Sunday, May 31, 2009

Filling my Boots: May 31 Weekly Update

Good Morning,

I'm up early on a Sunday morning and thought I'd start the day by writing my weekly update. The biggest news of the week is that I sent off the deposit to join the 2010 Peak Freaks Everest Expedition. I'd watched the 2010 season and knew I was ready to commit to climbing Everest once again. The Peak Freaks team was rapidly filling and it was time to jump off the diving board once again. This time I was pretty sure there was a big pool of water to land in (or at least lots of welcoming arms to catch me) and I left into the void of tackling another big dream.

I've set up a Facebook group for the 2010 climb and will continue to send out a weekly email so folks can come along on the entire journey. For me, the preparations and training are as much a part of the climb as the time on the mountain. When I wrote a manuscript about climbing Denali, I called it, "A Year on Denali." Now as I approach Everest once more, I can see that it will truly be "A Year on Everest." To join the group: http://www.facebook.com/photo_search.php?oid=102972039777&view=user -/group.php?gid=102972039777&ref=nf

I was having fun last night assigning fun officer roles in the Facebook group to folks who did and will likely play significant roles in the lead up to Everest 2. One of the folks is Linda Cox. I named her as the "Official Expedition Painter." After my first attempt, she heard me speak. She was learning to paint at the time (her own Everest) and she wanted to help retire my Everest debt and raise funds for a second). She was struck by one of the images in my talk and asked if she could paint it. She did a beautiful job and the painting was unveiled a little over a year ago at my book launch.

The painting now hangs in my "mountain gallery" right below a sweeping view of Everest and surrounding peaks. I look at the painting several times per day and immerse myself in the waves of feelings that are evoked from that time. We called the painting, "Journey's End" as it showed my boots plunked beside my bed in the departure/arrival village of Lukla. Now as I embark on my return to the mountain, the image is both one of departure but also one of beginning. My boots and socks are ready to be put on once again. The famous quote from Lao Tzu, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," guides me frequently.

Especially if I am overwhelmed, which these days, is an easy thing to be. I had the privilege of listening to two eminent speakers this week, David Suzuki and Bill Clinton. Though worlds apart in many ways, they both wove messages about needing to come together as a world community to both work for social justice and the environment. Both addressed the desperate need to combat climate change and the narrowing time line for doing so. It would have been easy to leave both talks down, depressed and overwhelmed at the task of saving the planet. Instead, I left feeling committed to taking the next step, a small step, any step. Turning off a light. Rinsing out a disgusting plastic jar rather than simply tossing it. Joining a local organic veggie co-op.

In my presentations, I often say, "If I look at the entire mountain, I am instantly overwhelmed and want to quit. The task looks too big." When I was in Africa climbing Kilimanjaro, they asked me, "TA, how do you eat an elephant?" I replied, "Well I am mostly a vegetarian." They said, "If you were going to eat an elephant?" I shrugged my shoulders. They sighed, "Bite by bite."

Sometime when I am climbing at altitude, it's all I can do to bargain with myself for ten more steps. Then I make seven and pull up to catch my breath. Then I ask for seven steps. Maybe the rock that's five feet away. I make that and commit to the bamboo wand that is just ahead. Step by step. Sometimes I can only know where the very next step is coming from. And sometimes I don't. I just have to will it to happen.

So that is how I will take on Everest 2010. Bite by bite. Step by step. I'm going to try to have more fun this time around. Laugh more. Make better connections on my team. Rest more. Talk less. I am lacing up those boots once again and stepping out on a trail that will lead me to more adventures than I can imagine. It's really how we make anything happen, isn't it?

Thanks for coming along once again.

In the meantime, training for Elbrus is going pretty well. Got a few hikes and swims and strength training sessions in amid a busy week. It's been lovely to have a weekend at home with rain to inspire me to declutter my house (and my mind).

Thanks,

TA

PS…To donate to Elbrus: Climbing for My Dad, please click on the following link: http://www.cpcn.org/honour_form.asp

Click the "In Honour" button and please fill out "Elbrus: Climbing for my Dad." For the acknowledgment card, please use my address (I don't want to beam out my parent's address for all to see in cyberspace). I'll forward all the acknowledgments to my dad.

TA Loeffler
7 Wood Street
St. John's, NL
A1C 3K8

Thanks in advance of your support of this worthy cause. If you are uncomfortable with donating online, please click this link for a downloadable form that you can mail in: http://www.cpcn.org/03_how_to_donate.htm. Remember that all funds raised go directly to the Canadian Prostate Cancer Network (none go towards paying the cost of the climb.)

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Happy 2-4!

Just one month to my birthday…I do like celebrating it twelve times instead of just once. Thanks for all your kind support of Elbrus: Climbing for my Dad. It means a lot to me and I know it will touch my dad’s heart. He wrote to tell me that he doesn’t cry often but he welled up pretty good when he learned of me climbing Elbrus in his honour. Please consider donating to the Canadian Prostate Cancer Network by clicking on this link: http://www.cpcn.org/honour_form.asp

Click the “In Honour” button and please fill out “Elbrus: Climbing for my Dad.” For the acknowledgment card, please use my address (I don’t want to beam out my parent’s address for all to see in cyberspace). I’ll forward all the acknowledgments to my dad.

I had a great day out off Salmonier Line at the Brother Brennan Outdoor Centre. I was assisting in a letterboxing lesson and then did an orienteering course sponsored by the St. John’s Orienteering Club. It’s great navigation practice to read the map and find controls using tiny changes in terrain and “catch features.” A catch feature is something that is almost impossible to miss and stops you from going to far (a road, a pond, a ridge, etc.). We also use “hand rails.” Terrain or human made features that you can follow along to get from point A to point B (trails, edges of vegetation, roads, etc.).

As I find myself struggling to find clarity about how to unfold the next 11 months that will take me back to Everest, I long for catch features and handrails. Each day provides new intuitive hits, some ration logic, new information, and other assorted data that mixes into my “snow globe” mind. As I hiked this afternoon, I wondered what spiritual/life handrails look like and how to recognize them…some days I think I know how to easily recognize them, others not so.

What I do know is that life is pretty full with teaching, training, raising awareness of prostate cancer, and climbing Elbrus until July. In the remaining interstitial spaces, I’m trying to do some home maintenance, look for a garage, garden, and get my weekly updates out on time. Hiking outside today showed me that my ankle was coming along slowly but that the injury has set me back quite a ways. I try not to panic when I realize my aerobic fitness isn’t where it’s been in the past. I keep telling myself that I have plenty of capacity despite the loss of six weeks of activity and that mental strength can make up for a lot. I thought of my dad often today-knowing he has had to adjust to being able to do less than he could in the past. His grace in accepting this continues to teach me.

Since curfew is in six minutes, I’ll close for now and catch you in a week.

TA

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Elbrus: Climbing for my Dad

Greetings from Victoria Day,

We call it the 2-4 Weekend in Newfoundland since Queen Victoria’s birthday was on the 24th. This year the 24th actually fell on a weekend but we’re having the holiday the weekend before, go figure! I’m grateful to have a day to catch my breath. I seem to find it harder these days to get everything into a day that I think should. I’m back teaching and trying to train a bit each day so I’m falling into bed a wee bit tired.


I spent the weekend at a Buddhist study program where we are learning about what are called the Four Dignities. It’s a study of energies and actions. At one point we were studying the interaction of time, season, and natural elements. I had an “a ha” moment when we were discussing the various energies of water, fire, air, earth, and wind. As I’ve reflected on my time in the Grand Canyon, I realize I have been missing the water. It had been awhile since I spent a significant amount of time on/beside/wit
h water. The Colorado River is an amazing body of water that models its ability to flow, dance, march, pulsate, and churn down it’s course.

At one point on our backpacking trip, Ann Marie and I spent hours trying to find words to describe the sights and sounds of a Grand Canyon rapid. Each sentence we tried wasn’t quite it. We wanted the cacophonous roar, the frothy white, the unceasing journey, the dancing spray…obviously I’m still looking for the words. But I touched back into the sensation of being at the head of rapid slipping gently on the pooled pillow of water energy seemingly unmoving while at the same time careening towards the unknown in the chaotic froth below. We would do our best to be set up well and then basically it was ride out whatever comes.

Speaking of “whatever comes”, I had a wonderful conversation with my Grandmother (Oma) last weekend on Mother’s Day. I was saying how amazing it was to still have my Oma and she said, “Whatever comes, comes!” I said, “Did you ever think you would live to be 91?” She answered, “Oh no, I thought I would be dead at 60 since everyone in my family died early.”

I asked, “What do y
ou think the secret of your long life is?” She thought a moment and replied, “I walked everywhere. And I never overeat. I eat my veggies. And have some sweets every now and again. I never hit the bottle much. Though schnapps are a good cure for an upset stomach and take everything as it comes.” This from my Oma would has been declaring to me since I was ten that she was dying, who can still out walk me, and who was famous for carrying heavy cement bags at the age of 70.

At Christmas, I dropped over to see Oma. She said, “I’ll pour you some schnapps.” This tradition first began when I was six and visiting. She would take me down to their basement bar and pour me a small sip of some overly sweet cocktail and regale me with stories. She went over to her liquor cabinet-she had to bed over to get look into it. She had no schnapps, only brandy. So she poured me one into a snifter. I said, “Oma, aren’t you going to have one.” She said, “Oh noooo, the ladies downstairs might think I am an alcoholic.”

A little while later, she tottered back over the cabinet and grabbed the bottle and took a swig right out of the bottle. I said, “Oma, I could get you a glass.” She replied, “No, it’s OK, I just needed a little schlooka (German word for swig that I have no idea how to spell) of brandy since the world is just a bit fuzzy. I think it’s from bending over and this will make me feel better.” “OK, Oma whatever you wish,” I said raising my glass towards her. Oma is my dad’s mother.

Elbrus: Climbing for my Dad

In six weeks, I’ll head over to Russia to climb Mount Elbrus. My Opa (Oma’s husband) was a prisoner of war in Russia so I will think of him as I travel there. I’ll also be thinking of my dad, Heinz. When I think back to being a young girl, growing up in the seventies, I am so grateful to my dad. He included me in all of his activities. Looking through our family photo albums, I see pictures of me seeing beside him on a garage roof with my plastic hammer at age four. I see us changing off the winter tires of the car. We cast lead bullets and then shot them from historic black powder rifles. He taught me to clean fish and always select the right tool for the job. He coached me in water skiing and snow skiing, SCUBA diving, and throwing. My dad expected me to get my work done before I played and he knew I was strong and capable of lifting lots.

I thank my dad for all of this and more because I know those experiences are woven together in me forming the weft on which the confidence I have to undertake my adventures is woven. It is the skill I have in using tools and operating machinery that supports my technical skills and creation of climbing systems. It is his vision that life should include a little of this and a little of that, that inspired me to be a generalist with skills and knowledge in many activities rather than just one.

My dad, like my mom, has had to struggle with a cancer journey. He actually was diagnosed first with prostate cancer and mom was diagnosed with breast cancer six months later. My dad has endured surgery, hormone therapy and chemotherapy. Throughout the years, he’s managed to keep his sense of humour and ability to face whatever comes. It is time for me now to lend some strength and confidence back to my dad. My dad’s birthday and Father’s Day are both in June.

In honour of my dad, Heinz, and in honour of all fathers, I am dedicating my climb of Elbrus to my dad. I’m calling it, “Elbrus: Climbing for My Dad.” I would like to raise awareness of prostate cancer and to raise funds for the Canadian Prostate Cancer Network (CPCN). This non-profit association provides “The Voice for Prostate Cancer” in Canada and offers men and their families support for the journey of prostate cancer. I am speaking to their national conference here in St. John’s in September about the life lessons I’ve learned from both climbing and my dad.

Given the current economic climate, I’ve chosen a moderate goal of raising $1000 for the CPCN. Again like Pumori: Climb for Awareness, none of the money will go towards climbing expenses.

To donate to Elbrus: Climbing for My Dad, please click on the following link: http://www.cpcn.org/honour_form.asp

Click the “In Honour” button and please fill out “Elbrus: Climbing for my Dad.” For the acknowledgment card, please use my address (I don’t want to beam out my parent’s address for all to see in cyberspace). I’ll forward all the acknowledgments to my dad.

TA Loeffler
7 Wood Street
St. John’s, NL
A1C 3K8

Thanks in advance of your support of this worthy cause. I just made the first donation to the climb. If you are uncomfortable with donating online, please click this link for a downloadable form that you can mail in: http://www.cpcn.org/03_how_to_donate.htm.

I know by dedicating my efforts on Mount Elbrus to my dad and all dads, I will be infused with new energy and focus for the climb. Speaking of which, I should get off my chair and start training. Have a good week,

TA