3-6-21

county line lake (post walk)

I'm getting stronger. I was able to get up the switchbacks without huffing and puffing as badly. I'm proud of myself for working up to more proficiency. I'm signed on to a research trip in rural Alaska, and I'll need to have much better stamina than I do now. I feel like I'll never be strong enough. But I'm stronger today than I was yesterday.

Saw lots of mosses, as usual. I've been here before. I know many of the mosses by their Latin names, and I rattle them off as I've been trained. I don't know if that annoyed my walking buddy, who has a much more intimate, intricate, and holistically strong relationship with nature than I think I ever could. They're strongly against the colonization of environmental education, including the arbitrary naming by settlers. An artifact of my colonized conditioning is my knowledge and reliance on Latin names; Sometimes they feel like the only way for me to draw a connection. Maybe one day I'll be good enough to break from it... But probably not. I feel like I'll never be good enough. But I'm better today than I was yesterday.

Saw animals today. Baby squirrels, with their ears very small and down-coats not completely off. I also saw some red-headed woodpecker - not the pileated ones that ruined my chimney when I was a kid. But with just a little red hat and bandana. We could get so close to it.