Browsed by
Author: The Refresh

Climb Every Mountain: An Interview with Mountain Guide Charlotte Austin

Climb Every Mountain: An Interview with Mountain Guide Charlotte Austin

by Lauren Jonik There’s a lot of stigma and mystique around both writers and climbers, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you call yourself. It matters what you write. What you climb. What you do. Lauren Jonik: What first inspired you to begin mountaineering? What was the first mountain you climbed? Charlotte Austin: I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, where mountains dominate the skyline. I didn’t realize how important that was until…

Read More Read More

How to travel when you have anxiety

How to travel when you have anxiety

by Andrea Crowley-Hughes One “cannot discover new oceans unless [they] have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide (modified to be friendlier to other genders than “he”) When you’re traveling with anxiety, sometimes this quote makes a ton of sense, and other times it just sounds impossible. It can feel delightful to arrive at your destination, greeted by place names and accents the mind can curl around and explore until the words become familiar. In my…

Read More Read More

Me Too

Me Too

by Gretchen Hanson For many of us it started early, an insidious lesson we were taught so young it became a part of who we are. For me, it was my mother’s friend bathing me with too much attention to my private parts. Then it was my beloved uncle putting me to bed at night when I was six, touching first, later the private “games” I was to tell no one about.   Keep quiet, I was told, it’s our…

Read More Read More

Moving Towards the Whole: How Integrative Medicine Helps

Moving Towards the Whole: How Integrative Medicine Helps

by Kate Delany By the time I was lying on the table, electrified needles inserted across the length of my body, I was truly at wit’s end. I was in my second decade of life with ulcerative colitis (UC), a point in the disease in which, according to my gastroenterologist, “things can change.” And things had changed for me in a decidedly negative way. Having run the gamut of standard medical treatment, it was time to branch out to alternative…

Read More Read More

Global Flavors: Mexico, My Mexico

Global Flavors: Mexico, My Mexico

by Gretchen Hanson The San Diego of my childhood was not the glossy high rises of the center city or the quaint architecture of the Gas Lamp District. It was a gritty border town of often unpaved roads, homes that were little more than adobe covered cement and mangy coyotes who ate your unwatched cats. In huge tracts of brush, immigrants without the protection of documentation were living hard. Bars were on every main street corner and often smelled of…

Read More Read More