May 2024: Flower Moon

Arm Placement (Abby)

(Turkey, Morocco, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia)

(5/4) The air is sticky and hot as I step off the plane in Morocco. The sun feels so much closer than it did in Southern Turkey. There's no sea breeze here as I wait for my ride outside the airport.

I'm headed to my first ever yoga retreat, and it's my first week away from Mark in awhile. We just spent a week on the Turkish coast in Kas, and did our first scuba diving of the trip. I got certified back in the Bay Area in the cold Pacific that had low visibility. Every time I go diving, I think back to my first dive, when I took a breath under water for the first time. My whole body sensed that this shouldn't be possible and I remember the feeling of panic starting to grow. But then I used my breath, relaxed my mind, and secured my thoughts that I am safe. I released into the floating sensation. Felt how slow everything moves when you are underwater because it can. There's no need to rush. And you start to see the fish and the coral and the sea floor, something you have never seen and you feel like this is something you shouldn't be able to do. And you smile through your mask and regulator at your partner.

I last dove in Hawaii and left with images of sea turtles and shipwrecks, but also some jaw pain and uncertainty. Diving hasn't been something I've prioritized much. In Turkey this year, I felt anxious on my first two dives. It was hard to relax and be present. It wasn't until the third dive, when one of our fellow divers, Uli, kindly came up to me and suggested I try to keep my hands clasped together in front of me, to help calm me. Immediately, that helped and I had my best dive yet of the trip. Isn't it funny how just shifting your arms and hands can do a world of difference on your mind? That your body position can release so much that you didn't know you were holding? I'm sure this will only ring more true as I head into a week of yoga :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(5/12) This week of yoga wasn't what I thought it was going to be. It's cliche, but it has truly been so much more. We are 8 strangers here for the week, plus our yoga teacher Amy. No one knew each other before coming, and very few of us had ever been on a retreat like this before. It led to all of us being incredibly present. As a group we range in age (from 24 to 64) and in backgrounds. Most of them come from the UK- I'm the only American besides Eden who moved to England from the US when she was young. We each came with our own baggage, our own stories, and it felt like each of us had a reason for signing up for the week of yoga with Amy.

We had yoga classes twice a day on our hotel roof, located in a small Berber village forty five minutes outside of Marrakesh. From the roof, we can see for miles all around us- small villages, a herd of goat with their shepherd, mosque towers and the Atlas mountains. We have an incredibly attentive teacher who places orange blossom oil in our palms and leads us through meditations. We do yoga poses and flows that I have not done in a long time, that bring me back to my favorite yoga class in San Francisco. We get to sit by a pool in between classes and follow the tortoises around who meander the grounds. I have a lovely roommate named Claire, and each night we stay up late having pillow talks that end in fits of giggles and sometimes singing. There's a hammam at the hotel where we each take turns signing up for scrubs or massages. And the food is delicious- each meal leaving me more full than the last. Truly this felt like heaven.

It still feels very serendipitous that I signed up for this week and I wouldn't have thought that I needed a week of relaxation, reflection, and slowness - to slow down even more than I already have. And yet, it will be something I never forget. New friends that I plan to stay in touch with. New yoga and meditation practices I hope to keep. And new ways to position my arms and my whole body to help me let go.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(5/23) This past full moon has felt like one of our busiest and has been filled with visits to 7 countries (Italy with Mark's family; Turkey; Mark and I spent one week apart (I went to Morocco, he to Uzbekistan); we met back in Serbia with our friend David; then we started a Balkan mountain roadtrip through Montenegro, back into Serbia, then onto Bosnia).

Someone told me once that each time they switched out their contact lenses, they would think about everything they had seen with them. I don't wear contacts anymore, but I sort of feel like this blog is that reflection point for me. The places we've gone, the people we've met. The new lands we've seen. The new things I've learned.

We've now been abroad for 5 months, and on the road for 7 months. This is the longest I've gone without working, which is hard to wrap my mind around. I've worn the same 5 shirts over and over again, and when laundry day happens it feels magical. My bag feels heavier these days with so much lugging around, and it's always a toss up if the new place we're staying will have a comfortable bed, and even better soft sheets and the right pillows. I have days where I feel homesick and needy. I miss my electric toothbrush and I feel overly attached to some of my favorite things (I lost my sunglasses for 48hrs and was devastated, then Mark found them in the car and overjoyed is an understatement). There are hard days and language barriers and new foods that make me nostalgic for the ones I love. There are still moments when I wonder what are we doing out here without a real plan!

But then I look back at my journal and all the photos I've taken. I think about all that I've gotten to experience and see. The people I've met. Jimmy, a Tazmanian man biking through Europe, reading The Prophet out loud to us in Montenegro. Eliza, a Russian anesthesiologist and a new driver, teaching me how to say stink bug in Serbian while on a walk around Zaovine Lake in Tara National Park. A German man named Uli reminding me to keep my arms in while diving in Turkey. A Bosnian cat jumping in my lap while I scarf down kebabs after a long day of hiking.

And I feel so grateful that I'm doing this all with Mark and that he continues to amaze me by being my rock in so many ways- so solid and steady especially on days when I am feeling less so. Although we've spent a lot of time together, we still have new things to talk about, and we're continuing to push ourselves. Hiking has always been a hobby, but it's taken on a new level for us- we've set some big lofty goals that we want to achieve by the end of this year. And overall, I'm just feeling grateful for all of it. Grateful for all that I've gotten to see this Flower Moon.

---

What Makes the Perfect Hike?* (Mark)

And does it exist?

In an onslaught of Alltrails reviews and national park recommendations, it seems difficult to define what the perfect hike is, or, what it should be.

There are so many factors.

How long did the hike take to drive to? Did you wake up in a tent, already amidst nature, or in a comfy bed? How new, or old, is your gear, and how much are you thinking about the traction of your shoes or the comfort of your backpack as you go? Who are you hiking with — this is a big one — do they go at the same pace as you, are they faster or slower, do they push you or pull you. Do they talk too much, or too little. Are they the type who gets out into nature and becomes like a dog, scrambling ahead towards whatever it is they find interesting? Or do they always follow the trail, chiding any diversions and calling you a plant-killer for going off trail. Do they take too many photos?

And last night - did you drink? Are you feeling queasy in your stomach and does this quickly become like the left shoulder strap of your backpack, something that you cannot get off of your mind and eventually hijacks your mental state as you walk?

What’s the weather? Is it too cold, or worse, too hot? Are you exposed to the sun and wind, and maybe that’s the point, but really, you're not trying to get sunburnt out here. Should you put on another layer? Are you hiking the trail in the right season? Did you start early enough?

How busy is the trail? Are downhill hikers yielding to the ones going uphill? If it’s too busy you might struggle to find parking, might queue up for the ungraceful step over the tree or cross of the stream or scamper up the ladder. But then again, what if it’s not busy at all? Are you even on the right trail? Is this really the day, or month, to be up here? And what the hell to say as you pass another person on trail - hello or good morning or whatever the local salutation is, plus some info or question, perhaps ‘How is it up there?’ or the classic uphill hiker’s quandary, ‘How much further do I have to go?’

Did you start in classic hiking fashion, going up? Or is this one of those hikes that does it in reverse, where you start going down? Are there good markings on the trail? But not too many? Are you bushwacking or crossing rivers, or are you on a fire road? Are you walking on leaves or on rocks or on sand, is it too muddy? Do you have enough water?

The seemingly cream of the crop hikes are the ones with views. Vistas. Lookouts. Incredible view at the top, they say. Can see for miles. Is it a mountain that you get to look at? Or are you on top of the mountain itself, the Hiking Sultan looking down upon your kingdom of lesser mountains? Did you reach an alpine lake where you can strip down and dive in naked? Can you see your house from here? Maybe it’s a tree you’re aiming towards, a big or old or multi-trunked one, 100 or 1000 years old, or maybe it’s Machu Picchu and you’re hiking to a misty forgotten town. Is it a point to point, an out and back, or is it a loop?

Senses define hikes. Sight is the least common denominator, our social proof of having done that, and this is why all 4.5+ reviewed hikes on Alltrails mention views. Big views, rare views, epic views. Ideally a view seen hundreds of times on Google Images, something instantly recognizable. The view always looks better if you worked for it, of course. But also, critical to the visuals of the hike are the sightings of the Animals We Want To See, aka deer or goats or squirrels, interesting non-threatening bugs, perhaps. Birds - of course, birds. Big ones or colorful ones, preferably. And absolutely positively zero encounters with the Animals We Don’t Want To See, bears, snakes, or worst of all, mosquitoes. Animals that can kill us or want to suck on our blood like lemonade. No no, not that. The fauna of the hike, we call it.

Sound is an underrated one. Very few people talk about the sounds of a hike. But you try earning a 4.5+ review score for a hike next to a highway! A dearth of artificial sounds, that’s what we want. We want the songs of birds, the rustle of leaves, the rain on the leaves above you. Walks next to a river or stream are good, because who doesn’t want to immediately sit down and meditate upon hearing white water flow over rocks? Weather sounds are often tremendous but also spell incoming doom - I mean thunder and his sinister sister lightning, of course. And the one artificial sound you can never seem to get away from on a hike- the buzz of airplanes above, the crisscross applesauce international highway of modern aviation reminding you that you may be twenty miles away from the nearest hot dog stand but you’re only 5 miles straight up away from someone closing their airplane window shade.

Smell, always a favorite, but another that isn’t discussed enough. I shall ask the next person who summits Everest, “What did the hike smell like?” There are two juxtaposing smells on a hike: the self, and the surroundings. The former is putrid, the latter, sublime. Hiking makes people smell like what we are beneath our shampoo and perfumes: animals. And let me tell you, even animals smell better than you after you hike ten miles. The stink, though, leads to another favorite hiking activity, which isn’t really hiking at all, but rather, the post-hike shower. But those surrounding smells! Ah, the sweet scents of a good hike. Alpine hikes don’t have it as much, but forest hikes are a barrage, an onslaught to the olfactory sense. The decomposition and the regrowth. The budding flowers. Fields and fields of mustard seeds. Some smell that you can’t even place, doesn’t make sense all the way out here, today it was a smell like the hoisin sauce you squeeze out into your pho, tomorrow it is the garlic that sticks to your fingers long after you chopped it up. A smell you don’t know is coming. A smell reminds you of something.

Touch. Always a bit of a touchy sense. Risque, I always thought. Do people who say touch is their love language just really love sex? Touch is a difficult one on a hike, because, well, what are we really touching at all? Sure, our merino wool shirt and goretex shoes gets into a whole mushy gushy lovefest with the trail, but we’re talking skin to trail contact here. There is certainly an interior awareness, the aches and pains and heaviness of walking long distances. There is also a blessed lightness that accompanies sitting down, sometimes you can literally feel the pounds that you’ve shed. But what of the exterior? Personally I like to reach out and graze the trees, think- you are older than me, think- you are probably older than my parents, think- what have you seen? Think, your roots are connected to all these other trees, telling each other vital secrets that I’ll never hear. And what becomes of you, Tree, when you die, when you fall over and are disconnected from all those roots that were a part of you and now are not? On the worst of days, I see life like that, that we are all invisibly connected when we’re alive and when we die something essential gets cut off and small alien mushrooms grow all over us until we’re no more. On my best of days, it’s the opposite, that our visible form may disappear but our roots never will. But enough with the pseudo-religion! Except maybe one more thing- a confession- which is that when I touch a tree and imagine it being older than my parents and surviving Hitler, I also think I’m receiving some sort of power boost from the trunk, like the tree is willing me on on my hike, for an instant I’m connected to all that history and all those roots and it’s seen a lot more shit than me and has the rings to prove it so yeah I can fucking hike 1,500 more vertical feet. Power boost.

And ah, the final sense, my favorite in the wild wilderness of the outdoorsy REI imagined world… taste! This is the one that you truly have to hike to understand. Because, to your average blasé non-hiker, yes, you can comprehend the appeal (and even drive to) a beautiful viewpoint, you can hear the songs of birds in your normal cityslicker existence, you can smell the blooming roses or, heck, even the guy selling those ungodly good smelling nuts on the street, and of course with the promise of handsoap you’re free to touch things left and right… but… have you ever hiked uphill for six miles and then sat down and smeared a whole glob of nutella completely across an apple and upon biting into it really truly keeled over laughing because your mouth or tongue or whatever part of your brain is responsible for taste has never tasted something so absolutely luscious? Salami sandwiches taste like Michelin star meals, you can hear every crack and crunch of a potato chip in your mouth, feel its salt coat your tongue, even water - gulping it down at the top of a mountain is like a Brita commercial for sweet beautiful crystal clear purified liquid goodness. I mean, the things hikers eat! GORP, we call it, literally an acronym for Good Old Raisins (and) Peanuts, the ingredients of not even a fifth of the concoctions that hikers munch on anymore (we should call it GORPMM [+ M&Ms because they’re the best thing in the mix anyway]). Taste is the one that’s worked for, that’s earned. And hiking will make nearly anything taste good, nay, taste life-enhancing, life-giving, because that is what it is for you, you have willingly taken your life away through sweat and toil and dirt and uphill, slogged for miles across unsteady ground risking your ankles in the process, you probably right now have a tick on you somewhere you can’t even see, and your shaky photo will never be as good as the ones you saw on Google Images, but now, now the Snickers bar you’ve carefully unwrapped and are squinting at, admiring the fine chocolate covered ridges and imagining the promised peanuts just below, you are about to devour this great thing in just two bites, and it has become for you so much more after all of this. It has become literally life itself.

And yeesh, does life out here taste good.

*Context: We have hiked 70 miles in the Balkans in the past week. We are planning to do a slew of hiking in the coming months, most notably in the Dolomites on the Alta Via 1 and on the Colorado Trail, a 486 mile thru-hike from Denver to Durango.

---

Highlights this moon:

• We've officially made it to our 11th country of the trip, Bosnia! Stay tuned for what's coming next...

• We swam in the Mediterranean Sea in Sardinia and in Turkey. Abs swam in the pool at the yoga retreat almost every day in Morocco. Mark got some strange water treatments at a sanatorium in Uzbekistan. We dipped our hands into Black Lake, Serbia, and into an alpine lake in Bosnia.

• #sandwichesinbeautifulplaces is growing in popularity.

• The best thing Abby ate was all the borek in Turkey, Serbia, and Montenegro.

• The best thing Mark ate were the tomatoes in Uzbekistan.

• We hiked 70 miles in the Balkans (Durmitor NP in Montenegro, Tara NP in Serbia, and Sutjeska NP in Bosnia).