Monthly Archives: January 2013

Up way too late …

… waiting for ibuprofen to kick in and struggling with a name for my AT blog.

I’m really looking for a simple, easy to remember name that speaks to what I hope will be a spiritual journey for myself and a method of raising awareness about violence done to women world-wide.

I do not underestimate the tremendous privilege I have to be able to safely undertake such an arduous and expensive challenge. In most parts of the world, if a woman puts everything she needs on her back and walks 2000 miles, it’s to save the lives of herself and her children. Even making the trip would mean risking her life, especially solo.

Look what happened to Jyoti Singh, 23 yo medical student in India, as her and a male companion rode a city bus. I want people to know her name. I want people to know Jyoti Singh was raped and beaten and brutalized with a steel rod until her intestines were pulled out and then she was thrown from the moving bus to lay in the street bleeding. She died 13 days later.

I was raped at the age of 13 by a man twice my age in a backroad gravel pit; not with the brutality that Jyoti Singh underwent but it left scars all the same. Think: I was 13. I was a child.

This is the risk women face at the hands of violent men. We risk being beaten, we risk being raped … merely by virtue of being female.

OK ….. so this post has become more about what male violence can do to women rather than “what do I name my blog?”

But these are my thoughts as the pain in my back subsides (thank you medicine) and I can perhaps finally get to sleep.

There have been so many of us but please let us never forget her name … Jyoti Singh. Let her death not be for naught.

Screen Shot 2013-02-28 at 1.17.18 AM

2 months from today …

Exactly 2 months from today, my feet will step onto the path that I’ve dreamed of walking for decades.

As I plan and prepare for this dream-turned-reality, so much goes through this Libran ADD mind and I often find myself on overload! The preparation is as much a journey as the hike itself!

You see … for my entire life, I’ve defined myself as someone who can’t seem to make decisions and there are a ton of decisions to make before beginning a 2,184 mile backpacking trip! What do I do with my apartment? And all my stuff? What will I do when I come back from the trail? How will I upload videos to my blog? What shall I name my blog?? Do I stick with my JetBoil or switch to a lighter stove/cookset? Rainpants or not? Where can I find a down sweater that I can afford? Which mittens should I get? How heavy a base layer will I need? What if it snows a LOT?? Will my Keens suffice? What do I do about medical insurance? What books/music do I want to load on my phone? or would I be better off getting a little iPod? What about recharging my phone … battery pack or solar system? What foods do I want to dehydrate and have shipped to me on the trail? and to which mail drops? and who’s going to do this shipping for me??

Newsflash! I am making these decisions one by one and no longer choose to describe myself as indecisive! 😉

Feeling …

… overwhelmed and anxious today.
I need to get to AZ to see kids & grandbabies, make definite plans for my apartment, get back to the gym and lose the 4 pounds I put in the last 2 weeks, lose 10 more pounds, get the Jeep fixed and cleaned out, get my good camera repaired, take care of bills, buy dog food and milk, set up my hiking blog, find the camera cord, decide on a hiking jacket and cook system, find a good but reasonably priced down sweater, clean my bedroom, get rid of that vanity I will never get around to refinishing, find someone to fix the drawers in the old maple dresser, get on the landlord about the windows that don’t easily go up/down, take a bunch of stuff to Goodwill, take other stuff to dry cleaners, sell more stuff on Craigslist, hike, work out, write, practice shooting video on the new camera, order the part to upload videos to blog, clean off this desk (!!), make the 7×7 “office” into a walk in closet …

this is overwhelming. utterly overwhelming.
The Jeep repairs must come first so I can go buy dog food.

But … ooohhhh … stressing here majorly!