In the days of the Roman Empire, milestones were placed along roadways as markers of distance, and sometimes as signposts of sorts. In current times, the term milestone refers to life events and goals achieved.

My daughter Charlotte is graduating from high school this weekend, and milestones as both life events and accomplishments have been on my mind. Although completing high school is a somewhat unremarkable step in the scheme of things, it is truly the culmination of a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and brain-demand, and I think for a lot of people, getting through high school can feel deserving of a finish line t-shirt: I SURVIVED.

Celebrations such as graduation feel important because they are the life happenings by which we mark the passage of time. There is a depth of connection between family and friends unique to significant events like birthdays, graduations, weddings, anniversaries and funerals. Even with family in-fighting or friends who don’t always see eye-to-eye, celebrating these milestones together creates a bond of shared experience. 

With personal challenges or goals such as climbing a mountain, surviving cancer, finishing a race, recovering from a serious car accident, sometimes the milestone marking is an inside job, or shared with a more intimate few. When I ran through the finish chute at my first marathon in Los Angeles, I walked away from the finish line party vibe to find a quiet spot in the grass. I was on my own, and I was happy to relish my accomplishment in relative peace and solitude.

When I think of milestones as road markers, I imagine a smooth gray ribbon of asphalt dotted with uniformly sized and evenly spaced boulders, disappearing into the horizon. It’s a frighteningly dull view of life: birth, school, graduation, career, marriage, children, grandchildren, death. 

But real life is so much more than that. It is a wide dirt road morphing into a dusty footpath, then a slick superhighway into a barely-there double-track with puddles and grassy clumps. The way meanders - through meadow and forest, maybe through the county dump or a toxic waste site. The stones can be small, the size of a fist, or huge - a mammoth chunk of rock tossed to the side when the glacier rolled through. The path doesn’t always go straight or end up at the intended destination. It doubles back, or heads off down a hidden slot canyon. Years might be spent at certain stones, their size not indicative of the length of time spent there.  

Our milestones might be smooth, mottled with colorful lichen, rough, sharp, rounded. We may have hundreds, or twenty - that doesn’t necessarily matter. What does matter is that the milestones in our lives are meaningful, deeply so, because they are our milestones. Our achievements, our scars, our hard-won life stories. 

Charlotte is in the midst of her milestone-making. I am grateful to watch as she creates them. And though I have a few more miles on the path, I too am still in the midst of milestone-making. I am grateful for that too.

​What is it?
Imposter Syndrome (noun): anxiety or self-doubt that results from persistently undervaluing one’s competence and active role in achieving success, while falsely attributing one's accomplishments to luck or other external forces. (Dictionary.com)

First coined in the 1970’s, the term imposter syndrome is used to describe feelings of self-doubt and being “found out” to be a fraud. Often associated with career, people can experience imposter syndrome in just about every area of life, including schooling, parenting and social situations.

From this VeryWellMind article, some common characteristics of imposter syndrome include:

• An inability to realistically assess your competence and skills
• Attributing your success to external factors
• Berating your performance
• Fear that you won't live up to expectations
• Overachieving 
• Sabotaging your own success
• Self-doubt
• Setting very challenging goals and feeling disappointed when you fall short

Who experiences it?
There used to be a general perception that only women experienced imposter syndrome, and only high-achieving women at that. But research has demonstrated that anyone can experience imposter syndrome, regardless of gender, age, and socioeconomic status. A greater percentage of millennials are thought to experience imposter syndrome due to the prevalence of technology/social media from the time they were born, as well as being raised by parents who swung from over-praising to over-criticizing. 

This BBC.com article discusses how although anyone can experience imposter syndrome, women, and especially women of color, are more likely to experience it. Why? The article mentions a number of factors and I’ve listed three here:

1. Lack of role models (in 2019 in the US, only 26.1% of women held directorship positions and less than 5% of corporate board seats are held by women of color)
2. Systemic oppression (experiencing that one is “less-than” makes it tough to buck the narrative) 
3. Racist and sexist stereotypes. 

How to deal with it?
Small steps seem to be key in overcoming imposter syndrome. Here are a few, you can find more in the VeryWell Mind article:

• Make a list of believable accomplishments that are close to home, like completing a project or caring for an ill family member. With that solid foundation, start to build upon that list to grow realistic confidence in achieving goals.
• Talk with trusted people about the experience. This not only allows the fear and doubt to be expressed, but hearing other’s experiences helps with knowing you are not the only one going through this.
• Try not to put yourself in a situation of comparison (social media, anyone?)

Source Articles

• VeryWell Mind: What Is Imposter Syndrome?
• BBC.com: Why imposter syndrome hits women and women of colour harder
• BuzzFix: Is Imposter Syndrome Exclusive to Millennials or Are We All Just Human?

Originally published October 2022

​Exercise feels good and we know it is vital for our physical health. But just as important, exercise benefits our mental health. Check out this dynamic and informative Ted Talk by Wendy Suzuki: The Brain Changing Benefits of Exercise.

Physical exercise - great for increasing circulation, the strength and mobility in our muscles and joints, and helping to improve cardiovascular health and maintaining body weight, has corresponding effects on the brain. Chemicals like dopamine and serotonin are released, which improve mood. Anxiety is lessened, aiding sleep. Exercise supports both existing brain cells (neurons) as well as the environment to develop new neurons. Exercise has even been shown to lessen depression.

All of these benefits are immediately accessible when one begins to exercise. It is a regular exercise routine which extends these benefits, having a greater and longer-lasting impact on our lives. With brain health, there is a protective factor with exercise: the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, areas of cognition, are bolstered, staving off conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s. 

Exercise does not have to be costly or time-consuming. The general goal is 30 minutes, 5 times per week, but benefits can be seen if exercise is broken down into smaller time frames or crammed in on the weekends. A gym membership is not a requirement. Walking outside, exercising in your home, even turning household or gardening chores into purposeful movement can result in benefits for both body and brain.

Learn More
Scientific American Article: Exercise Helps Your Brain as much as Your Body
HelpGuide.org Article: The Mental Health Benefits of Exercise

Sunset Beach is an eclectic little town tucked between Huntington Beach and Seal Beach along Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) in Southern California. In the early ‘70’s a couple of the big draws were its iconic Water Tower House and World Famous Sam’s Seafood restaurant. Sam’s sported a gigantic neon blue-and-pink swordfish sign looming above the palm tree entrance. That swordfish was visible for miles around, and when my parents and I went to dinner there soon after moving to town I was thrilled. Unfortunately the food didn’t measure up to the sign, so regular meals under the sign of the swordfish were not to be.   

Just down the road from Sam’s sat Captain Jack’s, one of our favorites of all time, and still thriving today. Sitting right on the corner of PCH and Broadway (the road and bridge that led to Sunset Island) Captain Jack’s was known for its World Famous Crab Legs. It had aquariums in the bar full of colorful tropical fish that I liked to watch while we waited to be seated. The bartender always put plenty of maraschino cherries in my Shirley Temple, and the servers were decked out in Hawaiian-style shirts and friendly smiles. Unfortunately, the young busser that tried to remove my grandmother’s plate before she’d finished with the last crab leg still bears the scars from the fork she stuck in his hand.

When I was five, my parents and I moved into a little street-level apartment on Bayview Drive,  Sunset Island, right across the canal from Captain Jack’s. Captain Jack’s was the bus stop for kids on the island - though the restaurant wasn’t open in the morning it sure was fun to clamber around on the log and rope decor in front of the entrance. 

Squeezed between the closely built homes on the island were dark walkways where cats hung out - and where I wouldn’t be caught dead on my own after dark. The tang of salty sea air - on clothes, skin, hair - was a constant as we were only a block from the ocean. Closet corners had to be constantly surveilled, as they tended to sport mold the minute you let down your guard. Our landlords, Marilyn and Jerry Jones, were kind-hearted people and lived directly above us. I used to climb up the stairs to Marilyn’s at cocktail hour. She’d pour me a fancy glass of grape juice and we’d sit talking, she sipping her wine. I don’t remember what we talked about, but she must have found the conversation scintillating as she continued to invite me up. 

We had a small rowboat, and one evening we dressed in our best and rowed over to Captain Jack’s for a fancy crab leg dinner. It was hard to find a spot at the dock between the gleaming white yachts dwarfing our little boat, so we walked over the island bridge after that.

The rowboat came in very handy when exploring with my cousins. We were fairly close in age - the two boys were a little older and their sister was a little younger than me. Together we were an adventuring team. The four of us would row through the canals to our very own Pirate Island. It was just a large concrete seawall and sand with a bunch of tiny shells, but we dug for the treasure we knew was buried there every time we went. Turns out the treasure was in the developing - that island is now known as Trinidad Island, where homes currently sell for up to $6 million.

My dad, who’d been a lifeguard since his teens and still worked the beach towers in the summer, decided to teach me to swim one day. We jumped in, and after several minutes of wailing, whining and a near strangulation, he pried my arms from around his neck and enrolled me in swim lessons at the bay just down the canal from us. It was a small bay, perfect for kids and beginner swimmers. I can still feel the mucky bay floor squelching between my toes as I walked out to deeper water. 

Being in the canal was fun once I could swim, and I loved to eye the gems at our dock’s waterline. There were the purplish-black shells of the mussels who’d attached there, and a flourishing garden of undulating sea lettuce. Although I was never brave enough to eat any of that, it seemed like a magical feast to my young self. 

Life changed for a few weeks the day the red tide came to town. Red tides occur when there is an abundance, or bloom, of a particular phytoplankton called dinoflagellates. With normal numbers we wouldn’t notice them, but because there are so many in the bloom, their color is visible and the ocean water appears red or even reddish brown. Red tides occur all over the world. These days they occur more frequently, most likely related to climate change, and more research is needed to understand the exact mechanisms driving the frequency. 

I remember my dad explaining the red tide to me as we stood on the dock looking at the weird color of the canal water. Some red tides can be toxic but typically the ones caused by dinoflagellates are not. Still, we didn’t really want to spend time in the water because that red color was so strange. 

As the days went by the bloom intensified, maxing out the available oxygen. That’s when things started to die. In our little canal, we could see the mussels, shells wide open, the inner meat hanging in dried black strips. Lifeless fish floated by. Even the vibrant sea lettuce succumbed, sliming the dock in an oozing sickly green. A foul stench permeated the air: the smell of fish, vegetation and other sea life gone bad. The smell of death. My mom has a visceral reaction to the putrid stink to this day, it made that much of an impression on her.

Eventually, as my dad explained, over the next few weeks the tidal currents would begin to move out the dead and bring back new life. Thank goodness. 

But the red tide wasn’t all bad. The dinoflagellates use something called bioluminescence to avoid predators. We can see this at night: when the water is agitated, by waves breaking or a dolphin swimming, it glows an electric blue. Here’s a Scripps article about red tides and bioluminescence, with photos and videos of the phenomenon.

Though my research turned up descriptions of bioluminescence as blue, my recollection of the bioluminescence I viewed in ‘74 is different. I remember being on the dock one night in the initial days of the red tide. My dad pointed at some small waves lapping at the dock and I caught a glimpse of bright green effervescence that reminded me of the eerie glow of my glow-in-the-dark yo-yo. Then my dad dove in! As he swam across the canal, the water all around him, agitated by his swimming, glowed lime green and he looked like a radioactive Aquaman. Now, if that didn’t make the red tide worth it, I don’t know what would’ve.

We moved away from Sunset Beach in 1975. Captain Jack’s is still a place we’ll go to for a great meal when we’re visiting. Even Charlotte has eaten crab legs there. It is fun to walk around the island after dinner. Of course Bayview Drive has changed. And yet, squinting my eyes down the canal, I can almost see that little rowboat tied at the dock.


Link for more on Sunset Beach: history and individual homes on the walking tour. 

In June 2016 Charlotte and I visited Great Sand Dunes National Park with my parents. Charlotte was ten, and had just wrapped up fourth grade. We were all excited to check out this national park for the first time.

The Great Sand Dunes, with their amazing geological story of formation, are nestled in a pocket at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The dunes we currently see are around 12,000 years old, but sand found hundreds of feet down indicates that the dunes originally formed at least 400,000 years ago. The Great Sand Dunes are the tallest dunes in North America. Their height is achieved by prevailing winds moving sand against the mountain range, while winds from the opposite direction prevent the sand from moving into and between the mountains. Add to that the Sand and Medano Creeks carrying sand like a conveyor belt to the San Luis Valley floor, making sand continually available for the winds to blow toward the dunes, and you have the dramatic and unlikely juxtaposition of windswept beige dunes towering right up against the alpine backdrop of dark greens and browns. 
​

The first afternoon we spent time at Medano Creek, which runs east and south of the dunes. This is a prime hangout for children and grown-ups alike. It was like a day at the beach: warm splashy water and soft wet sand between our toes. Watching the creek, we noticed an interesting phenomena: the continual movement of the water would form groups of tiny V-shaped ridges of sand. Water would build behind the ridges until it overflowed those mini-dams and the water surged forward in little waves. Then the process would start again. This is called surge flow.
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The next day we explored the dunes themselves. We had heard about renting sand boards to surf down the dunes, but we preferred a little DIY, especially as the rental rates were on the pricey side. My dad had packed a couple of burly sleds and we used some surf wax on the bottoms. We trudged up the nearest dune, hauling the cumbersome sleds in the hot sun. The dune was deceptively high, and we were huffing, puffing, sweating and wishing for a cold beverage by the time we reached the top. Charlotte, excited for the purpose of all that climbing, jumped into one of the sleds and my dad gave her a push. The sled didn’t budge. We tried on a steeper section and it slid a disappointing few feet before bogging down in the sand. There are times to DIY, and there are times to pay the hefty sand board rental fee.

All was not lost. We had some fun running down the dune at full tilt, since falling into sand doesn’t pack much of a consequence. We watched people hiking up and down Star Dune, the tallest of the dunes. Star dunes form from the wind blowing from several directions, and these dunes have three arms or more. 

After braving the mosquitoes that hovered near the shrubbery along one area of Medano, 
we thankfully headed indoors to the Visitors Center. One of my favorite displays was two photos of the dunes, hung one above the other. The first one was from 1873 and the second was a more recent shot. (You can scroll down this page to see the current comparison photos, the current-day pic taken in 2020.) Though dune sizes and shapes morph over time, and even day to day, the elements that create the Great Sand Dunes are consistent enough that the overall contours and placement are very similar over the span of time. I was intrigued to learn that the water flowing through the Sand and Medano Creeks eventually dissipates south and west of the mountains, creating ecosystems such as the wetlands (scroll to bottom) in the San Luis Valley, home to species such as sandhill cranes and shore birds. The entire park as a whole encompasses many ecosystems, and the way the systems work together and support one another is fascinating.

Our trip to the park was full of fun and learning, but our story would not be complete without telling the discovery of The Pies.

My mom had managed to locate the one restaurant within the park boundary, called The Oasis. That first night, we four hungry folks headed into this 1950’s-reminiscent diner: paper placemats, vinyl chairs and tablecloths, linoleum floor, and knotty-pine paneling covering walls and ceiling. The food was decent, and we were partway through dinner when I saw my mom’s dessert-wheels start turning. My mother is a verifiable dessert connoisseur. She pointed out the  back side of the dessert menu to Charlotte, and then they both dropped their forks. The list of homemade pies was a mile long, and those two were in seventh heaven. When their slices of paradise were delivered, rich peanut butter chocolate and fluffy lemon meringue enveloped in crusts flakey and golden, Charlotte’s eyes were bigger than the pie plates. I think there were tears of joy in my mom’s. 

After wrapping up at the Visitor’s Center the next day, can you guess where those two wanted to go for lunch? Yep. Back to The Oasis. This time they didn’t even make a pretense at the meal. They located the pie case, stuffed with close to two dozen mouth-watering creations, and remained there for roughly half an hour discussing the merits of each pie, agonizing over which one to choose. My dad and I sat at our table solving the world’s problems. 

At last, pie choices made and eaten, we walked out of The Oasis. We drove down the road, and out of the park, the pie-gals dreaming about meringue and fruit, chocolate and whipped cream. 

The drive to play freely is a basic, biological drive. Lack of free play may not kill the physical body, as would lack of air, food, or water, but it kills the spirit and stunts mental growth.
-Peter Gray, American Psychologist

Play?
I was breathing hard, feet wide, muscles poised to run in any direction, my heart pounding. A bead of sweat trickled down my chest. All of a sudden I felt weird. What was going on? I noticed I was smiling, and then it hit me. I was, ahem, having FUN! My dad and I were on the racquetball court, and I was having a blast: unaware of time, totally focused on the ball and getting my butt across the court in time to return it. My dad won most every point, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was losing myself in the game and that smile on my face. Welcome to the amazing world of play.

Play is unstructured time, where one is lost in the flow - and play can mean a different thing for each person. National Institute for Play - What Is Play?
For some people it is dancing, for others, telling jokes, doing a puzzle, or cooking a new recipe. It is about creativity, innovation, and having fun. 
Here are just a few ideas for play:

• Throw a living-room picnic in January, play beach tunes
• Paint - on canvas, a wall, or a pair of sneakers
• Engage with your dog, cat or cockateel
• Read a book
• Have a snowball fight

Check out more: 70 Play Ideas for More Fun as an Adult

What’s It Got to Do With Me?
Animals play when young in order to develop skills they’ll need as adults - survival skills like hunting and defense. But humans benefit from play throughout their lives. So keep on playin’!! Take a look at some of the great stuff we get from play:

• Keeps you feeling good - mentally and physically
• Improves relationships (partner, friends, co-workers)
• Decreases stress
• Improves brain function
• Stimulates creativity
• Enhances problem-solving capabilities

More: Help Guide - Benefits of Play

Vital for our Brains
Think you (or kids) could skip play? Play researcher Stuart Brown found that the gunman in the 1966 Texas Tower shooting had been severely play deprived, as had other young men imprisoned for murder.
Read more: National Institute for Play: Our History 
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​Originally published Aug 25 2022

​The solar eclipse this past Monday was something to see. From Steamboat Springs the moon obscured the sun just 59%, yet at the peak, about 12:38 pm local time, the quality of sunshine seemed thin, with a bluish cast, and there was a sharpness to the temperature. Thanks to the kindness of a friend I had a pair of eclipse glasses to share and several of us gathered in the office parking lot to ogle the rare event. 

There is something of David and Goliath in the gentle, unassuming moon blocking the vast light of the sun. Days before the eclipse as people travel to paths of totality, it starts to feel like a championship event, everyone rooting for the underdog.

Watching from earth, I find the eclipse itself uniquely amazing, and also uncanny. There’s a biological reason for this reaction. In preparation for the 2017 eclipse, I learned that the abnormality of the darkness in the middle of the day puts our primal “lizard brain” (also “reptilian brain,” metaphorically referring to our brain stem, cerebellum and basal ganglia) on high alert. Though we have a prefrontal cortex understanding of what is happening, our cognitive grasp isn’t getting through to our basic functions which say: “Something is not right, be aware, possible danger!”

In 2017, the eclipse occurred on August 21st, which was also a Monday. My daughter was starting 6th grade the next day, and she and her friend were all about decorating their school lockers right after the eclipse. We headed to Little Toots Park for a good view. Groups of people spread blankets on the grass like us, while others were standing around. Kids were running through the park, so excited. When the moon began to slide over the sun’s surface, there was great excitement, and I could feel the temperature plummet so much I put on my warm jacket. The coverage that day in Steamboat was 93.6% - so it wasn’t completely dark but more dusk-like. I listened, and as I had read they might be, the birds were quiet. We humans - kids and grown-ups - were momentarily hushed as well as we stared up through our eclipse glasses. The dark, the cold, the silence, and the awe combined into an eerie sense of wonder. 

In both 2017 and last Monday, I thought of other people watching from all over the globe. I thought of the people I knew who had traveled to experience the full darkness of totality. It may sound cliché, but in the moments of the eclipse, there is a common connection as we behold the amazingness in the sky.  

​A rowing regatta - I’d never been to one before. I was here to watch my cousin Michael’s team, and I was in full-blown teenage awe. Tall, muscular college-aged women and men rowing long narrow boats across the water. Well-trained bodies sliding easily forward and back on track-mounted seats, the powerful pull of their oars precisely coordinated. I don’t remember if Mike’s team won, but I do remember the strength and grace of the sport and the athletes competing - it was mesmerizing.

Fast-forward a few years to my first week at UC Santa Barbara. I happened to see a flier for a meeting about rowing for the crew team and my intrigue was rekindled. That night I sat listening to Doug, the men’s coach, talking to the large audience about how this sport was not for the faint of heart. This was for the person who wasn’t satisfied running behind someone - this was for the person who’d bust a gut to pass anyone in front of them. This was for the person who would give it everything they had to get to the finish line. I was hooked.

There was a lot to learn. For one thing, jump squats hurt. The more we did, the more they hurt. Weight training - squats, deadlifts, lifting to failure -  was a new thing for me. I became familiar with the oar itself, and the set up of the eight-person shell, or boat: rowers, numbered one to eight bow to stern, sit with their backs to the bow, syncing their oar stroke partly off the eight seat (also called stroke) and partly off the small-bodied coxswain (cox) perched in the stern, the only person in the boat facing in the direction the boat moves. The cox was both coach and human metronome, and a key presence inside the boat. Although I rowed two seat, almost as far away from the cox as you could get, I could hear the cox loud and clear via the speaker system along the gunnels or the mini bull-horn they’d sometimes use.  

Afternoons were our dryland training: runs, ergs (timed 2000-meter workouts on an ergometer or rowing machine to measure progress), circuits, and various sadistic workouts our coaches concocted. 

Our mornings were devoted to rowing. Lake Cachuma, a large reservoir nestled in the Santa Ynez Valley in the mountains above Santa Barbara, was a lovely place to start our day. 6:00 am sharp at the boat house, a mere 45-minute carpool-ride from our dorm parking lot. How five of us crammed our long legs into the tiny Honda our teammate Jessica drove I will never know. 

Following practice our Amazonian tribe of women rowers would race back down to campus and hit the dining hall, all of us proudly sporting our old sweats with rings of black oil on the rear-end from the greased seat track. We’d take over a table like it was a medieval dining hall, plates piled high with eggs, pancakes, fruit and yogurt. We were not shy about our appearance or loud conversation or eating our fill. 

Part of racing means reaching for something more. Standard races are 2000 meters - just eight minutes of rowing. But sustaining the required intensity to be first across the finish makes those eight minutes hellish. The coxswains, the good ones, could pull something out of me I didn’t know I had. It was the coxes who were right next to us, straining and sweating and swearing during dryland training, who I wanted coaching me in the heart-bursting intensity of the race. The coxes who slid through training because they “weren’t rowers” were ones I didn’t want to pull an oar for. The coxes who experienced the mental and physical demands of training could use that understanding when lungs, legs, core and arms were screaming for mercy, to stop, or at least for your head to blow up so you wouldn’t register the pain. I’d be ready to pass out and the coxswain’s voice would come through, helping me tap into something a bit deeper inside, and somehow, I’d give it that much more. 

There were other learnings I picked up on my own. In our very first stadium workout, we lined up at the bottom, Coach Deb blew the whistle, and we ran up the first section of stadium seats. The goal was to turn around at the section top and make it back to the bottom starting point with a few seconds to breathe before she blew the whistle again. I simply paced myself and still had breathing time before the next round. I was cruising. 

Then I looked over at Margaret, one of the women in my eight. She was a burly athlete, but not the fleetest of runners. The whistle was going off well before Margaret made it to the bottom. There was no rest for Margaret. She did not give up, she did not complain, she was all in and pushing herself hard, lap after lap. I decided that I needed to up my game. If I was not pushing myself as hard as Margaret, I had no business being in the same stadium as her. Margaret taught me something valuable that day about how pushing yourself looks different for each person. She taught me about humility and respect.  

One morning practice at the end of the season, I was lucky enough to be in an eight with Teresa, a varsity coxswain I hadn’t rowed with before. More than skilled, she was gifted and could elicit great performances from her rowers. There was a fog hanging over the surface of Cachuma and each boat was assigned a specific area of the lake in order to avoid collision. It felt like we were the only humans on the planet out there. As one of our final workout segments, Teresa led us into a demanding sprint, and we were moving strong and fast. And then suddenly, I felt the entire shell lift up out of the water for a couple dozen strokes. We were still rowing hard, but it was effortless. It felt like we were flying. 

​This rare magic is called swing - the result of being well-trained, in sync, working hard as a team, and a little something more that I can’t quite put my finger on. 

​​Let’s be honest, most of us don’t think much about our feet unless there’s a problem - like an ingrown toenail or a painful middle-of-the-night cramp. When you are having a bad day, think about the day your feet are having: a quick wash in the shower (if they are lucky), and then they are shoved into shoes  - out of sight, out of mind. How would you like to spend your day in a dank cave with an itchy, smelly sock? Or hanging out on a sandal marinating in dirt and sweat? Truly, our feet are the uncomplaining workhorses of our bodies.

Take a moment to consider your feet. They support your entire body all day long. They help you balance by sending your brain information about the surface you are moving across. There are 29 muscles associated with the foot: 19 in the foot itself and 10 that originate outside the foot, crossing the ankle joint to act on the foot. Each foot has 26 bones and 33 joints. They are a structural marvel, with the arch providing both shock absorption and propulsion. When our feet are working well we have a spring in our step. When our feet are ignored we can develop pain, tightness, and limited mobility, and we have less energy due to that essential foundation not working so well. 

There are many ways to care for your feet: self-massage, wooden rollers, tennis balls. You can book a reflexology session, a massage, or a pedicure. You can soak your feet in some warm water and epsom salts or sea salt. Even walking around your house barefoot is a nice way to care for your feet. Those experiencing plantar fasciitis, when the fascia (connective tissue) on the sole of the foot is inflamed, may choose to support their feet constantly with footwear - that can help. Personally, walking around my house barefoot years ago is what cured my plantar fasciitis. It is worth experimenting to see what works best for you.

Strengthening the feet is excellent not only for self-care, but to take advantage of the benefits your strong and pain-free feet will offer up. One of my favorite ways to work my feet is with Essentrics®. We articulate each part of the foot, wiggle the toes, engage the muscles throughout the foot and arch, encourage foot and ankle mobility, and connect working our feet to working the larger muscles in the legs. This all results in feet feeling and moving better, and the full body feeling energized from the release of the tension unknowingly held in the feet and ankles.

Your feet are your foundation - enjoy taking care of those tootsies in whichever way you choose.

Learn More
Here’s an Essentrics blog post on the importance of working our feet, and it includes a foot workout video with Miranda Esmonde-White, the founder of Essentrics.

Originally published September 8 2022

​It was yesterday that I said goodbye to the dark,
       the short days,
       the long cold nights,
the treacherous ice on early runs under stars piercing the frigid clear air.

I said goodbye to the extra quilt on the bed, to its squares of red, blue and rose,
       to double-down jackets, lined knit hats,
       to the cinnamon tea,
to the round cushion, my winter throne at the hearth. 

Today I said hello to the morning light,
       the later sunset,
       the new rush of water in the little creek bed,
to the earth at the side of the road, emerging disheveled from under months of snow.

I said hello to the lone bird trilling pretty notes from high in the aspen,
while Haven eagerly snuffled muddy brown turf, 
I said hello to the sun on my bare hands, to its warmth on Haven’s black fur.
Hello, Spring.

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