A Dry Spell

Everyone close to me knows about this every-road-and-trail-on-a-map-under-my-own-power obsession of mine and, the majority of the time, I wander far and wide unimpeded. My friends encourage and laugh at me, my kids just shrug their shoulders, and everything about my job can wait. My husband long ago resigned himself to his wife’s long disappearances into the sage. The upshot for him, I believe, is that he generally gets to watch televised baseball without anyone saying, “OMG this is so boring! Let’s go for a walk.” 

The house is clean enough and my interest in yardwork is minimal. 

On a good week in June, five nights out of seven, I may be found among the gulches and mesas, the hallways and rooftops of the valley I call home. I mark the passage of time in leaves, mud, and blossoms. I own many different types of boots.      

But, occasionally, I go through a dry spell. A stretch where the responsibilities and plans fill the calendar, stacking atop one another, not unlike a slow-moving pile up of cars in an ice storm. Brakes locked, the girls’ weekends slide sideways into the conference, which pushes its backend

into prom, sending the anniversary dinging into a best friend’s birthday. No one is injured, but the pass is closed until the melee is untangled. 

Amid the mashup of events is where I currently sit. Home for the weekend, nursing an overuse injury, mentally scripting the months ahead, leapfrogging past the mandatory meeting in Denver, graduation, and replacing the couch. 

In times like these, when I feel the restraints of grown-up ness against my shoulders, Tom assures me that my extraordinary ordinariness is what sets my journey apart. 

If I had a trust fund, a seasonal job, and a dearth of responsibilities, it’s likely I would have accomplished this mapquest of mine already, or at least made a more sizable dent. If I was an ultramarathoner born with long, lean legs that bounded with grace, the miles north, west, south and east of town would have spooled behind me like contrails on a cloudless day. A sponsored, childless mountain biker could have traced every road and trail north of Pitkin long ago. In a single summer, probably. 

As it stands, I am a workaday bureaucrat, a middle aged, middle of the pack Turkey Trotter, who carries, depending on the season, between ten and fifteen extra pounds around the mid section. An upper midwest native with gnome genetics, my non-map existence requires at least semi-regular attention, feeding, and presence. 

My life has been lived upon my map, but my map is not my life.

My minor-league expeditions happen largely after 4:00 pm and on Saturday mornings, between soccer games, margaritas, family vacations and trips to the grocery store. If you saw me in the parking lot, you are far more likely to ask if I need help lifting a bag of dogfood than you are to think, “I wonder if that grey haired woman just crawled over a mile-wide blowdown of dead aspen trees with a pair of snowshoes strapped to her back?” Even though I paid extra for the Sherman tank, climb-over-a-crumpled-skyscraper 4-Runner package, I am more than a little afraid of navigating rutted roads in 4-Lo. 

Taken together, my goal is being reached slowly. Methodically is another adjective, but slowly is more accurate. 

Also, sometimes my knees hurt. 

I am fortunate enough to live among friends, to stand witness to my children’s milestones and accomplishments, to still be among a favorite set of ears for their admonishments of idiot coworkers, annoying class and roommates, and pleas for concert tickets. Although I sometimes wish he would more judiciously wield his power, I am wildly lucky to have married a man that knows exactly the words to make me snort laugh and pee my pants. There is even enough PTO and coins laying around to dig out the passports every so often. 

Although I may have Theoruean dreams and indulge in Abbey flights of fancy, in the end, I am hopelessly addicted to my middle of the road life and the trappings therein. I do not substitute time in the bleachers for ridgelines and I say yes to nearly every invitation. The bills get paid and the spreadsheets get sorted. I come not here to regale and inspire you with my feats of endurance and conquest of hillsides; I seek not to influence you but to tell you about it because I think this valley is beautiful and the thoughts I think while exploring it will just not stay inside my head. 

I’ll be back among the wide-open spaces soon enough.