It’s been a whirlwind at work so, instead of the usual struggle to make time for writing I’ve had to struggle to make time for cleaning the kitchen and my hair. And that will be the pace for the next couple of months. A lot of good has happened. I finally finished writing that perfect cover letter to the professor of the spinal cord injury and regeneration lab I want to join. And I got a response, and a nerve-wreaking Skype meeting, and an invitation to visit and interview. I’m so thrilled this finally came together. My next professor reminds me of Richard Feynman. And I’ll be relocating to place I find beautiful, accessible, and highly surfable.

So I’ve been thinking about what it takes to move me to San Diego. I have to dismantle the life I’ve been building here for many years. I have to go through a garage that has remained a shrine to my old life. I have to sell my bikes. I’ve been thinking about selling my climbing gear. This all fills me with a great sense of loss. A letting go of hope. I’m finally faced with the irreversible changes that have been the day-to-day reality for me. But a second part of my mind still floats above the new routine. It takes a long time to reverse the habits and understanding built over 30 years. Letting go continues to be hard. Harder than nerve pain and imperfect bladder function and loss of sensation. I miss climbing. I miss it with my skin and my muscles.
I haven’t decided what to do with my gear.

I’ve also been thinking about how to land… how to find accessible housing. How to move through a new space. Will I be able to go biking by myself? How I am going to store and transport and access all my gear? There’s such a wall of small and large limitations coming up to meet me. A lot of my freedom now comes from practice and very specific circumstances… and Ben. To recreate all this in another location seems like a huge task. First because we’re not sure if Ben will be able to follow me to San Diego. Second because money is always the limiting factor. We’ll see. I have a couple of months and a starting point.

Aside from chewing on the logistics, which is a huge part of my life these days, I’ve been giddy about the project I’ll be working on. It felt so right, during the day-long interview, to be talking about spinal cord injury. I think about it all the time, anyway. And here is my chance to align both my interest and my tools. I feel so lucky to be able to do this. Lucky and humble. I have a huge amount to learn in order to do this successfully. But the size of this task.. the difficulty of me learning systems neuroscience and the difficulty of curing spinal cord injury… is truly exciting.