Some days, you just can’t quite catch up with the universe. You wake up “off” and stay “off” until a switch flips and suddenly you are right side up again.

Before I lived in the woods one of those days might look like this:

1. My alarm failed to go off and thus I awoke in a state of stress and hurry, rushing to get to work on time.
2. In my rush to caffeinate and avoid looking as if I haven’t showered (which I haven’t because I am late) I am simultaneously putting on mascara while making coffee when I stab myself in the eye with the mascara wand and in my reaction, I knock over the freshly brewed coffee.
3. I remedy the eye situation but decide to forego a second round of coffee. I get into the car and get ready to go just as I remember I decided not to stop for gas last night. I guess I’ll be a little later to work.
4. The gas station is packed.
5. I get to work late and the storm continues and the day continues to hiccup me through it.
6. Finally, I get home (after hitting every red light possible) to an empty fridge and a cold house. I turn on the heat and jump into a warm shower and from there on out, the stress of the day is gone and there’s nothing a good movie and a bachelorette style dinner of cereal can’t fix. Of course the remote is out of batteries but hey, I survived.

 

In the woods, one day in particular sums up that “off” feeling perfectly. There was no work to be late to or boss to impress (or not impress) or gas stations to wait at impatiently but still, the same sort of tumbling, bumbling mess of a day arose, even way out here in the woods.

It went a little like this:

 

It was late Winter, almost Spring and the last few weeks of good skiing were upon us. My girlfriend invited me over for some girl time and a ski which I eagerly agreed to, having woken up a little blue and a little “off” that day. And so, I prepared myself to leave for a visit.

It wouldn’t take long.

Wrong.

My plan was to drive (with my newly acquired stick-shift skills which were still pretty shaky, especially in snow) our Jack-in-the-Box of a vehicle to the Footbridge since we still hadn’t broken down and bought our ($300) bridge pass for the vehicle bridge (which would have meant enjoying the luxury of driving straight to her doorstep). From there I would ski to her house a few miles away.

Easy peasy.

I just had to get a few things done first.

Coffee: we were out. So I ground by hand enough for the week. Out of almond milk too but hey, black will do.

Next up: I went to make a fire to take off the chill of the night before and to keep the house from freezing while I was out (The Chief was at work until late that night, working construction on concrete floors in the freezing temperatures).

 

 

Out of wood.

So I geared up to chop some and came back inside with a heaping armload.

Next up: water (we were out).

I again headed outside almost slipping down the ramp which had frozen a bit and came back up ten minutes later (after many a try to get the generator started) with 80 lbs. of water, stepping gingerly to avoid a catastrophic slip. Inside I managed to spill half of the contents of one bucket all over the cabin floor while trying to transfer it into the pot on the stove. As I stepped on the floor I could feel the water beneath the boards. I had also managed to put the fire out. Nice move.

I sopped up the water as best I could, chopped more wood, and got another fire going with the hopes of drying out the cabin floor.

Still, moving forward, determined to get to the comfort of my friend, I dressed myself for the still cold temperatures (it had gone way below zero the night before and the snow had turned to a slick sheet of ice with mush underneath, not exactly perfect conditions).

I chose all of my favorite layers, trying to cozy myself up and treat myself kindly in this already frustrating gloomy day. Long johns, thick socks, snow pants, flannel, sweatshirt, jacket, hat, gloves, face buff.

I was ready. Just then I looked at the impressive fire I had built and started to worry. Should I leave such a raging fire going unwatched? I’d heard about chimney fires and with the way things were going that day I figured it best not to take chances. I sat in my layers, starting to sweat, watching the fire, imagining coming home to a pile of smoldering wood (our house). I decided to check outside to make sure everything was ready to head out while the fire died down a bit.

I gathered my skis and walked over to the car. It was completely iced in.

 

 

The driver’s door doesn’t open so I went to the passenger’s side and just as I pulled the latch I started to slip on the ever so slick ice surrounding the vehicle. Haha, not so fast, universe. I caught myself, jumped in the car and popped open the driver’s side door. My first triumph of the day, at last!

I walked carefully around the car. As I was about to step into the driver’s seat to check the gas level I felt my foot break through ice as I fell backwards. The ice around the car was fresh from the night before. Apparently I had overestimated its strength. I was suddenly lying in an ice puddle, my skis and poles and ski boots scattered everywhere. I felt the water seep into my boots and down the back of my pants.

Wonderful!

I slipped a few more times until I finally got myself up and out of the ice pit and into the house where I stripped down, rung out my clothes, hung them to dry and dressed myself all over again. Luckily I had just been given a pair of snow boots so I didn’t have to wait until they dried and the ski boots which had fallen when I fell were still somewhat dry. Since I had been wearing my backpack when I fell I thankfully hadn’t hit my head on the ice but the backpack too had gotten wet so I unpacked, hung up wet contents and repacked it as well.

O.K. back in gear. The fire was no longer reminiscent of a fire-breathing dragon, it had a steady flame and I felt comfortable leaving it. I again walked outside, slow and steady. The driver’s side door had shut in all the commotion so again I walked to the other side, crawled in and opened it. I slid through the car to the other side and checked the gas level.

It was full.

No, of course it wasn’t.

I carefully got out the other side and placed my skis and poles and boots and backpack into the car and then headed for the gas can which was also full.

No, of course it wasn’t.

I pumped gas quickly. Too quickly. The gas came spewing out the top and all over my newly adorned outfit. I’m used to a little gas so I just went with it. I tried to add gas to the car but couldn’t find the funnel so I just went for it. It got everywhere. It was even too much for me to handle. I was like a walking match. I finished filling the tank and went back inside for yet another clothing change (though despite new clothes I still stunk of gasoline).

Alright! Fueled up and ready to go.

I made my way slip sliding to the bridge, carefully exited the car and got out my skis, changed into my ski boots, bungee corded my snow boots (the second pair of the day) around my backpack and off I went. The ice was slick and within moments I had almost landed on my back twice but no, not again universe. I was determined to stay upright.

I started to get the hang of the slick ice so much so that I called a good girlfriend while skiing (a first for me). I was feeling pretty impressed by myself and better and better as I listened to her words of wisdom when suddenly, I heard a helicopter almost directly overhead.

The T.V. show.

They were filming the area. I immediately thought to myself, “ugh, I don’t want to be in their shot, I didn’t agree to this!” And as I took one look up, deciding to ski away quickly to shelter under a nearby tree what happened? I fell completely backwards on an uphill that was at such an angle that even wearing my backpack with boots strapped to the back I still hit my head.

Hard.

I picked up my phone and the last remnants of my pride and sanity and told my girlfriend what had just happened when suddenly, the fog lifted.

 

 

I started laughing, giggling at first and then it morphed into a roar. Maybe I was concussed or maybe the fall just knocked it out of me. She was laughing on the other end and our sudden shift just kept egging one another on. I started moving again, phone in one hand, ski poles in the other, trying not to fall again but at the same time suddenly being O.K. with all of it.

Yes, today I was clearly out of sync with the universe. I wasn’t jiving and oh freakin’ well. My girlfriend, after we had finally stopped laughing said “Wow, you’re dealing with this day really well” and I remember finally understanding that it wasn’t up to me. This day was a bit of a lion but my anger towards it wouldn’t do me any good and really, I had to just laugh at all that had happened: more wardrobe changes than a pop concert, bumps and bruises, turning our house into a lake, a splitting headache, falling while simply looking up in front of a whole crew of people I knew, stinking of gasoline and still, it could have been worse.

We got off the phone when I realized that I was suddenly lost. I had decided, in my new attitude towards the day, to try a shortcut I had heard of but had never tried, especially in Winter.

I called my girlfriend whom I was visiting and she, as per usual, didn’t answer. I had already made a few gut instinct turns while on the phone and couldn’t be totally sure of the path I had already taken and so, the only way to go was forward. I continued on with confidence and immediately hit another slick spot and down I went!

Again.

Third fall’s the charm?

I picked myself up and got the snow out of my pants and continued on. Eventually, the girlfriend called back and I described my surroundings in detail:

“Well, there are a lot of trees.”

“Did you pass the left turn to the Toe yet?”

“Sure!” (I had no idea)

“Just go straight, Julia. No turns.”

Okey dokey, I got this.

And I did. Eventually I found her (a couple hoots and hollers exchanged between us helped). She walked down from her cabin to greet me and after a quick once over and a lot of friendtuition (friend intuition) she asked:

“Woah, my dear what happened to you today?”

We went inside, me leaving my boots on because we had planned to go for a ski, that was the plan, right?

“What do you need?”

I love her.

What I needed was to slow the heck down for a minute. What I needed was to recognize that the comfort I had spent the whole day in discomfort to get to was suddenly in front of me. She didn’t care if we skied of just sat and talked and we ended doing the latter for quite a while. Suddenly, the day was almost gone (it had taken me almost four hours to get there from the time I had talked to her that morning when it should have taken one) and I was exhausted and in pain and emotionally drained but after telling her the story of my day which again ended in an uproar of laughter I felt even better. We decided to go for a quick ski in which I did the most epic slow motion fall either of us have ever seen, setting my headache right back in place.

Fourth fall’s the charm?

 

 

 

We returned, still laughing about the fall  when she opened a cider and promptly hit herself in the neck with the cork, resulting in a bruise. We roared. I made pepper sculptures while we cooked dinner and we spent the rest of the night talking and laughing, a lot of laughing.

 

 

The first part of that day may have been some of the most frustrating moments I’ve ever had. All I wanted was to get to my friend and it seemed the universe was hell-bent on making me work for it. Maybe that’s what it needed from me, a little gusto. Most everything that could have gone wrong did and things I didn’t even think could happen happened. Even in the woods (I might even say especially in the woods), those days happen just when you don’t need them the most, just when things are already hard. That’s when those days happen.

This whole week was kind of like that day but with its parts evenly dispersed through seven and it seemed to be that way for a lot of folks. It was like trudging through mud. But instead of suffer silently, people talked. I had people I love dearly and people I barely knew telling me how hard the week had been for them, that tears kept coming and frustrations kept jumping in the way of progress and they didn’t quite know why. Maybe it was the weather (it’s been raining and gloomy for weeks), maybe it’s the Summer coming to an end, maybe it’s a deep-seated issue, maybe it’s really nothing at all. Either way it was a weird one and I couldn’t stop thinking about that day last Winter where eventually all I could do was laugh.

 

 

And so, I remind myself that no matter where I am, those days will happen, those weeks will happen. I will fall flat on my back (or more recently on my face, resulting in a beautiful black eye just in time to see my family last week where my nephew told me “Auntie Juju, you look like a zombie”. Thanks, kiddo). I will feel the buildup of pressure and frustration and I can decide to run from it (though it seems to run faster) or I can stop, look at it straight in the eye, see it’s not so bad and appreciate the ridiculousness of it all.

This week may not have been my shining moment of glory but hey, at least I was in good company and at least together we were finally able to laugh some good belly laughs. If you’re going to be out of sync with the universe, it’s at least nice to be there in good company.

Cheers to answering honestly when asked how you are and to finding some friends to wade through the muck with, it makes it a lot easier. And hey, at least after a weird week of rain (or three) the mushrooms, some as big as your head, come out to surprise you.