Moab

I'm going to Moab in 2 days.

Me climbing in Moab last year

What are the chances that I can starve away 5 pounds before then?
My husband has been tanning for the last week.
What are we doing?
We are 32 and 34 years old.
We have 3 kids.
We've been off the market for 6 years.
Who cares about tan skin or 5 pounds?
Apparently we do.
And it's comical, really.

But this trip is like a miniature MTV spring break.
And in spite of all my Yoda training, so much sexiness in one place gets to me a little.
I am aging, and it is disorienting.
My painting professor loved to tell us, in the end, we are all making images which reflect our fear of dying.
We are all trying to find immorality by what we leave in people's minds.
Some artists have achieved this...
Van Gogh and Picasso and Leonardo Da Vinci.
They left images which will never be forgotten:  Mona Lisa, Starry Night, Guernica.
It is not likely that I will be so brilliant.  I will have to be content with my actions and hope they count for something when all tallied in the end.

Sophie doing a much stronger job than anyone

But myself, my body is transitory.
I do not need to be remembered by the image of this body.
This body is my vehicle.
My means of transportation.
Perhaps the only constant is my red hair.  I may be remembered for that.
But my muscles will fade, my vericose veins intensify, and the skin around my eyes will grow grey.  I will watch people younger than I am, do things I used to do.

It is embarrassing to admit such silly impulses.
Hopefully my professor was right, and my last ditch effort to flatten out this stomach, is actually fear of death.

Sophie in my t-shirt getting ready to tip-toe up the rock.