The "L" Word

If there is no crying in baseball, as Tom Hanks' Jimmy Duggan explained so succinctly in A League of Their Own, why do high school sports teams still call their girls' sports teams Lady this or Lady that?  The high school I teach at, our mascot is the Trojan.  Many of our female athletes are referred to as Lady Trojans and this makes me crazy and incensed for many reasons. I am glad to say that our soccer team dropped the "lady"part years ago.

First, when one thinks "lady" one thinks of drawing rooms, vapors, and tea.  One does not think of sports fields and turf burn and competition.  The word lady evokes thoughts of ghostly moors and fainting couches.  For me, personally, I think of the story in Free to Be You and Me, where the girl always cries "Ladies first" and gets eaten by the tiger and even as a child, I thought "good riddance".  Lady denotes delicate, dainty, and demure.  None of this applies to an athlete.

Second, we do not refer to the boys' sports teams as Gentlemen anything, so what kind of micro-messaging are we sending to young girls?  That they are less then?  That less is expected from them?  Or are we simply continuing to instill Victorian ideals of purity and chastity onto young girls and letting boys be boys?  

I spend a great deal of time at Cross Country meets and on a soccer field and always look to see what the female athletes are called. I mentally applaud the ones where I do not see a lady and wonder why it still prevails when I see so many with it.  Let's talk about the lady teams I have seen and how the name makes no sense.  First up, Lady Tigers.  Would that not make them a Tigress and does not Tigress sound so much fiercer??  Lady Vipers.  A snake is a snake, friends. And my favorite of all, Lady Hippos.  Lady Hippos.  What teenage girl wants to be known as a Lady Hippo?  Unless they mean Gloria from Madagascar who is confident and sexy in all of her hippo-ness, but you know that they do not mean Gloria.  They mean lady hippo.

I thought that maybe this lady thing was just here in Texas being that we were part of the South, sort of, and our own weird country, for awhile, but it is true even in my hometown of Lancaster, NY.  Lancaster High School recently got rid of a horrible, offensive, and racist mascot and became the Legends. And the female athletes?  Lady Legends.  Two steps forward, one step back.

I caused a real ruckus at a faculty meeting a few years ago asking why we used the lady moniker.  And by real ruckus, I mean I stirred shit up.  A few colleagues were so incensed they went years without acknowledging that I existed.  Others jumped up and in and said "PREACH".  And this was before I coached.  This was before I stood on turf, and blacktop, and grassy fields and watched girls run and play at a sport they excel at and love.  This was before I saw all the turf burn and concussions and ACL tears and shin splints.  Before I saw them tape their ankles before each game.  Before I watched them jam cotton up a bleeding nose so they could go back in to play.  Nothing about that says lady but it says absolutely everything about being an athlete.  

I just ask you to consider next time you are about to say Lady This Team or That Team, why are you saying it and what does it say to those girls?  While I can't even get the teams at my school to stop using it, I can keep trying and I will keep trying.  And until we are all just Trojans, or Tigers, or God help me, Hippos, I will make the change where I can.

going to need more Sharpies

Heard it From a Friend Who

When I was a kid, snow days were magical.  Magical because it was Buffalo, NY and snow is one of the six elements up there: water, fire, air, earth, snow, and the Bills and you don't cancel school for snow. Magical because this was a time when kids were being brought up mainly to suffer.  Throw some bread bags over those worn out boots and just walk yourself to school; you will be fine.  Magical because we went to bed wondering and woke up to a beautifully covered world of white.  Magical because the days was ours to go out and play and get so cold and come back in and get warm and then put on damp, smelly mittens and boots and do it again.  Magical.

When I moved to Dallas and experienced my first snow and ice storm, it was a world of wonder.  Wondering why I was the only person on the road?  Wondering where the snow plows were and why hadn't anyone salted the streets?  Wondering why I was the only one in the little hotel office when I walked in?  My general manager burst in about ten minutes later, said he knew I would be there, and had something for me to do.  He needed me to drive two stranded guests to their location.  Wondering why it was too dangerous to send the hotel van out and not the girl with the crappy car?  I went and it was wild; we slid all over the tollroad.  My passengers were from Michigan and we laughed and wondered about this frozen Texas world.  When I got back, I got a round of applause AND a giant chocolate chip cookie and the twenty-year old child I was thought that was a fair trade.

And then I moved to Austin and I had to learn to not find winter storms a time for wonder or magic, just fear. Winter storms in Austin mean ice and ice is fierce.  It is formidable.  It bends things to its will and shatters what lies beneath.  Ice is harrowing.  Don't drive on it.  Ice is tricky.  It covers the world in a glistening layer of white that looks like a giant's exhaled breath captured the world silent and still all while waiting to crash and destroy.  Ice means lying awake and hearing the CRACK of a tree branch snapped by the weight of ice layered upon it.  The WHOOSH as it hits the ground and the ching-ching-ching as frozen leaves skitter away.  And you hear it again and again and again and wait.  Wait to see if this is the branch that hits the power line.  This is the siren going by that means the transformer is on fire.  Wait. Listen. Wait.  Until the world goes dark; all the lights blink off, the hum of the refrigerator is silenced, and you are enveloped in a world of stillness and wonder how long this time? 

deceptively beautiful.

I was fortunate during the last Snow-apocalypse that I had water and electric the entire time.  I know I was fortunate.  I begin any retelling of events from that time with "I know how lucky I was..."  Not so this time.  My power went out at 8:39am on Wednesday morning.  It is 1:13pm on Sunday and it is still not on.  I have thrown out all the food in my fridge and freezer.  The smell from my dishwasher is not a pleasant one.  I have been fortunate to have a place to stay and am grateful. I am also really annoyed.  I have to start this work week off, a week with three soccer games, with no food, no meals made, and no word of when I will get my power back.

Oh, wait a minute. I did hear from a neighbor who heard from a neighbor who heard from a lineman that it could take UP TO A WEEK to get the parts for the transformer.  It is 2023 and I am getting information like a game of Telephone and that is crazy!  Austin Energy isn't answering their phone (automated stuff only), hasn't called me back as promised, and keeps sending general emails out saying they are still working on it.  92% have power restored and look at us go!  As one of the lowly 8%, I have to say not good enough.  Send that generalized crap out day one or maybe day two.  Day five? I would like a phone call from their president explaining to me why my little pocket of civilization can't have nice things like power and offering me an HEB gift card to compensate for all the food I had to toss.

This is going to happen again.  Global warming assures us that this will happen every year.  Every winter.  Ice will come and lay havoc to the world we know and our utilities HAVE to do better. I am not talking linemen, or lay people, or the ones out there in that ice fixing what they can.  The companies themselves need to stand up and say things!  No more generalized emails!  Say my name in them!  Refer to where I am so I don't think maybe I am crazy and am the only person without power.  A phone call.  From a human.  Saying crazy things like I am sorry, I know this is a pain in the ass, and what can we do.  Or even just why the power can still be out.

Austin Energy has to do more.  It does. It's communication is appalling.  If they ever called me back, I would tell them. Better yet, they should hire me. I will be the new Director of Communications and fix the fixable by being accountable and transparent.  I will give them all the words to say, they will say them, and those left without power won't be left wondering.  They can make a plan, know that there is an end in sight, and maybe, just maybe, still find some magic in a world covered with white.

Once a Bills Fan

When I moved to Texas in the 90’s, I moved my Buffalo Bills fanship with me.  My Buffalo roommates and I, along with relatives and friends, would meet every Sunday at Snuffers; ostensibly to root for the Bills in a bar that aired them, but mostly to drink underage beer and eat every-age cheese fries.  I don’t know if you know, but Cowboys fans are crazy and when my roommate and I wore our Bills’ shirts to Target to get supplies for the Superbowl, we were honked at, cursed at, told “for shame”, and even had cars swerve dangerously close to us.  We were shocked and hurried to get our errands done and return to the safety of our apartment and our little Bills’ nation.  I think it was the first time we learned it can be rough to be a Bills’ fan.

I will admit that there are a lot of years after that where I didn’t always catch a Bills’ game.  They are not often aired in Cowboy country.  When I moved from Dallas to Austin in the 2000’s, it was nice to get out of central Cowboys territory but I found people here rooted not only for the Cowboys but the Texans as well.  I was also busy raising small kids and again, rarely caught an actual game.  That didn’t matter; if anyone asked what team I was going for, my answer was always “the Bills!”.

I am proud of being from Buffalo. I tell my classes every year that I am from Buffalo and ask who else in the class is.  I have never had a student tell me they are from there but occasionally they will have a parent who is from Buffalo and I will get excited and say “Go Bills!” and they will look embarrassed or indifferent.  Fair enough; it is the first day of school and I teach Juniors and Seniors and they do not want to be seen sharing a moment with an over-eager English teacher.  Usually someone will say “Didn’t they lose like four Superbowls in a row?” and I will counter with “Didn’t they make four Superbowls in a row?” and this gives us a great time to talk about perspective.

This year, however, I have seen students at school with Bills’ gear on. I stop every single one of them and say “Nice shirt, sweatshirt, hat, etc.”  Kids in class will talk about who they have on their Fantasy Football teams and I always say that I hope they have Josh Allen.  They will either readily agree and talk to me about football or they will learn to whisper and sit farther away from my desk.  Yesterday, I may have spoken very loudly to a man across a restaurant to say “I love your shirt” because he was wearing a Bills’ shirt.  Later, I stopped to consider that maybe this man really just wanted a taco and coffee and not to be accosted by a strange woman talking about his shirt.   But for me, at that time, it was a very nice moment of being Bills’ fans together in a sea of confused Texans and it made me feel like home wasn’t so far away. 

If you are wearing something with this logo, I am 100% talking to you.

It’s easy to be a Bills’ fan this year; they look great and the games are exciting!  Except that one where they won and lost and won and lost 18 times in the last two minutes.  That one was more ulcer-inducing.  I can say confidently that I will always be a Bills fan and proud to be one.  I had a kid scoff earlier this week and say “I don’t know, Miss, think this is really their year?”  I answered yes immediately.  After a few seconds I added, “I always think it’s their year.  That’s what being a fan is all about.”

Time: It's On My Side

 You know what I had plenty of this past week?  Time.  I am truly grateful to have had the entire week off for Thanksgiving.  Soccer season starts tomorrow and that is three straight months of practices and bi-weekly games, and travel and, of course, doing it all in soccer weather.  (for those who don't know, soccer weather is anything 50 and below and accompanied by any form of precipitation from rain to grapple to snow) And I love it and yet there is so little time to do anything else after teaching, coaching, and normal grown-up life things like groceries, errands, and couch naps.  So what a relief and a reprieve to have this whole week of time.

I will admit I started the week off sad.  I put the girl on the train back to her dad and it was like sending away not only my daughter, but my really good friend.  And my heart twisted and ached in my chest but I had time to just be sad.  I had time to cry my sinuses out because I would miss her and I missed her brother and stupid holidays and sharing kids and wah.  I didn't just push it down and do my busy life; I had time to acknowledge the sadness and then, I had time to move on without it. 

I had time to spend Thanksgiving day with a friend I rarely have time to see. Our families spent so much time together when the kids were little and as I walked into her lovely, welcoming home to hug her, it was like no time at all had passed.  I had time to sit and visit and recollect and catch up and I had time to think how amazing it is to not be the one in charge of dinner on Thanksgiving.  I also had time to still miss my family but be absolutely mesmerized by another family's dynamics and to be so grateful that they invited me in to take part.  Well, to be fair, they invited me for dinner, I added the appreciation of family dynamics on my own.

I had time to watch a small child of my friend and realize that while I might miss some days when my own kids were small, I do not miss bedtime when they were small.  I had time to hike and see that Texas is really trying its best to produce some fall leaves and colors and smells.  I had time to watch all of Great British Baking Show and cry because those people are just so damn beautiful to each other and 1899 and I need someone else who has watched that to let me know so we can talk about that ending.

She's really trying.

I had time to start two books I will never finish and sigh about the fact that I can't remember the last time I read a book that really captured my attention.  I had time to choose to not check my work email because, it will be there on Monday, and now is not the time.  I had time to take my dog on very long walks in the middle of the day just because. I had time to nap. I had time to realize that there is an hour of the day where the sunlight coming through my patio door shows every piece of animal hair on the floor and learn to run errands during that hour.  I had time to get coffee with a friend and phone calls with relatives. I had time with my partner to just enjoy being with one another and laugh and rest and simply be.  

I had time to think about, rue, and then celebrate my life choices.  I had time to think about what I want to do with this life, my job, my words.  I had time to realize that there is never a straight-forward answer.  And the knowledge that I have time to figure it all out.  

I hope that everyone has some time in this busy season to, well, just have time.  Time for yourself, time for your thoughts, your feelings, your sense of self and purpose.  Time for a good or bad glass of wine and a bubble bath. Time for a warm cup of coffee in your cold hands.  Time with those you want to spend time with and less time for those you have to spend time with. Time for moments that make your heart ache and time for moments of pure joy and time for all the emotions in between.  Time to appreciate where you have been, where you are now, and what you have to look forward to.  And most of all, time to take a couch nap with a soft blanket, a bad dog, something British or football droning on the TV, and the knowledge that this is truly the very best use of your time.

Votes For Women

 This one starts with a confession: I almost didn't go to vote.  Gasp! I know.  I am very ashamed of myself for being so lazy and entitled and well, apathetic. The good thing is that I did go this morning (no lines) but I understand why turnout is so bad when it seems so critical that we be out there voting.

In my defense, I just moved and I am exhausted.  If you haven't moved in awhile, don't.  Just stay where you are, or leave everything behind, especially any pets, for the new owners. I swear that the next time I move, I am seeing what will fit in my big hiking backpack and that is all I will take with me.  You know what won't fit in there?  Baskets.  I don't know how I became the owner of so many ugly and non-functional baskets, but while I was moving three years ago, I stood in my garage with a friend who said "Lose some of these baskets."  And I did, but I still had a ridiculous number of unseemly baskets to lose this time as well.  

I am physically exhausted from heaving boxes and climbing stairs.  I am emotionally exhausted trying to remember why the hell I have so many baskets as well as culling my kid's childhood memories.  I decided that the Valentine's container made from a milk jug about 13 years ago wasn't moving but I cried as I put it in the dumpster.  I am also truly just tired because cats are assholes and they didn't take the move well; hiding and yowling all night long.  It is like having a newborn and, friends, I am way too old to have a newborn.

So moving tired plus working with apathetic teens put me in this place where I knew voting was happening, where I was liking people's statuses about voting, but never made me feel like I needed to go do it myself.  (Don't worry; I also hate myself as I reread that). And maybe my Zoloft is too high and I am not feeling as passionate as I should be about the state of the nation and world, but if it wasn't this high, I probably could not do this job every day.  What a modern-day dilemma!

This morning though, as I sat watching the news and seeing the voting coverage, the guilt and shame settled in.  Not so much that I was frozen or indifferent, but enough that I started to think.  I thought about the clip from Iron-Jawed Angels that I show each year that has Hilary Swank as Alice Paul being force-fed in prison.  For wanting to vote.  Force-fed in prison for wanting to vote and here I was on my comfortable couch, sipping coffee, and trying to see if I had time before work to go because I didn't want to end up standing in a line.  (yep, hating myself again.)

As I teach and preach each year, these women sacrificed so very much. They faced so much vitriol and hate and persecution, yet they stood.  They marched.  They chanted.  They kept the fires going in front of the White House.  They sat through prison.  They endured torture.  They did this for us.  

If you are sitting on your couch, hating yourself because you also have been lost in life and haven't gone, it's okay.  Shake off the guilt and go.  Early voting til 7pm tonight and voting all day on Tuesday.  We don't have time for guilt.  Just acknowledge that life is exhausting, carve out 10 minutes somewhere, and go vote.  Vote for yourself and for your daughters, but really, you are also voting for them.

Victorian-Era Women and COVID-Suffering Me (say it fast like "American Woman.....stay away from meeeeee")

This is me.  Or how I am picturing myself as I lie upon my couch upon day three of COVID isolation and suffering.  What difference is there between myself and Victorian-era heroine enduring some terrible, undiagnosed illness and left in a constant state of repose while her active brain scrambles to make sense of her state, the world, and the nature outside her window?  None. Obviously.  Right now we are all so weary of COVID that we don't even stop to remember that people with it can still be so, so sick and it's easily dismissed and Victorian-age women were dismissed well, for being women.  Honestly, not one week before I got COVID, I know I said something stupid like "Haven't we all had it and not known it by now?".  I was a fool!!

As I started comparing myself to some Jane Austen character, I came upon more similarities.  Victorian women were often gasping for breath and faint and I too am currently gasping for breath and faint! True that in their case it was their whale-bone corsets and I haven't put on a bra since Saturday, but that is the only difference.  

Victorian-era women suffered from all sort of mental woes because they were expected to look pretty and play a role. My mental health is also suffering as I sit with only myself for company, feel I am going to be sick every day the rest of my life, and find all this time alone perfect for an existential crisis.  There is nothing quite like waking up fever-soaked, wondering where you are, and then instantly wondering why and how you are here.  Like on this Earth. 

Victorian-era women busied themselves with small things and projects that appeared dainty and didn't require much physical effort: painting, needlework, letter-writing.  I am also busying myself with small things!  Napping, moving from my bed to my couch to lie listlessly, and occasionally sitting upright.  Exhausting work.

Confined to their homes and even to their beds, Victorian-era women lived for an incoming letter full of news of the world outside what they could see from their window.  Their small worlds coming alive with the latest gossip, fashion, and perhaps a nod to a forbidden love.  Overjoyed with what the words on the page contained, she would smile or gasp, and lay a hand to her forehead while gazing out the window and seeing a whole new world.  I find myself listening for the "ping" on my computer announcing new email.  Sadly, I have only found a lot of "do these things!" in my email along with "Miss.  Can you grade my late work? I know it was late but you haven't graded it."  I press my hand to my forehead, shut the offensive screen, and stare out the window instead.  I still see my boxed-in patio and the siding missing from the water heater closet courtesy of the ice storm of 2021.  God, I really need a moor out my window.

I will say that today is the first day I woke up and felt slightly better and can see my world as a suffering Victorian-era woman coming to a close.  Writing this has helped me feel better because writing always makes me feel better.  Writing helped them feel better because it gave them a voice in a world that kept telling them to "shush".  Yuck!  Give me COVID, vaccines, no corsets, and a world I can speak loudly in any day. You know how I feel about being told to shush.  I would still like a moor out my window though.

The Mountains Are Calling

Having just returned from the adventure of a lifetime, I find I am having trouble articulating how amazing this entire experience was.  I hiked a mountain!!!  I swam in a snow-fed alpine lake!  I pooped in the woods!  I survived a bear attack!!  All of this is true and only one is slightly embellished based on an irrational fear and how I interpreted the situation, but more on that to come.

Our trip started out at the REI store in Denver and I must have looked as nervous as I felt because the guide told me as I walked in that “not to worry, we would have sandwiches to eat before we left.”  Which, while I am always concerned about food, actually wasn’t my main concern at that time.  I do like that my nervousness presented as hunger and not uncontrollable sweating or crying.  At the store, I met the other hikers, learned some quick basics, ate the promised sandwiches and then departed for Rocky Mountain National Park.  It was about a two hour drive and small talk was made and silence was heard and the guides pointed out interesting things in the landscape as we got closer.  Oh, and that thudding noise? Just my heart pounding in my ears.

That first night we camped among other campers and had flush toilets in walking distance.  We learned how to set up our tents, how to dig a hole to poop in it later, how everything that had any odor had to be in a bear canister, but don’t worry about bears, there are hardly any bears in the park.  Hmm, I thought.  One guide stayed behind to make dinner and the other guide took us on a quick walk to the lake where the sun was setting and moose was grazing in the water.  Picture perfect and sublime!  The air was cool but not cold, the company was nice, and the scenery was more than my eyes could take in.  We walked back to a full dinner with a Hatch Green Chile Stew, carnitas, and cornbread.  We didn’t help cook it, we didn’t help clean it up. We offered and were turned away.  These guides took care of everything!  EVERYTHING! With a full stomach and happy heart, I went to bed in a tent I put up by myself!  I was like a pioneer!  A pioneer who had people cooking for her and a thermarest and cushy sleeping bag, but a pioneer nonetheless.  Laura Ingalls Wilder and her wagon had nothing on me!

I set this up!

The next day was the hike up the mountain day.  We had a good breakfast, made ourselves a sandwich for lunch and chose from unlimited snacks and coffee things to take with us.  I was never, ever hungry on this trip.  We also repacked our bags and there was some sweating, me, swearing, again me, and adjusting as we made room for tents, bear canisters and camp gear. As I dug my hand down and pulled it back out along my pack, my Fitbit band snapped off and I almost wept.  How was I going to brag about what I did if I couldn’t count my steps?? I shoved it in my pocket and was thrilled later when I looked at it and it was still counting steps, just not my heart rate.  I didn’t need it to tell me my heart was working; felt that just fine on my own.

We drove to our next stop and after parking truck and trailer, learned how to use trekking poles.  I might never hike without them again.  They saved me more than once from a slip or a fall and when I got lazy legs, they were there to help.  And then we were off!  Up a mountain!  And it was hard, hard hiking.  There was a great trail but it was a long one and we gained 2000 ft of altitude over the day which makes your heart pound and you sweat and you are just working so, so hard.  The best words I heard over the course of the day were “Packs off break!” and we would take our 35+ pound packs off and sit and eat and drink and marvel at where we were.  I will be honest and say that sometimes I marveled at the wonders around me as I moved forward and sometimes, I just looked at my poles ahead of my feet and the feet of the person ahead of my poles and inched forward.  It was about six hours at a slow pace and my Fitbit would like you to know, 26,000 steps that day and about 230 floors.  I should have done more cardio to train, but my legs held up just fine.

We made it to camp and whooped and shouted and set up tents.  My brain was no longer working.  It felt like it kept making my body move but I couldn’t understand what people were saying and I couldn’t find words to use back. I wanted to lie down and sleep and never move again, but there was a lake to see and so I shoved my stinky feet back in my boots and went.  Oh!  These alpine lakes!!  With mountains all around and snow on the ground and everything so green and lush.  We went back to another amazing dinner and I ate and ate some more and found I really could no longer stay sitting up. I thought I would go back to my tent and be instantly asleep, but as I laid there, the day caught up to me and I was physically exhausted and began to worry about the fact I had no cell service if the kids needed me and the fact that I had not taken any time to worry about mountain lions all day long.  The altitude and exertion had me a little fragile but I eventually went to sleep.

The next day was a day-hike day!  Leave the tents set up, leave the heavy pack behind, grab some water and go.  I felt so light without that pack!  Everything was much easier.  We went down 1000 ft and then up 1000 ft to a new lake.  We walked over snow to get there and as soon as we saw the lake, we started running to get closer to it.  We took off our sweaty, stinky shirts and pants and ran into that lake with our underwear and sports bras on.  I would like to take right now to inform you that I had on the largest underwear in the history of the world that never once gave me a wedgie or moved while hiking, but the least attractive when it came to alpine lake swimming.  I mentioned the snow, right?  That lake was one step above freezing and we ran into it shrieking and splashing.  It dropped off suddenly and I did sink all of myself under and in that moment had a moment of true joy.  I was ageless, weightless, exhilarated and so very alive.  It could be the shock I caused my body by submerging it in a freezing lake, but it presented to me as freedom, living, and bliss.  We sunned ourselves on rocks and ate sandwiches and absorbed the sun and the day and all we had done.  We walked back down 1000 ft and up 1000ft to camp and to another amazing dinner and a peaceful sleep in our tents.

Swam in this!!

The next morning we prepared to leave.  It seemed to soon.  Until the guides told me that A BEAR CAME THROUGH OUR CAMP!!  I survived a bear attack by sleeping though it!  We all swear we heard something but blamed it on our fellow campers. (This was much like the night they fed us curried lentils and quinoa).  In all honesty, the bear knocked over the bear canisters and ran off with a mesh-cooking bag.  It really did want nothing to do with us.  I don’t care about that; I care that I SURVIVED A BEAR ATTACK!  

We started with our heavy packs, slightly lighter, and made our way back down the mountain.  Going down was easier, but it was still alot of work.  We saw so many waterfalls; each one different and beautiful.  At our last waterfall, our guides (have I mentioned what amazing women they were?!), suggested we take ten minutes and just think about what we accomplished and saw on our time on the mountain.  I sat on a rock off to the side and watched the water careen over rocks and bubble and ate and felt so very accomplished.  I had done a million things on this trip, with strangers, that I had never done before.  I had seen a moose, a marmot, geese, chipmunks, mule deer, and elk.  I had done things that I was scared to do and survived a bear attack. Two things began to stand out to me that would change how I do this life and as they repeated themselves in my head, I wanted to laugh and cry and hold it in and for once, just be quiet.  

My two things are this: no longer do I have the goal of hitting a certain age, giving up, going round, and wearing snap-up house dresses from Walmart.  I want to be that 70 year old woman on the trail with my sunhat and BFF and poles and beginning another adventure.  The other thing?  I am capable of so much more than I think.  And I am going to take these two things, the adventure I experienced, the freedom I felt, and work to take more trips like this and to live my very best life.  Plus, having survived one bear attack, I think the odds of another one are much smaller.