Winter

Winter has finally arrived. 

Two days ago, I sat on the porch of the cabin barefooted writing; today the temperature has dropped 20 full degrees and keeps dropping. Snow covers everything. It is a blustery, frigid cold, with the kind of wind that knocks down trees. Yesterday, the dogs and I almost turned right onto a trail, but some part of me decided against it. As we drove past, a large part of a tree crashed down loudly onto the forest floor. It sounded like a gunshot as it bounced indifferently off the very trail we narrowly decided against going down.

Days seem to slip away from me. A trip to town for straw and then strawing dog houses and keeping a fire going in the wood stove encompassed most of today.  

I think some primitive part of my brain kicks in up here. I seem to think about two things often: warmth and food. Things like showering and how I present myself to the outside world take a backseat to simple survival. Chopping firewood, making and keeping fires going, chopping meat, strawing houses, hunkering down...

Thursday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with Mike and Cathy, who own the cabin I am renting. This afternoon, neighbors Jim and Denise invited me for Thanksgiving dinner. Their cabin is simple and functional, with a steep slanted roof for snow to easily slide from. It is warm, with one main room and a wood stove. Like most of the cabins here, the wood stove is the central focal point in the room. 

I am continually impressed with the frugality and inventive functionality of mushers’ homes. Function precedes aesthetics. Here, Gortex bibs and snow clothes hang from PVC piping dangling from the open beam ceiling, along side of pictures of the star athletes (the dogs) in racing action. Next to a coffee pot (a mushing necessity), a clothesline might be draped across the room with dog booties or wet gloves pinned up to dry.

I’ve eaten meals and slept in quite a few homes of people who’ve opened their doors to me having not known me an hour previously. During training and race season, their humble homes turn into dens full of tired mushers snoozing haphazardly in random places, like bears content during a winter’s nap.

There is lots of cabin hopping going on since winter’s arrival. The cabins of several key mushers in the area are stopping points in an elaborate system of trails linking this cabin to the next. I suppose this is how people survive these long winters.

Last evening Michael and I traversed through the wild, windy frigid night along back roads with the intent of heading to the McMillan tavern popular among the handlers at the Stielstra’s – The Shanty. We stopped quickly at Al Hardman’s cabin to see if aspiring musher, Danny Glen and her husband Bill wanted to join us for drinks. A few beers and good conversation found two hours gone. It seemed much cozier to stay in Al’s cabin around the wood stove than head back out to The Shanty.

I think winter is here to stay. We are all blanketed in a cover of white, not only from the snow, but also the gray-white expanse that is the U.P. sky. The sun is replaced by gracious hospitality of those who live here.

White ground, white sky...

I am thankful for my mushing family – for friends who I feel more akin to than most of my own family. I am thankful for the hospitality of those who live here and only hope I can return their kindness some way.

“It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance . . . I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.” – Annie Dillard

I do some of my best thinking while making necklines. 

Some have been critical of my decision to take this sabbatical in the woods. They

ask when I’m going to stop “hiding out in Michigan,” or offer (mostly unsolicited) advice and suggest gently that I consider if I am “running away.”

What they don’t know is that I have been running away from myself for the last ten years, searching for peace outside of myself: through a marriage that didn’t work, through a job that didn’t last, through pretending to be something I am not.

Here in this cabin, I am no longer “hiding out.” I am authentic.  I am more completely and contentedly my self here than anywhere. I have little, and yet, I feel more grateful and satisfied with my life than I ever did when I was climbing some proverbial corporate ladder. When you strip away the clutter, gluttony and overabundance of life in America in 2012, you see the beauty and grace in simplicity. The less I have, the more complete I feel.

But, what I miss the most – what hurts the most – is the space between my two girls and me.

 

Last night, while weaving the black six millimeter poly rope into the small “O” shaped tethers that will attach to 10 of my best friend’s collars on the gangline, I thought about my children. My human children.

In June of 1999, I spent most of my days (and nights, it seems) walking the floors of my apartment on the backside of the Teton Range in Victor, Idaho with an intolerant, wailing infant Sophie.  I sometimes held her to my breast for hours just to have some quiet from her incessant crying. 

My Sophie Queen is now 13 1/2 and has blossomed overnight into a beautiful young woman who I am proud of. She is funny, sensible, smart and beautiful. 

Sophie's summer portrait, 2012

In May of 2004, Elise was born,  and she's always been my spunky, fiery little strawberry blond. My girls are totally different, but both beautiful and make me proud.

Elise's fall portrait 2012

I am a lot of things, including a mother. Why is it sometimes the things we are conflict with one another?

  

Sometimes it is necessary to heal ourselves before we can be good parents, role models, and providers.

I pray every night that God keeps my girls safe and happy while I am away. I do not take this time lightly. I am using it to get strong, realign my soul with my life, and come clean from ten years of running. Stopping here in this cabin in the woods, I am cracked open by God’s grace, and have come clean from pretense.

Those who criticize or judge I have no use for. Be my friend, or be nothing at all.

*                                    *                                    *                                    *                        *

Today is ridiculously warm. The sun emerged from its nest of clouds and warmed us up to 62 whopping degrees. It’s been a lazy Sunday. I spent time sitting out in the dog yard beside each dog singing to and loving on them and relaxing in the mild temperatures. 

Nova play bowing with me

We did a hard, slow run on Friday and the dogs felt it the next day. Tomorrow we're back on the trail. 

With love from the U.P. - I miss my girls! Love you Sophie and Elise! 

Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!

In a space as small as this, function dictates form.

I have no cupboards, but I have an oven which has become a damned good storage space. I have no closet, but these magnificent, huge beams cross the entire width of the cabin. Some rope tired between two beams, and voila! Instant closet!

my "closet"

my bed, and the wood stove

Function dictates form: antlers make a great hat rack

Today, I drove to Manistique for a free chest freezer for the 50 pound blocks of meat I received recently for the dogs. Chunks of meat are chopped off with an axe and thawed in buckets...and once again, function dictates form: the buckets go in the shower.

Yes, buckets of beef thaw in my shower.

A word about the showering process.

The small six gallon water heater

It is far easier to live modestly in this small cabin that most would likely think. Even with a six gallon water heater, I've not once missed the large farm house I left in Ohio. I did worry about showering with my long crazy curly hair though. But it's been simple.

Step 1. Heat the cabin well with a toasty fire in the wood stove. This is important :)

Step 2. Get naked

Step 3. Turn the water on. I already know the exact location on the knobs for the perfect temperature quickly. Get everything - including my long crazy hair - wet

Step 4. Turn the water off. lather up the crazy hair

Step 5. Turn water on and rinse the crazy hair. Conditioner.

Step 6. Turn water off. Lather up everything else.

Step 7. Turn water back on and rinse everything off.

Sometimes I stand there for a few minutes of bliss under the hot water that remains. But mostly, I am thankful every day for a hot shower and to be clean, and thankful for a lesson in simplicity.

Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!

My crazy 10-dog team stopped for water on a training run

Updates from the north woods: "Weather changes moods" - Kurt Cobain

The dogs and I have been here nine days as of this posting, and have begun to settle into a rhythm. I haven’t seen a sunny day since I left Ohio, though, and this morning I woke with a heavy heart partially because of the constant rain, I think. It’s common for the skies to be cloudy this time of year in the Upper Peninsula, but this rain and lack of sunlight is kinda getting to me. 

The dogs LOVE the overcast cloudy skies, though. 

Tosh, quite comfortable under the cloudy U.P. skies

Everyone looks great, and they're in their element on these trails. Tosh has been showing good focus on our runs, and with lots of leaders in his background, I decided to put him up front for a mile of our 10 mile run yesterday. He was next to his dad for guidance and did great!

Fifteen month old, Tosh (white) lead for a bit yesterday with his dad next to him

Note worthy:

1. I've gotten good at mastering the art of showering with a six gallon hot water tank. I am thankful to have a shower at all, because at first, I didn't. I received a call from Mike Murphy, purveyor of the small cabin I am living in for the season shortly before I left Ohio saying that the hot water tank in the cabin was kaput. Thankfully, my friend Michael Betz, who was on his way down state from St. Paul, picked up a small hot water tank from craigslist and stopped over on his way down to help mushers and friends, Jerry and Ali Papke for the season. It's really not as bad as I thought it would be showering with such a small capacity of water, and makes me realize just how much water we use and waste every day of our lives in "normal" society.

2. I've also gotten good at the art of managing a fire in a small wood stove in a way that I don’t roast myself out. This was far more challenging than learning to shower with a small amount of water. The first few nights, I created (inadvertently) a veritable sauna in the little cabin. With all of the cold rain, warmth was a welcome relief...but I had to eventually open the window to breathe. I've gotten better at it now, though.

3. Those who know me know I have long been a vegetarian. Until I come up to the U.P. I'm not sure what has happened to me, but I have turned into a genuine meat eating machine like the dogs! Something about being outside working in the cold makes me crave meat. Gracie, my little house dog, has gotten really good at sniffing out the beef and begging. 

Gracie says "Where's the beef!?"

Today the dogs had a day off from running. We woke up to a beautiful dusting of snow that made it feel like winter. Tomorrow, we're back on the trail. 

As always,

....from da U.P. :)