Tag: bosque

Another Year

Another Year

Terri

trees with path.jpgYesterday was my birthday.  My 45th, to be exact.  In her card, my mom reminded me that it’s only another 5 years until I hit the big 5-0.  Thanks, Mom.  Just what I wanted to hear.  My sister (who is 47) and I have made a pact to not really talk about the numbers anymore at this stage of our lives.  Too depressing.  We try to not think about the fact that our two older brothers are 56 and 57 this year. And our baby brother is 43.

At the risk of sounding like a walking cliche, I really don’t feel my age.  Maybe it’s because I never had kids and therefore didn’t deal with that kind of stress and exhaustion.  (I know having a family is not all bad.  It just wasn’t for me.)  Maybe it’s because I still have vivid memories of my teenage years, my twenties (when I was an idiot like so many of us were), and of course, my thirties, when I really started to wake up and see who I was as a person.  When I started listening to my heart and made big, life-changing decisions.

The boyfriend and I talked the other night and I mentioned how, presently, my outlook on life is to not try to stress out so much over things like overpaying for something by $5-6, because really, it’s not going to matter a year from now.  And I’m certainly not taking my money to the grave with me when I die.  True, I try to be smart about financial decisions, but I don’t let one mistake ruin my day, or try not to, anyway.   I told him, people make decisions based on the information they have available to them at the time, so don’t beat yourself up over what hindsight presently shows you about the past.  Best to just learn from it and move on.

Recently, some people whose opinion I really value have told me that what they admire about me is my ability to express myself and be honest about things. (Hope I’m paraphrasing accurately, Pauline and Josh.)  They’re from two very different parts of my life, yet they see something in common.  So here’s the honest truth about what’s on my mind these days.

looking up through trees

Am I happy with my life?  Yes, and no. Do I wonder if I made the right decision two years ago to just leave everything and everyone I was familiar with to move thousands of miles away? Yes, quite often.  Do I feel like I’ve grown a lot in the past two years in understanding more of what my core values are? A resounding yes. Do I wish I made more money?  Yes! (I’m beginning to think there is some truth to the research that says once you make about $50-55K, any increases over that don’t increase your level of happiness as much as they might have done when increasing your income from say $25K-30K and then to 35K.)

Am I enjoying the academic program I’m taking part in with the Institute for Humane Education?  Yes, because it’s making me think critically about issues that are important to me.  It’s making me look inward and helping me to figure out what direction to take my life in from here.

Notice I said, “what direction to take my life in.”  I am not content to let life happen to me.  It’s a somewhat uncomfortable place to be in, trying to figure out that direction, and knowing that I may never get it right, but that the real value is in the interim, that space in time and location when I’m trying to figure it all out.

Where do I want to be?  Where do I want to end up?  In the mountains or near the coast?  Do I miss being able to educate others and inspire them to expand on their learning or research skills? Do I miss the change of seasons?  Do I like the warmer winters?  Do I miss seeing big bodies of water? YES! Am I grateful for having met so many new people over the past two years? YES!  Do I still think about doing the nomadic thing at one point in my life? Yes! Do I want a tiny house or the stability of being in one place and being able to create beauty there through my words and a garden? Yes!

Do I want to spend more of my days writing? YESSS!!!!  Do I think eventually I can do that?  Yes, I WILL make it happen.  But how? Do I try to find work through the content mills or do I start pitching ideas to editors or just sit down and force that book or books out of me that I’ve been trying to get out of my head and onto paper?

Lots of contradictions and questions to sort out, to be sure.  And I may never get it all truly sorted out.  Accepting that thought as a possibility is difficult.  I may never do so.

Outside, the sky is gray today (very unlike yesterday, when I took the pictures you see in this post, which are from the Bosque.)   I realize I like both types of days, which makes me wonder, maybe parts of me still want to be in the Pacific Northwest (or does it mean I miss the change of seasons, and in effect, my family, or the Northeast?)  So many questions to sort out.

This post has been much longer than normal, so if you have read this far, I appreciate it.  I truly do appreciate all the comments that you leave me here on this blog, and on my facebook pages when I post them.  I learn from each and every one of them. And if I see someone hit the “like” button, I feel grateful for having touched that person in some way. I write for myself, and to help create a community.

Thanks for joining me on this journey. And as always, thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

Reconnecting to Nature: Take a Field Trip

Reconnecting to Nature: Take a Field Trip

Terri

 

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The site of my field trip (sunflowers were behind me.)

My Environmental Ethics requires us to go on four field trips in our neck of the woods. The goal is to remain in the present for at least 30 minutes.  No cell phones.  No thoughts of what happened earlier today or what can happen tonight.  When you find your thoughts drifting away from the present, you do your best to bring them back to the here and now.  Try and use all of your senses: sight, smell, touch, hear, etc.  Our assignment limits us to the number of words, and I’m finding I’m embracing those limits rather than fighting them. One of my fellow students said I should publish them somehow and he would want to read one of them every day to reconnect himself to nature. So, I thought I would do so here, in the hope that it can have some beneficial effect to those of you reading it.

Our assignment limits us to the number of words, and I’m finding I’m embracing those limits rather than fighting them. So without further adieu, here goes nothing, er, my first field trip.

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Yesterday, I took a field trip to the section of the Bosque knowns as Tingley Beach.  The Bosque is a wooded area located along the banks of the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  It stretches for miles with lots of dirt paths for walkers, runners, bikers, and nature enthusiasts.  Usually, I run there.  But yesterday, I decided I would just sit and observe.

I wonder – what made me choose this spot?  Because it’s familiar?  But, I’ve never sat here on a log and just looked and listened while not moving.  There are so many wild sunflowers growing here, some out of what appears to be dead, inhospitable wood accumulated on the ground.  How did all these dead tree branches come to be here on the ground?  Were they cut down?  No, they’re too randomly placed.  Did they break off in the wind?  That seems more likely, given the winds we have here in Albuquerque, a high desert city.

The breeze blows through the green leaves of the tall cottonwoods above me.  I’m comforted by it, even though I can tell by its ferocity that a rainstorm might be coming.  I welcome that.  To the south are dark clouds.  To the north are white puffy clouds that seem to be speeding effortlessly through the sky because of that strong wind.  The sun keeps peeking in and out from among the dark clouds, alternately warming and cooling my body.

Sitting quietly, I start to hear the sounds of birds chirping.  I hear one chirp, then another, and then a third, all from different locations.  They are of different types; each chirp is unique.  And are those crickets or cicadas I hear?  I love the sound of them, but seeing them in person freaks me out.  I’m not a fan of big bugs.

I hear the sounds of civilization off in the distance: traffic noise, a plane flying overhead, the sounds of humans along the dirt path.  The humans are close enough that we could both see each other, but they’re too engrossed in their conversations or own thoughts to notice me sitting amongst the cottonwoods.  And I am grateful because I want to be left alone to observe, to feel, to hear, to smell.  I’m irritated by the intrusion.

I realize I haven’t seen a single bug crawling along the log on which I sit.  Surprising, because I usually see them everywhere on the path when I run.  And this is the woods! As if I willed it into existence, one appears, and it’s time for me to shift positions.  I take a seat on the ground near the sunflowers.  I can see the honeybees darting from one flower to the next.  But I don’t hear them making a sound.  Funny, I thought this was grass, but it feels more like straw.  Looking closer, I notice it covers the dead branches and twigs found below it.  It’s uncomfortable, and it’s time for me to go, so I walk toward the river.

If this post touches you somehow, please share it.  And thank you for reading.

 

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Wild sunflowers abound in the Bosque, not too far from where I sat

 

Running and Thinking, Staying Positive

Running and Thinking, Staying Positive

Terri

 

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Something I’ve begun doing – laying on the grass and taking pictures of the trees and sky above.

Yesterday was July 4th, Independence Day!  I know a few more active duty folks this year, and living so close to an air force base, I am reminded of the sacrifices that a lot of folks do every day so that the rest of us can live our lives out the way we want to.  (Even if for some of us, that means living the “American dream” even if it makes them unhappy.  The point is we get to choose what our lives look like.)  So to those of you currently serving, or who have served, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

After working an 11 hour day on Monday and facing a 10+ hour today, I decided to do something for myself yesterday morning, and go for a run in the Bosque.  Being at such a high altitude, and an arid climate, ABQ can have some wide temperature fluctuations every day.  I try to do my runs around 6 or 7 because usually the temps are in the 60s, but it’s a dry air, so it’s perfect running weather in my opinion. And yesterday was no exception.

The road near the  Bosque was closed for an “event” and it turns out it was a road race!! It’s funny but part of me misses running races, and part of me doesn’t.  For one thing, they can really add up financially, and I am definitely not the speedster I used to be.  It could be the altitude slowing me down, or my age, or just that my focus has shifted from always wanting to go faster, faster, faster, to now focusing on how I feel when I’m out there on a run.  It used to be about competition with others and myself.  It’s not anymore (and in fact, I find that running with my Garmin now stresses me out as I’m looking at the distance run, and the pace is so much slower than it used to be that I start to feel down on myself, and it takes the joy out of it.)

When I found myself breathing too heavily yesterday and stopped for a quick walk to catch my breath, I caught myself from going down that negative pathway I used to go, whereby I would berate myself or feel discouraged for having to “stop” and walk.   Instead, I said aloud (I really did, and yes, I can be such a dork at times), “That’s not what today’s run is about.  Today is about feeling good, enjoying nature, and having this time to myself.”  And you know what?  Talking aloud to yourself can really help sometimes.  I found myself smiling.  And then I picked up the running again.

Yesterday was unique in that normally I run with music (my phone strapped to my arm but no headphones, so I can hear if bikers come up behind me.) Well, yesterday, I mistakenly left the armband at home.  So it was running with just the thoughts in my head and the sounds of the breeze rippling through the trees around me, and birds flying in the air, with the occasional greeting of “good morning” or “Happy Fourth of July”  when I infrequently saw someone else on the trails.  I understood what others have meant when they’ve said that sometimes running without music can be a meditative experience.  It’s just you, your body and your thoughts.

 

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Taken from the Sandia Crest – altitude of 10,678 feet.

 

Yesterday, I thought of all the times I’ve said I WANT to do something.  Like, I WANT to write more.  Or I WANT to do more transcription work and have more money to pay off bills at the end of the month.  Or I WANT to simplify my life even more.

You know what?  You can WANT or desire things all you want, but until you put your money where your mouth is,  that’s all IT is, a THOUGHT.  I’ve always been so afraid to write and try to get paid for it.  I look at other published works (either self-published or traditional) and think “THIS someone got paid for?”  or “this person decided to do something and did it, and here I’m paying money for it.” I COULD DO THAT if only I could get over myself and my self-doubt. I need to stop THINKING and start DOING.

I was also thinking, I like my job, but it’s not something I want to do forever.  There are certain parts of it that I love – getting to see some of the cute dogs and cats, (and yes, even avians or funny reptiles like bearded dragons), but some of it can be really monotonous too, like running credit cards through the machine over and over again.  I do feel like I’m good in the euthanasia situations that we face just about every day, and think I do a good job with comforting the owners, or at the very least, making the situation at least a little less horrible for them.  And yes, I’m seeing animals hands-on.

But I’m also seeing that so much of it is a business.  So many times I answer the phone and hear someone in tears or close to it, about their pet, and hear them say that they can’t afford the treatment that they know their pet needs.  Or I’m ringing up credit cards for several hundred dollars or even more.  And after a while, it’s like when I worked at a bank, you don’t see the numbers as real money. It’s just another figure.  And then I think to myself, if I didn’t work here and didn’t get the huge employee discount I do have, I would be one of those people on the phone, in tears, wondering how to pay for their care and still afford rent and food for that month.  In a city like ABQ, where people don’t make a lot, it’s a call I hear way too often.

I have a brain and I want to use it more.  Many of you might remember that I first moved to ABQ because I wanted to be a vet tech.  After working in an animal hospital now for about 7 months or so, I don’t think so, anymore.  I think the pace at my hospital is very stressful for a lot of the techs and employees (we see emergency cases all day and all night long), and I’ve heard some of the animals crying back in treatment or in ICU and the techs have to deal with that much more up close and personal than I do.  They’re the ones restraining the animal who is scared or confused or hurt, or holding the oxygen hose over its mouth to try and stabilize it.  I see the stress on their faces and the toll it takes.

It could just be that it’s the “hospital” side of things that has made me change my mind on being a tech.  Working on the sanctuary side of things is a very different aspect to animal care.  You have a different mission in mind.  I’m still figuring these differences out in my mind and learning what makes me tick when it comes to animals and creating my life (financial and otherwise) around them.

I always have so many plans each day as to what I want to get done – I want to exercise, and write, and do more freelance work, and some days I’m super motivated, and then some nights I get home, and am so mentally exhausted that I just sit and stare at the wall. Or pet my own babies and then go to sleep.

Being in a hospital setting, even one with animals, can be very stressful.  People can be short with one another, and I try to remind myself on a daily basis, and sometimes several times during the day, not to take the shortness or abruptness of others’ attitudes personally.  But I’ll be honest.  I am human, and sometimes I get pissed off. Luckily, I now have a roommate who I came home and vented to the other night.  (Yep, I’ve got an air mattress in the living room and things seem to be working out well so far.  I’ve set up the mattress so it doubles as a couch.)  It is a guy roommate and he could tell just by the way I walked in the door that I needed some down time and quite frankly, needed to bitch about some things.

So today when I go into work, the day after the Fourth of July, when I am sure we will be slammed with folks picking up their fur babies from boarding, or folks calling to see if someone has found their pet who escaped last night, freaked out from fireworks, and having our busiest vet on the schedule, and just the usual amount of walk-ins, I will try to remind myself to take a moment and breathe.  Don’t take the stress that others are pouring out and onto me, personally.   Realize that not everyone has the same coping skills that I have tried to hone over the past few years.  Realize it’s a job.  And that yes, I did give up my past life to take on these new roles willingly, and realize it’s not going to be where I spend the rest of my life.    And as one of my coworkers once said to me, “be like a duck, and let it all wash over you.”

And remember, I can come home.  I do have a roof over my head.  I can hug my furballs.  I can pull out this laptop and write here or in my personal journal.  I can take control of my finances and look for second and third jobs (the paper route didn’t work out, I will discuss that in a later post).  And use my skills and smarts to change my life if I don’t like the direction in which it’s going.  If I’ve learned nothing else over the past few years, it’s that I CAN make changes, I don’t have to stay stuck in one place, or in one job, or in a role that I think others perceive I should be doing.

I realize this post might seem to have been quite a ramble, but it’s also been quite the therapeutic one for me.  Hopefully, there’s a point in it that can provide someone else reading it, with some clarity.  For me, I’m glad to have gotten up early to complete it, and to now still have time to get some transcription done, or to complete my profile on flexjobs so I can look for some more side work to fill in the gaps.

I hope that you will have a good day after the fourth, and as always, to the very few of you out there still reading, thank you for doing so. 🙂