magical

yesterday turned out to be unexpectantly magical.

its been a couple of weeks of hardly any work for me, which is beginning to make me itchy for something valuable to do with my time. and unfortunately, the boy has been pretty busy with work and twice-weekly office visits, so i haven’t had him to play with me.

apparently yesterday i looked rather resigned to my fate to make up work for myself, and just as he was about to head out the door to work, he stopped, looked at me and asked, “hey…wanna….go for a walk today?” and what started as a humdrum sort of day turned into something wonderful.

it was about 1:30 when we headed out the door to drive to the scottish woods entrance to the greenbelt. my previous experience with the 1/4 mile 250-foot descent (and eventual ascent) has been quite painful – i am really in pathetic cardiovascular shape, despite the fact that i can usually keep my weight in a healthy range. my experience with such trails usually leaves me on the verge of passing out, with my chest burning, very little air getting in, and a great distaste for the exersion.

but today, i was trying to be optimistic 🙂 it had been 5 years since my last attempt, and i would say i am in relatively better shape. and the whole way down, i was mentally preparing myself for the eventual up-ness.

you know (most of you do), i am not at all a hike-for-the-challenge, bike-for-the-best-time, push-myself-in-any-recreational-sport-on-a-competative-level girl. when i “hike” the greenbelt, i am doing it to enjoy holding hands with the boy and seeing pretty things.

on the flip-side, i also don’t want to be the girl who refuses to do such things and/or bitches the entire time she is coerced into it. my entire childhood is riddled with outdoor experiences where my mother struggled (and bitched) with any unpaved terrain. there was no hopping gleefully across boulders in a stream for us – it was forbidden. any hike with gravel and grade left my mother clutching fearfully for my father or trees or any semi-stationary object, often hurting herself in some way. my earliest memories are of the outdoors being something you observe, not explore.

and when the boy started dragging me down steep declines, into unexplored paths, across uneven terrain, i reacted in the only way i had been shown. i hesitated, i bitched, i refused, and in short, i was not at all game. even as i did this, i didn’t *want* to be this, and over my 6 years with david, he has accomplished astounding things with my willingness. he taught me to love camping, he taught me how to swim and ride a bike, he encouraged me to put myself out there in ways – physical ways – i never got as a kid.
and that, combined with things like yoga that increased my strength and balance, have gone a long way to make me more the girl i want to be: the girl who is up for a semi-adventurous (but not gear-requiring) hike in a pretty place 🙂

we were delighted to see some water flowing along the first part of the trail, though it dried out by the time we got to sculpture falls. we continued down until almost twin falls, and decided to hike up the dry river bed on the way back up, which was much more like hopping rocks in places, requiring all that good balance and confidence i have gathered since last living in austin. it was a sunny, cool, breezy, beautiful day for the walk, and because it was a weekday, the trail was really quiet. it was like out own little slice of austin.

we probably hiked between 4 and 5 miles altogether, and i was pleasantly surprised to make it back up the trailhead to the road with a much more mild dsicomfort than the last time. instead of “oh my god, i might just die here”, it was more like “wow. i am fucking exhausted. food. i need food.”

we came home, ate spaghetti, and collapsed on the couch 🙂

and while enjoying a muscle-mandated couchpotato-ness, we finished watching this great pbs frontline series i bittorrented last week: From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians. it was so well done, discussing the life of jesus and the emergence of the early church with religious scholars, archeologists, etc – very historical, very analytical from a “what we know from history” and “this is the audience that X book in the bible was written for”. i highly recommend it. the boy, having extensive religious and ancient civ history background also thought it was very well done.