just say yes....!

 

we were told to just say no. the meaning was for drugs i think but the idea permeated all i think. i am grateful i rarely heeded that advice. it's not always the big and bold events in life.  we don't all get to play to a crowd like Taylor Swift.  most of us the adventures in life will be less grand and less obvious. still it all adds in so much spice and happiness. my life has been a series of yes decisions that led me to where i am...i will forever be grateful that i said yes to so many things that my upbringing probably would have told me to say no to. above is a Book of Mormon that was on the beach in Anchorage in a fire pit. i did not put it there, but from above the beach, i knew exactly what it was. 

had a conversation with a co-worker the other night. this was what it was about. all those little crazy events in life that add up to a full and interesting life. 

tonight i watched a documentary on drummers. 

i sold my drum kit recently.  it was a sad day in some ways.  i just never was the full drummer.  not sure what held me back.  i could keep a beat and i did love beating away at them in my 20's especially, but these drummers, playing in the big rock groups...WOW! just a freedom.  

i played piano, cello and guitar before trying the drums. drums are a different beast.  it's a full body work out.  full body attention. a release of energy. most instruments you have a script that you play off of.  drums, well, you just create your own script. you have total creative license. i just never was able to pull it off...i needed a script. takes some skill and confidence. so fun to watch a real drummer go for it. so the documentary was fun.  it had some of the great drummers.  now many singers use electric drums. not the same really. i do hope drums and drummers keep on keeping on. 

my college dorm house parent was really just an upper classman. she could play anything.  her main thing was the drums.  she'd let me go with her to the old Elks club in logan or what ever place she was playing. she eventually taught me the set up and take down. she taught me basic time keeping rhythm.  she let me play while she'd take a turn at the mike, singing old country stuff. so the basic time keeping was all you really needed...it was a blast. 

i eventually bought my own kit and took lessons above the music store.  the old guy that was teaching me was cool. i got fairly good, but still never really took off beyond the basics. my only real gig was an illegal lesbian wedding in the '80's in the Malibu Hills i think. it was mostly Indigo Girls and Hal Ketchum. i did vocals as well. our bass player was a flake.  

my 20's i was leaving the church and i was open to trying all sorts of new things. drinking, sex, rock and roll.  never did the drugs though. by the time i released myself from my religious restrictions it just seemed like i was too old for that craziness.  never was much of a drinker either i guess. that isn't to say i didn't get drunk or say yes to a variety of experiences that were offered up. 

we did the country western dance scene. we got slut passes to Miramar Naval Air Station for Ladies Night. Top Gun had come out and all of us wanted to meet fly boys. i always joke that i did service to the nation....Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines....never met a Coastie though. lol. we snuck girls on to base for ladies night.  we'd make them get into the trunk and snuck them on base.  this was before 9/11 so things were a bit more chill. 

i did lots of bike rides and took many road trips.  my mother was always so scared.  a girl out on the road with just her dog. she would ask me to find a pay phone and check in every day.  i rarely did though.  must have aged her some. i would sleep in the car or in a tent on the beach as i did my many coastal treks. 

that adventurous spirit took me to South Dakota eventually and then on to Alaska.  i didn't know a soul in either place.  i remember being in a hotel in South Dakota debating taking a job there. would i be lonely? i decided that in truth, i felt lonely surrounded by people i wasn't supposed to feel lonely around. so i went. 

when i was getting ready to head to Ketchikan, Alaska, i was walking the dogs and stopped to talk to a random stranger.  i mentioned i was moving to Alaska.  they looked shocked to find a girl moving to Alaska on their own.  "what if you hate it?" they asked...i remember i just said, what if i love it and it turns out to be the best thing i've ever done and i say no and never experience it. so i went. 

when everything tells you the church you grew up in is crap, you walk away. the thing is...stuff is still there. you can always go back, but people rarely do. once they free themselves and say yes, they just learn to say yes again and again.  in truth, new stuff is scary and exciting and it takes a few months to get your footing, but you do. 

you are always there.  you may think you will become a whole new person and in ways you do become changed with each experience, but you are still you. some people will like you, some won't.  you learn to care less about the ones that don't like you and care more about the ones who do.  the people who accept you.  the ones you belong with. you eventually stop trying to fit in places and with people that you were never meant to fit in with. 

some moments in life, the only ones you belong with may be the pets you share your life with. 

i've had lots of little adventures.  hikes, kayaks, trips with friends. more than many and less than others. 

social media makes it too easy to compare and contrast, to feel like you aren't enough. you are enough. 

when i was in my teens i think, i ran across a short article in one of my Moms many magazines.  the gist of it was that it's okay to be mediocre.  that too often people can't just be okay at something.  they have to feel they excel and if they can't excel then they don't believe they should do it. i have never really excelled at anything but i've been happily mediocre at many things. proud of it. so i've written lots of poems and songs that mostly only i will enjoy. i've played several instruments that i'm pretty bad at really. 

so many stop themselves from trying new stuff because they fear looking mediocre. it's pretty rare that someone takes up something new and is perfect at it right off. how can you figure out what you are good at and what you aren't good at if you don't even try?  not having all the best gear shouldn't stop you from starting out...unless you are parachuting or something...then i would suggest having the right gear. haha. 

over the years i have tried to join groups of like minded people.  usually i stop going pretty fast.  our world is competitive. i'm not. you would think joining a photo group would be fun but it instantly turns in to what gear you have, what places you have visited, what contests you have won. 

i've only had 3 photographs i've taken ever go anywhere. it's why i laugh when people tell me i should sell my photo's. the Samantha Bee show contacted me and paid me to use a photo i'd taken of a walrus with exposed penis. a "sasquatch" footprint photo i took as a joke got me a place in a book i think about sasquatch and an interview on a show Legends of Alaska..i think that was what it was called. a moose shot got in the the local moose calendar. it didn't win but they paid to use it. so that is my life as a photographer...pretty similar to my life as a drummer i guess. lol. it's in there, listed on experiences. 

went out to see walruses and eventually ended up starting a small non-profit to advocate for those walruses. that got me to write a few articles for the local paper, got me to get calls from a senate office and got me to get into an email battle with an angry fish and game political appointee. many experiences have come from just that one thing.  it was really tough to find anyone to pay nearly $1000 to go camp with walruses. when i returned and shared the photo's though, others suddenly were more interested in going. 

went also to see polar bears in their natural habitat.  my plane coming home had a scare and we landed in crash positions. 

i sometimes feel badly for those who said no so very often in life. in truth, they will never know what they missed.  i'll never know all the stuff i miss.  we can't experience it all.  for some stuff, you just read, watch documentaries, travel or enjoy the posts of others. 

there are things that i was always going to say no to.  i have been on rollar coasters but i'm good not repeating that. i have no plans to jump out of airplanes and i'm not interested in helicopters. most of us have limits i guess. 

i am slower than i used to be for sure. my nieces were much quicker going up these mountains than i am.  my knees are weaker now. i'm happy to plug along. i'm still out there. 

it's time in these next few years to think of the next things to say yes to. we shall see. 

today, i took the dogs to North Bivouac. then i headed up to Powerline without them. felt bad leaving them but the moose can be thick up there this time of year. today, nothing though. everyone i asked said, no moose. so i only went just over a mile out and then turned around. 

back to work.  i am doing much better there of late. not loving it though. covid took it right out of us all i think.   at least i'm at this end of my career. i feel bad for those who started out with covid, they are burned out before getting started. many are leaving the bedside.  we weren't really treated as well as we should have been.  all the rules we had been drilled into were cast aside when supplies were low and risk was high. 

we walked past bins of old used masks that we had been told would be sanitized for re-use.  pretty disheartening.  i think for me the politics were the worst of it. so many saw hospital workers as heroes for a minute and then turned on them.  they followed conspiracy theories and became angry and idiotic. dealing with a global pandemic was not helped by the deniers and conspiracy crack addicts...many who are still living in some crazy fantasy world. we had the worst potus at the wrong time.  we will be spending decades unraveling the bull he pulled off in his 4 years. 

my adventurous spirit took a hit.  everything just became about getting through the pandemic, living life, surviving. 

there was a lot of good that came from it and i'm trying to focus on that and get my spirit back up. 

i think the biggest thing about the pandemic was clarity.  who was with you, who wasn't.  what mattered, who mattered. who to let go of. 

i ditched people.  i still am fast to snooze people on social media or just ditch them too. you get to decide who you keep in your life.  you remember who was there, checking on you, caring about you and you remember who was not, who was antagonistic even. we divided a lot but in some cases, dividing was good because we had spent far too long believing those people and those relationships were salvageable. in truth...once people become conspiracy crack addicts they become disconnected with reality. so just say yes...to letting toxic people and situations go. 

it was a painful few years.  there was more death, lonely death, loss, separation...but we will come out stronger in some ways.  weaker in others but more raw, more real and more motivated to live fuller lives in the end i think. 

for me i appreciate more the people who see me and accept me. i appreciate the health and life i get to enjoy. i appreciate the relative safety of things as they are.  

i appreciate my freedom, both past and present.  the freedom i have from the burdens of what i thought should be. the truth in what is. 

so often i just rant on here so i wanted to write on a good day.  when there is no ranting. 

there is peace and hope tonight. the drums and all the other crazy experiences and people i have met/had/experienced. 

to all the people i will meet in the future, the experiences i will have and the times  i will say yes....today is here, tomorrow is coming and the past is what we hold dear.  the memories of what was,  even if that memory is changed in the present 

so go forth in the world and say yes...be silly, be free and have fun. 

grateful for A. all the wild and silly experiences that have made up my life B. all the conversations that have altered my way of seeing the world C. all the times i said yes.