This Strange Life Does Not Feel So Strange to Me

I wake in the morning to the sound of birds and Jesse brings me a hot cup of tea. Why tea? I have lived with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) for maybe eight years now. I have the diarrheal form (it presents as constipation for some people) and mornings are hell. It takes five to eight trips to the bathroom before I dare try and leave the house and even then emergencies happen – often. As you can imagine this makes traveling, or just trying to go on a bike ride or to one of my volunteer gigs, challenging. A couple of years ago I saw a GI doc to try and get a handle on it. My colonoscopy was clean, I tested negative for the more severe, but better understood, celiac disease, and I tried two different prescription drugs neither of which helped enough to make it worth being tied to a prescription drug for the rest of my life. I went back to ignoring the IBS and adapting. Bikepacking in remote places is actually great — the world is your bathroom (but Leave No Trace!) and my symptoms were usually slightly lessened by a daily calorie expenditure beyond my intake. However, during the last few months of living and eating heartily (!) in quarantine my symptoms have worsened noticeably — to the point of deeply impacting my quality of life and leaving me in tears of frustration; an unusual occurrence since I am generally a rather stoic person.

So, the tea… After checking in with a doctor I am finally trying the extreme dietary restrictions I have been avoiding for years — the FODMAP diet (an acronym for “Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, Mono-saccharides And Polyols). The basic theory is that certain short chain carbohydrates are more prone to fermentation in the intestine and can cause excess gas and irritation and then improper function. It’s almost impossible to predict which food items are high in FODMAPs; it has to be tested in a lab. For me this means it’s been twelve days of no alcohol and coffee (known GI irritants though not necessarily high FODMAP), no legumes of any kind (argh, I’m primarily vegetarian!), no onions nor garlic (items which EVERY meal in this house normally include), no wheat products, very limited kinds of sugars and a memorized list of YES or NO fruits and vegetables.

Can we talk about mood swings?! Wow. I don’t know if it’s the lack of caffeine, booze, or drastically decreased sugar, but finding joy has been much more difficult than normal and tears seem to bubble up easily. But then again, I also read a lot of news, so how to pinpoint causation? I need to be in this strict restriction phase for two to four weeks and then if my system is doing better I can add items back in, one every couple of days while monitoring my body for a negative response. Can you see why I never attempted this while bike touring? Impossible! If it gives me clear answers it will be worth it, but when is anything involving the intersection of diet and science conclusive? The first week my health was clearly and noticeably better! I tried not to get my hopes up, and in fact the last couple of days have not been consistently “good days” so the jury is still out. The thing I miss most is the one drink Jesse I would share at the end of each day. We sit outside and enjoy all the green and flowers we have planted, the birds taking baths three feet away, and the plethora of butterflies spreading the love flower to flower.

Those that follow me on social media know that I am deeply immersed in the news and taking whatever steps I can from my Santa Barbara bubble to help promote social justice. I try and stay on top of local issues being debated in school board meetings and city council, submitting comments and signing petitions. I try not to fall into deep despair about the actions being done in my country’s name and the deep confusion that comes from trying to understand how otherwise “nice” people can still turn a blind eye to the purposeful and directed hurt and damage being done by this administration. People acting like property has more value than human life. All people deserve not only subsistence levels of food and housing, but the opportunity to THRIVE, as a nation we are failing miserably. I live in constant frustration at the willful ignorance that allows some to continue to argue that people just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. If it worked for me, it is clearly an option for everyone, if they would actually try (note sarcasm). And most recently the use of unmarked federal troops kidnapping people in cities that do not want nor need assistance; followed by words out the president’s mouth that align with those of a 1970s dictator in Argentina. We can not be America and do things like this. What kind of country do you want to live in and what are you doing to try and make it better? If you need a simple, non face-to-face way to help in the next election I suggest Vote Forward as being straight-forward and data driven in their outreach (you will need a printer, and to purchase envelopes and stamps).

Around here we also take Covid very seriously and thus mostly stay home except to exercise and get groceries. This experiment in stasis (and not working) has allowed me to nurture the first garden of my life! Fortunately, Jesse has previous experience and my mom, a renowned master gardener, is only a phone call away. Jesse and I love digging in the dirt, talking to our plants, and earning bragging for who found a new bud/fruit/flower first! Fighting off the ground squirrels is a less Zen activity, but as of today we are in the lead :).

Also, this happened:

Jesse recently invested in a modern mountain bike and showing him all the local trails has been a blast. He’s unbelievably talented given how little (off road) experience he has, but most importantly he is always full of joy and loves riding, so I just keep taking him to the “next harder trail” and he rolls with it. We’ve also gone on a couple of local bikepacking single night trips when we really need to escape. Summer here is too hot to go into the backcountry where the forest land with long roads and trails are, but temps have been a bit lower than average, so as recently as last weekend we snuck in a slightly too hot trip to the mountains from our place.

The above two images are from a trip we did several weeks ago. Those below are from this past weekend. Turning off the news, breathing, and exercising: these activities are crucial for mental health. People of Color are notoriously underrepresented in backcountry activities such as this. I am so aware of the privilege I have to experience this healing connection with the land in remote places. Please keep working with me to make the outdoors more inclusive and welcoming.

We are currently without a car, as I own almost nothing and Jesse’s 25 year old station wagon just gave up the ghost. This means that all rides are long rides since almost all roads and trails go UP from our house. On this day we started with moderate afternoon oceanside temperatures and pedaled up and over into the hot inland valleys. Several water sources had dried up since our last visit several weeks ago and we were forced to pedal on longer than desired until we finally found a trickling stream, next to which we immediately set up camp. Camping near a water source, especially in the desert, always means lots of animals will be around and we spent a restless night being startled by the sound of footfalls, breathing, movement in the dry crackly leaves, and some brave animal pushing in the tent wall right next to my head for a brief startling moment!

Many people ask how the transition has been for me, from solo life on the road to living in one place with one person. Honestly is has been wonderful. I was feeling really tired of road life (though I’m ready to go again when it is safe to do so!) and missing Jesse terribly. But really the credit goes to Jesse and what an amazing and supportive partner he is, and thus the joy and ease of living with him. While we both take activism very seriously and our hearts are torn by the state of the world around us, our home and love is full of joy, laughter, and dancing. This, strange to me, way of living life does not feel so strange at all, but full of love, joy, and contentment. It’s like sliding into a comfortable old pair of shoes that you haven’t worn in ages — it just feels right.