An Ordinary Odyssey

Much of my life has appeared to be a jumbled up sort of aimless wandering from project to project and goal to goal. It is only when looking back that I can see that there was a path all along and it all had to happen in that order to get to where I wanted or needed to be. I feel like I need to accept that for this blog too. Every time I come up with a plan, I write a few posts and then go silent because the path took some wild, unexpected turn. Then I start over. That’s where I’m at now. I have yet to follow-up on the overhaul I did to the blog last year and the big, grand post I wrote about Colorado. Instead of beating myself up over that and doing another overhaul, I’m just gonna start again fresh just like this! I’m gonna walk you through the musings that have led me down a path to my next challenge and I hope you will bear with me. It might be a jumbled mess, but I’m hoping it comes out like poetry instead!

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We’ll start with a walk on the beach. My favorite beach actually. It’s a tiny little fishing pier in South Milwaukee, WI. It barely shows up on Google Maps so a lot of people don’t know that it’s here. Once you find it, you find that the only way down is by walking the two big staircases with around 200 steps. It’s a lot of work to get to this beach, but worth every ounce of it!

Here she is in all her splendor:

Walking on this beach on my day off last week, I started pondering so many things. Among them…

That it’s definitely still way too cold to be frolicking barefoot and jacket-less in Lake Michigan. But I have the type of soul who constantly longs to be kissed by the Wind and held by the Earth. One of my favorite poems is “An Ode to Every Woman Who Has Ever Been Called Outdoorsy” and I remembered it while I gleefully splashed around, lost feeling in my toes and had to rub them warm again. I looked it up. Here’s one of my many favorite lines:

“You, who smiles as someone tries to understand why you have to be barefoot at least some portion of the year, or come in with rosy cheeks and wild hair and dirt clinging in clumps to, well, anywhere it can get. And you who don’t really need them to understand anyways.”

My Madison Perrin

I’m grateful for my leathery feet that can walk on crushed shells and rocks after months of being closeted away in warm winter shoes. They are a product of growing up in the country, walking barefoot down the road and through the woods and outback where the mechanics in my family frequently busted cars up. I’m grateful for my ability to stand and crawl and kneel and get up and down on the floor unaided, climb trees, hike up steep hills, and dance in a field. I never want to lose that. I got myself a standing desk at work and have started doing some simple mobility and flexibility exercises 2-3 times a day. I sit on the floor at home almost more than I sit on the furniture.

It’s incredible how quickly I’ve noticed a difference in the feeling of being home in my body. Even after years of doing pole dance, I immediately felt the change, even though I couldn’t point it out or explain it. I feel like it’s a societal norm that our bodies start to break down in our 30s. Everyone keeps telling me that it will happen to me. I see it happening to most people around me. But I also see the exceptions and the thing they all have in common is the same spirit I feel in me to move move move and do do do and see see see.

I want to see the world. But I don’t want to just see incredible places and marvel at their beauty and then go home as the same person. I want to see the world with the eyes and mind of a person who had to invest some measure of my body to get there. It’s never the same when you can just drive to the perfect viewpoint. That’s not how Nature made things to be. Anything worth having has always required sacrifice. And while I’ve loved every travel experience I’ve had, big or small, international or right in my own neck of the woods. But the moments that still hold real power in my mind all have some feeling of discomfort in common. I’ll never forget…

Days of total exhaustion in South Africa. Getting out into the field by 6am to beat the heat.
Sleeping in army tents that smelled of feet and the body odor of 3 unwashed women.
Bushwhacking to a watering hole to look for wildlife,
and getting stabbed by barbed trees and cacti along the way.

The 7 mile, 1400 foot elevation gain hike to Black Elk Peak in South Dakota,
my first big solo elevation hike as a Wisconsin flatlander.
Driving there was gorgeous and I can see the appeal of the scenic driving loops in the area.
But getting to that fire tower on my own two legs and feeling the wind whip around my hair once you broke out from the tree cover and could see across those sacred hills was entirely different.

Trekking across a glacier in New Zealand.
The feeling of strapping on your ice cleats and hefting your ice axe.
Digging into the ice with every step and carving your own handholds
so you can get up and over the next hump of ice and see the mountains beyond,
where no road can take you.

The hike to the alpine lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park.
A steady upward slog through mud and snow until eventually a lake appears,
surrounded by tall rocky crags and stunning reflections of mountain and sky.
You’re out of breath from elevation and astonishment.

Kayaking across the water to the Apostle Islands, fighting the waves with every ounce of strength. Sleeping on islands under the stars and drinking water that tastes like pool
from the iodine tablets used to purify it.

Hiking through the snow or rain because it is the weather you were given.
Discovering the magic that happens in the woods on a wet day
when everyone else stayed inside.

Hiking down the staircases to this beach feels like giving a measure of my body in exchange for the pleasure of the place. It’s only 200 stairs and doesn’t compare to hiking in New Zealand or the Rocky Mountains. But it’s still work and work that many people will not do. I’ve told many of this beach and most are uninterested. They would rather drive 5 minute north our south to the parks where you can drive down the hill straight to the water.

I see the appeal. And I’m certainly happy that those who need the physical accessibility are able to get down to the water to enjoy it. But giving a measure of my body will always be an important part of my identity. Somehow it changes my perception of a place.

Which finally brings me around to the point of blogging about these musings!

The point is that 1) I wanted to start blogging and this seemed like I finally had something to say. And more importantly, 2) to announce and my desire to do a Rim to Rim Hike of the Grand Canyon!

It’s something I’ve pondered from time to time over the years. I’ve always wanted to do a big adventure that was a physical challenge and I’ve considered various thru-hikes. But it just doesn’t align with my finances to be able to take off for several months to do that. But I can give myself a week and pit myself against this giant hole in the ground somewhere in the desert of Arizona.

I actually have pictures of the moment I definitively decided that this was going to be my challenge. These below were from my first time seeing the Grand Canyon, on a road trip with friends in 2022. On that trip, we weren’t hiking and weren’t spending much time in any place. Just a whirlwind of a week for a girls trip. But standing there, watching the sunset and looking out across the expanse, I wanted to know what it would be like to dig into this place. To take the time and give a measure of my body to this place in order to truly see it.

So, that’s what I am going to do. I have a friend who is an avid hiker who has tentatively agreed to do it with me through a short text conversation. I’ve looked up all the information about permits and lotteries and started to sketch out a training plan. I’m as committed to this as I am to every wild, hair-brained scheme I’ve ever come up with! It won’t be until 2025, but that’s good. I intend to train and along the way to actually blog about it here. And, just maybe, they mind not be as jumbled-up thought-spewing as this post. Maybe!