Death and Dignity

I have not blogged in a while due to many reasons. The biggest reason is that I am currently going back to school and already writing thousands and thousands of words a week. As much as I love writing, I am already writing so much I just don’t have the energy. This week, however, I heard the story of Brittany Maynard.

For those of you who are unaware of her story because you live under a rock and/or don’t use social media, she is a charming and active 29-year-old woman who has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.  (I encourage everyone to go to Brittany’s website http://www.thebrittanyfund.org to watch the poignant video). This woman is going to die, but she has decided to do it on her own terms. Unfortunately, Brittany, like me, lives in the beautiful state of California that denies the right to death with dignity. Brittany was forced to uproot from her home in San Francisco to go to Oregon that allows her to control when she dies. On November 1^st (after her husbands birthday), she is going to go upstairs to her bed while surrounded by her family and friends, turn on her favorite music, and go to sleep. No loud medical alarms in a sterilized hospital surrounded by unfamiliar people in scrubs with the old lady down the hall screaming to get out of bed. No drawn out morphine drips and days of her body painfully and slowly shutting down.

I have been thinking about her since I heard her story. She is about my age, and she seems like a person I could be friends with. I also am angry. Furious. Frustrated. Why does she have to go to Oregon to do something that is difficult enough already? Not only is she facing her own mortality and suffering from the severe symptoms of having a brain tumor, she had to leave her home. Her brain is swelling up and causing severe and incapacitating seizures, so she is on harsh medications that cause their own severe side effects. She can’t even be home in her city and State where things are familiar for her last difficult days. This is ludicrous. This is WRONG.

            Before I receive the angry hate mail from my religious friends and my “slippery slope” pessimist friends, hear me out. Ok, so you believe that it is “wrong” for her to take her own life. Well guess what? I think it is wrong to make decisions for other people. I have heard the “we shouldn’t play God” case, and I would like to point out that we are way beyond that. A ventilator that forces air in and out of a person's lungs is playing God just as much as providing enough morphine to go to sleep. We play God when we prescribe and administer insulin for high blood sugar, and no one seems to argue against that. If death-with-dignity goes against your religious beliefs, don’t do it. Pretty simple solution, if you ask me. Freedom of choice should be paramount, not the freedom for you to never be offended by others choices.

OK, so I understand the slippery slope argument. If we allow this, it could be abused and before we know it we are killing off the mentally and physically disabled. Great point, but hold on. “Death-with-dignity or aid in dying is a medical practice in which a terminally ill and mentally competent adult requests, and a doctor prescribes, a life-ending medication the person self-administers” (The Brittany Fund, 2014). TERMINALLY ILL and MENTALLY COMPETENT. This is a voluntary choice of the physician and the patient to participate. If the prescription is written, it does not have to be filled or used. In the 17-year history of this law, many people have chosen not to use their prescription. Just having a choice to end the suffering if it gets too much is a comfort. The slim potential for abuse should not be a reason to refuse this choice. Narcotics are addictive and regularly abused, but somehow people still get NORCO for back pain. Let's decide to allow terminally ill people the choice to decide if and when they would like to die if it all gets to be too much.

            I could write an entire blog on death and dying and my observations on how our society perceives it. Maybe I will sometime. Essentially? We are afraid of death, but we all must die. Our religious beliefs give us guidance on what happens after, but we all must someday take the “big sleep”. If a person is facing imminent death and suffering, is it fair for us to tell them they must continue to suffer until the bitter end because we don’t like it? Because it makes us feel uncomfortable?

Still not convinced Death With Dignity is a good idea? Let me break this down. Do you have terminal cancer?? No??? Sit down and shut up. You do have terminal cancer but still believe in suffering it out? That is your choice. Why should you decide for others? You live your life the way you see fit and let others do the same.

            Personally, I am going to join the fight to get Oregon's Death With Dignity Act to become standard in every State.

Love to Brittany, her family, and all those in similar circumstances.

For my Darling Dearest Darla

I don’t remember the exact moment I met Darla. I can tell you I was 18 and greener than Ireland. I arrived at Leoni Meadows Summer Camp to work from mid June to mid August as a girls counselor. I didn’t really know anyone. I was insecure and shy. I was and am a true introvert. I had done a lot of babysitting in my teen years, but never had a “real job”. This was the first time living away from home too. I was overwhelmed and in need of some real friends.

            Darla and I became real friends about 3 weeks in. It was during what Leoni calls “family camp”, and I was assigned to work at the craft building. Families would paint various pieces, and my job was to stand outside and spray sealing over said art. Summer heat and strong fumes are not a great combination. Being 18 and stupid, I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep, food or fluids that week. By Friday I became dizzy, flushed, nauseous, and had a few moments of near fainting. Oops. The camp nurse was called in. Long story short, I was sent to lie down and drink fluids, etc.

           

Darla was going to be a nurse, and she truly had the nurse’s heart. Many in nursing, unfortunately, get in it for the money. Not Darla. She and I were sleeping on opposite sides of the dorm that week. I had a bunk bed all to myself and slept on the top to oversee everything around me. Guess who dragged over her sleeping bag and made camp on the lower bunk that night to “make sure I would be ok”. Darla. She even woke up at various times that night to check my pulse. Literally. She would grab my wrist and check it. The next day I was still feeling sick, so I got sent to a rapid care. Guess who invited herself to come along? Yep. Darla. We became true friends. We also shared that bunk the rest of the summer.

          Summer camp memories tend to blur. I can tell you that summer we bonded. Darla was a brat. Not in a mean or bully sort of way. A brat in a mischievous and sarcastic way. Being young and silly teen girls, we had various dramas that seemed far more important than they were. We decided our dramas mirrored the TV show “Grey’s Anatomy”. She was like Meredith, and I was like Izzy. Thus our nicknames for each other. We spent many late nights in deep conversation...or mischief. One night towards the end of the summer, we sat outside between our 2 cabins that were full of girls we were counseling, and talked about our dreams, aspirations, and concerns about life in general. She told me that night “You can’t worry about making other people happy. You have to make yourself happy and the rest will come”.

             Further summers ensued, and I stayed a counselor while she became a camp nurse/archery director. I was known to try and drag my campers up to archery every chance I got so Darla and I could hang out while the kids killed hay bales. She carried around this annoying whistle, and took special joy in blowing that whistle at random times to make the kids jump.

             I have many random memories of her. Darla had an addiction to caramel apple lollipops, and wore a camel back constantly. She was short in stature (barely 5 feet tall), but could be described as a firecracker. She specialized in snarky comments. Sometimes you wanted to hug her and slap her at the same time. Darla was honest. Anything she said behind your back she would also say to your face. She tended to call you a “pansy” if she thought you were being cowardly. Darla liked to fill up pitchers full of water, run up to the deck above the cafeteria at Leoni Meadows, and dump water on people’s heads as they exited. Darla called me “Lubecki” when she wasn’t calling me “Izzy”. I honestly can’t recall her saying my first name. I am sure she did, but it was rare.

              Camp friends either stay in your life, or they fade away. Darla stayed. We didn’t talk everyday, but we never lost touch. During nursing school, she would encourage me and laugh at my rookie mistakes. (She loved the fact that she could prime IV tubing better then me). A few days before I took the board exam, Darla assured me I shouldn’t worry. That she didn’t study at all and she passed just fine. When I became an RN, she said she was proud of me. Darla was a pediatric cardiac critical care nurse when I got hired on an adult cardiac unit, so she started quizzing me on cardiac meds. When I failed miserably she laughed and said, “You better learn them, Lubecki”! Right up until the end, Darla encouraged me to get into expand my nursing career. We both loved being nurses, and planned to go back to school to get our BSN’s together online. The plan was to hold each other accountable.

            Darla had a heart for pediatrics. She loved kids and couldn’t imagine taking care of “big people”. I would tease her that it was because she was so short that she was kid size. I said the reason kids loved her was because she was small like them. Darla usually gave some snarky response, but I think she honestly thought I was onto something. We wanted to ultimately become pediatric nurse practitioners, and Darla wanted to attend the prestigious UCSF. She wanted to be roommates in San Francisco while we went to school there and we talked about all the adventures we would have in the Bay.

     

         Darla was an amazing human. She had a sense of adventure that most people do not have. Not only did she love nursing, she loved travel nursing. She had a restless soul and didn’t seem to ever be content in one place. She had no problem just picking up and moving anywhere. Darla didn’t own very much according to her, but she loved expensive things. One time I was shocked that she dropped hundreds of dollars on sunglasses. Darla thought it was ridiculous that I wouldn’t spend more than $20 on mine. She tried to tell me it was about quality, and I argued that I would rather have many pairs of sunglasses that I don’t have to worry about. We never did agree.

              Her body betrayed her. For some reason, her body continued to randomly go into anaphylactic shock. Respiratory distress seemed to be her specialty. She was intubated so many times she lost track. I remember the number 17 rolling around, but she admitted she wasn’t sure. Darla was thankful she still had her front teeth and a voice, though she lamented that she couldn’t sing the same.

              We had a weird pattern when it came to her illnesses. She was tired of pity and concern, so I instead would chastise her. “Silly Darla. Why do you keep getting sick? You just want more drugs huh? Or is it the Foley catheter cause you are too lazy to get up and pee?” She would laugh and blow it off, and we would then speak of other things. Anything else but her sudden and unexplained illness. The few times we talked about what was happening with her, we would talk in medical jargon. Unattached. Like 2 nurses talking about a patient. She went to hospitals up and down the west coast and no one knew why her body would attack itself.

             Recently, Darla was hospitalized in the same hospital I work. Before my shift started she was to be discharged. I even offered to help her pack. I told her to let me know before she left. On my short break I went to her room to find she was wheezing so bad she couldn’t speak and that the rapid response team had been called. By my lunch break she was sedated, restrained, and on a ventilator in the ICU. I tucked a pamphlet about the school we were to attend for our BSN’s in her backpack, wrote smiley faces on the dry erase board in her room, and kissed her on the forehead before returning to work.

              I got accustomed to her always surviving. I shouldn’t have. I regret that I took her for granted. One time I thought she had stroked out and was brain dead. In a panic, I called her cell phone to hear her voicemail message one last time. She answered. I got used to her always answering and hearing “Hey, Lubecki” on the other end. When I found out she passed, it didn't seem real. It still doesn't.

              Darla was exhausted. The last time I saw her, she looked weary. She was spending more time in the hospital as a patient than as a nurse. She wasn’t able to live her life anymore. I didn’t tease her that time. I didn’t know what to say. 

            Time does not heal all wounds. You just grow familiar with the wounds. I am trying to adjust.

            My writers heart fails me when I look to the future without her. I don’t know how I am going to go on without her, but I will. I do truly believe I will see her again someday, and when I do I don’t want her calling me a pansy.

Love you Darla. See you soon.

Take Me Out To The Ballgame...

             I am new to the joys of baseball. During teen years I followed NASCAR like a cat follows a laser pointer. A combination of things led me to fall away from the high paced sport. College was one. Instead of watching races I had to actually study. Various other changes in the sport also led me to just stop watching.

            Growing up, baseball was always in the house. Always. When I was about 7 my parents bought me a Louisville Slugger. Dad would take me out to the yard and we would play a little game of “hit the ball”. I have knew the proper batting stance before I could remember my phone number. Ultimately, my brother took to following baseball naturally. My eyes kind of glazed over to it…until about 2 years ago.

            I was still in nursing school, and baseball was on TV. It was towards the end of the baseball season, the semester was dragging on, and I wanted to spend some time with my guys (my dad and brother). I shoved the nursing books away and sat down between Sean and dad on the couch and said “Explain this”. The next hour was spent with dad and Sean explaining the various nuances of the game. It was a very happy hour.

            Next baseball season came, and my adopted little brother joined Little League. SO FREAKING ADORABLE. You would have to be stone cold and heartless to not get fuzzy feelings from little guys in uniforms trying to figure out what to do after they actually hit a ball. I learned even more facts about the game, and saw first hand the childish joy associated with baseball. My dad was pushing for us to go as a family to a minor league game in Sacramento. We decided to go. Some family friends met us at Raley Field, and the rest is history. I fell in love with the quiet and relaxing experience of sitting at the ballpark with the family. The atmosphere was soothing. I was hooked. Few things are quite as wonderful as sitting on a warm summer night with lemonade in hand watching the game.

           

            Football is loud and aggressive. Basketball is invasive and flashy. Golf is too laid back and…dull. NASCAR lacks poetry and grace. Baseball seems to be the perfect balance of everything. It has its moments of excitement, but you can also get up and stand in line for more popcorn without feeling like you are missing everything. Baseball is leisure. Between pitches and innings you can have a conversation. You can soak in it. It takes place during a time of year when we come alive. The winter chill has ended, and we bloom into baseball season.

             As my dad says “Baseball is beautiful”. (I think he stole the quote from someone else, but as far as I am concerned it is from him). I have found that it is indeed a lovely thing. Life is hard. Life is stressful. Life moves too fast already. Taking some time to sit down and watch a game is sometimes the exact thing you need. I can sit riveted to every play, or I can let my mind drift. It means for nine innings the world and all its problems are far away. It means warm summer nights. It means little guys in baseball cleats. It means I can spend some time with the two most important guys in my life.  Baseball. Is. Beautiful.

          “Don't tell me about the world.  Not today.  It's springtime and they're knocking baseballs around fields where the grass is damp and green in the morning and the kids are trying to hit the curve ball.”-- Pete Hamill

Tidings of Comfort and Joy?

         20 babies and 6 adults were murdered this month. I just found out that today (Christmas Eve), 2 firefighters were slaughtered and 2 other firefighters are injured from what appears to be a trap to lure them in and kill them.  As if that wasn’t enough this Christmas Eve, a police officer and a bystander died from wounds suffered in a parking lot shootout in Texas. Earlier this month, there was a shooting in an Oregon mall that was packed with holiday shoppers. According to CNN, even the mall Santa had to drop down to keep from getting shot. And these are just a few of the headline stories! What about the world news? Do I even need to mention the unrest and violence going on around the globe? What about the local news stories of murders, car accidents, and kidnappings?

            What comfort and joy?

            Many a Christmas family gathering will be torn apart when the conversation turns to gun laws, foreign policy, the last election, or the fiscal cliff we will be going over. We are all worried. Taxes are rising. The economy is still crawling by. Our healthcare system is going to be completely changed, and no one knows exactly WHAT will happen.

            On a personal note, I have friends battling cancer and other illnesses. Some are unemployed and are unsure what this New Year will bring. There is suffering everywhere. Life is uncertain. People get sick. People die. Just driving to the store is a dangerous proposition.

            Where is the peace on Earth, goodwill toward men? Not here.

            I believe in the Christmas story. I respect all different beliefs, but I have chosen to believe there is a God. Underneath the tinsel and the lights there is a deeper meaning. For some, this deeper meaning is family and giving. I love that. I agree. For others, Christmas is a stupid holiday and a waste of money. It is getting easier and easier to be completely cynical. It comes down to a choice.

            Christmas means hope. Christmas means this nasty horrible planet we are living on is not the end. Even if you don’t believe it, you must admit that the idea of God coming down to this terrible place to save us is appealing. I have chosen to believe this is true. I cling to the fact that this life is not all there is. I have to.

There is still good in the world. The firefighters, the police, and the paramedics/EMT’s that put their life on the line and see unspeakable horrors give me comfort. My fellow nurses, the doctors, the nurse’s aids, and all the hospital staff dealing with very sick and dying people with compassion day in and day out give me comfort. The men and women of our military that sacrifice so much to keep evil out of our country give me comfort. My family and friends that have proven that they have my back no matter the situation give me comfort.

This year we have to look hard to find comfort and joy, but it is there! I wish that on a personal level that you can find it this Christmas.

“Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord! And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.’And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

‘Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!’”

Merry Christmas!

            

Lights! Camera! Massacre?

                I love going to the movies. I love the experience of sitting in a dark theater, and spending the next 2 hours transported into a different time and place. I love the surround sound. Someday I will overdose and die happily on movie popcorn. I even love watching the previews for movies soon to come. Going to the movies for me is a chance to let my guard down, relax with friends, consume empty calories, and admire various attractive gentleman actors.

                The movie experience was attacked.

                We are all horrified at the event that took place in Colorado during “The Dark Knight Rises” premiere. I think those of us that go to the movies on a regular basis are even more shaken.

                The shooting happened at a midnight showing which changes the dynamics. People that go the midnight showing of a premiere are typically hardcore movie buffs. The atmosphere was sure to be festive. The long awaited conclusion of the Batman trilogy is here! People were there to relax and enjoy. It was more like a party. This has made the shooting all the more horrifying and violating.

                I myself just saw “The Dark Knight Rises”. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and honestly look forward to owning it and seeing it repeatedly. When the credits started to roll, however, an unexpected thought came to me.

There is an entire group of people that didn’t live to see the end of this movie.

                It is human nature to be sad, scared, and angry at such an event. It is also human nature to blame.

                As soon as the news of this massacre sunk in, my next thoughts were “Will we now have to be stripped searched to go into the theater? Will we have TSA like security now? Here comes the blame game”.  

                And the blame game has started indeed! Should we have more gun laws? Because somehow more laws will make things better. Should we make concealed weapons more available? Because somehow in a dark, noisy, crowded theater with gas bombs going off, a disoriented layperson will no doubt be able to shoot the perpetrator no problem.

                OH! And lets ban costumes in the theater! Somehow that will keep us safe! Costumes are bad! Never mind that the suspect in this case was wearing freaking body armor NOT a costume.

                I know! How about the parents of this psychopath! Lets blame them! Somehow they should have told someone that their son was…uh…disturbed? Because we all want a police force that runs around investigating reports of “disturbed people”.

                It is human nature to blame and I get that. Blame means there was a cause. We want a cause because it means we might be able to control it. Somehow the fact that this was caused by a true psychotic individual that could not by any reasonable means be stopped just isn’t acceptable. We must make more laws! We must have more guns! Less guns! We must do something! We must blame someone! We must have control.

                Ah control! How we humans love control! We love to live in this façade that we have control of things around us. There are certain elements that we can control yes. We can take steps to make sure the odds of control are in our favor. Ultimately, however, events like this tragedy remind us that sometimes shit happens. As much as we try, sometimes some crazy person with a gun will kill a bunch of people because it is fun.

                I guess my thesis here is to feel free to discuss this tragedy and how it can be prevented, but don’t leave your head behind. Let’s stay real people. (For instance, banning costumes. Really?) Don’t let your fear and paranoia steal your freedom or peace of mind…or your movie experience.

 (SIDE NOTE: Not sure where to put this so I will shove it here. I DO THINK that we should consider not allowing children to midnight premiers of PG-13 or R movies. This has nothing to do with the massacre and certainly has nothing to do with preventing such events, but I am frustrated that children were allowed into the theater. A 6 year old is dead who should have been in bed at that time of night. No blame here. I don’t judge her parents. I am not even going to touch the whole movie rating thing even though there is no way in hell I would allow my 6 year old to see Batman due to content. But what adult wants to sit with a child at ANY late night or midnight movie? I think between certain hours no children should be allowed into anything but G or PG movies. Period.)

My heart hurts for the families and the survivors. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

It’s Good To Be The Nurse…

Last year at this time, I was pinned as a graduate nurse. Looking back on that day, I am astounded at how far I have come, and how graduating was truly just the beginning.

The day I graduated nursing school was one of the proudest days of my life. The day I took the NCLEX was one of the most terrifying days of my life. The day I found out I PASSED the NCLEX was the most joyful day of my life. After I took the NCLEX, it took 3 days for the California Board of Nursing to post the results. 3 days I never want to relive. I was told that the Board of Nursing posted online the new licenses at 4am in the morning. Guess what I was doing? I was checking at about 4am in the morning.  When I would check and nothing would appear my heart would sink and the agony would begin for another day.

Then at about 5am on the morning of June 30^th, I woke up, grabbed my itouch, and my blurry eyes searched the site. On the tiny screen of the itouch I saw something I had not seen before on my previous searches. My name with the initials RN. Felicia Ann Lubecki, RN. I am not ashamed to say my heart skipped beats, my head started whirling, and the tears began to flow down my face. I wanted to scream, shout, run, dance, climb the walls, skydive, etc. I was done. I did it.

This was the beginning of a new challenge. Job hunting.

Here I am one year later, and thankful to be one of the few that have managed to find a job as a new grad nurse. Not only a job, but my first job. In some ways this has been a curse. Not only have I had to learn how to be a nurse, I have also had to learn what it means to be part of the work force. I have learned how to clock in, how to have a 30 minute lunch, how to keep your stuff out of the way in a crowded break room, play nice with the co-workers, etc. I am also going to flat out say it is nice to have a paycheck. Really nice. Okay it is freaking awesome.

Nothing really prepares you for being an RN. When something goes wrong, and everyone is looking at YOU for answers, it can be hard to swallow. The RN is the absolute center of care. Doctors come up and ask you for updates and rely on the accuracy of your information to choose treatment. You are constantly getting bombarded with lab personnel, respiratory therapists, radiologists, and all other staff you can think of who want guidance regarding the patient. As a student I was one of those being guided. RN means I am doing the guiding.

Leaving school and starting your first RN job is like being a baby bird and getting shoved out of the nest. Either you are going to start flying or you will plummet to the ground below.  Sometime along the way, you will begin to plunge. Guaranteed. You have to learn to reach out for the helping hands to stop you from falling. (And if needed, demand those helping hands). So much of being an RN is knowing who to ask for help, knowing your resources, and knowing what you DON’T know.

There are many days when I am overwhelmed. There are days when I truly wonder why I didn’t become a park ranger instead. I hate dealing with doctor’s egos, angry and bossy family members, combative patients, drug seekers, non compliant patients that don’t take their medications and end up in and out of the hospital on my tax dollar, and a million other little things only another nurse would understand. However, there are also a million little moments that only a nurse sees.

When a frail old lady grabs your hand because she is scared out of her mind at what is happening to her. Those moments after a person gets a terminal diagnosis, and you just sit with them while they try and process what was just said. The WW 2 veteran with no family that hugs you and tears up when it is time for him to be discharged. The last few moments of someone’s life when you let them know it is ok to let go...

Saying you are a nurse, and being a nurse are two very different things. Some RN’s are burnt out and cranky. Some don’t have the common sense to save their life or anyone else’s. Some are there to get their paycheck only, and do the bare minimum required of the job. Most, however, are truly amazing individuals that rise to any circumstance. We are as different as anyone can possibly imagine, but we have one thing in common. We know what it is to be in the trenches of humanity. While others run away at the sight and smell of sickness and death, we stay.

It’s good to be the nurse…

A Place of Refuge

It is no secret I am what you could call obsessed with a nearly 1,200 square mile area of the Sierra Nevada called Yosemite National Park. I was telling someone the other day about my summer vacation plans, and the plans all revolved around this one place. The response? “You must really like Yosemite”! Um…yes, I really like Yosemite.

While other babies spend their 1^st birthdays in a nice clean house with parents that let them go head first into a cake, I spent my first birthday crawling around a Yosemite Valley campground eating dirt and chasing squirrels. (Actually the squirrels tried to steal my food and crawl on me much to my father’s irritation). While other people spend their 21^st birthday bar hopping and getting smashed, I spent mine on top of Half-Dome eating hostess cupcakes for birthday cake. Many of my life events were spent in Yosemite.

I think everyone has a place. A place where the world and all its problems are far away. A place where you can take inventory of your life, and realize that you are truly just a small part of a huge universe. A place for perspective. A place to dust off the weariness that day to day life brings. Mine is Yosemite. This is not to say Yosemite is safe. In fact, I think that is part of its appeal to me. It is an unforgiving wilderness. Don’t let the Ahwahnee Hotel fool you. People get swept down waterfalls and fall off granite cliffs on a fairly regular basis. Nature demands respect that our soft pampered lifestyles do not understand.

Somehow we think that we must defeat anything remotely uncomfortable. This is not a new idea to us homo sapiens. Thank goodness for people like John Muir who dedicated his life to preserve wilderness in a culture that wanted to destroy it. We have come a long way from the days with regularly scheduled bear feedings for the public to watch. The philosophy was to either tame or obliterate nature for our pleasure. Many wanted to turn Yosemite Valley into something akin to an amusement park...some still do. Even worse are those who want to turn parts of the National Park into a dam to send water to San Francisco! Oh wait…they did that. Can you say Hetch Hetchy?  

For those of you who have never been backpacking, let me describe it for you. After you have been on the trail for 3 days, you are stiff, dirty, and tired. You smell like bug spray, sunscreen, and body odor. Your skin is covered in layer upon layer of dirt that has been ground into your pores. Your hair is oily and sticking to your scalp. You are ravenous for a hot meal of carbohydrates and protein. You can’t wait to shower, scrub down, and slip between the clean crisp sheets of a soft bed to sleep for at least 14 hours. How does this sound appealing?

Because you climbed waterfalls. You braved sheer rock cliffs. You slept on untarnished ground. Instead of fighting nature, you became part of it. You discover a world that exists without you controlling it. A world bigger then yourself.  At the end of your adventure, you feel at your very core satisfied. You feel alive.

John Muir said, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul”.

 
I fully understand that a good tromp into nature is not everyone idea of a good time. I was born and raised in the forest, so being around rocks, trees, and dirt is second nature. I feel very claustrophobic in the city. Trapped. Everyone has different comfort zones, and mine is NOT surrounded by concrete, noise, asphalt, and buildings.

In fact, I ask a favor of you. Tread carefully, respectfully, and, if nature isn’t your thing, stay out. People die in Yosemite every year because they do not respect or understand the wilderness they have entered. If you do visit, stay on marked trails and read signs. Don’t swim above a waterfall. Stay behind retaining walls even if you think you could get “the perfect picture” by climbing over it. Obey the rangers and use them as a resource. Know your limits. Still not your thing? Six Flags is great this time of year!

I don’t know of any words that really express how I feel when I am in Yosemite Valley. There is something about being surrounded by granite cliffs and waterfalls that is calming. Reassuring.  Energizing. Addicting. There is something unique about the Yosemite wilderness that is unlike any other. It is the one place on the face of the planet that when I am there, I don’t want to be anywhere else.

 John Muir summed it up best when he said “Yosemite Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands…”

Exactly.