in every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. -John Muir

as many of you are well aware, my grandma (dad's mom) Doris Price passed away over a week ago. all four of us kids were blessed enough to be able to attend her service in oregon along with our parents, which i am so extremely glad that we did.

for me it was a learning experience about who my grandma was as a person and what she had accomplished in 90 years of life. i was blown away by the strength of character she had developed in her old age, her "can-do" attitude and absolute resiliance and her self-taught, self-motivated personality. the stories told about her during the memorial service captivated me as a granddaughter, and as a granddaughter i know i only had seen one facet of her personality. growing up and visiting grammie, she was one tough cookie. she wasn't the kind of grandmother that showered you in gifts. she woke you up at 5am to pick berries and if you whined (which you KNOW i did) she shut you down with a firm "well, get used to it, life's tough." as i listened to barack obama's inaugural address today, it resonated with me once again the vast sea of changes that have occurred to bring us to this day today, which is what brings me to my computer, and to this blog, thinking that if my country can change enough to swear a black man into its highest office, when just sixty years ago that man wouldve been turned away from a restaurant, then i sure as hell better believe that i can change too.

i know my limits and my strengths, but there is one thing that i would like to change that will be my testament to grammie. matt and i were walking along the beach the day i got back from portland and i just had been telling him about the service and the stories and my grammie, and suddenly i just kind of broke down and said there was one thing grammie had that i envy. and that was an uncanny ability, particularly in her old age after she became a widow, to self-motivate. her participation in button club, in bridge club, in social events, in choir, anything to keep herself busy. i, on the other hand, make excuses for everything (especially going to the gym).

on our way to visit his parents in palm desert after christmas, we passed a sign indicating the Pacific Crest Trail crossed over the road at that point. immediately, matt was dreaming about an outlandish adventure where we spend 8 months hiking from the border to canada on foot through peaks and valleys with only nature as our accomplice. i shut him down not only with a "no way" but also with a "never." i get altitude sickness easily and told him it would never be possible for me to do that with him, in my whole life, no matter what. it wasn't that i shut him down, it was the "never" part that came back to me as we were walking on the beach a couple days after grammie's memorial service.

why "never"? it was so defeatest of me. i feel the same way about marathons and half-marathons. but why? it's not that i feel grammie would do these things, its that i know she had that can-do must-do will-do personality that i just don't.

so i have decided to something i simply would've rejected with my old mentality: to do the john muir trail with matt after we come back from living abroad. this is when i'm penning it in to our life plans, but if it comes later, that is okay too. it takes three weeks and covers 211 miles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir_Trail

i am scared to do this, and i would've said no to this before, even "never." but grammie has given me newfound inspiration to just say "yes, i can do it" -- in all areas of my life -- in areas outside of this one. i am just excited to have the physical experience of the john muir trail and look back and thank grammie for the inspiration i needed to do it.

suzy