i try on pants in the mpls rei

small town girl, big city

When I was younger my mom imagined I would live in the big city, and work a fun, hip job like one of those cool girls you see in movies. Minneapolis isn’t that big of a city, but after years of living in towns you could fit in your pocket it feels like it to me.

Here, flurries of snow are lit in warm yellow glows from the street lights. There’s a coffee shop on every corner, so many with clean, Scandinavian designs. You’re never far from a good place to walk, or ski, or skate in the winter. The sun sets early, but the Twin Cities have always felt very warm, and alive to me.

It reminds me of Berlin in a way, but it could just be that the time I spent in Berlin was also in the winter, and there’s just that certain slant of light.

But I like the Twin Cities. I think if I were to ever end up in a city, which I doubt I will, it would be here.

i search for the perfect coffee shop in the twin cities

the thing I love most about cities is the food. When in Rome (Minneapolis), I want every chai tea latte I can find. I want to drink coffee with my freshly cleaned hair and sit in a pretty space and wear black jeans and feel very cool and posh.

(i think probably the reason I want this, to curate this “cool” aesthetic, is because I am very objectively uncool. I am so anxious, most of the time. if there isn’t enough going on in my life to create a baseline level of stress, I’ll manufacture my own problems. I am often very, very worried with what others think of me. I lose sleep over things I’ve said and done that probably didn’t get a second thought from a single other person).

coffee and food from Graze in North Loop

i don’t find the perfect coffee shop— Backstory, which I liked a lot, is so clean and open with ceilings too high to feel cozy, but it definitely feels posh and cool. Graze, which has really excellent food and atmosphere, has sort of watery lukewarm Starbucks-y coffee.

My search petered out. I never have the energy in the winter that I have in the summer months. It’s a lot harder to start anything. My plan to try out a new coffee shop every day fizzled. I resolve to set more realistic expectations for myself, but I probably won’t.

i try on pants in the minneapolis REI

every winter, I transition out of kayak guide, paddling every day, hiking and sleeping on the ground and hauling gear into freelance Maddy, who spends more of her time in front of a computer and struggles to get up and out the door.

There are just so many layers between me and a winter hike. So many layers (baselayers, then midlayers, then some down, a wool sweater, mittens and hats and scarves and heat up the car, slick roads, slick trails. The cold hurts my face. You know how it is).

Every winter, I go up a few pants sizes. I have different winter clothes than summer clothes anyhow, but I’m in my late twenties now, and it’s time for new pants.

the ordeal that is trying on new pants when you are not particularly happy with your body is one I am well acquainted with. There is truly nothing more humbling than entering a changing room with an armful of pants to try in a variety of sizes, and realizing that none of the sizes you grabbed fit your body, and you vastly misestimated what you needed.

I think this is a pretty universal mid-twenty something experience. Our bodies change in our twenties, no matter what kind of shape you’re in. I regularly hike, and guide, and have done 70-day paddle trips. I still walk into a changing room and feel like crap.

When I got back from that 70-day trip two summers ago I remember standing in front of a mirror and looking at myself. I was 26, and paddled 15 miles a day, every single day, hauling gear and eating mostly quinoa and dried veggies and oatmeal and PB&J tortillas for two and a half months straight. I looked strong, and tan, and happy, but my stomach still wasn’t flat, and I still did not have the abs I imagined I would.

I remember looking and thinking okay, this is what my body looks like at it’s healthiest. Anything thinner would not be aspirational. That was what I looked like in the best shape of my life.

And I still don’t fearlessly love my body and I don’t think I ever will but I definitely reached a sort of understanding about what healthy and strong actually looks like, and what it looks like for me. I think I’ve reached (i have not reached), or at least I’m working towards, a sort of contentedness with the body that I have.

And so, I try on pants in the REI dressing room, and when the pants that would’ve fit in the summer are particularly unflattering today I don’t think too hard about it, and simply size up. This is what healthy & 27 looks like, I remind myself. I hope the reminder sticks.

But things like self love, or even just acceptance, are things we wake up to choose and practice every day, not something you decide once and everything changes. Things we have to practice like that are hard, but I think they become easier with time.

for a list of all my outdoor gear recommendations from five years of expedition kayaking & guiding, click here (favorite flattering pants included)

i visit a frozen waterfall in the city

On Friday, Andy & I went to Minnehaha Falls, a place I’ve always wanted to check out. Ever since visiting Spokane in early college, I’ve been sort of fascinated by the idea of waterfalls in a city.

Growing up in very flat lower Michigan, I don’t think I even saw a waterfall until I was twenty and could seek one out myself. To me, beautiful natural spaces like idyllic waterfall glens or alpine lakes are incompatible with a city. And yet, here in Minneapolis parks and walking paths line the banks of the rivers.

And I think that sort of is the magic of Minneapolis for me. It has its trendy coffee shop and restaurants and bookstores, but it also plowed creeks and lakes for ice skating all winter, and saunas, and endless cross country ski options, and frozen waterfalls right in the city.

Maybe though, in a place with similar climate to large portions of Siberia, where ice can sit on the lakes October through May, you need a little but of magic in the city.

It makes me wonder what Minneapolis will look like in 20 years, or 30, as the summers get hotter and the Great Lakes offer a promise of climate refuge, the state of Minnesota political refuge.

Andy thinks Minneapolis, Minnesota in general, will never become the sort of city to rival Chicago, or Berlin, or Copenhagen. The winters are too cold, the summers too hot. It’s appealing in theory, but not in practice.

I’m not so sure though. Throughout the city I see potential.

it’s time to start planning those summer road trips! here’s where to start:

• road trip planning & tips for solo ladies!

• check out a detailed guide to visiting the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin

• plan your seven-day Washington Road Trip beginning & ending at SeaTac airport car rental, based on all my favorite things from 8 months living in the state!

• browse a full archive of all my free trail guides & outdoor resources

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