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Slowing Down

March 2, 2017 •

After the multi-year adren­a­line rush of a high-tech career, I’m down-shift­ing: learn­ing how to slow down and savor each moment as it comes. I’m test­ing out what it might feel like to be retired — what­ever that means these days.

Bak­ing arti­san bread at home (French boule style)

Pur­pose­fully down-shift­ing is a form of mind­ful­ness prac­tice in its own right. It’s harder than it looks.

Slow Mo, Slow Cooking

I’m try­ing out how it feels to pur­sue slow-paced, inher­ently time-con­sum­ing activ­i­ties, such as:

  • Bak­ing no-knead, slow rise arti­san bread — a process that takes 24 hours or more
  • Knit­ting shawls and sweaters — projects that take weeks to com­plete
  • Plan­ning, shop­ping and prepar­ing slow-cooked meals, gourmet din­ners that sim­mer in a slow cooker for 6–8 hours
  • Learn­ing how to adapt a vari­ety of dishes to the slow cooker
  • Walk­ing for 4–6 miles most days

This lifestyle is slower, but not bor­ing. I wake up each day happy to under­take mul­ti­ple hands-on crafts, tasks and projects.

Food for the Brain

On a less pos­i­tive note I haven’t fig­ured out how to keep my brain as actively engaged as it used to be. This is a chal­lenge for some­one who earned her liv­ing as a con­sul­tant and excelled as a big-pic­ture thinker…

But it’s more than just an iden­tity cri­sis. I don’t want to end up like my mother, addicted to cross­word and sudoku puz­zles. My hus­band and I are talk­ing about down­siz­ing, so I’m not ready to buy or learn to play the piano.

Sci­en­tists say that using a sec­ond lan­guage keeps the brain plas­tic and youth­ful. Before embark­ing on a high-tech career, I was flu­ent in French and pass­able in Span­ish, but those skills eroded through lack of use.

Last year I worked to regain some French lan­guage skills, while prepar­ing for a 3‑week trek across south­west­ern France. Now that I’m back in Seat­tle, it’s not so easy to speak French on a reg­u­lar basis, so I rely on Net­flix and French movies as a fall­back.

Clearly I need to find some activ­i­ties or pur­suits that engage my brain as thor­oughly as my crafts, hikes and slow-mo cook­ing engage my hands and eyes.

Reflections on My Camino

March 1, 2017 •

pedestrian bridge to Bouziès

After 2+ weeks of walk­ing, leav­ing the Célé Val­ley

It’s Camino sea­son again, and it’s also long past time for me to write about my own expe­ri­ence along the Chemin de St. Jacques last year.

In 2016 (much like other pil­grims) I dis­cov­ered how liv­ing a slower and pared-down life, savored at walk­ing pace, can be a tran­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence. It was such a pow­er­ful expe­ri­ence that it’s taken months to blog about it.

Last Sep­tem­ber I accom­pa­nied a friend on a 3‑week trek along old pil­grim­age routes in south­west­ern France. We hiked a 150-mile seg­ment of the Via Podi­en­sis, a lit­tle-known set of trails in rural France (GR 65 and 651.)

We walked 10–15 miles a day, car­ry­ing just hik­ing poles, day­packs and the day’s sup­ply of water. We opted not to carry camp­ing gear or back­packs; instead we lux­u­ri­ated in a bag­gage ser­vice that shut­tled our duf­fels from one guest house to the next.

Was this pil­grim­age a truly life-chang­ing expe­ri­ence?
In many ways, yes…

Six months later I’m still think­ing through what I learned from this pil­grim­age, what the jour­ney’s teach­ings sug­gest for the next phase of my life… Despite my joy in telling sto­ries or talk­ing about it, I’ve been unusu­ally chal­lenged in writ­ing down my reac­tions to this pro­found expe­ri­ence.

GR 651 sign­post in Bouz­iès

So what have I learned so far? Here are a few of my take-aways, listed in no par­tic­u­lar order:

  • Spend­ing lots of time and energy on a pro­fes­sional career has lost its attrac­tion.
  • Talk­ing with peo­ple, shar­ing expe­ri­ences — in per­son and face to face — is pow­er­fully com­pelling. Why have I allowed social media alter­na­tives to dis­tract me from those basic truths?
  • Long walks, in rain or shine, need to remain a reg­u­lar fea­ture of my life — if not daily, at least many miles walked through­out the week.
  • Suf­fer­ing and dis­com­fort are unavoid­able, but can be accepted and tran­scended. They do not need to be all-con­sum­ing.
  • I do not need so many things to be happy.

Walk­ing offers a life­long path to hap­pi­ness and well­be­ing — and as my sis­ter says, may help me stay “younger each year.”

Walk­ing 35 miles or more each week has become a won­der­ful com­ple­ment to my on-going yoga prac­tice. Walk­ing offers many med­i­ta­tive qual­i­ties, but it’s also eas­ier to share with my hus­band and friends than a yoga prac­tice.

100-Day Milestones Toward the Camino

May 27, 2016 •

In 100 days I’ll begin a 3‑week pil­grim­age, hik­ing cen­turies-old trails in south­west­ern France. I started train­ing for this jour­ney in Feb­ru­ary, test­ing boots and equip­ment, and embark­ing on some nec­es­sary con­di­tion­ing.

At the halfway point for prepa­ra­tions, I note con­sid­er­able progress made, as well as unex­pected con­se­quences:

  • 10+ pounds lost since Feb­ru­ary
  • Feet stronger, but a half size larger

Los­ing weight was not an explicit goal, but it’s a pleas­ing out­come… Except for the fact that my pants no longer fit, and much of my wardrobe is now too baggy.

The First 100 Days

Woodland trails near Seattle help with conditioning for the trek

Wood­land trails near Seat­tle help with con­di­tion­ing for the trek

I’ve been train­ing with a hik­ing buddy in the Cas­cade foothills. We walk together 4–5 times a week, solo oth­er­wise.

We’ve pro­gressed to hik­ing 8 miles with ease, with 10 or so pounds in our day­packs. We pre­fer hilly wood­land trails, and will tackle some moun­tains later this sum­mer.

Fit­Bit reports that we’ve already hiked hun­dreds of miles in the Cas­cade foothills.

The North­west foothills offer a good train­ing ground. The ter­rain is var­ied, often muddy, with fre­quent ascents or descents — sim­i­lar to what I’ll encounter in France. I’ll have to look fur­ther afield to find analogs to France’s lime­stone cliffs and loose scree.

45 Days on Cape Cod

Now I’m vis­it­ing Cape Cod until we return to Seat­tle in early July. Con­di­tion­ing here requires cross-train­ing to com­pen­sate for flat­ter and less chal­leng­ing ter­rain. So bik­ing, kayak­ing and yoga get added to the mix.

Feasting on ocean views while training for the Camino

Enjoy­ing ocean views while train­ing for the Camino

Get­ting back on my yoga mat will help rebuild core and upper body strength — which have declined dur­ing the intense 100-day focus on hik­ing the North­west trails. Bik­ing will help with car­dio. Kayak­ing with upper body strength and bal­ance.

Sur­pris­ingly, I find myself miss­ing the North­west: the cooler misty weather, the softer wood­land trails, the ver­dant hill­sides and for­est glades. Here on Cape Cod I face uneven paved roads, heat and humid­ity, and tick-infested wood­lands that dis­cour­age off-road walk­ing. For­tu­nately it’s easy to find unpaved roads in the vil­lage where we’re stay­ing, so not all my train­ing will be pound­ing on pave­ment.…

My walks are often blessed with ocean or bay views and con­stant bird­song, but there’s a chal­lenge to walk­ing solo. Mostly men­tal…

Staying disciplined, despite distractions

Stay­ing dis­ci­plined, despite dis­trac­tions

Sus­tain­ing the dis­ci­pline of daily train­ing walks is harder than expected when stay­ing in a vaca­tion spot with­out a hik­ing buddy. There are mul­ti­ple dis­trac­tions, like overnight guests, and con­ve­nient excuses to avoid walk­ing, like heavy down­pours or time con­flicts. I have to drag myself away from inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tions to find time to walk for two hours.

Walk­ing solo, the miles pass more slowly beneath my feet. Rain is more of a has­sle. I’m eas­ily annoyed by bit­ing flies or the heat that rises from the asphalt roads. I miss the wood­land trails, the for­giv­ing feel of packed dirt or organic mate­r­ial beneath my boots.

It rains harder here. Yes­ter­day I expe­ri­enced the down­side of breath­able sneak­ers: it takes them no time at all to get water­logged dur­ing heavy rains. So today I learned how to dehy­drate sneak­ers in a low oven when they did­n’t dry enough overnight…

On a pos­i­tive note we’ve launched our kayaks and have already pad­dled for a cou­ple of hours in windy con­di­tions, so arm/shoulder con­di­tion­ing is well under­way. I’ve also returned to my yoga prac­tice, through classes and at-home asanas, so the cross-train­ing has become real­ity rather than an abstract con­cept…

And it’s a good thing, too.

Every time I read the blog posts from pil­grims now trekking the Célé Vari­ant of the Via Podi­en­sis, my com­mit­ment to con­di­tion­ing gets rein­forced. This will not be “a walk in the park” next Sep­tem­ber…

The Quest for Happy Feet

April 12, 2016 •

Vintage Lowa boots

Vin­tage Lowa boots

When I agreed to go on a 3‑week walk­ing tour in France this fall, I assumed my beloved Lowa boots would join me on that jour­ney. We’ve been together for many miles over the past 15 years…

But all it took was one long walk on wood­land trails and paved roads to reveal that these aging boots would be prob­lem­atic on the Chemin du Puy.

For one thing there’s not enough cush­ion­ing for rocky trails or paved roads. For another, they are too heavy for a jour­ney where every ounce counts dearly…

And so the quest for boots began — a quest that took weeks and many shop­ping trips (or online trans­ac­tions) to accom­plish.

Finding the Right Boots Isn’t Easy

Patch for women hiking the Camino de Santiago

Patch for women hik­ing the Camino de San­ti­ago

Luck­ily, I’m in an all-wom­en’s Face­book group with other pil­grims — past, present and future. Besides shar­ing travel plans, we talk about what to pack or what to wear.

We share can­did ques­tions and per­sonal obser­va­tions about the gear that will work best for trekking the Camino. We dis­cuss every­thing, from sports bras to footwear, hik­ing socks, fold­able trekking poles, packs, etc.

Every­one agrees: the sin­gle most impor­tant deci­sion is what to wear on your feet.

We debate what’s the best footwear strat­egy: sturdy ver­sus light­weight hik­ing boots; hik­ing shoes ver­sus trail run­ning shoes; sneak­ers ver­sus hik­ing san­dals. For those not fac­ing moun­tain cross­ings, the con­sen­sus is: don’t bother car­ry­ing your heavy hik­ing boots. If you’ll spend all your time hik­ing on paved roads, boots are overkill.

And of course, we all agree that what’s best for your feet depends on many things: your age, weight, fit­ness; the size, shape and con­di­tions of your feet (such as high arches, flat feet or vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties like plan­tar fasci­tis, bunions, arthri­tis, injuries, etc.). Some peo­ple pre­fer lots of cush­ion­ing, oth­ers want to feel the road.

Given those phys­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics you then have to fac­tor in your expec­ta­tions of the ter­rain, the dis­tance to hike each day, changes in ele­va­tion, and the degree of tech­ni­cal chal­lenge.  We learn from Face­book posts what to expect about spe­cific con­di­tions in France or Spain, for the locales or trails where we’ll be trekking.

For these rea­sons we care a lot about details, like how many ounces each shoe or boot weighs — things that aren’t always easy to dis­cover from the man­u­fac­tur­ers’ breezy sales pitches… For those of us who will walk 100–500 miles to train before­hand, we also worry about dura­bil­ity. Will our boots be worn out before we get on the plane? Once I’ve found the right boots, should I buy a sec­ond pair to bring to Europe to replace the worn-out train­ing pair?

These are not ques­tions for fash­ion­istas…

It Takes Many Trials

To my sur­prise it’s not uncom­mon for future pil­grims to try a dozen pairs of boots and shoes before set­tling on the ones that work best for them. Some have posted pho­tos on Face­book show­ing 4–5 boxes of shoes and boots they’ve ordered to try out.

Despite the dili­gent shop­ping and pre-Camino tri­als, some Cami­gas report back that they’ve given away their boots by the end of the first week. They will hike the rest of the Way in sneak­ers or san­dals, to avoid the pain of ill-fit­ting boots.

I found this obses­sive try-buy behav­ior hard to believe, until I began my own quest to find light, com­fort­able hik­ing boots. Firstly, there’s lit­tle rela­tion­ship between the size of your street shoes ver­sus the siz­ing used for boots or trail run­ners. This means that online shop­pers have to antic­i­pate lots of exchanges…

Hoka One One boots

New Hoka One One boots, before they are cov­ered with trail mud

I’ve lost count exactly, but it’s taken me at least 6 tries (includ­ing 3 trips to REI plus a local shoe store) before set­tling on Hoka One One Tor Sum­mit Mid WP boots. Luck­ily, they were on sale at REI when I noticed how many Cami­gas were writ­ing good things about Hoka boots… Time will tell if this was the right choice.

We’ll be walk­ing the Célé Vari­ant of the Chemin du Puy (GR 65 and GR 651). Pil­grims tell us to expect stren­u­ous con­di­tions when hik­ing up and down the Célé Val­ley’s lime­stone cliffs or uneven, rocky trails.

Here in the Pacific North­west, in early spring, it’s hard to find train­ing con­di­tions like the dry, stony hills and crum­bling lime­stone cliffs we’ll face in France. Right now I’m focused on build­ing up endurance and over­all con­di­tion­ing, rather than repli­cat­ing the ter­rain.

I’ll need some train­ing on loose scree and rocky hill­climbs before we fly to Paris, but for­tu­nately, there’s all sum­mer to get ready.

For now, early prac­tice hikes sug­gest these boots will be quite com­fort­able, with some caveats…

Good Enough, but Not Perfect

After 25 miles in them so far, it’s clear that my new boots aren’t per­fect for the trek in France. Their water­proof­ing makes them less breath­able than what I’d hoped for, so my feet get hot by mile 5 —  and we’ll be hik­ing at least twice that mileage each day. I’ll also be hik­ing in much warmer weather.

Mes­sage to self: Learn how to man­age heat dis­si­pa­tion and avoid blis­ters. Step one: buy Glide. Check.

Even with thick hik­ing socks from Darn Tough, these boots are a bit too big, so my feet slip for­ward on steep descents but not enough to jam the toes. I haven’t yet tried the liner-plus-sock com­bi­na­tion as a way of avoid­ing blis­ters from an overly roomy boot, but it’s on the list of things to try. I did try this model in half size smaller, and liked the over­all foot com­fort, but found that the top of the boots cinched my ankles too tightly. Except for the ankle issue they’d be good boots to wear with thin­ner, lighter socks.

By the time I leave for France, I’ll have fig­ured out how to make my boots as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble, via:

  • The right lac­ing tech­niques to min­i­mize slip­page and max­i­mize com­fort;
  • The opti­mal com­bi­na­tion of socks and lin­ers;
  • How and where to apply Glide before putting on my socks.

My feet will swell after hik­ing all day, for 21 days in a row, so the fact that these boots are now 1/4 to 1/2 size too large will be most likely be a bless­ing on “les voies jacquaires” in France (camino hik­ing trails.)

For now I remind myself that this is a jour­ney of many lessons and dis­cov­er­ies — with many expe­ri­ences yet to unfold before we leave for France. Find­ing the right boots is an impor­tant mile­stone on the jour­ney.

Update

90 days later…

It’s mid-July and my love affair with Hoka boots con­tin­ues, now that I’ve found the opti­mal lac­ing and sock com­bos through trial-and-error.

I’m grate­ful for the way they pro­tect my toes and ankles from unex­pected encoun­ters with roots or rocks on uneven trails, the way they keep my feet dry in tor­ren­tial down­pours or unavoid­able pud­dles.

Unlike tra­di­tional hik­ing boots, these are so light­weight, lux­u­ri­ously cush­ioned and flex­i­ble under foot. My enthu­si­asm about these boots has inspired my friends too. Now almost half a dozen of us are hik­ing reg­u­larly with Hoka boots or trail run­ners…

Trail runners: happy compromise

That being said, as much as I love my Hoka boots, on hot days they become a bit too warm after ≥ 3 hours of hik­ing. If my feet get too hot and the socks get damp, there’s a risk of blis­ter­ing. This has spurred me to find alter­na­tive footwear for hot days or less rugged ter­rain.

Altra trail runners

Altra trail run­ners for hot weather hik­ing

For­tu­nately, I’ve found the right trail run­ners to alter­nate with the boots: some Altra Olym­pus shoes with a wide toe box. This model is well cush­ioned, pro­tects toes from encoun­ters with roots or rocks, and breathes well. The wide toe box offers lots of breath­ing room so toes can flex or splay out — and it avoids the risk of blis­ters that can crop up when my bunion gets too cramped.

So I’m now a happy camper, well equipped for almost any­thing the French trails are likely to present.

On the Path to Our Camino

April 12, 2016 •

Chemin du Puy - Cele Variant

A path along the Chemin du Puy

Sev­eral of my most recent posts have dis­cussed my intent to walk a seg­ment of the Via Podi­en­sis. The Via Podi­en­sis (or le Chemin du Puy) refers to a net­work of trails that lead from cen­tral France toward the start­ing point for the Camino de San­ti­ago.

I’ve been very busy since that post, with work and what’s required to pre­pare for a 3‑week walk in France. A trek like this requires a lot of phys­i­cal and men­tal prepa­ra­tion, as well as logis­tics…

Sep­a­rately and together, Jane and I have got­ten a lot done in the past 6 weeks.

Progress Made

We’ve booked our flights, which in my case, required decid­ing where my jump­ing-off point would be, Seat­tle or Boston. Deci­sion: Boston. It short­ens the travel time, and cuts 33% of the time zone dif­fer­ence between our homes on the West Coast and cen­tral France. Mak­ing that deci­sion required nego­ti­at­ing fam­ily vaca­tion plans…

We’ve booked rooms in Toulouse, to recover from jet lag before tak­ing the train to Figeac, and pre­pare for our home­ward flights 21 days later.

Our itinerary in France

Our itin­er­ary in France

We’ve planned the route, selected the cham­bres d’hôtes (tiny inns), cho­sen rooms (when pos­si­ble), and wired deposits to hold our reser­va­tions. If you want to stay in some­what more upscale lodg­ings than the dor­mi­to­ries pre­ferred by many pil­grims, there are often very few choices within easy walk­ing dis­tance of the chemin.

Now we’re cross­ing our fin­gers that hand­shake agree­ments with the hote­liers will be remem­bered when we arrive on their doorstep each night, hot, sweaty and exhausted…

Plan­ning the route was a labor of love on Jane’s part. Explor­ing options required a lot of con­ver­sa­tion, online and library research, and out­reach to for­mer pil­grims who’ve trav­eled this Way before. For­tu­nately, we now belong to sev­eral Face­book groups devoted to pil­grims focused on spe­cific treks along the Way. That makes it eas­ier to get our ques­tions answered, with mul­ti­ple view­points in some cases…

Because we both rel­ish la belle cui­sine française, opti­miz­ing where we’d be and when was an impor­tant fac­tor for us.

To devise the opti­mal route Jane jug­gled with mul­ti­ple fac­tors: aver­age daily dis­tance, dif­fi­culty of the ter­rain, access to mod­er­ately priced lodg­ings, avail­abil­ity of din­ners (at local restau­rants or pro­vided by the innkeep­ers), etc. Opti­miz­ing venues and week­days is an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion for rural France.

Arriv­ing (or not) on spe­cific week­days is a prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tion when vis­it­ing rural areas or vil­lages with lim­ited options or sites to visit. Plus, to avoid going hun­gry, pil­grims should avoid arriv­ing in a vil­lage on a day when all the bistros or restau­rants are closed! Unless they’re stay­ing in a place that offers a table d’hôte.

Nuanced travel plan­ning like this is one of Jane’s joys in life, sec­ond only to the joy she expe­ri­ences when mak­ing one of those jour­neys. I’m lucky she’s plan­ning this for both our sakes.

Next Post: updates on hik­ing boots and travel gear…

Every Journey Begins with the First Step

January 22, 2016 •

cahors_pont_valentre

Le Pont de Valen­tré, a vista along the Chemin du Puy, or Via Podi­en­sis, an ancient pil­grim­age route

My friend Jane is plan­ning another self-guided walk­ing tour in south­west­ern France, and wants me to join her on a two-week trek along the Chemin du Puy-en-Velay, a branch of the Camino San­ti­ago (or the Way of St. James). This has been a beloved pil­grim­age route for more than a thou­sand years.

Jane hiked the Chemin du Puy for two weeks last fall, and plans to walk a com­pa­ra­ble 150-mile seg­ment this Sep­tem­ber, con­tin­u­ing in the foot­steps of long ago pil­grims.

Undertaking this Journey

Should I join her on the trek this year? Can I? And if not, why not?

It’s a big under­tak­ing, both phys­i­cally and finan­cially.

For­tu­nately, we’ve both trav­eled in France before, includ­ing self-guided tours off the beaten track, so we’re not intim­i­dated by the travel logis­tics of get­ting to our start­ing point.

And then there are the cul­tural aspects of prepar­ing for the jour­ney. To truly appre­ci­ate these out-of-the-way places means brush­ing up on French lan­guage skills, reac­quaint­ing myself with high­lights of France’s medieval art and his­tory, and the sto­ried his­tory of the region we’d be vis­it­ing.

The over­all jour­ney, as it unfolds, is more reward­ing than any spe­cific des­ti­na­tion, so under­tak­ing this tour with some appre­ci­a­tion of its his­tory and cul­tural con­text is by far the best way to savor its delights.

The jour­ney is costly. Even with a 2‑week self-guided walk­ing tour (one that does­n’t require us to com­pen­sate pro­fes­sional guides or a tour­ing com­pany), the price tag is higher than a mon­th’s mort­gage for many peo­ple.

These hiking boots will need to become my new best friends

Hik­ing boots will need to become my new best friends

Train­ing for the long walk will require a sig­nif­i­cant time com­mit­ment, hun­dreds of hours of aer­o­bic exer­cise between now and then.

Despite being a reg­u­lar walker, one who can do 10,000 steps on a rou­tine basis, prepar­ing for this trek will require me to dou­ble or triple my usual walk­ing reg­i­men.

Regain­ing my French speak­ing and com­pre­hen­sion skills will require another big time com­mit­ment. Hun­dreds of hours again.

But these are things I love to do, and exer­cis­ing these skills will lead to indi­rect ben­e­fits and last­ing value in their own right, such as improved health and well being.

The Journey Is the Reward

My yoga prac­tice sug­gests set­ting an inten­tion for this under­tak­ing. So what should the theme be?

At Apple, I first learned that the jour­ney is the reward. For lots of rea­sons, that will be my theme for this walk­ing tour — the jour­ney of the trek itself, and the multi-month jour­ney to get ready for it.

I look for­ward to the indi­rect con­se­quences of prepar­ing for the jour­ney: a stronger and health­ier body, a nim­bler mind, thanks to the men­tal stim­u­la­tion of relearn­ing French, and a qui­eter mind, thanks to the med­i­ta­tive aspects of the jour­ney­ing.

The Training Régime

We’ll be hik­ing 10–18 miles each day, across some rugged or hilly ter­rain, so the trek requires a level of phys­i­cal fit­ness and sta­mina that is well beyond my cur­rent capa­bil­i­ties.

Before start­ing a seri­ous train­ing régime, I’ll need to recover from a knee injury. That said, with a dis­ci­plined effort, there’s plenty of time to build up the nec­es­sary strength and sta­mina for those chal­leng­ing day hikes between now and Sep­tem­ber.

Jane rec­om­mends at least 2–3 months of dis­ci­plined train­ing before we leave for France. That means a long walk every day, plus one or two hikes up hilly ter­rain every week­end. Those long hikes should tar­get ≥5–8 miles total dis­tance, includ­ing ele­va­tion gains.

Rain or shine. Given Seat­tle’s typ­i­cal rainy weather between now and early July, that’s no small com­mit­ment…

Parlez-vous français?

We’ll be pass­ing through small ham­lets, stay­ing in tiny inns or guest rooms out in the coun­try — places that lack sophis­ti­cated tourist ser­vices or large num­bers of Eng­lish speak­ers. We’ll need to be self-suf­fi­cient en français.

Because we will make the book­ings and man­age the walk­ing tour on our own, with­out any pro­fes­sional guides, French lan­guage pro­fi­ciency will be every bit as help­ful as our walk­ing sticks.

After pok­ing around at online resources about le Chemin du Puy, it’s clear that I will need to brush up on my French just to make sense of what those web­sites and blogs have to offer.

Today’s First Steps

So here’s what I’ve done today, in tak­ing the first steps on this jour­ney:

  • Ordered some French-lan­guage learn­ing resources
  • Ordered a Miche­lin guide for GR65, le Chemin de Com­postelle
  • Browsed a few pages of a 15-year-old travel guide for south­west­ern France, and read about a few of the places we might visit
  • Ordered some sum­mer-weight hik­ing shoes, with enough sup­port for long day hikes, but with­out the extra weight of my trusty hik­ing boots
  • Had a long con­ver­sa­tion with Jane, to agree on start­ing prin­ci­ples, expec­ta­tions and val­ues — and some early con­cepts for a plan
  • Began a tour of online resources to learn what’s in store
  • Went out for an hour’s walk, up some hills, about 7000 steps total — and am happy to report it did not harm my knee
  • Joined a closed Face­book group of past and future walk­ers whose feet have trod­den the Chemin du Puy

May the jour­ney begin.

FitBit Frustrations

January 8, 2016 •

Screenshot 2016-01-08 08.12.06To my amuse­ment Fit­Bit awarded me the India badge today. I’d earned it by walk­ing enough steps to equate to 1997 miles — the length of India.

They make me smile but I’ve learned to dis­count Fit­Bit’s attaboy awards because they’re gen­er­ally mean­ing­less.

Over the past two years I’ve learned that the sen­sor on my Fit­Bit One is quite inac­cu­rate, at least for the activ­i­ties I pre­fer. It deliv­ers rel­a­tively accu­rate track­ing for a lim­ited set of activ­i­ties like walk­ing or run­ning. I believe its results when Fit­Bit’s dash­board reports that I walked far­ther today than yes­ter­day, but don’t trust the spe­cific counts for any given day or activ­ity.

When I com­pare met­rics (steps walked) between my iPhone 6s and the Fit­Bit One for the same walk or hike, the num­bers don’t agree. I’m inclined to believe the iPhone is closer to accu­racy…

My Fit­Bit is way off for yoga, kayak­ing and bik­ing. It either mea­sures almost noth­ing at all (yoga or kayak­ing), or in the case of bik­ing, mea­sures the rev­o­lu­tions of my foot on the crank rather than the dis­tance the bike has trav­eled.

And last week I learned that my Fit­Bit One is also unable to track my steps while cross-coun­try or Nordic ski­ing.

Was it the glid­ing strides, or did the cold out­door tem­per­a­tures put the sen­sor out of com­mis­sion?

Steps tracked while XC skiing over the holidays

Steps tracked while XC ski­ing over the hol­i­days

Over the Christ­mas hol­i­day week I skied for sev­eral hours each day, a highly aer­o­bic activ­ity, yet my tracked results were scarcely bet­ter than my per­for­mance dur­ing a more typ­i­cal (and sadly seden­tary) work week.

Based on time and effort expended on XC ski­ing, I expected that Fit­Bit would report much bet­ter activ­ity mea­sures than my nor­mal per­for­mance for a week. Instead the daily mea­sures were lack­lus­ter, accord­ing to this chart.

Given sim­i­lar con­cerns about faulty track­ing results, my hus­band gave up on his Fit­Bit months ago.

I know enough about the tech­nol­ogy to real­ize man­u­fac­tur­ers must be will­ing to install more sen­sors, and much higher qual­ity sen­sors, before track­ing devices can pro­duce accu­rate results. An inte­gral GPS com­po­nent is prob­a­bly required too.

So I con­clude: Why spend sev­eral hun­dred dol­lars on a fash­ion ver­sion bracelet or watch style track­ing device when the fun­da­men­tal value propo­si­tion remains so flawed?

Net net: a new Fit­Bit or equiv­a­lent will not be in my device bud­get for 2016. I’m crit­i­ciz­ing Fit­Bit here, but my larger point is that fit­ness track­ing devices, as a cat­e­gory, need sub­stan­tive improve­ments in sen­sor track­ing and report­ing before they’re worth the money they cost the con­sumer.

Spice Up Your Life with Slow Cooking

November 3, 2015 •

slow-cooking-cookbooksWhen the rains return and clouds build up, North­west­ern­ers talk about feel­ing cozy. The locals smile about the lumi­nous skies. It’s time to plunge into juicy nov­els, go on a Net­flix binge, or get back to last win­ter’s knit­ting project. Haul out the fleece and the down sweaters. Go for long walks in the rain.

For me the fall weather also sig­nals the sea­son for slow cook­ing.

On rainy week­ends like the one we’ve just had, I take the time for slow-paced foodie projects that will reward us with mouth-water­ing fla­vors:

  • Slow-cooked lentil stews brim­ming with root veg­eta­bles
  • Savory lentil soups à la Française
  • Roasted veg­eta­bles: car­rots, pota­toes, sugar pump­kin, sweet pota­toes, onions and leeks
  • Lamb cur­ries, North African style
  • Pot roasts and boeuf bour­guignon

When you embrace slow cook­ing, you learn to accept delayed grat­i­fi­ca­tion, wel­com­ing the tan­ta­liz­ing aro­mas that per­me­ate your home as things sim­mer. From a yoga per­spec­tive it’s a prac­tice of “mind­ful­ness for the nose.”

Not Just for Vegetarians

Ours is not a veg­e­tar­ian house­hold. We love poul­try and tasty cuts of meat.

That said, we’ve begun a delib­er­ate quest to cut back on meat con­sump­tion, espe­cially red meats. Despite the self-pro­mo­tional denials by the meat pack­ing indus­try, we’re con­cerned by the lat­est sci­en­tific reports that link increased risk of can­cer to the con­sump­tion of red meats and processed meats.

As a health­ier alter­na­tive to red meats, we’ve begun exper­i­ment­ing with savory veg­e­tar­ian-inspired dishes. This in turn has dri­ven us to go look­ing for exotic spices, nutri­tious grains and fresher ingre­di­ents that will punch up the fla­vors and aro­mas.

Slow cook­ing is a great way to get the tasti­est results from dishes that rely on grains or dried beans. It’s also a very effec­tive way to be sat­is­fied with poorer cuts of meat, or smaller pro­por­tions of meat, rel­a­tive to the veg­etable com­po­nent.

New Discoveries

Star anise

Star anise

My inspi­ra­tion for this sea­son’s slow cook­ing comes from some cook­books that go well beyond the sim­ple plea­sures of Joy of Cook­ing (listed below.)

Another cat­a­lyst was last year’s quirky Christ­mas gift for my hus­band, a spice dis­cov­ery kit that has brought us year­long joy. (He loves cook­ing too.)

I’ve also been moti­vated by the ease of sourc­ing ultra fresh spices and herbs thanks to local and online mer­chants, includ­ing Ama­zon for hard-to-find ingre­di­ents from other coun­tries.

I’ve exper­i­mented with Le Puy lentils and red rice from Camar­gue, and have quickly used up my trial orders of these tra­di­tional French grains. So much bet­ter than dried out and bor­ing lentils or boxed rice from the gro­cery store chains! Now it’s time to find local stores with bulk sup­plies of these upscale ingre­di­ents.

My new fave source for dried herbs and freshly ground spice blends: Seat­tle’s World Spice Mer­chants (avail­able at Pike Place Mar­ket or online.) Thanks to Pen­zeys and World Spice Mer­chants I’ve been refresh­ing our spice stocks, throw­ing away jars with dubi­ous ingre­di­ents that are too old or faded. I’ve finally learned to ignore my moth­er’s voice whis­per­ing in my ear, “Hold on to your spices until the jars are empty…”

As a result our kitchen is redo­lent with pun­gent aro­mas from star anise, bay leaves, kaf­fir lime leaves, car­damom pods, freshly ground cur­ries, Ras el Hanout and other exotic ingre­di­ents.

These spices and ingre­di­ents lend them­selves to North and East African stews, North Indian style cur­ries, world fusion soups, and France-meets-Morocco dishes.

Some have even spiced up my bak­ing projects. Yes­ter­day’s dessert fea­tured Comice pears poached in a spicy honey syrup with star anise, vanilla beans, car­damom pods and cin­na­mon sticks. The syrup included freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice, along with a gen­er­ous quan­tity of cit­rus zests.

Next on my list of cook­ing exper­i­ments: Curry Bread Pud­ding with Car­damom Cream.

My adven­tur­ous hus­band is delighted to join me for the fun of explor­ing new spices and slow-cooked foods from dis­tant coun­tries.

Food for Thought

To learn how to com­bine these new-to-us ingre­di­ents in pleas­ing ways, I’ve relied on cook­books, sup­ple­mented by online research:

  • Splen­did Soups by James Peter­son (fea­tures recipes from around the world)
  • Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan
  • Patri­cia Wells at Home in Provence by Patri­cia Wells and Robert Fré­son
  • Euro­pean Peas­ant Cook­ery by Elis­a­beth Luard
  • Love Soup by Anna Thomas
  • Mourad New Moroc­can by Mourad Lahlou

The Inter­net has been a great source of authen­tic recipes from coastal African coun­tries, Afghani and Mid­dle East­ern-inspired dishes. We’re still enjoy­ing Thai cui­sine, thanks to my hus­band’s child­hood there, but we’re rel­ish­ing this oppor­tu­nity to broaden our reper­toire.

We wish you the savory joys of new dis­cov­er­ies. Happy cook­ing!

Rewiring the Brain

October 15, 2015 •

stone tower

It’s now proven: the prac­tice of med­i­ta­tion and mind­ful­ness can rewire your brain and reduce stress in just 8 weeks.

Researchers at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity and Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­eral Hos­pi­tal have released the results of a sci­en­tific study, based on MRI imag­ing, that exam­ined the impact of med­i­ta­tion and mind­ful­ness prac­tices on brain health and plas­tic­ity.

They report that research par­tic­i­pants who spent an aver­age of 27 min­utes daily on mind­ful­ness exer­cises reduced stress fac­tors and increased the gray-mat­ter den­sity of their brains in areas asso­ci­ated with “self-aware­ness, com­pas­sion and intro­spec­tion.” Par­tic­i­pants also improved brain func­tions asso­ci­ated with mem­ory and empa­thy.

These ben­e­fits took just 8 weeks of dis­ci­plined prac­tice to be real­ized.

This research built on and rein­forced the find­ings of ear­lier stud­ies that revealed the health­ful impacts of med­i­ta­tion; how­ever, those prior stud­ies  (unlike this one) did not con­clu­sively doc­u­ment the causal rela­tion­ship between med­i­ta­tion and brain plas­tic­ity.

As the study’s senior author, Sara Lazar of Mass Gen­eral, reports:

This study demon­strates that changes in brain struc­ture may under­lie some of these reported improve­ments [refer­ring to prior research], and that peo­ple are not just feel­ing bet­ter because they are spend­ing time relax­ing.

Britta Hölzel, a research fel­low at MGH and Giessen Uni­ver­sity (Ger­many) and co-author, notes:

It is fas­ci­nat­ing to see the brain’s plas­tic­ity and that, by prac­tic­ing med­i­ta­tion, we can play an active role in chang­ing the brain and can increase our well-being and qual­ity of life.

Par­tic­i­pants in the study took part in the 8‑week Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion Pro­gram at the Uni­ver­sity of Mass­a­chu­setts Cen­ter for Mind­ful­ness.

If mov­ing to cen­tral Mass­a­chu­setts to take part in a 2‑month pro­gram is not a viable option for you, there are home-based alter­na­tives.

I’m work­ing my way through sev­eral books on MBSR and mind­ful­ness writ­ten by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I’ve invested in a med­i­ta­tion cush­ion, and leave my yoga mat per­ma­nently unfurled, as a reminder to invest time every day in mind­ful­ness prac­tice. Between yoga and mind­ful­ness, I’m begin­ning to savor increased well-being — and hope these ben­e­fits will expand out­ward to friends, fam­ily, col­leagues and the larger com­mu­nity.

Lightening the Load

August 25, 2015 •

Last fall my hus­band and I embarked on a declut­ter­ing project. We rec­og­nized that we were ill pre­pared for sud­den life changes that might force us to move or down-size on short notice. Our garage was clut­tered with remod­el­ing debris, old or bro­ken fur­ni­ture, skis and sport­ing gear we no longer used, mildewed books. We found boxes we had­n’t opened since grad school. Our clos­ets were stuffed to the gills.

The first big weekend of cleaning out the garage

The first big week­end of clean­ing out the garage

Although we’d talked about it for sev­eral years, we’d found it almost impos­si­ble to take the first real step toward declut­ter­ing. And then some­thing changed a year ago.

Our brother-in-law’s unex­pected death last August was a wake-up call. Since then we’ve been watch­ing our sis­ter strug­gle with the after­math of her hus­band’s pass­ing. We were able to help her after­wards for a few weeks, but then had to return to our own lives. We did­n’t want to risk sub­ject­ing our friends or fam­ily to a sim­i­lar chal­lenge if some­thing hap­pened to us.

We also rec­og­nized that a house full of clut­ter takes time to deal with, which would make it hard to act quickly if we were forced to put this house on the mar­ket. Some­times life forces you to cope with unex­pected events like seri­ous ill­ness, job loss or forced retire­ment. We wanted to be less bur­dened, in case we’re forced to con­front some dif­fi­cult choices.

Adding to our con­cerns, we started to hear rumors that my hus­band’s job might move out-of-state later this year. [For­tu­nately, we heard last week that his job isn’t mov­ing!]

What­ever the rea­son, we rec­og­nized that the time had come to lighten our load, so we’d be more agile, less bur­dened with stuff — more able to con­sider our options or ini­ti­ate change on short notice.

Taking the First Steps

Chateau-de-Meursault-TastingShredding-projectWe knew that the first phase of declut­ter­ing would be the eas­i­est: get­ting rid of old doc­u­ments and records that no one needs any more.

We had old bank books, tax fil­ings, school projects, tick­ets, expense receipts, reports for for­mer employ­ers or clients… We had years’ worth of paid bills and credit card state­ments. We had shrink-wrapped soft­ware for com­put­ers we no longer own.

We had sou­venirs and memen­tos from travel hol­i­days, fam­ily mem­o­ra­bilia, and other keep­sakes. We had cal­en­dars from col­lege, love let­ters, greet­ing cards and old jour­nals. Some of these are worth keep­ing, so we’ve begun a back­ground project to scan and dig­i­tize the ones we might like to see again some­day.

To dis­card doc­u­ments with no emo­tional or prac­ti­cal value, we bought a heavy-duty shred­der that can run for hours before over-heat­ing. For weeks I focused intensely on shred­ding a life­time’s worth of paper doc­u­ments — decades’ worth of detri­tus. Day after day I loaded up the Prius with bags full of shred­ded doc­u­ments, for dis­posal at a recy­cling cen­ter ten miles away.

I’ve learned my les­son about accu­mu­lat­ing unnec­es­sary paper. These days I shred incom­ing doc­u­ments that have no value, so I don’t accu­mu­late a bunch of junk I’ll have to deal with later.

Tackling the Harder Stuff

Waiting for the donation truck

Wait­ing for the dona­tion truck

Hav­ing dis­posed of the paper, I’ve switched my atten­tion to prun­ing clos­ets, look­ing for house­hold objects, unused appli­ances, gad­gets or gar­ments we can donate to char­i­ties.

Over the years I’ve donated clothes that no longer fit, so what remains is harder to give away. These clothes still fit, look good, and are made from high-qual­ity fab­ric or mate­ri­als. But, they’re either out-of-style or too dressy for my cur­rent lifestyle. So they hang in the clos­ets, unused, col­lect­ing dust. Good can­di­dates for dona­tion.

So, I take a deep breath and remind myself that, rather than hold on to them indef­i­nitely, for some occa­sion when I might use them, it’s bet­ter to give them away today to peo­ple des­per­ately in need of warm or use­ful cloth­ing. I try to remem­ber the yogic prin­ci­ple of non-attach­ment.

With prac­tice I’m get­ting much bet­ter at find­ing things to give away. As a result each week I’ve col­lected bags and boxes like these for the dona­tion trucks to pick up. Space is open­ing up in our clos­ets.

Words to Live By

Rather than just ran­domly giv­ing stuff away (which might be a good prac­tice too), I’ve found the prun­ing process works bet­ter when guided by a set of prin­ci­ples. What works for us are these guide­lines a friend shared with us last month:

Do you use it?

Do you love it?

Does it bring you joy?

If you can’t say yes to any of these ques­tions, then you’ve just found a good can­di­date for dona­tion.

It also helps to devote con­cen­trated time to sort­ing and prun­ing, so you get more effi­cient (and less emo­tional) when work­ing through these ques­tions.

If you really want to prune heav­ily, then this mantra from a Bud­dhist friend offers addi­tional wis­dom:

Can you sim­ply remem­ber the joy, and let the item go?

If you’re on the verge of declut­ter­ing your house­hold, good luck!

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About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

Recent Posts

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