Two-Wheeled Adventures

Two years ago, when my old car broke down and I couldn't afford to fix it, I decided to buy a DI bike to tide me over until I nailed down a sure job for the next year and was financially stable enough to buy a car.  I gloried in what I saw as my own adventurous spirit and dedication to the environment.  Then, two months later, I bought a car and have ridden by bike, Maggie, about twice since.  She had a place of honor in my room in my old apartment, but when I moved to my new one last April she got put out on the balcony as a "temporary" way to get more space in my room.  Then she sat there, collecting dirt, rain, snow, ice, and sun for an entire year.

Maggie in her pre-balcony days, back when she was new (to me) and I had just spent hours cleaning her up.  

I would often look out my living room window at Maggie, neglected and forgotten, and reflect on my dreams of riding my bike everywhere, also neglected and forgotten.  Riding a bike--especially uphill--took a level of fitness I didn't have, and Maggie wasn't the nicest bike.  She was plenty functional, but the little niceties, like a seat that still adjusted and gears that worked consistently or predictably, were missing.  Her sturdy frame was steel, which was heavy.  The idea of hauling her up and down the three flights of stairs from my apartment helped me put off riding her forever for another day.  I began to think that what I might need was a new bike, a zippy, shiny, light, brand new bike.  A hybrid bike, closer to a road bike than my heavy thrift store mountain bike.  But the bikes I wanted all cost $500-$700, and I couldn't justify spending the money until I was sure I was really going to use the bike.  After all, I wasn't using the one I had at all.  On the other hand, I didn't want to ride my bike because it wasn't very nice, and I might ride more if I had a nicer bike, but shouldn't by a nicer bike until I was riding a lot.  It was a circle of logic that resulted always in my neither riding nor buying a bike.  

Until now.  Last week, I had a few hours in the afternoon that were free.  I'd spent the morning rolling my dreads and working on my history course, and I was dying to get outside.  A friend of mine was coming over for dinner and then climbing in the evening, but what should I do for those few hours?  Go for a hike?  I'd already hiked the day before, and it was too warm outside to go skate.  So I decided to bring Maggie out of exile and go for a ride.  I decided to ride to my school--that way I could test how feasible it would be to commute by bike occasionally during the school year.  I expected it to be grueling: the way there was mostly uphill, and my last memory of riding uphill was quite unpleasant.  

To my surprise, the ride took me only half an hour, and was in no way painful at all.  The fact that I am now much fitter than I was certainly helped, and the hills were not as bad as I thought they would be, and Maggies gears worked better than I expected them to.  Filled with enthusiasm, I resolved to ride my bike to my work meetings this week on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  Monday went great, although the addition of a bag with over 10 lbs. of stuff for my meetings made those hills a little harder.  The gears did jam up just before the biggest hill, but I still made it.  Tuesday the gears worked fine, but I was beginning to realize that the seat wasn't at the right height, and there was no way for me to adjust it.  Also, after two days of riding, even on my thrift store mountain bike, I was enjoying it a lot.  I could definitely see myself doing that ride frequently during the school year.  

Such beautiful weather lately, how could I now want to ride my bike?

Brimming with excitement, I began shopping for bikes again.  I did all the research I could online, but I knew I needed a real person to help me make the decision and impart to me their wisdom.  So I headed to the local bike shop.  I wasn't going to buy anything yet, but it was time to start getting serious about shopping around.  Then, to my surprise and delight, the first shop I went to had a beautiful bike, just my size, just what I wanted.   I took it on a test run around the block and was amazed.  The thin, smooth tires ate up pavement with an ease I didn't realize as possible, the light frame glided smoothly over the road, and the gears shifted almost eagerly. Because the bike was last year's model, the shop was able to give me $125 off of the sticker price.  I walked out with my dream bike for only $525.  It's a hybrid, which is a sort of cross between a mountain bike and a road bike.  Since I was raised exclusively on mountain bikes, this bike seems so slim, delicate, and fast.

So it was with great pride and eagerness that I saddled up this morning and glided out of the parking lot on my brand new Specialized Vita Sport, which I named Maggie 2 (or M2 for short).  My white bike gleamed in the sun rise, the wind whispered through my dreads, and I was fit, ready, and confident.  I couldn't wait to try that hill, to pull up to my school and show off my bike and my awesomeness to my coworkers,The first few blocks of my ride is down hill and crosses two sets railroad tracks, one perpendicular, one at an angle.  I had noticed even on my test ride of the bike at the shop that this bike with its thin, skinny tires reacted much more to the bumps in a broken sidewalk than the hefty mountain bikes I had always ridden, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle.  As I unthinkingly hit the second set of railroad tracks, the ones angled diagonally across the road, I was suddenly unthinkingly hitting the the road...with my face, and my knee, and a terrible clatter as my bike fell half on top of me.  I staggered up and made sure I was out of the road, righted up bike and gave it a cursory appraisal; M2 appeared unharmed in any major way.  Then, as stinging and throbbing began to erupt on several parts of my anatomy, I began a more thorough examination of myself.  My left palm had a drop of blood forming, my right elbow was also beginning to burble out little bubbles of red.  Wincing, I turned my attention to my left knee, which for the last week has been home to a terrific scab that formed when I had bailed on my skateboard.  The initial wound hadn't bled at all, but the scab was proving more problematic.  I had torn part of it off while climbing on Sunday and blood and gone everywhere.  Sure enough, the thick, tenacious scab was completely gone, the initial wound had been enlarged, and blood was running freely down my leg.  

Remember when you were little and you fell?  You could sit and cry and someone would come pick you up, hold you, and then carry you and your bike home and give you ice cream and let you hold your teddy bear while they cleaned out your stinging wounds?  Even if your parents weren't there, sitting there and crying would soon bring them, or your older brothers or sisters, or your neighbors, or even complete strangers would rush to aid a fallen child with band-aids and kind words.  When you're all grown up, you have to pick yourself up.  You have to walk your bike home while your head throbs, your knee drips, and you fight off the emotional reactions caused by the surprise, the fear of the fall, the disappointment, the humbled pride, and the actual pain of the wounds.  In other words, I walked back to my apartment trying not to drip blood on my shoes and trying not to cry.  Then I hauled my bike up the three flights of stairs and put it away and texted my department chair to tell her I'd be late to the meetings.  Then I was able to sit myself on the edge of the bath tub, feel sorry for myself, and begin to scrub out my own wounds.  I had discovered by this time that I really had hit the road with my face.  I had dirt all over my left cheek, and the pavement had punched my chin while wearing its rings.  I'd been daubing it with the back of my hand while I was walking back, and the hand was now covered with different shades of red as the blood dried and was replenished with fresh stuff from my oozing chin.  

Since it had taken me a few minutes to walk home, in order to clean out my scrapes and cuts, I had to scrub off dried blood and half-formed scabs to get the dirt out.  That hurt.  And nobody gave me ice cream, and I didn't get my teddy bear.  Instead I got out my first aid kit, patched myself up, changed my clothes, and drove to work.  Instead of showing off my bike, I displayed my wounds and collected sympathy.  Apparently, they all knew that you can't go over railroad tracks on a city bike.  I guess I do too now.  I'm still going to ride my bike, I'm still going to zip effortlessly over the pavement on my delicate, skittish new bike, but I think I'm going to do it a lot more carefully.  

A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes

Last week, as I drove home from Arizona, I was playing around with thoughts in my head, as one often does on long road trips, and I asked myself the following question:  If I could eat dinner with any celebrity/person in the world, who would it be?  It's the type of question, you ask at dinner parties, prom dates, or on long car trips.  I'm usually fantastically bad at these questions.  I can never decide, or I can never think of anyone who would be all that interesting in the setting of a restaurant.  Celebrity crushes?  I don't want to go to dinner with Gene Kelly; I want to see him dance!  Many of the people I'd want to meet are long since dead anyway.  Jane Austen, long gone.  Einstein or Mark Twain or Winston Churchill?  All gone.  There are some fictional characters I'd like to meet (DOCTOR WHO), but that's stretching the rules of the question a bit, don't you think?

Julian McMahon, my first celebrity crush.  I discovered him in high school,
and Di taped pictures of him all over the outside of her binder.
It's too bad he's nearer my mother's age than mine.
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RNkHL5KXw4U/s1600/05-05-11-iraglasspic.jpg

But, on that long drive, I finally came up with an answer.  If I could pick anyone to have dinner with in real life, real time, not past, future, or fiction, I would pick Ira Glass.  I've already mentioned my love for This American Life, and the radio show continues to delight, impress, and intrigue.  Then, the other day, I missed a call from my long time best friend (y'know, since fifth grade or so), Di.  I listened to her message, but it came out somewhat garbled.  She said something about winning tickets to something on Saturday night, and she was inviting me to go with her, but I couldn't quite catch what it was she had won tickets to.  However, a girls' night out with Di is always a good thing, so I called her back forthwith and left her a message assuring her that I'd love to go, and asking her what it was we were going to.  Then I checked facebook, and found out that what she had one tickets to was Ira Glass's presentation at Kingsbury Hall!  I wigged out something fierce.  I've been speaking in exclamation points all week.  I was going to get to see him in real life!  Actually see him talk and move and express, not just hear his voice on the radio.  Then, Friday, Di told me that because she'd won the tickets through KUER, we were invited to the pre-show reception (with cupcakes! I couldn't eat them, though: it's a safe bet they weren't vegan).  At that pre-show reception there would probably be some KUER people, and a slight possibility of IRA GLASS being there HIMSELF.

So Saturday evening I cut my climbing with friends short and rushed up to Di's house.  We drove from there to the U of U campus and soon found ourselves climbing the steps of Kinsbury Hall.  Then we climbed up to the second floor, found our names on the exclusive list, and waltzed into the reception.  At the door there was a basket of "Ira Glasses," for us to put on to be more like our hero.

Ira Glass glasses

As we went past the red curtain, we found ourselves only about five feet away from Ira Glass!!!!  And sure enough, he was talking!  And his voice was coming from his own mouth, clear and natural, not through a microphone or a speaker or a a television!  He was being gracious and funny about the fact that before he walked in people were taking pictures with a cardboard cutout of him.

Holy moly it's Ira Freakin' Glass!!

It's cardboard Ira!  And real Ira's in the background!  He looks just like himself!

I was far too shy to ask for a picture with him, but luckily, Di was much more bold.  She spoke up right away and asked if she could take a picture of us.  He graciously agreed.  Pardon me if I get a little overenthusiastic with my exclamation points.  He shook my hand!  He said it was nice to meet me!  He stood still for a picture with me!

In my head I was thinking, "Don't be a dork: it's Ira Glass!
Don't be a dork! Don't be a dork!  Holy cow it's Ira Glass!!"

There are so many things I want to say about the lecture/show/evening itself I want to say, but they don't really fit together into a comprehensive paragraph.  I want to tell you about how funny Ira was on stage, how when he sneezed and the stage hands couldn't get him a tissue, a lady in the front row stood up and handed him one.  So he said he'd pay her back and stopped the show as he whisked a red balloon from his jacket pocket and proceeded to tie a balloon animal and give it to her.  I want to tell you the stories he told, the points about human nature he made.  His overall message for the evening was about stories, their structure, and their role in our society and our psyche.  I already knew stories were powerful, I use them daily as a teacher.  I tell stories all day long.  I tell stories about my life, about history, from literature, from mythology, when I can I even turn grammar into a story.  I think my job would be impossible without stories.  Often, I think our society and our lives would be impossible without stories.  Stories are how we learn, what we remember, and what we build our lives out of.

If someday I die and there are no names of children to engrave on the back of my tombstone, or if there's not room for the poem I want there (John Donne, Holy Sonnet X), and if I'm not cremated and scattered from the top of Angel's Landing in Zion, if all that could be said of me and carved into stone at the end of my life was, "She was a great storyteller," I would rest as easy under that simple inscription as the pharaohs do in their gold encrusted tombs, engraved all about with their glorious deeds and accomplishments.  If no one can think of anything better to say about me when I'm gone, I'd be perfectly happy with that.  If you can't write the usual "loving wife, mother, and grandmother" on my tomb, please simply put "Storyteller" under my name instead.

Exciting Things

Saturday I got things done.  I washed my hair, cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom, then started in on my history course.  While working on my history course I went through the long process of waxing and rolling my dreads.  Like I mentioned in my last blog, this rewaxing and thorough rolling takes about 3-4 hours.  So I studied and I rolled, and I watched Bones and I rolled.  It took approximately forever.  After I'd finally rolled them all, I looked in the mirror and realized that, for the first time ever, none of my dreads were sticking up.  Not one was doing its impersonation of a tree.  Finally.  It took them two weeks, but they learned to stay down.

Also on Saturday, I looked down at my legs and giggled.  I always seem to bash my knees when I climb.  Since I climb multiple times a week, my legs look pretty beat up.  I looked at my legs and thought, "Good heck!  Somebody beats me!"  But they don't.  I get beaten by rocks and occasionally concrete when I go skate.

I should go on Jerry Springer

Exciting thing number three, the most exciting of all, was last night I drove up to Salt Lake to hang out with Jeni and Chris.  There I got to meet little Nico for the first time.  I've had lots of friends have babies over the years, and I've got well over a dozen nieces and nephews, but there's something different when it's your best friend since 3rd grading telling you the "birth story," and there in your arms is the little one that caused all the trouble.  There's something different when it's the near sister you used to confide your grade school crushes on, plan high school dances with, giggle with on the marching band bus, live with in college, and whose wedding reception was in your backyard. (Not that I got to go.  That killed me.  I couldn't get work off for love nor money.)  She let me hold him, and make faces at him, and feed him, and tease him.  They're going to be great parents.  I only hope I can do as well someday.

Confession down here in the fine print:  I want one.  I really really do.  I'm not even going to bother lying to you.  I want a husband, I want my kids, I want to start a family.  Sigh.   

The Last Hurrah--With lots of pictures

Monday morning, at about a quarter to five, the adventure began.  Like most adventures, it began with packing sandwiches.  It continued with packing the stuff, and the packing the stuff into the car.  Then I drove to Provo, and we packed Cuny's packed stuff into the car.  Since he was moving, the car got pretty full.  We were particularly creative about where to put his massive bike in my petite car.  A 6'4" dude rides a pretty big bike.  We eventually got everything in, picked up gas, and hit the road.  For the next four hours, I made Cuny drive so I could work on my dreads.  Normally, I only spend an hour or so on them, but since I had washed them the night before they needed to be rewaxed and rolled thoroughly.  That took over three hours.  Am I dismayed about how much time the dreads are taking.  Certainly.  I'm holding out hope that all this maintenance will make them much better down the road, and that when the summer is over I won't have to waste this much time every day on my hair.  I'm not an hour-a-day-hairdo girl.

About the same time I was putting the finishing touches on my dreads, we got close to Zion National Park.  Since this was to be Cuny's and my last trip together, we wanted to do more than just run down to Tucson and drop him off.  So we had decided to spend a day or two in Zion.  Neither of us had ever been, and I was looking forward to scratching another park off my list.  Somehow, I have managed to live in Utah for seven years and not go to any of the national parks here.  In fact, for being a camper, hiker, and back-packer, I have done very little of any of that here.  I usually head up to Idaho or Wyoming or Montana with the family for that.  I've hiked in Germany, I've camped in Japan, but not in Utah.  So this Memorial Day, Cuny, Allie, and I headed to Arches National Park, and I was amazed.  I loved it.  I absolutely loved it.  So it was with high expectations that I set out to both hike and camp in Zion.

It did not disappoint.  Zion National Park is stunning.  I was snapping pictures out the window long before we entered the park, and drove Cuny nuts by stopping to take pictures every hundred yards of trail.  The first thing we did in Zion was snag ourselves a campsite at the South Campground.  South is actually in Zion, and our campsite had a great view of Watchman and was just across the bridge from the visitor's center.  Despite being so close to all the bustle of a busy national park, our campsite was replete with birds, squirrels, and lizards.  This was my first time being in charge of a camping trip.  Normally my older sister or my mother is there, and they plan the meals and pack the food and pick the location and fill out the paperwork and do all the little things they do.  This was my turn.  I was so proud of myself that I took a picture next to the post for our campsite.  We pitched my tent (the first time it's ever been pitched outside!), ate the sandwiches and oreos I'd packed for lunch, and looked over our park map, planning the afternoon's hike.

Since it was both of our first times in Zion, we decided that we needed to hike to Angel's Landing.  Angel's Landing got its name when one of the early explorers of the canyon looked up at it and said that in order get up there, you'd have to be an angel.  It's not a terribly long hike, only 5.4 miles, but you climb a long ways up to get there.  There is a section of switchbacks so short and tight they're called "Wally's Wiggles."  Additionally, it was a hot afternoon in June in the rocky desert under a cloudless sky.  The hike itself was beautiful, and I spent most of it staring up at the towering canyon walls around me, or back at the valley stretching out behind us.

After all the switchbacks and normal trail, we arrived at the most famous stretch of trail in Zion (maybe The Narrows beat it, but not by much).  The last half mile up the landing is a scramble up a narrow trail consisting of sandstone rocks that drop off quickly to the canyon floor below.  As long as you don't mind heights, it's the most fun part of the entire hike, but we passed a lot of hikers who turned back part way, terrified.  The hike is made easier by the thick chains that have been strung alongside the trail, giving hikers a way to steady themselves as they climb.

That's the trail.  Straight up that narrow ridge with drop offs on either side.

The view from the top was spectacular in all directions.  If you looked down the canyon, the way we had come, you saw this:

If you looked the other direction, you'd see this,

If you looked to the side, you saw this:

No, Mom, I'm not on the edge of a cliff.  Why do you ask?

Well worth the hike in our opinion.  After enjoying the view and drinking the last of our water, we headed back down.  Going down the chained part of the trail proved to much slower and trickier than going up it, but we managed.  Then came the two mile hike back to the valley floor, where the Virgin River provides enough water for cottonwoods to grow to towering heights.  On the way down, I managed to get some great pictures of a very obliging lizard.  I have a thing for lizards, and every time we saw one on our trip I made Cuny stop so I could take half a dozen pictures of it from different angles.

Back at camp that evening we fired up our borrowed cook stove and boiled water for dinner.  When I was planning the meals for our trip, I was a bit puzzled.  I've been on lots of camping trips and back-packing trips with my family, and I've eaten lots of camp meals from simple to luxurious, but never as a vegan.  I knew I wanted to keep things simple, things that could be cooked with boiling water.  Nothing that would require us to borrow a propane burner and bring a fry pan and wash lots of dishes.  But things like cup of noodles weren't an option because they all use some kind of animal product in their broths.  Since space was limited in the car, I didn't want to bring a cooler, so anything that required refrigeration was out.  Throw in the fact that Cuny is a picky eater, and I was a bit stuck.  I had stocked up on lots of good trail mixes and oatmeal, and was contemplating just eating that for three meals a day and bringing other stuff for Cuny.  I wandered down the aisles, reading ingredient list after ingredient list, squinting at the fine print and getting discouraged, when I found the answer.  There, on the Macey's store shelves, were upscale dehydrated soups with promising sounding flavors that were clearly marked VEGAN.  Bless their souls.  No ingredient list hunting, no wondering if the fancy calcium blah blah blah on the ingredient list was ground up bones, if the food dye was crushed up beetles, if the riboflavin came from a cow.  They were expensive, $5 for one, but the convenience of a decent, vegan meal that required only boiling water was well worth the price.

So, after a meal of udon, we watched the full moon rise up into the sky next to Watchman.  It was an incredible sight.  We played cards and ate oreos and did our best to stay awake, but we were fast asleep by about nine o'clock.  The next day we had to drive the 8+ hours to Tucson, so we only did two short hikes.  We saw the Emerald Pools, and from there went to Weeping Rock.  This is when my lizard obsession began to get out of hand.  On the trail from the Emerald Pools to the Grotto, the next shuttle stop, there were TONS of lizards!  And they were all different kinds, which meant I had to stop and take pictures of ALL of them.

The water falling into Lower Emerald Pools

Getting dripped on by Weeping Rock.

Lizard!

Lizard!!

Lizard!!!!

More Lizaard!  There were more, but Cuny stopped letting my take pictures of them. :(

After Weeping Rock we headed back to the car and prepared to say good bye to Zion.  But first, we had to drive through the tunnels.  These tunnels were built in the 1930s, blasted through the rock, and are unlit.  The longest is over a mile and occasionally opens out into spectacular views of the red rock.  It was a very fitting way to exit Zion.

So we drove, and we drove, and we drove, and we stopped sometimes for food (mostly Subway for me, their white bread is vegan), and we finally arrived at Cuny's dad's house.  There we unloaded all of his stuff and crashed for the night.  The next day we hung out in Tucson, went to the climbing gym, got Eegees, ate at a fantastic vegan Chinese restaurant, and took a walk in the Sonoran Desert.  The next morning it was time for me to go.  This was Cuny's and my fourth trip to Tucson, but this time he wouldn't be joining me on the return trip.  I'd be driving the 12-13 hours by myself, and when I got back to Utah I would be skate buddyless, and my best friend and partner in crime for the last two years would be gone.  We packed my stuff back in my car, much emptier now, made plans to skate when he comes to Utah to visit in a few months, shared a good long hug, and then I headed out on my own.

And I drove, and I drove, and I drove.  And I ate leftover trailmix and cookies and stopped at Subway again.  I drove through cities and multiple deserts, through cloudless skies and a violent thunderstorm.  I drove through a beautiful sunset, and as the last bits of light were fading from the cloudy sky, I pulled wearily into my apartment parking lot.  Unbent my aching legs, and staggered up the stairs with my stuff.  The trip was over. The Last Hurrah had been Hurrahed.

Quick Update

Since I last wrote I've been to Idaho, been climbing a few different places, took the Praxis test, and managed to have a weekend full of more social activity and small talk than I'm used to.  This week holds a road trip.  We'll hit up Zion National Park tomorrow and Tuesday morning, then continue on down to Tucson Tuesday night.  In Tucson we will unload Cuny and all his stuff, hang out for a day or two skateboarding, climbing, and enjoying the desert, and then I will drive back on my own.  I can't believe my skate coach is leaving, moving away forever.  Who will motivate me to skate now?  Who will push me to try potentially dangerous things?  Who will know my skating abilities well enough to be able to tell I'm making progress when it looks like I'm just doing the same thing over and over again?  Sigh.  Skating by myself will not be as fun.


Here are some pictures from my one week dread anniversary.  They're coming along nicely.

Look!  They don't stick straight up anymore!  

In another three weeks, I might be able to take out the rubber bands.

They actually look much better than I thought they wood.  I expected to look hideous during this stage.
 Instead I look only slightly strange.  I'm down with that.  

When I saw this picture I said to myself, "You're hair looks like chicken poop!"  Seriously.  
And I should know.  I raised chickens as a child.  

All dressed up for fun.  

Loose Ends

Like a million little doorways
All the choices we made
All the stages we passed through
All the roles we played

For so many different directions
Our separate paths might have turned
With every door that we opened
Every bridge that we burned.

There are choices I have made in my life that I wish had turned out differently.  There are things I regret of course, stupid things I did that I wish I could take back, but those aren't the choices I'm thinking about this rainy morning.  I'm thinking about the legitimate, honest choices that we make, perfectly reasonable or viable, but that do close doors and let other opportunities slip by.  As I sit in my chair in the living room of the house I grew up in, watching the rain and wind play in the branches of the trees I used to climb up in to think when I was little, I'm pondering those opportunities I missed.  I'm wondering if there was something I should have done differently, if one of those decisions that was a mistake.

But honestly, each of those decisions was the right one at the time.  The right decision for who I was and what I needed.  What else could I have done?  As I search through my memory for which decision it was that I should regret, I come up blank.  I either wasn't ready or didn't want those opportunities when I had the chance: I made those decisions for a reason.  If you put me back in the same situation feeling the same way, I'd probably make the same decision all over again.  In the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan tells Lucy that he never tells anyone what would have happened "if."  What would have happened if...I had gone on a mission?  I had gone to a different college?  I had never dated that one boy four years ago?  What if I'd never broken up with that one boy six years ago?  What would have happened if I had quit teaching after my first year and gone to Japan?  What if I hadn't hung up before the phone was answered that one time three years ago?  What if I'd been a music teacher instead of English?  What if I'd stayed in Blackfoot instead of leaving?  What if?  All pointless questions.  The truth is I wouldn't take it back.  The only real regrets I have are that I wish I had known myself better at some of those junctures so that I wouldn't have had to learn so many lessons the hard way.  But I needed those experiences.

So there's nothing I'd change, no decision I'd reverse, but listening to the damp wind blow through the pines I still wonder, what if?  What should I have changed?  There was and is no way to get all the experiences I had, plus all the experiences and opportunities I missed.  That's just not how life works.  We make decisions, we gain some things, lose others.  But this quiet morning, in a house in a town both filled with the accumulated memories of my life, I wish I could reach back across those years and take a few of those lost things with me.  It's impossible.  But it's a good morning for what if.

Like a million little crossroads
Through the backstreets of youth
Each time we turn a new corner
A tiny moment of truth

For so many different connections
Our separate paths might have made
With every door that we opened
Every game we played.

("Ghost of a Chance."  Rush.)
 

Dread Heads are Made, Not Born

Friday evening finally came.  It ended up being a smaller party than expected.  Di, Trent, and Cuny were the only ones who were there all evening.  My friend Kirsten came for a bit, and one of my visiting teachers came by and helped for half an hour, which pretty much makes her the coolest VT ever.  The first hour (5-6) was mostly spent giving people directions to my place, cooking and eating the pizza, and watching the how to video for the dreads multiple times.  On a side note, I got to eat pizza!  I ordered Papa Murphy's, and when I looked at their ingredient list, I realized I could totally do a cheeseless pizza from them.  So I loaded it up with tomato sauce and veggies, and you know what?  It was delicious.  I'm definitely doing that again.

After growing my hair out my natural color for nine months,
it's finally time to see if I have enough.  

At about six o'clock, the work began.  Because the boys were scared of ruining my hair, the task of sectioning fell entirely on Di.  She is, in fact, the hero of this whole story.  One of the dreadlocks videos I watched online quipped that the idea that you only needed "one good friend" to do your dreads "sounds like a great way to lose one really good friend."  Luckily, Di is a pretty resilient friend.  The sectioning of my hair took and hour and a half, maybe two.  During this time I took a lot of pictures because I was excited and bored and wanted to document the process.  You can check out the facebook album for the complete photographic tour of the evening.

Sectioning?  Isn't that a girl thing?

Early sectioning.  

All that tugging on my hair may have had a detrimental effect on my sanity.

All that tugging on my hair my have had a detrimental effect on HER sanity, too.

After the sectioning, the actual dreading could begin.  First I sprayed my head with the "locking accelerator," which is a mixture of sea salt and yucca extract.  Then Trent and Di got to work.  Cuny provided the music when we weren't watching TV, and he even ran to the grocery store to get a fresh supply of snacks when they were needed.  Trent or Di would have to tell you what it's like to give someone dreads, I saw very little of the process.  But I can tell you that it takes forever.  I can tell you that the people doing it get bored, that their necks and backs start to hurt from hunching over your seemingly endless head.  Trent apparently didn't know that he was going to be helping when he showed up, but he stayed until we finished for the night anyway, cracking jokes and making us laugh.  Putting dreads in is definitely a bonding experience.  We compared it to monkeys grooming each other and girls putting each other's hair in rag curlers at girls camp, only longer.

  

Being the one getting the dreads is probably the easiest role to play, but you want to have some pain killer handy.  It's not that they're pulling on you head that hard, it's just that having two or three people tugging on small sections of your hair over and over and over in two different directions for hours, all over your head, from the small hairs on the back of your neck, to the ones at your temples, will begin to hurt.  Your head will pretty dang sore afterwards.  If the actual backcombing doesn't irritate your scalp enough, there's always the palm rolling, where you grab a dread and roll it back and forth between your hands to tighten and smooth it.  This has to be done to every single one, and I've got about a hundred.

As the hours passed, we talked, Cuny played guitar, we watched Doctor Who, we watched Say Yes to the Dress, we watched several episodes of The IT Crowed, and I ate a lot of oreos.  At around midnight, we decided that this was going to be a longer battle than we had thought, and that we were going to have to stop for the night.  Trent and Di put bands on the top and bottom of each dread (more tugging and pulling), we took a few pictures, and the two saints of friends left.  Di had to drive 45 minutes home, and Trent had come all the way from Park City to help out. They had been there for seven hours.  My head was about half-done.

As for me, I looked at my head, half newly made, fuzzy and waxy dreads, half floppy sections of loose hair. It was definitely time for a bandanna. The bandanna also made it easier to sleep, because it kept the dreads from getting moving around and tugging on my sore head while I slept.  The next morning I got up and carefully waxed and palm rolled all the dreads I had so far.  The night before I'd been too tired to do more than a cursory waxing and rolling, so I spent an hour or so giving each dread some attention.  Then I went rock climbing up the canyon with a few friends, hiding my crazy hair under a bandanna, that most useful of all accessories.

It actually doesn't look too bad.  Praise Bandannas!

After rock climbing, I played some video games.  That's how you know school is over: I have time to play video games.  It'd been months since I so much as played a round of Mario Kart.  After the veg time, I was ready to go for round two.  I drove up to Di's house this time, and she and I settled in to work again.  From about 6:30 to 11:00, she dreaded by herself.  She'd do a few dreads, band them, and then she'd take a quick break while I waxed and rolled them.  Then we'd repeat.  It was actually really good to have hours to just sit and talk about whatever.  Di's been one of my best friends since fifth grade, and it's been years since we got to hang out on a regular basis.  Having her only 45 minutes away means that after 7 years of being hundreds of miles apart, she can come over for Pi Day, I can come over for America's Next Top Model, and we can spend hours putting dreads on my head.  Her cats may actually stand a chance of remembering who I am now.

Around eleven or eleven thirty, when we were getting pretty tired and a little discouraged because there were still twenty dreads or more left to do, Di's housemate Nick came home.  Nick also gets one million awesome points for his help.  He jumped right in, learned fast, and the two of them got the rest done in only an hour.  At 12:30, I started waxing and rolling the final few dreads.  Then, after a grand total of about 13 hours of work by my friends, the dreads were finally done.

They stuck out in all directions, including straight up.  This, plus the late hour, the elation of being finally done, contributed to some strange pictures.  I love my dreads.  They're bizarre, fuzzy, and demanding little dreads.  I need to put in an hour or so of work on them this morning, and when I go to wash them in a day or two, I'll probably need to set aside more than that for maintenance.  They're going to look incredibly dorky for at least a month, goofy for two, and hopefully they'll start to not be embarrassing by the end of the third.  Not only that, but my head is really, really tender today, and palm rolling is going to be an hour long bummer.  But you know something?  I love them anyway.  I'm already proud of them.  I already think that they look awesome.  I don't know if the wonderful friends who spent over a dozen hours on my hair think it's worth it, but I can tell you that at this point, tender head, fuzziness, waxiness, and 13 hours of sitting later, I'd do it all over again without hesitation.  Maybe I'm crazy.  Maybe I'm obsessed.  But I'm happy.

And I've got dreads.