(K)not what I expected

I have yet to write up my recent Sierra adventure, which was profound and lovely in many important ways, ways that may not be well-suited to the light-hearted blogging one finds here. But I want to take a moment now and touch on something that I didn't quite expect from the trip, which was that it made me feel really strong and competent. In physical ways!

Upon recent reflection, I see that I have considered myself awkward, clumsy, physically inept, and kinda weak for basically my whole life (not to even start on the whole topic of self-perceptions of physical appearance). But in point of fact, although not so much the epitome of grace, I'm actually not any of those things. I joined a gym in July and have been taking cardio/resistance classes there and also doing some interval training on the treadmill. The first of these classes nearly killed me - it's called Metamorphosis, and the next morning, I did indeed feel a lot like Gregor Samsa, lying immobile on my bed, staring at the ceiling as I flailed my tiny arms and legs about to no avail. (I'm assuming they didn't have Kafka in mind when they named the class, although you never know.) But things have been looking up since then, and even though I haven't yet lost the weight I've put on since moving to Los Angeles (who the hell moves here and gains weight? absurd) my body has obviously been changing.

Because our trip involved packing into a campsite, which I had known and prepped for, except what I hadn't known or prepped for was that our packs would be FORTY POUNDS and we'd be hiking up to 9500 feet. It was harder than I expected, but as it turned out, I was mostly at the front of the pack. And took on some extra weight from someone who was having a harder time making it up the mountain. And didn't feel like I was dying at the end, just really wiped out. And then after we got there, I made my own tent-like thing out of tarp and twine. Because I now know how to tie some knots! Knots that have fancy names (though god knows I can't remember them) and real functions. Like this one here,
which is a fancy slipknot, good for attaching your tarp to a tree or rock or some such, because the tension can be adjusted. Two weeks later and I still got it. Wheee!

So now I'm trying to rethink things, and see myself as a powerful, cardio-vascularly strong person who carries pack-mule sized loads, ties fancy knots, and can go to the bathroom in the woods for a week. Although I must say that downside to that is my lower-back mosquito bites ("Nature's tramp stamp!" said Mr. Monster), which are still itchy after 2+ weeks. As I type even. Alpine mosquitoes also apparently some powerful female types...