Reflections on Life – Page 5 – On the Horizon Line

Family and Friends, Outdoor Adventures, Reflections on Life

Bittersweet New Year’s Reflections

It’s 2013 today. Christmas came and went, and so did the Winter Solstice. The days are already getting longer and lighter, pulling Montana toward spring.

But the icicles on our back patio are still growing longer every day.

This juxtaposition of more light alongside more ice complements how I feel as the holidays come to a close. My excitement grows every day about our upcoming spring-like lifestyle change. But the sadness of leaving my family grows right alongside it.

The holidays magnified all of these bittersweet feelings associated with leaving.

The Willets and Cassidy on New Years Day

Watching my dad don a Santa costume on Christmas Eve, while Rob played with 12 children in Bobby and Joellen’s house made me feel full to the brim. Spending Christmas day with my parents, Cass and Rob (and Alta, the doggie) was low-key and easy here in Missoula … but extra-poignant, since I was trying to memorize everyone’s faces, comments, emotions. And spending New Year’s Eve at Hogback Cabin (an old homestead on U.S. Forest Service land along the fabled Rock Creek) with Cass, Rob and a few friends was — as Kelley and Mike said best — the only place I’d want to be.

My favorite adventure buddy, and her sidekick, Alta

My sister, in particular, will be the hardest to leave. I just read Cutting For Stone at the cabin, with its story of identical twins who felt like one person: “ShivaMarion.” Even though we’re not identical, I sometimes feel like “BriCass” — a meld that will be painfully hard to separate into two individuals.

As one of my friends recently told me, “There’s nothing like an impending departure to give everything you’re leaving a rosy glow.” So true. Right now, the winter days don’t seem as grey or cold, small arguments seem endearing, and I forget daily frustrations in favor of sweet reminisces.

We leave exactly 12 weeks from today. That means only 10 more weeks of work. And only a precious few weekends — hell, days, even! — to spend with my favorite people and in my favorite places before we sail off.

I felt a bit overwhelmed by that realization, and decided to strap on my cross-country skis to clear my head. I always think better when I’m moving.

As I clicked into my skis across the street from our house and started gliding toward Rattlesnake Creek, I reviewed images of the year that passed. Weekends at cabins, vacation with Cass on Kauai, learning to backcountry snowboard in Canada, dancing on stage in bodypaint to my own choreography, sailing, backpacking, biking. Countless dinners with friends and family. Laughing. Crying. Laughing until I cried. Getting married, and being a part of many of our best friends’ weddings, too.

A year to remember. And be thankful for. Knock on wood (lots of it).

But my thoughts quickly shifted to the year to come. My brain slapped me upside the head, and said, “Why are you leaving these people and these places?”

My heart slapped back, saying, “To grow, and learn, and change. To make more memories to share around campfires, dinner tables, and parties when we get back. To let my family grow and change, too.”

The icicles aren’t going anywhere soon, that’s for sure. And I’ll be writing more about the sadness of leaving. Yet I also know one thing for certain from my years growing up in season-less Southern California: the ice makes the spring so very much sweeter.

on the horizon line sailing blog - brianna randall

Reflections on Life

Tears and a Rainbow

Last night, while eating deer burritos, Rob and I had a spirited discussion (argument, some might say) about budgets while we’re sailing and traveling. Right after I loudly announced there was no way I was “spending my whole savings, period!” I suddenly teared up.

I left my burrito, and fled to the bathroom to cry. First off, I’m not a big crier, and I’m certainly not one to lock myself in the bathroom for a private bawl fest. Second, I never, ever, ever leave food, because I love eating. So, as the flow of tears abated, I sat on the bathroom floor and probed around to figure out why the hell I was upset.

I was crying because I was scared.

Luckily, I had 4 hours of alone-time in the car today to reflect on what, exactly, I was scared of. As I drove to Helena this morning, I decided to start with some of the fears other people had asked me about related to sailing away.

I quickly pinpointed it wasn’t the money that launched the tears and fears, though that certainly is stressful (hence, the debate with Rob). I opened my first bank account at 16, and have saved money ever since. That’s part of the reason we can make this trip, of course, since our adventure requires spending money. But I feel claustrophobic about draining all our hard-earned reserves, and coming back to a mortgage without a job.

I also realized quickly that I’m not scared of sea snakes, or storms, or sinking a boat. I’m not scared of strange encounters with odd people or confusing cultures. I’m not scared of long delays, not knowing where I’ll sleep on a given night, or not understanding a language well enough to find food or a bathroom. Those things will be worries, inconveniences, and trials along the way. But they aren’t what made me cry in the bathroom. Here’s what did:

I’m scared of leaving my sister. And my parents. And my friends.
I’m scared we might not want to come back to the “real world,” with its fixation on money and mortgages.
I’m scared that–eventually–I might have to choose between a lifestyle I love and living without my family and friends.

My friend Margi told me last week that the best thing to do with fears is to confront them. So, here they are. In black and white. There’s not much I can do about any of these fears, except acknowledge them, live with them, feel them settle in my heart and bones.

As my mom told me recently, I might start to separate a bit from my current reality. It’s natural to begin to create distance between the things I love most to make it easier to leave them.

But instead, I feel like all I want to do is sit on my sister’s couch each night, and bury my face in her dog’s neck. I want to text, email, and talk to my parents throughout the day so I can carry their words with me across the Pacific. I find myself trying to memorize my friends’ smiles, so they light up the sky on dark starlit nights at sea. I’m imprinting their children’s bodies on my body to remember the feel of their little hugs and the sound of their giggles at 9 months-old or 9 years-old … in case they don’t remember me when I get back.

All of these realizations and reflections on the drive to Helena were eerily mirrored by the weather. The raindrops on my windshield were backlit by the sun, an echo to the tears rolling down my cheeks. A rainbow followed me all the way to Helena, staying just off to starboard. It reminded me that the tears are part of the process to create the light, the magic, and the ephemeral array of colors that this journey will paint on my life.

And the fact that the tears kept on coming — rainbow or not — reminded me that leaving will be harder than I thought.

Community and Culture, Reflections on Life

A Man Spoke Tonight

A man spoke tonight about darkness. He spoke of ancient creatures that chew on trees. He spoke of crystalline-fragile ecosystems, and the waters that move and change.

He spoke of people who damage these waters and change the crystalline ecosystems. He spoke of being a rancher’s son, a transient’s best friend, and of being a janitor. He spoke of the dark waters and deep black skies that calm a troubled mind and that soothe a frantic soul.

He spoke in a front of a crowded room, full of people who disagreed with him. He spoke as the sole voice of dissent for a burgeoning civic project to light our city’s bridges.

I cried when he spoke. And the tears took me by surprise.

It wasn’t the bridge lighting project that sparked my emotion. Nor was it simply the man’s poetic words that catalyzed salty tears.

Rather, it was his brave act of speaking out that prompted my emotional response. It was the fact that he launched a different and heartfelt perspective into a sea of sameness. It was the fact that I am fortunate enough to live in a city, a state, a nation that lets him speak out…and even encouraged it. It was the fact that a roomful of dissenters respectfully allowed him to speak freely, and asked for his opinion even when they knew it was uncomfortably different.

Thank you, Americans, Montanans, Missoulians, friends, for listening to others. Thank you for welcoming stories of darkness, even as you seek the light.

And thank you to the man who spoke tonight, for reminding us that some people crave the solace of dark or troubled waters, and we might never fully understand why.

Reflections on Life

Free Stuff – Round 1

I was in rare cleaning form this Sunday morning. The grey Montana sky inspired me to make a sparkling house. And then, putting the vacuum away, I started looking deeper into the dark recessed storage area under our stairs. Whoooaa, Nelly, do we have a LOT of random stuff.

Rob and I pulled some of it out into the light of day, and put it in “to go” piles. We have to fit our whole life into a 10×12′ space in a few months, and the items pictured below are officially voted off the storage-island.

Want ’em? You got ’em, for the rock-bottom price of FREE. And stay tuned: there’ll be plenty more free goodies coming soon.

A few things were too rad to make the “free” list, so check out Craigslist if you want one of the following cool-kid items. Hint: they’d make an awesome Christmas gift for your friend or loved one.

– Beer brewing kit pictured above (complete with 2 party pigs!)

– 12-string Ibanez guitar

– Sector 9 Longboard

bear spray give away — This is a SWEET deal, worth like $150. Or something. 3 cans of bear spray, perhaps slightly expired, but totally deadly to charging grizzlies.

stools give away — Nice stools, huh? They’re about 2.5 feet high, and all yours.

fan to give away — Random assortment A: large fan, humidifier, air filter, and…yes…crutches.

jars give away — Who doesn’t need jars? This box comes with every size you can imagine, complete with a variety of lids.

curtains give away — Random Assortment B: another fan, red spice shelf, 8′ yellow panel curtains, striped rug.

Community and Culture, Reflections on Life

Cuddly Chickens Up For Grabs (if you can catch them)

One of the best parts about living in Missoula is that you get the best of the “urban” and the “rural” worlds. It’s Montana’s second largest city–and the biggest city for several hours driving in any direction–so we get our share of culture and music, as well as a hip downtown. But since it’s surrounded on all sides by vast wilderness, mountains, rivers, and agricultural lands, you can easily escape the urban bustle and embrace the rural lifestyle.

Plus, you can be a chicken farmer.

Two years ago, we built a sweet chicken coop, complete with a window, insulation, a tin roof, and a fun-run for the girls. We populated it with 4 young silver-laced wyandottes, and watched them do their chicken thang. With a light on in the coop for a couple hours in the morning and evening, they even kept laying their pretty speckled eggs throughout Montana’s dark fall and winter.

Last summer, one got strangely and incurably ill (i.e. she was trying to walk around on her head and was miserable). We lost her. But the other 3 soldiered on.

One of the most hilarious parts of being a chicken farmer is chicken herding. We let the girls free-range for worms and other goodies a few times a week. They roam the yard, and even occasionally take a walk down Highland Drive to visit the neighbors (half of whom are urban chicken farmers, too). But then you gotta put the girls back in the coop, which is easier said than done.

Herding is a fine art, and takes years of practice. It’s a mix of patience and pressure: if you make them walk too fast or get too close, they scatter in 3 directions. But if you go too slow, they slip right through your legs to find another tasty treat in the dirt.

It’s time to say goodbye to our girls, though.

We’re getting ready to leave in early April, and it’d be nice to see them settled in a new coop-dominium before the weather gets frozen and harder on them. They should have another year of laying in front of them, as long as they get enough light, food, and water.

So, our question for you: who wants to be a chicken farmer? We’ll throw in 10 pounds of free food, and a free herding demonstration, to boot.

Fishing, Reflections on Life, Videos

Typical Day at the Office

Everyone always asks what I do for work, and it’s always a little tricky to try and explain it in words. So, I took our new Go Pro to work this week to make a video of a typical day in the field, where I get to rebuild streams as part of my job for Trout Unlimited. As you’ll see, that means driving in the woods with my dog, moving boulders, and directing heavy equipment. Fun stuff.

Enjoy.

Reflections on Life

Awesome Autumn — Let Us Count the Ways

Fall in Montana is pure magic…probably because it comes and goes faster than you can say “abracadabra.” But while it’s here, it frames everything in pure golden hues and pink-cheeked smiles.

Here are just a few of the many reasons I love this mountain-studded, river-dappled state in October. Will you share your favorite thing about fall?

Ella Chapin in pink hat — Little girls swimming in pink hats, like our neighbor Ella Chapin.

Sophie — Even littler girls smiling in pink sweaters, like Sophia Switalski.

farmers market food — A cornucopia of delicious harvested goodness at downtown Farmers Markets.

rattlesnake fall colors — Vibrant strips of yellow cottonwoods on sparkling clear creeks.

paraglide over missoula by bryan — Floating over a colorful town like a blue-green bird.

Kids running down hill at Caras Park — Playing “fetch the ball” for hours with kiddos at Caras Park.

caras park festival — Random Missoula events, like this dunk tank on a near-freezing evening at the “Pray for Snow” party.

pig roast — Roasting pigs over open fires…and then eating them. Yum…

rain and sun in downtown missoula — Rain-bright streets framing turbulent skies.

Community and Culture, Dance and Yoga, Reflections on Life

From Dancing to Dodging Deer – Just a Typical Tuesday

west african dance bri — These photos were from a huge African drum and dance festival in Seattle a couple years ago. It’s in April each year, and well worth the trip!

As you might notice, Rob and I don’t really like routines. We avoid them, actually. But there’s one thing we don’t mind scheduling: our favorite athletic hobbies. For Bob-ito, that means volleyball, basketball, and martial arts. For me, that means dance classes of any kind, usually at the Downtown Dance Collective: Oula, Brazilian, ballet, hiphop, salsa.

Tonight I got the best of both worlds: an unscheduled dance class. Thanks to my mom, I found out at 4pm there was a 7pm West African class taught by visiting master drummers and dancers from Guinea. Sold.

I take a West African dance class about once a year, usually when someone from the African continent comes to Missoula to teach (thanks, Unity Dance and Drum!). Even though I dance almost daily, my body is always wrecked after a West African class. Somehow, nothing else physically compares to the exertion I put forth flailing, jumping, squatting, and spinning to loud, live drums.

And nothing else can make me feel so completely humble and humiliated one moment, and then exhilarated and affirmed the next. It’s awesome.

Sidenote: I highly recommend everyone try something that makes them feel this schizophrenically bipolar at some point. It brings us out of our comfort bubbles and makes us realize we can do interesting–even astounding–things.

west african drummers — Again, this was the big festival in Seattle in April. Everything is free. Thanks to my friend, Saleche (Celeste), for finding it and going with me in 2010.

In preparation for the body-wrecking class, I rode my bike downtown to try and loosen the muscles. It’s now pitch black by 8:30pm, so the ride home through dark, forested Greenough Park along bear-infested Rattlesnake Creek was its own adventure. Good thing I have lights on my bike.

Yelling “Hey, Bear. HEEEYYY, BEARS,” into the dark woods, I turned a corner and literally braked about 4 inches from a huge buck. Whew. Better than a bear, but it still got my heart rate up higher than the dance class did.

Just another Tuesday night in Missoula…spontaneous African dance and a near-miss on T-boning a deer on a bike. I wonder if tomorrow’s more-regularly- scheduled Oula dance class will have anything spontaneous in store!

Reflections on Life, Sailing

The Little Red Bible: Goodbye Wedding Tasks, Hello Bon Voyage To-Do’s!

A couple of weeks ago, Rob bought us a red, wide-ruled notebook (picture what you get for an 8-year-old as back-to-school gear). It’s replaced my 3-page “Wedding To-Do List” in a place of honor, right next to the Field Guide to North American Birds and the big pile of bills. While the wedding was fun as hell, I don’t miss the mundane organizing tasks a bit…especially since our new red bible is so titillating.

For those of you who don’t know, we’re leaving Missoula this spring to explore islands, oceans, and cultures west of North America. A couple years back, we decided to search for some brand-new horizons.

We’re quitting our jobs in March, packing our belongings into a 5×10′ space, renting the house, selling the car, and taking one backpack each into the sunset. Our goal is to crew on sailboats through the South Pacific, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia in 2013, eventually buying our own boat. In between ocean voyages, we plan to climb mountains, fly off cliffs, dance on beaches, meet new people, and see what may find us.

The dream is going to be a reality in just under 6 months. Which means we have to get our s$i@ together, starting with keeping all our random “oh, we should do this before we go” ideas in one place, instead of exclaiming them to each other at all hours.

Meanwhile, back on the homefront, there’s a LOT to do before we set sail. Rob isn’t big on electronic lists, mostly because we look at computers enough in the office. And I find comfort in physical lists, probably because I LOVE crossing things off in big, black, permanent marker.

This red notebook is our ticket to get outta dodge. Below are the 7 list categories so far, with one example of what’s under each category:

Wish List (Go Pro Hero 2 Camera)
Items We Need (UV water purifier)
Life Maintenance (buy emergency international health insurance: here’s the front runner)
House Prep (build a wall to separate the garage in half, creating a locked storage area for all our stuff)
Odds and Ends (find a new home for the chickens)
Sailing Prep (decide if we’re going to get a USGS Captain’s License and study like hell)
Timeline (put the the car up for sale in February and the house up for rent in January)

Some lists are a lot longer than others (like the Wish List), and all of them will probably get longer this winter. Luckily, we keep crossing things off, too, inching that much closer to a new horizon line.

Community and Culture, Reflections on Life

The Meaning of Life from “EVST”

Tom Roy is the reason I moved to Missoula, Montana. When I visited in 2002, he was the Director of the University of Montana’s Environmental Studies program, which I was considering attending. It was a big stretch for a California girl to even consider moving to winter-laced Montana, and I figured I better go visit in mid-January to see if I could handle all the white stuff.

roy — Tom Roy was the Director of the UM EVST program for over three decades.

Tom started talking the minute I walked into his office, making jokes and waving his arms around. He told me the history and purpose of the “the program”–or “EVST,” as students affectionately dub it–and took me upstairs to show me the landscape I’d be studying. It was a whiteout.

All I could see was blowing snow on the UM Oval, no further than four feet from my nose. Yet Tom kept talking and waving his arms, pointing out the Rattlesnake Mountains, Lolo Peak, Mount Sentinel, and the Bitterroot Valley. I nodded along like I could see them. And he kept telling stories. Stories about students I’d never met, who wrote books, organized rallies, started new businesses, changed the world. Stories about how EVST was my vehicle to change the world, too.

I walked outside that January day able to see through the clouds. I saw unexplored peaks and uncharted river valleys. I saw unbridled potential in myself and others. I saw the kind of world I wanted to help create. And I never looked back.

morning sun on snow in BC — The people in the Environmental Studies program in Missoula helped me see through the clouds and find clear direction in my life.

Fast forward a decade later, where I just spent the weekend as an alumni “mentor” at an EVST graduate student retreat on Flathead Lake. Tom was there, along with most of the other professors who helped me wind my way through graduate school goals: Neva, Phil, Len. And I can safely say that I received more mentoring than I gave, from the fresh-faced, inspired students and from the motivated staff.

Tom reminded me why I moved here. Why I do what I do every day for the Clark Fork Coalition, and for the rivers and lands in this wonderful state, even if it means I sometimes lose sight of the view through the clouds.

Here’s what Tom said on Sunday: “EVST has always had this edge to it…this energy…coupled with moral imagination. This graduate program is not about making you the smartest person in one field. You can go anywhere for that. This program is about making you the smartest at what most interests you, and then asking you to act on your moral responsibility to be an agent of change. Hope is not enough. We want to give you the tools to actualize your hope.”

Later on, as the whole group struggled through an exercise focused on answering questions about our values, strengths, and life goals, Tom interjected: “You know, it’s not the answers that are the most interesting. It’s the questions that are the whole point, and how you frame those questions. Answers are just the end of a question.”

What a relief. Thanks, EVST, for reminding me that my purpose in life is not simply to solve daily problems, but to continue searching for new questions–and new beginnings–instead of endings and answers.

bri sailing on Flathead Lake — Sailing back to the dock after the EVST Retreat on Flathead Lake this past weekend.

P.S. My friend and another EVST alum, Matt Frank, shared this poem with us at the end of the retreat, which sums up the meaning of life pretty nicely:

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

– William Stafford