Osito And A Frog Named Turtle, An Additive Adventure Entry

In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com and Osprey Packs

Baby Turtle, Phase 2. Photo By Peter DoucetteI grasped the hours-old turtle with her white underbelly between my thumb and forefinger. She put up with it. She tried out the cool air and wind-milled her flippers in opposite and unsynchronized directions. She bobbled her head in an effort to see through still unopened eye slits covered in sand. I was in charge of her until I slid her back into the two-foot-deep hole with her dozens of brothers and sisters. She was covered in sand, and left to grow up—hopefully strong enough to leave the hole and join the ocean.

Right about now, I could talk about ocean health and green turtles and all the amazing things they do. But this is not a story about a turtle; this is a story about a poodle. A poodle that I tried to convince to be like a turtle, via a frog....

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The Rebirth of Slick, An Additive Adventure Entry

In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com

Three weeks from today, I’ll be flying to Ethiopia. I’ve been training for trip. I’ve been aqua jogging.

Actually, I just had to stop aqua jogging. I was over-training with the 12”-wide water-flotation device. In my defense, I was just trying to keep up with Astrid, the 65-year old woman with a hip and knee replacement. At 33 with two back surgeries, I was eating her aquatic dust. It’s a good thing I’ve finally been cleared to go back to climbing. It’s about time—East Africa is looming close.

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The Ballad You Forgot, An Additive Adventure Entry

A young student showing off his artistic side with the rest of his class at one of imagine1day's schools

A blog in conjunction with Osprey Packs and Outside Television.

Let’s get this out of the way. I was 8. I made bad choices like singing Don’t Fence Me In at my father’s second wedding and lying down on the carpet in the school loft; I had bad choices foisted upon me, like a two-inch buzz cut—billed as a smart fashion move with the added benefit of being easier to treat lice (the loft). No wonder I felt sorry for the people in Ethiopia.

My older sister terrorized me, I had a boy hair cut, and glasses. They were starving, being relocated 400 miles away from their families and heritage, and in the middle of one of the most militaristic regimes in modern Africa called The Red Terror. I did what any person feeling a great sense of connected persecution would do. I wrote a ballad.

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Whispering Into A Roar

Majka Burhardt on Omega, Cannon Cliff, NH. Photo by Peter Doucette

In conjunction with Climbing Magazine and climbing.com. Read online HERE.

This is a story without a conclusion. Maybe that will change by the end. At this point, I’m not betting on it. Four weeks ago, I wrote a piece about trying to understand death in the face of more death, and in spite of life. I thought that, by writing it, I would move on from it—be released from it.  But here’s the thing about writing about death: it creates conversation about death. And when you write about death and climbing, it creates a roar.

I can’t fully understand it, but I also don’t know if I am that surprised. I wrote about being scared as a climber. I wrote about questioning my choices. And suddenly, everyone else seemed to question my choices as well. My best friend from first grade wrote to ask me to please stick around until we are both old and can swap stories of our different lives.

“Maybe it’s time to reconsider the danger level,” he said. “I hope you are open to interesting twists and turns that may keep you in safer territory.”

I wrote him back: “I will be careful. I am careful. I am paying attention.”

My New York writing friend, a new mother, wrote and said, “Maybe it’s a good time to take it easy. I’m serious.”

I sent her a similar response to what I sent my grade-school friend, and as I typed it, I believed it, but I also wanted to take it back. I didn’t really want to send a response at all. I didn’t really want the note from her in the first place. I didn’t want to be reproached. And even though I knew it was out of love, I didn’t want to be questioned. It might have been because I didn’t want the questions to get in my way.  But really, it was because all the answers I could come up with sounded hollow and weak. But I still typed them onto the white space on my computer. What else was I supposed to do?

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The Poodle Permanent

Osito in RecoveryI’m not a dog person. I never have been. I once knew a woman who returned a dog for its propensity to drool. She is my mother.

Two weeks ago, I was talking on the phone with a potential landlord for a summer sublet when he asked if I had a dog.

“Me?” I said, “No. I have a poodle.”

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