Edges Like Sea Glass

By Leah LaRocco

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Making Connections As An Introvert Is So Damn Hard

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One of my worst nightmares is being in a large group of people I don’t know. This happens regularly in work situations.  It happens in family situations.  It happens when I go on trips.  Basically, being out in the world is kind of tough for me sometimes.  I hate surface conversations and suck so bad at small talk it isn’t even funny.  Tell me about your life. What challenges have you been dealing with lately?  How is that relationship going? What kind of personal growth have you experienced recently? What made you cry in the last month?  Talk to me.  Wrestle through the deep longings of life and let’s bare our souls together.

I love being alone.  I love being with my husband.  My cats get me.  The garden is where I plow and weed the fields of my inner self.  Hiking alone used to be scary and now I can’t think of a more peaceful, invigorating experience.  I really love having dinner, coffee, or lunch with a friend and catching up on all the good stuff.  Reading alone at night with the TV off is one of life’s delights.  Sitting down and pouring out the present day’s angst in a journal revives my energy, enabling me to face another day. Walking near the sea with the salty breeze breathing life into my being helps me contemplate all the dreams still birthing themselves into existence within my spirit.  These are the things that characterize my introverted nature.  I used to consider this a weakness, a failure on my part to succeed socially, but the more I learn who I am and find freedom in that, the more I understand that this is how I was made and aspects of this perceived weakness are actually my greatest strengths.

I recently met someone who I thought I had a connection with.  She is a woman who has done incredible things with her life.  We talked about where we are in our careers, the “tug” people sometimes feel in their hearts toward new things, and how being brave and stepping into those things can reap great reward and fulfillment.  The conversation came at a time when I needed to hear that message and I felt that perhaps something divine had caused our paths to cross on that particular day.  We exchanged contact information and now I’m getting calls from this person, trying to sell me products from this company she works for, products I don’t need or want to spend money on.  She has used up two hours of my time over the phone that I will never get back and it’s my own fault because I don’t know how to say, “I don’t care what you’re selling, I just want to be your friend.”  The disappointment I feel at this interaction stems from my desire for connection from someone who may have just used me to make a sale.

There have been situations in my job where I’ve worked the room at an event, met someone who really seemed awesome, talked to them for a while, got the whole, “We should do lunch” line only to never hear from them again.  I hate these interactions so much because they are a waste of emotional currency.  I don’t enjoy making the exhausting effort that comes so easily to the extroverted only to have it end in a useless business card that takes up space in a drawer.  I’m not saying that networking isn’t important in professional situations, but the people who’ve actually followed through and made the lunch plans are the ones I still keep in touch with and would stick my neck out for if they ever needed a favor.

My husband’s family is huge. They are nice people who I couldn’t possibly differ more on when it comes to politics and religion, which often leaves us with little to say.  They enjoy gathering in boisterous groups and staying in one place together because they all love each other so much. It’s a beautiful thing to see, and it’s also one of the hardest circumstances for me to handle emotionally and mentally because I crave peace, quiet, and one-on-one connection above all else.  I don’t function well in these spaces and am aware that I come off as the rude in-law from New York.  I’ve made my peace with this because I’m ok with who I am and because I feel lucky to have married into a loving family that brings my husband so much joy.  But seriously, all I want to do is go have a drink with them one at a time so I can actually get to know them and maybe they’d get to know a little more of me too.

When I was in high school, I was painfully shy, awkward, very worried about what people thought, and piously evangelical.  I cringe at the things I said and how black and white the world was for me at that time of life.  But to this day, I still have a few close friends from high school who I adore so much.  We write letters to each other, travel together sometimes, and connect instantly like no time has passed whenever we are lucky enough to be in person together.  Our group was small.  We weren’t popular.  We were nerds.  But that small group of girls was my saving grace in years when I struggled with depression, loneliness, heartbreak, and so many AP tests.

In college, I was still awkward, but a change began to take place.  There was a deepening of my faith in a way that provided more seats at the table, a will and strength that defied professors who said I wasn’t good enough to make it, and friendships so strong that no time or distance has been able to break them.  These relationships were forged in lonely practice room hallways in the music building, lengthy road trips to Fort Myers for Easter, a small artist colony on Martha’s Vineyard where we had nothing but ourselves and a recording studio.  College was where dreams started to become reality before we were all spit out into the world, landing in cities where we gasped for air until we found the spaces where we could breathe.

As an adult, I’ve learned that forming friendships is not as easy as it once was.  People have their families, careers, and priorities that don’t always leave room for new emotional investments.  Sometimes you make the effort to meet someone new for coffee, tentatively testing the waters of compatibility.  Do we like the same things? But more importantly, does this person’s heart recognize something familiar in my own? It’s rare when true relationship is found, which perhaps makes us more grateful for it.  I’d be lying if I said I don’t envy the extroverts of the world.  They make it look so easy with their effortless banter to strangers, the way they flit around a room like fireflies, striking up conversation with the dullest of individuals and making it seem interesting.  I want that!  But I also want to be true to who I am. Being genuine sometimes requires revealing that a day is shitty instead of saying everything is fine.  Life is too short to waste precious effort on people who don’t see you.  Be you, do you, live you to the very fullest, even if it means spending Saturday night with the cats.  After all, they get you…

Yosemite: Yosemite Falls and Sentinel Dome

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The use of seasons as an analogy for what we experience in life is a weary one, worn out from centuries of use by humanity to describe the phases of our lives that ebb and flow.  Relationships, families, jobs, the paths we travel on all have seasons.  The most dramatic seasonal changes that I perceptibly take notice of each year are winter turning to spring and summer turning to fall.  The changes from spring to summer and fall to winter are less visually profound, so they happen unconsciously.  My wardrobe is the main indicator of the subtler seasonal changes, a t-shirt taken out of a drawer, a down coat out of a closet.  In our city/suburban lives, seasons are easily overlooked unless intentionally observed.  In nature though, seasons are as vivid as a rainbow against a dark grey sky.

I have now seen Great Smoky Mountains National Park in all seasons.  Each one is strikingly different.  There is no mistaking the icy fronds of Fraser firs in winter, the bursting forth of formerly quiet streams in spring, the vibrant blooms of flame azaleas and rhododendrons in summer, and the autumnal golds, reds, and oranges of deciduous forests in October.  Every month holds a new experience in the varied landscapes of the mountains once tread upon by pioneers and loggers who struggled to tame the land.

Yosemite is no exception.  The last time I was there, Yosemite falls looked like this.

This time its form was as perfect as one could hope for, upper cascading into lower, misting the rocks at its lowest depth while continuing down streams leading to meadows.

We arrived early at the falls to avoid the major crowds and then headed over to the Upper Yosemite Falls trail to Columbia Rock.  We weren’t planning to hike all the way up to upper falls, but wanted to snag some good views of the valley.  The trail begins at the edge of Camp 4 and heads up numerous switchbacks through dense forest with butterflies called California Sisters, whose host plant is the canyon live oak.

The trail is sandy and rocky, so utmost caution is required on the way down.  The higher we climbed the more the valley opened up to us.

When we reached Columbia Rock, the tiny overlook area was already crowded so we headed back down to a small offshoot we’d seen just below to relax and take pictures.

The vastness of Yosemite is difficult for the mind to grasp.  As we stood over the expanse of the valley where we slept below the pines each night, I had the same feeling as when I stand beside the water at home.  Smallness.  The fragility of humanity in perspective to the greatness of the monoliths, the power of the rivers, and the depths carved by glaciers.

I didn’t know it at the time, but we were watching falcons fly through the skies as they dove into the valley below.  My favorite picture from this whole trip is the one where I accidentally captured a falcon in flight.  We saw the birds on several occasions, some flying in pairs in perfect tandem before diving so fast that we lost sight of them as they plummeted.

We hiked back down to Camp 4 and refilled our water.  I noticed a memorial in the shade of an immense rock called the Columbia Boulder.  When we got back home I was able to look up some information on Raffi Bedayn.  What an incredible person.  Another hidden treasure we never might have seen if we hadn’t needed water.

We headed back to lower Yosemite Falls for some misty refreshment and to soak our aching feet in the icy stream at the bottom.

After feeling somewhat revived Alicia, Rob, and I decided we wanted to keep hiking, so we headed up to Sentinel Dome.  On the way there we passed Tunnel View just as the sun was playing color games at the base of Bridalveil Fall.

Sentinel Done was a destination for Alicia and I back in September, but we missed a turn-off in the trail coming from Glacier Point, so we never actually reached the dome and walked way past it.  This was a redemption hike for us, and I’m so glad we did the extra couple of miles.  The trail to Sentinel Dome is unimpressive, sandy, boring…about the most exciting thing to see are the tiny lizards darting over sun-warmed rocks.  When we walked up to the back of the dome, again the signage was nonexistent so we weren’t quite sure how to proceed.  To the right, you cross a road and keep going around the side of the dome till you eventually come to a place where you can climb up to the top.  While this was a steep climb, it was by no means treacherous.  There was still snow up there, but the rock was dry and we easily made it to the top.

When we crested the dome, I stood there in shock and eventually cried because the scope of breathtaking beauty that exists on top of that oddly shaped rock is something I want to remember forever.  Half Dome’s side faces Sentinel, the snow covered Sierras provide a grand backdrop, Yosemite Falls is on display in full view, and El Capitan looms in the distance on the other side.  It’s the most majestic 360 degree view anyone could hope for.

Heading back on Glacier Point Road we passed a traffic jam because there was a huge black bear in a meadow right near the tree line.  This is a terrible picture because I zoomed in a lot and he was moving around, but he was my first brown black bear!

Half Dome bids us good day and good night…

Yosemite: Mirror Lake, El Capitan Meadow & Bridalveil Fall

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If someone had told me I would go to Yosemite twice in the span of a year, I would have thought them overly optimistic.  But thank goodness for friends who love to travel because last September, I went with Alicia and we scouted the place out.  Along for the ride this time were my husband Rob, and friends Solomon, Aidan, and Myra.  The two trips could not have been more different.  In September, California was struggling through a long drought.  Yosemite Falls was dry as a bone and the other waterfalls and streams in the park were at their lowest, some with just wisps of water blowing in the valley winds.  We were also able to travel up Tioga Road to Tuolomne Meadows and spend some time at Tenaya Lake.  In June, however, the tune of the wilderness had changed to one of rushing waters and birdsong, with wildflowers bursting, rivers sprawling out into campgrounds and meadows, and bears munching their way through grasses.  Toiga Road was closed due to the continued plowing of a record snowfall year.

We flew into Oakland, rented a car and drove to Yosemite where we stayed in the North Pines campground.  We had snagged a reservation in an RV-only site, and while I was initially apprehensive about this, the site worked out just fine for tents.  It was a postage stamp of a campsite and we were pretty much on top of our neighbors, but it didn’t matter one bit.  We had made it to Yosemite.  Since we got there later in the afternoon, we pitched our tents and headed over to the Village store to pick up some provisions.  They have everything you could possibly need in the way of food.  For this trip I had packed a lot of dehydrated meals, some which I’d cooked myself and others like Mountain House.  I’d also brought enough bars, jerky, and packs of nuts for all of our day hikes.  The nice thing about the Village Store is they sell cold beer individually, have regulation firewood, and lots of meat options if you prefer not to keep a cooler at your site since space is limited in the bear locker.

The next morning we headed out to Mirror Lake and Happy Isles, a short walk from the North Pines Campground.  This is one of the easiest hikes in the park and is usually choked with people, so early is best. While I wanted to crush every hard trail in the valley, Rob and I were still recovering from a rough 23 mile weekend in the Smokies, which is less than we’d normally do.  Rough because the trails we did were mostly downhill and my body took a beating.  My hips were still sore and I had two heel blisters on each foot, one which was starting to feel painful and possibly infected.  Starting off on the easy trails gave me some time to recover while still getting out. The last time I was at Mirror Lake the ground was dry and we walked across the sand, around the grasses to  the other side.  This time, we could see perfect mirror images of the rocks above.  We continued on the trail to the rock fall below Half Dome, but opted not to go much further since hikers coming back were saying there was a swift stream crossing with nothing beyond it.  Along with the swarms of mosquitoes on this trail, we saw a pair of western tanagers, which are striking yellow birds that have a red head, plus a deer and some steller’s jays.

That same day we decided to take it easy and acclimate to the elevation, so we headed into the valley on the shuttle system and went to the visitors center, then headed to the El Capitan Meadow to see climbers and enjoy the perfect weather.  It’s nearly impossible to see climbers on El Cap with the naked eye.  Being the largest granite monolith in the world and standing as tall as three Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other, it’s hard to get perspective on how massive the wall is until you see a human attempting to scale it.  I brought binoculars with me and we were able to view different groups of climbers on the various routes.  As rangers set up telescopes and prepared to answer onlookers’ questions, we also watched the climbers through Solo’s badass camera setup.  The week before we stood in this spot, Alex Honnold had achieved the first free solo climb of El Cap (as in he didn’t use a rope).  National Geographic is making a documentary about it and I am freaking excited to see it.  If you’re interested in climbing or want to get a better appreciation for Yosemite’s history Valley Uprising on Netflix is a must-see.

We stopped at Bridalveil Fall on the way back.  This waterfall never dries up, but it does does get down to the point were it merely blows mist off the cliff.  This time around, she was waving in the wind and soaking everyone gathered at her feet.

The rushing river below…

That night, Alicia and Myra were arriving late, so we headed out with Solo to get some night shots.  It’s always fun to have a photographer along.  He inspired us to see some different perspectives on the landscapes looming around us. That night we sat next to a river that had a view of Half Dome and another rock face to the right of us.  We could see climbers on both with their headlamps scanning the walls as some of them were descending.  The most enviable of all positions were the climbers camping on the sheer face of Half Dome just underneath the top of the dome.  We saw shooting stars and  listened to the constant roar of the stream, anxious to continue on its way, helping us send our worries about work and home along with it.

Into Every Garden A Little Rain Must Fall

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Don’t ever let anyone tell you a plant won’t break your heart.  You know how sometimes therapists recommend starting with a plant for people who are getting over a bad relationship or trying to move on?  I think they do that to be cruel.  Because plants will break you.  You will pour your heart and soul into them, fill yourself with hope that they will thrive, and just like that they’re dead and you’re alone.  The thought is that if you can keep a plant alive, you’re ready for a relationship again, but that is crap.  Get a cat.  If you can make a cat love you, you’re ready for a relationship.

I love posting pictures of my vegetable garden online.  It’s fun to show the harvest we get and then have people over the house to cook meals for them with the food we grew.  But there is an ugly side to gardening that every person who’s gotten their hands dirty has experienced.  Sometimes there are circumstances beyond your control that cause things to go awry.  While it’s great to show the happy successes of the garden each year, I think it’s also important to acknowledge the utter failures and frustrations that sometimes go along with the effort of planting.

This year in middle Tennessee the rain has been relentless.  Monsoon levels of rain have poured onto our little garden.  While this might sound like a good thing in summer when water from the sky can be hard to come by, the principle of “everything in moderation” definitely applies here.  The humidity has been off the charts, and with days and days of downpours (long ones and short ones) that have lasted for weeks/months, my plants have stuck their middle finger high in the air and said, “F this!!!”

After being away on a trip, I came home last night to a graveyard.  Rob tried to warn me how bad it was after all the rain, but I thought, “How bad can it be?” Rotten cucumbers that didn’t even have a chance to mature.  Peppers on the ground that literally fell off the plant because they rotted off.  Basil that had dropped all its leaves (Why???  Why did you let go?!).  Tomatoes covered in blight valiantly trying to hang on.  And squash that has succumbed to vine borer.  I planted the squash later this year after getting some advice from a farmer that planting later helps avoid vine borer.  Liar.  I have not had a worse year of planting and it broke my heart to see so much effort drowned out by relentless rainy days.

You haven’t lived until a rotten cucumber has fallen through your fingers…

These look lovely!  Yay, pepper success!

Nooooo!!!!  WHY??????

It looks like a war zone in there…tomato juice everywhere, skin barely hanging on, guts splayed all over the ground. I’ll never be the same.

The thing I have noticed in my garden over the years is that some stuff works and some stuff doesn’t.  And every year is different.  Something that worked great one year might fail miserably the next.  It’s enough to make a person want to throw in the towel and stomp around in the dirt, but this morning, I rolled up my sleeves, put on my big girl sunhat and got down to business.  I pulled up all the old beans that were finished, all the rotting cucumbers, all the leafless basil, and most of the weeds that were slowly creeping into every available free space.  As for the tomatoes, I’m going to let them ripen and harvest as many as I can before I pull them out.

The beauty of plants is that they can be grown again.  I planted some Purple Hyacinth Beans since the hummingbirds love the flowers.  Then I planted a different variety of cucumbers that worked well last year.  This year I tried a burpless variety and could not have had worse luck with them.  I am also re-starting basil, zinnias, and 18 more Martino’s Roma tomatoes under the grow light to see if I can have a second crop that might survive.  The weather here is very warm through September so it could work.  Again, it’s all an experiment.  The flowers in the garden have been thriving with the extra rain, so I’m going to throw some color out there and enjoy the beauty even if it can’t feed us.  Sometimes that’s all we can do, take the good with the bad, and know that the sun will keep on shining.