Philosophy

This month we celebrated fourteen years of marriage. We committed "till death do us part" so we're in for the long haul. Fourteen isn't as much as 25 or 30 but it's on the way there. It's a milestone worth marking.

When I made my vows as a young woman there were many things I didn't know about this man with whom I share my heart, body, struggles, hopes, plans, toil, children, memories and laughter. But I knew the really important things: he was committed to his faith, was a man of his word, valued family and cherished me. What more was there to really know?

Of course there was more to know and I spent our pre-marriage days finding out all I could about this man to judge if he would be a suitable partner for the rest of my life. I had a mental checklist and I seriously critiqued him in those most important areas (and some not so important) before I even allowed myself to consider "falling in love". But when I fell baby, boy did I ever. Damien is the center of my world and it feels scary and vulnerable to admit such intense devotion to my husband.

I know I've written a little about that here before. And I also know that writing about matters of the heart is a bit of a deviation from trip reports, minimalist shoe reviews and backpacking tent recommendations. But I can honestly say behind all those techy/gear type posts is a marriage partnership and shared activity between an adventure-loving husband and a learning-to-love adventure wife. The heartbeat of everything we do together and write, even gear reviews, is our love for each other.

Damien's love for me was his giving up competitive cycling because it interfered too much with family time. Then finding a new physical activity we could all do together and patiently encouraging us every step of they way. Never forcing, but leading in love. Love is his research and planning to get gear to keep me comfortable, safe and warm. It's carrying my camera and sometimes even my pack when I'm miserable and dare I say, a pain in the ass.

My role in all of this has been mostly responsive; it is realizing that outdoor adventures make him happy and choosing to follow because loving this man means loving adventure.

How ironic, and perhaps not so surprising, that this innate interest of his is both so attractive and compelling to me (I am inspired by people who push the boundaries) and at the same time exasperating. And I guess this is one of those things that I didn't realize when I married this man; how much I'd grow and change for the better in choosing to support, embrace and learn to love something he loves.

I am not trying to say "look at me, aren't I the model wife". If only you could see the tears of self-pity I've shed, the shameful outbursts on the trail and the woes-me complex I sometimes carry around. Pathetic.

Marriage means sacrifice. It means giving up of ourselves to help our spouses realize their dreams and potential. Walking hand in hand with someone, helping them become who they were meant to be. Isn't this the best gift we can give each other?

Of course this sacrifice goes both ways and I would not want you to think I'm the one who has given up the most. I'm fairly certain that is not the case. We don't keep tabs on that in our relationship but I'm pretty certain Damien has given up more for me. Being the sole provider for years, being steadfast in that responsibility so I can stay home and fulfill my dream as a stay at home mother, homemaker & homeschooler. Yep, this is my dream job. And Damien makes it possible.

I love this man so much and if what he wants from me is to walk with him through the woods and up mountains (literally and figuratively) why wouldn't I?

Yes, it scares the socks right off me somedays to hear him dream and plan our next life adventure. And the truth be known I don't particularly like sweating and sometimes I feel so tired on the trail I want to fall down and throw a tantrum. But we work through those issues (and a host of others) because that's what you do when you're married. I'm pretty sure that's somewhere in our vows.

I might not have realized Damien was such an adventurous guy when we married. But likewise there was no guarantee he'd be such a great husband and father. So if having adventures with me is what he wants I'm trusting and holding on for the ride.

This post is a follow up to the excellent article Damien wrote, One Day a Week, about setting aside one day a week to be outdoors as a family. Damien shared the things he believes are most important to making this happen and now it's my turn.  

A couple years ago when Damien first suggested that we set aside one whole weekend day to pursue outdoor activities together as a family, preferably in the mountains an hour or so drive from our home, I was not entirely enthusiastic. I liked hiking and all but every weekend? Not to mention Damien wanted us to be out for longer durations (making it a whole day adventure), building up our endurance and climbing higher peaks.

I was less than gung-ho. I remember the anxiety I felt about giving up "my" weekend to follow my husband on this path. I wondered, what about my goals? Hiking every weekend with my family was not one of them.

I'm so happy to say this is not where I'm at today. It hasn't all been easy (obviously) and we reached a critical point last summer where we very briefly (for about 5 seconds) discussed going separate ways on weekends so we could each do our "own thing". Thankfully, we know the folly of that thinking. I can honestly say there was a noticeable shift in my heart and head in the weeks following that watershed conversation. 

What started a couple years ago as choosing to follow my husband's lead in this area of our family life (out of respect and also because Damien's an awesome dad and I wanted to support him in spending time with our children) has evolved into a beautiful partnership as we walk together on this path. 

Like I said earlier, it wasn't always this way and I have felt the tension between home and adventure through the years. I am a homemaker who gardens and I am very content to spend day after day in this little realm of mine. I love nothing more than to spend a whole Saturday puttering in my garden, listening to my husband mow the lawn and upgrade some part of our house. 

But this is not my husband's idea of a dream day, plus the kids would get antsy. He loves the out-of-doors beyond our backyard and I love him. This man rocks my world and I would go anywhere with him (and that scares me sometimes). Besides, I really do love nature and have grown to appreciate our weekly day "away from it all" in the woods.

This love of home, husband and nature are big parts of who I am and it is from this perspective that I am sharing how to make one day a week outdoors a priority for your family. 

Although what I'm sharing is coming from an outdoorsy perspective it is not limited to that. Your family may decide to do inner city volunteering every week, work on a farm or do theater together. Whatever your "thing" is, setting time aside to pursue that, together as a family is an important endeavor. These tips I believe will help you regardless.

But let me just say I think hiking together is fabulous. It's a physical activity, in nature, that builds relationship with each other and our creator. It is also very accessible and presents unlimited opportunity for growth and challenge.  

The Eager Partner or Parent

Firstly I wish to address those of you who are the "let's get out there and do this" partner in the family. As you can probably tell that wasn't me to start. I am definitely raring to get out the door now but I wasn't always.

If you are wanting to move your family in this direction but have reluctant family members you need to make it as easy as possible for your partner and children to join in. Damien does a fabulous job of this and I will share a few of his techniques that have worked for our family.

• Make it easy and worthwhile for your family. If you want your partner and children to enjoy the experience and hopefully embrace it you will probably have to spoon feed them to start. Pick the most spectacular hike you can within their abilities. Do all the planning in advance and be able to give specific directions to your family for what to wear and pack. Someday we plan to publish a book with detailed lists to help guide families in this regard. 
• Have a great attitude.  Depending on your family's background it may not be easy to get your group interested in being outdoors together. An upbeat attitude makes the world of difference. Damien is fun to be with in the outdoors because he loves it and his passion is contagious.  
• Listen to your family's needs. When Damien said he wanted to hike one day a week I asked, "when will we work on the house?" (We have an older home that we are slowly updating). So we came up with a plan to have both work days and hike days. In addition, over the years we've had issues related to gear and clothing comfort. Be prepared to deal with those problems and let your family know you will figure it out together and will not make them "suffer through it". This has made the world of difference for me and the kids in joining Damien in his goals for our family. 

Taking a Day of Rest

When we decided to set aside one day a week for our family we also choose to make that our sabbath; our break from daily work, our time to focus on each other and the beauty of creation. Yes, a weekend hike is bodily work but it's not mentally tiring. Rather it's refreshing and gets you away from everything distracting in our modern lives. Here's a few things we've done to make this break day possible.

• Make it a priority. Damien talked about this already but it bears repeating. Activities we prioritize are the ones that get done. Time with your family is no different. Get ready...this will mean saying no to other activities. 
• Don't plan housework for this day. I mean all forms of housework. No laundry, minimal meal prep (see next point), no "honey can you fix the leaky faucet". Nada. The only housework we do on this day typically is to cook breakfast, clean up the packs when we get home (though not always) and maybe make an easy supper. Schedule the rest of your week to accommodate for this day-off.
• Easy meals. I'm so blessed to have a husband who believes this should be an easy meal day. I cook beans and rice ahead of time (if I remember) and he uses those to prepare our hiking lunch the night before. In winter we eat Green Tea Rice and in warmer months we eat cold beans, rice and salsa. Easy peasy. For supper we either eat out (we have a few inexpensive non-fast food places to choose from) or make an easy pizza at home. Easy pizza recipe: pita or gluten-free bun base, chopped veggies and a sprinkle of cheese. Save your easy and fun family meals for this night. Make this day special and fun even for mom!
• Plan in advance. Don't expect to get up Saturday or Sunday morning with no plan and say "ok family, let's spend the day together". It's fun to look forward to the day and it's important to structure the week to get our work done (laundry, bills) and plan the activity so we can make it happen. 
• Letting the house slide just a wee bit. Our family's goal is to build relationship, not house. I've learned to lower my expectations for what we accomplish in our home in terms of renovations and instead view the weekends as mostly family time and part work time. We still designate time for house maintenance and upgrades but these do not supersede one day a week. 

Review

The things that have helped me most as a homemaker in getting out the door each weekend are:

1. having a supportive husband who really leads these adventures
2. making the conscious choice to go along with that
3. learning to embrace the beauty this adds to our family's life
4. structuring our weeks to make it happen
5. lowering some of my household expectations

When it comes right down to it my goal as a homemaker is to build a loving family, which is the real meaning of home. So in the end time spent together in the woods is still home-making. 

What have I missed in this post? Are there more specifics you'd like to know? Or do you have tips I haven't mentioned? Please add them in comments. I'd love to hear from you and build a post of encouraging ideas that will work for families.

If you are new to the barefooting movement, you have probably discovered that people generally fall into one of two camps: those who are proponents of being mostly barefoot, and those who predominantly wear some form of minimalist footwear. You may also be aware that just recently a study was published which found that for reducing the impact of running, barefoot is best.

My position in the barefoot/minimalist spectrum is to straddle both sides.

While I tend to agree philosophically that yes, barefoot is best, I still see footwear as a necessity. Though some people think footwear is a ball and chain we need to break-free from; I view it as a tool for enabling. Now before all you barefooters out there go and criticize me for selling-out, I encourage you to read on.

Gloves for your Feet

To start with, we need to look at footwear in a new way. The best analogy I can come up with is to look at shoes the way we look at gloves. Nobody (that I know of) has a problem with wearing gloves, we all wear them at some time in our lives for various purposes. We generally don't complain about having to wear them. In fact, we rather appreciate gloves because they enable us to do something that would have been much more difficult (or dangerous) without. There are many cases when wearing gloves is a necessity.

By the same token, we typically don't wear gloves unless we need them, and prefer to be bare handed as often as possible. If people wore gloves as often as they wear shoes, we would probably look at them as being somewhat strange.

The interesting thing about gloves is that they generally serve one purpose, and that is to protect the hands from adverse environmental conditions. Some protect the hands from cold, others from abrasion, and others from disease. We don't expect gloves to support or enhance the way our hands structurally work.

Gloves are designed for maximum dexterity and feel while allowing for the level of protection that we require - we don't think twice about this, we expect it. Why don't we expect the same from our shoes?

Let's return to shoes. I really appreciate them. They enable me to be out in cold, wet conditions that would could lead to hypothermia, frostbite, or worse. They make it possible to strap on snowshoes or skis so that I can travel across the snow. They allow me to wear crampons so that I can walk up an icy slope. They protect my feet from nails or other debris while working on a construction project. They provide a barrier to harmful bacteria and disease while walking in a hospital.

I want my shoes to be like gloves, providing only the protection I need while giving my feet maximum dexterity and ground feel. This doesn't mean that I need to wear shoes all the time, but like gloves, there are compelling reasons for them to be considered a necessity for specific situations.

That being said (most of you by this point are probably saying well DUH! of course shoes are necessary!), I do have significant issues with most shoes: their design. Instead of being designed like a glove, most modern shoes are designed like a helmet. They are heavy, rigid, padded, and provide a structure that encases the foot (and sometimes ankle) in a bombproof exoskeleton.

In addition to that, they often have things like arches and variable density foams that force our body to move in a very specific way. The designers of modern shoes view the human foot as poorly structured and weak needing to be fixed by technology.

Barefoot/minimalist proponents know of course that nothing could be farther from the truth. The human foot is a marvel in engineering design, perfectly made to support our body in all of our active endeavors. The less we can do to restrict it, the better off we are. If anything is broken, it is because we have become too sedentary in our lifestyles and have forgotten how to move with the grace and beauty that is our birthright.

Putting Shoes in their Proper Place (sometimes on your feet)

Footwear should enable us to operate in adverse environmental conditions and allow our feet to function as naturally as possible. This should be the goal of footwear manufacturers: to provide maximum feel and dexterity and minimum restriction while providing only the protection that is necessary. Modern technology and newer models should improve upon this goal, not move in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately, we are not at that point yet. The vast majority of manufacturers are still producing crap. If you are new to the minimalist/barefoot scene, I would like to provide you with some tools for evaluating what you wear on your feet. These are general recommendations on how to apporach the subject of footwear:

• Get back in touch with bare feet. You will never be able to figure out if a minimalist shoe is actually good or not unless you are comfortable with being barefoot. Barefoot needs to be the baseline. Your goal should be to prefer going barefoot, just like most of the time we prefer to have bare hands. If you are not comfortable barefoot, any minimalist shoe out there will probably seem like it is not enough for you. If you are comfortable in bare feet, any shoe (minimalist or not) will feel like it is de-sensitizing, or restricting you in some way. You will not be able to effectively evaluate any shoe from a minimalist perspective unless you are in touch with bare feet.
• Think of footwear as protection. Whenever you put on a pair of shoes, ask yourself what environmental condition they are protecting you from. The goal should be to wear shoes that only provide the protection you need and nothing more. Environmental conditions can be social as well - you might have to wear shoes in the workplace or on formal occasions. But let's be clear about environmental risks; support and cushioning are not environmental risks, cold and chemicals are. One thing to be aware of is the perceived risk. That is to say some of the risk may just be in your head (i.e. irrational fear). Learn how to separate the irrational fear from the actual risks when determining the level of protection you need, which brings me to my next point...
• Be continually evaluating. Don't just settle for doing the same thing that worked last time. Just because the shoes "work" doesn't mean that you didn't over-do it. In fact, you should assume that you over-did it because it is our nature to do so (thanks again to irrational fear!). Try wearing a little less next time and see how it goes, you might be surprised.
• Go minimal everywhere. Don't be just a minimalist runner or hiker.  Make it part of your everyday life. Running and hiking injuries don't happen just from running and hiking, but are the result of everything that we do to our body on a daily basis. Going barefoot whenever possible and wearing minimalist footwear for the rest will have a huge impact on your overall health and fitness.
• Appreciate the seasons. Just because barefoot season is over dosn't mean you should lament the fact that you have to wear shoes. Being able to fully function in all seasons and weather conditions is an incredibly rich and rewarding experience. The key to enjoying diverse conditions is finding activities that you love to do and having the right gear to do it, including minimalist footwear. One of the great benefits of experiencing seasons is that it gives you an opportunity to change-up the routine throughout the year, so take advantage of it! No matter what the season, activity, or sport the above points still apply.

Where I live in Maine it's impossible to go barefoot outdoors all year. I value the contribution shoes make to my outdoor activities. Let's encourage manufacturers to make minimalist shoes that work in more severe conditions, rather than just summer; the season for which most minimal shoes are designed (ironically the season in which we least need them).

Get out and be active. Don't let the fact that you can't be barefoot stop you.

For more info on the topic of barefoot/minimalist shoes please check out my Minimalist Footwear section.