Walk, Run, Sit.

You have to walk before you can run. At least this is the manta I kept telling myself as I tried to run for the third time since my fourth boy. This time from my house, down the Summit boulevard trail to the monument at the river. The path, a worn, dirt one, hugged by clusters of pine trees, some with large enough bases to be a fort for a 6 year old in the winter. Sun and welcomed shade graced my face, as I wove between the trees from a run, to a jaunt, to a walk back to a run again…it’s humbling to say the least as I grasp for breath. All the while I envision myself running these two short miles with breath full and bold circulating all the way into my sacrum and pelvic floor, not pausing at my neck where it seems to be stuck on a loop. 

I approached the last leg of the trail before it hit the River Road, I was stopped by a small boulder that had a plaque on it dedicated to the Junior League Women of St. Paul in 1977 for the reforestation of the city; those trees that lined my path placed by dedication to beautify. I paused with my hands cupping the rock, and behind me a bench invited me to sit on it with the morning dew still present. 

(I wrote the above paragraphs on Monday, it is now Wednesday and I am just now getting back to this, to that moment.) 

You see something happened in that moment I chose to sit in stillness with the wet dewed bench soaking my god-awful yellow running shorts. I felt my spine grow tall, my shoulders open up, my mind settle downward, and I tuned into my breath, I imagined it moving from my neck to my shoulders down to my stomach settling and circling through my sacrum and pelvic floor. An occasional car, or barking dog would punctuate my sitting meditation and I would notice them, even at times glance their direction, but then I would return to my breath. To feel the rising sun’s rays, slant cross the boulevard, and dance across my face. Gradually, with each breath I was more and more in my body and less outside of myself. I finally turned to go back on the trail I had come from instead of going the last fifty paces to the river, I realized later the importance of this, the river holds trails I walked as a child with my parents, but those old paces hold things I no longer wish to hold for myself. And, just like that I was ok with stopping short of my goal, the monument, and grateful for that small plaque on that small boulder, that invited me to sit and still myself. 

As my feet hit the trail, I was in a different place. My mind felt clearer, calmer, and I felt more in tune with my body. My shoulders down and back, my hips more open, my feet more purposeful in their walk, and my walk became a walking meditation. And while I wished for the trails of the mountains I once hiked, I settled for the plains of the Midwest and I was ok with that. 

Creatures of Habit

Every Tuesday morning I go hiking with my writer friend Natalie. We have been doing this for nearly a year now, and we have our system down to a science, or our routine down to an art. Whatever—we do the same thing each week we are both in town, which this summer hasn’t been very often. Natalie teaches and travels a lot, and I guess I’ve been gone my fair share of Tuesdays, too. 

[not this trail, but one like it]

But this morning is a hiking morning, so I pick up Natalie like I always do on the corner by her house, and she peers in the backseat window at Maisy and cooes hello, just like she always does. Then I rive us three-quarters of a mile or so up the road to the trailhead. We always hike the same trail. Every now and then we discuss hiking a different trail, but it has yet to happen. The one we like is close to both of houses, so we don’t have to waste precious walking time driving. There is a granite outcropping about halfway up where Natalie likes to stop and meditate while Maisy and I keep hiking toward the top. The trail to Picacho Peak passes through a shady canyon, then switchbacks through stubby pinon and juniper and offers plenty of distractions from the ascent in the way of western views to the city below and the Jemez Mountains on the far horizon. There is nothing not to like about this hike. It is hard to imagine improving on it. 


The first part of the trail hopscotches over the Santa Fe River (a couple feet wide, usually dry), climbs steeply to a road crossing, and then clambers over a series of rough, railroad-tie steps that are crowded by weeds and sometimes badly eroded, depending on the recent rains. Then it veers left and becomes more gradual, and prettier. Natalie and I always chitchat until we get to this point, catching up on whatever’s happened since we last saw each other. But at the place where the trail bends left, we stop talking and start walking in silence. That is the rule. This is how we’ve always done it. Most days, I feel like I could keep talking the whole way up, but it’s our ritual instead to say, “OK, see you at the ledge,” and then the only sound is the crunch of our sneakers on dirt and the breeze rustling pine needles and we fall into our own rhythms and paces. Before long, the distance between us has widened, so that Maisy and I are hiking on our own and Natalie is on her own; every now and then the trail swings wide one direction or the other, and I can see downhill through a few turns to where Natalie is, walking silently uphill, her face obscured by her nylon sun hat and her hands clasped resolutely behind her back. 

When I get to the granite ledge, I keep climbing through half a dozen or more switchbacks to my favorite tree, a regal ponderosa that shoots up out of a precipitous slope with great confidence, as though it has always been there and always will and is not phased by the thousand-foot drop below. The summit is not far, but this is where I turn around, in part because I don’t want to keep Natalie waiting too long and in part because I am excited to talk to her. When Maisy was only three weeks old, before I started hiking with Natalie, I used to turn around here, too, so that I could make it back to the car before I’d need to nurse her again. Maisy has always been a very tolerant, undemanding baby and until recently would sleep the whole way up and down, but her sister before her would, without fail, reach her limit by the time we got to our tree. So it has become tradition to turn around there. I am always pleasantly torn between wanting to keep hiking and wanting to head back, and I like that either choice is a good one. There is no bad decision. 

It’s 15 minutes back down to where Natalie is sitting, with her back arrow-straight against a ponderosa pine and she always says “Katie?” swiveling her head just a little, even though she says she can tell it’s me by my footsteps. Then we launch into all the thoughts and ideas we’ve both had in our own minds, brewing, the whole way up—food, fried eggs, writing, eating, motherhood, meditation, allergies, yoga, North Dakota—it’s all alive and fair game to us on the way down. 

This is how we hike.  We are creatures of habit, but of course things change: It was fall when we started, then winter—the driest we’ve had in years—now summer. Sometimes it is grey, but mostly it is sunny and bright. The baby is what has changed the most in the past year—she is the thing that is most different from week to week. She was 9 pounds when we started. Now she is nearly 20. That is a difference you can feel, in your hips and shoulders and the soles of your feet.

But this morning, something radical happens. Just as we get to the turn off, Natalie says, more to herself than to me, “I’m walking to write.” “What do you mean?” I ask over my shoulder, and she says, “I’m walking to prepare myself for writing.” It’s time to be silent, so I pipe down and don’t ask, though I want to, what she means, or how she will do that, or what it might feel like.  

I think about it the whole way up, this declaration of intention, and though it’s not my intention, it changes the way I walk. I am more here, less scattered, feet scuffing pine needles, eyes casting about to the view, my mind a narrow tightrope instead of its usual freeway of chaos and sprawl. I think about what I’m walking for today, and the sensation that comes to mind—it’s more a feeling than a word—is clarity. Like how I felt when I cleaned out my office threw out entire piles of junk mail and filed and tidied and made it my own again. I’m walking to prepare myself for all the mental clutter still to be cleaned, the tasks I’ve been procrastinating for no good reason, the chores I dread, the tasks I need to attend to.  

A few days ago, I picked up the September issue of Shambhala Sun on a whim at the grocery store checkout. The whole issue is devoted to love, and I thought it might give me some tips on how to stay compassionate and sane and loving in the face of our recent sleep crisis. In a short article about meditation, Pema Chödrön writes: “Each time you dare to remain where you are and do something completely fresh, unconventional, and nonhabitual, you open up new pathways in the brain. You experience that as strength and it builds your capacity to be open the next time around.” 

For the past year, Natalie and I have done the same hike twice, six times, two dozen times and have been inspired and comforted by the ritual. Natalie’s casual remark this morning cracked open the day and superimposed on our well-worn path—with its familiar landmarks, ledges, and trees—a new way of walking and thinking about walking. It was the same hike, but completely fresh. 

When I meet up with her back on the ledge, Natalie tells me that she hiked in her hips, felt her body rooted in those twin joints and felt herself settle into the walk and the day, so that when she settled at her desk later, she would ready to be there, in her bones. But you will have to hear from her how the rest turned out. Until then, I highly recommend doing your favorite thing backwards or in reverse or upside down, or in mismatched clothes like orange and purple, or simply with a purpose you say out loud. I guarantee it will crack your day open, too. 

What's Your Number?

On Sunday, during a sunny afternoon hike up Atalaya with my friends Carol and Mary, we got to talking about the ways in which we take care of ourselves. For a person who deals in words, I like numbers a lot. Numbers get right to the point: As in, on a scale of 1 to 10, how well are you taking care of yourself right now? I think about this often in an abstract way, but I’ve never stopped to quantify it, or take inventory. So while I was surprised when Carol asked the question, I was even more surprised when I heard my answer. “Eight,” I said, right off the bat. The number sounded high as soon as it left my lips, but it was easy to rattle off the things I need to find optimal balance, to hit the sweet spot of being both grounded and energized, present in my life and continuing to grow:

1. Fresh air and exercise on the trails at least 6 times a week

            2. Writing

3. Time with friends; often most efficiently combined with #1.

These are the three essentials I can’t live without, the non-negotiables in my daily and weekly schedule that help me stay sane and feel like myself. But I also need:

4. Quiet, alone time—that's why I'm trying to learn to meditate

5. 8 hours of sleep

6. Adventures & travel

7. Yoga once a week

8. Good books to read

9. More whole foods, less sugar

As we talked, though, I began to have second thoughts. Maybe it’s more like 7.5? I wondered aloud, thinking of all the things I wish I could do more, or do better: like jet off on assignment to remote places, alone, like I used to do before I had two small daughters. Or really push myself physically, remembering wistfully those four-hour bike rides and high-mountain endurance runs from my old life. I wish I had time to run and ride and hike the trails AND go to a strength training class. (Especially since I read that lifting weights supposedly makes you smarter.) I wish I could do yoga more than once a week. I wish I could go to New Zealand or Norway, plan a climbing expedition, and have more adventure in my everyday life.

But then I realized that although the results aren’t always what I hope, most of the necessary pieces are in place. I know what I need, and for the most part, I do an OK job carving out time to take good care of myself so that I can take better care of my family. I know that when I wake up feeling blue from my missing my dad or listless about trying to drum up writing assignments, there are specific things I can do to feel better right away. I have strategies and a system, a tick-list of to-dos (and, thankfully, a very patient husband). And I almost always come home reenergized, sunnier, and much nicer to have around.

Carol’s question was a good exercise. I realized that even when my life feels nuts and out of whack, I’m happier than I think. And that makes me happy.

Everybody has their own sanity list. What’s on yours? (My dad liked to lie on the carpet and daydream for half an hour every day to recharge his brain.) On a scale of 1 to 10, how well are you taking care of yourself right now? What’s your number?

Highs and Lows

Sorry for the radio silence. It’s been a topsy-turvy week, starting with an epic sleep-training session on Sunday night. (The baby jinx is real, by the way, so henceforth I am entering the cone of silence about M’s sleeping.) I made the most of my marathon, middle-of-the-night shift by inhaling the first 80 pages of Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses, the clever new memoir by Claire Dederer, a book critic and mother of two (who also happens to be married to my former Outside colleague, Bruce Barcott). The book perfectly captures that misguided drive toward perfection that so many of us (i.e. me) seem to have when it comes to parenthood, writing, and well, all of life. Claire manages to avoid annoying yoga-speak and dishes instead about her zany, you-think-your-family-was-weird childhood in Seattle and her two very tormented births. It was so unexpectedly gripping that I almost didn’t want M. to fall asleep. Almost.

We awoke on Tuesday to an out-of-the-blue powder day: 19 inches of new snow at the Santa Fe Ski Basin, so Steve and I hustled P to nursery school and drove M up the mountain with us, where we did the baby hand-off in the lodge. I plowed through waist-deep powder pillows with a ridiculous grin plastered all over my face for an hour or so while M napped in her nifty canvas baby cocoon on the floor of the cafeteria. Later, while Steve skied, it seemed like half of Santa Fe was taking a powder day, catching up on emails in the lodge—the modern, mobile office. Love that. Looking out of the window at the snow still falling, fine as ash, with M making eyes at a bunch of 60-something badass retirees, I felt giddy with good fortune—especially when Steve let me ski the bonus round before it was time to go home.

Is it any wonder, then, the letdown that followed? Wednesday ushered in a mini Ice Age; my car thermometer topped out at two. We hunkered down en masse, a grouchy case of cabin fever setting in by noon. Some days trying to find balance between motherhood and writing feels like riding the seesaw with the mean kid who decides to get off when you’re at the top. Crash.

It’s partly logistics: The nanny’s out of town; the toddler refuses to nap/swats baby like a fly; and you can’t for the life of you locate five minutes of peace and quiet in your own home. Yesterday I was convinced the world was ending, or at least my writing career. Payments were late coming in and going out, I hadn’t pitched a story since before my father got sick, my bank account was in crisis mode, etc, etc. In my former life as a childless freelance writer, I used to be able to put in a solid seven hours at my desk on a good day. Now, I feel heroic if I can sneak in three; 90 minutes is more like it. How can you possibly make a living like that? Guess it’s time to dust off The Four Hour Work Week.

But it’s also perspective, and I know of no better cure for a bad attitude than going straight up a mountain, even when it’s zero degrees outside—maybe especially when it’s zero degrees outside. So I rousted myself for a frostbite hike with Steph, who listened to me rant, my self-pity sending little cloudbursts of steam from my mouth like an ornery old uncle smoking a pipe. It was stupidly cold, so we chugged uphill as fast as we could, following a lone set of footprints that about-faced at the grey ledge and left us to break trail. Soon we were above the mist and into patchy blue sky, Santa Fe disappearing and reappearing below us through the clouds. The piñons were clumpy with new snow, and the sun glittered off the pine needles. I knew then that this would be a day we would remember all year, maybe longer—not because it was so bad, but because it turned out to be so good. By the time we reached the top, I’d forgotten what I’d been bitching about, my nose was tingly, and Steph’s hands had gone numb like they always do, but life felt just about right again.


Just to make sure, I drove down Canyon Road, snow-packed and empty, and pulled into Downtown Subscription for a cup of tea before I had to go home. I only had one ratty dollar in my pocket, but the place was nearly deserted so I sat down with my notebook and wrote for 15 minutes on whatever came to mind. And you know what? I felt all brand new again. Next time you're feeling stuck or whiney, try it. A good walk with a good friend and 15 minutes of writing is all it takes, I swear.