kilimanjaro: the metaphor of the mountain

with the rain delaying my run, i've finally finished posting my account of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. i'm glad i happened to look back at it today. it has been a tough week, i have struggled to come out of the dark side, to put out some positive energy, appreciate what i have without coveting everyone else too much.

yeah, i'm still going to struggle with that a bit, but having my own words thrust back in my face doesn't hurt:

"Can i hold on to the metaphor of the mountain? it is impossible not to see the implications of it in my own life. simply jogging, i am reminded- how can i quit now, this is not as hard as Kili, not as cold or hot, i can breathe, i am not empty. but of course even further the comparison is unavoidable. i am an actress- unemployed for quite a while, frustrated and more often depressed by my comparative successes to my friends and colleagues and family.

i see around me what i have sacrificed, the relationships, the security. but am i yet empty? and even when i have given everything, does that mean my feet stop? do i turn back, beaten, or do i go on? reaching my highest peak, battered physically, mentally, and perhaps only half brained, but reaching it some day all the same..."

read it here: shangala-bangala

monkey fighting snakes

mother and john just found this copperhead in the house at the mountains where poor chui and i just were.

that thing could have eaten the baby!!

it is clearly stalking poor squeaker's kitty litter.

boone

how sad that the weekend is already over! i love the mountains. but even more than that i love going to Brooks' Mountain in boone, nc. i've been going for as long as i can remember, literally. first to the Register's cabin and then to our own cabin. slowly, all the cabins on Brooks' Mountain have been taken over by mother's friends.

it's a good plan. see in order to spend as much time as possible up there, first mother and john built a cabin, then stocked the liquor cabinet to smooth the edges, then they got a satellite to watch the basketball games, then wifi to do work, then put friends next door to drink with.


my younger siblings all got to have their 16th birthday parties at our cabin, with gasp a co-ed sleep over! my 16th birthday was spent in Saudi Arabia, so i suppose i can't complain. besides, i have many wonderful memories with friends at the cabin, including a couple of new years with all those people i would've invited to a sweet 16, but instead we were older and legal, though obviously not wiser.

that porch has seen many a debauchery, i'm sure. though, this was my first time to smoke a cigar on the porch!


this was also my first time at the cabin as an old auntie. but that's alright too. though it might not make me the best aunt when i bite off lyriella's little fingers and toes. (they were very delicious-- who could possibly resist?)

michelle and i with our babies.

remembering kili

i can't believe how long ago i was living in africa! it still seems like just yesterday.

i had many adventures while i was there, including climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with my stepfather, john and stepsister, julia.

i wrote a lot about that trip while i was still in moshi. i've unfortunately discovered that myspace blogs don't tend to last that long. so i'm reposting/writing them up on blogger, to hopefully keep them around a bit longer. it's still under construction, but i invite y'all to check out the adventure.

it was, as they say, life changing:
http://shangala-bangala.blogspot.com/

end of an era

it is hard to believe sweet cody had to be put to sleep last night. when her brother kayack was put down before christmas, it wasn't really a surprise. he was old for a golden, afflicted with all the ailments of a pure bred. cody may have had purebred papers, but we always knew she had a little something mixed in. that broad back, wide belly, spotted tongue... like her dideriksen sisters. ;)

mother says she was wagging her tail to the end. was she happy? she was a mess, that's for sure. all over an infected cut in her mouth! a cut that turned into an abscess that needed a tooth pulled that left a bleeding mouth that just wouldn't stop bleeding! even weeks later.

a girl after my own heart, she hurt herself doing the one thing she couldn't resist- eating. like the "Marley" dog, cody could and would eat anything, be it animal, vegetable, mineral... plastic, metal, wood.

my teenage years could be written around the care of those puppies. the comings and goings, the things they saw. i hope they had wild adventures when they were allowed to run free in the mountains. enough to store up for the long hours in durham. climbing through the trees and the cowpies, i hope they had plots fit for pixar.

sleep well, puppies.

my happy place

what i see from a solo run

In the quiet of the shadow
In the corner of a room
Darkness moves upon you
Like a cloud across the moon

You're a-wearing all the silence
Of a constant that will turn
Like the windmill left deserted
Or the sun forever burn

So don't forget to breathe
Don't forget to breathe
Your whole life is here
No eleventh hour reprieve
So don't forget to breathe

 Keep your head above water
But don't forget to breathe

 And all the suffering that you've witnessed
And the hand prints on the wall
They remind you how it's endless
How endlessly you fall

 And the answer that you're seeking
For the question that you found
Drives you further to confusion
As you lose your sense of ground

 So don't forget to breathe
Don't forget to breathe
Your whole life is here
No eleventh hour reprieve
So don't forget to breathe

 Keep your head above water
But don't forget to breathe

Breathe....
~alexi murdoch

barbecue with kilimanjaro in the distance