leapt for joy.

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No Apologies

There are times when you are mortified you brought a squirmy infant into a nice restaurant. Moments when you show up to watch your kid get spotlighted at school, only to discover her nerves morph her into a stiff-legged robot on heels who jabbers baby talk when explaining her list of faves. Oh, then there's rushing to the doorbell only to discover your toddler is, yet again, running around in his underwear and you look like a grease monkey with a ratty bun on top of your head.


These moments, and more, fall softer when partnered with an apology. I'm sorry. Every person that thinks they might want to get married someday, should learn to say it. Even if you think you're right.

But sometimes, there is a cost for beauty and thus: no apology is required.

Bottom line: week of yellow air : wintry wondry storm : glistening night-time walk : blizzard in my braids : sister on the cell : clearing out the head : still 2 blocks from home : gotta take a whee : wind upon my face : yellow takes a hike : freshen up my brain : sheesh I'm almost there : wet my stinkin' pants : mere twelve feet from home: hardly even care :

No Apology.

** dedicated to "Grandpa Fory" who passed away this week and who was always quick to apologize but never needed to**

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