an epic life

Trading Eagles for Pheasants

January 27th, 2015

Hi there.

We have three sons. Our oldest, Wolf, 14, is a budding writer. He’s working on his second book and really wants to have it be published. Recently, when our family shared our new year’s resolutions and discussed our family’s goals for 2015, Wolf shared he wants to write more this year.

I’ve also been yearning to do more writing. When we had our first company, I wrote about 100,000 words of copy every year for YellowstonePark.com, Yellowstone Journal, and 99 Things to Do in Yellowstone Country. When we sold the company to Active Interest Media, and I began my personal and professional reinventions, I wrote 200+ blog posts on HaveMediaWillTravel.com. That was between 2009-2013. If you visit my HaveMediaWillTravel blog, you’ll see my last blog was in – gasp – November of 2013.

I have resolved that in 2015, I will write more. I will publish more blog posts here, and I will also return to adventure and travel writing on my HaveMediaWillTravel blog.

About a week ago, Wolf was saying, given his goal to be a writer and to finish his book, he was really disappointed in himself for not writing more. I shared that I was struggling on the same front. I referenced “The Resistance” that Steven Pressfield writes about in The War of Art. I shared the excerpt about procrastination: “Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize. We don’t tell ourselves, ‘I’m never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I’m going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start it tomorrow.'”

I’m big on intentions and commitments. As a life and leadership coach, I’m always challenging my clients to develop rituals. If we want to be in the best shape of our life, we have to eat the right foods and move our bodies on a regular basis. If we want to be writers, we need to write on a regular basis. If we want to be mindful, we need to practice meditation or mindfulness on a regular basis. These all need to be practices – rituals – if we are to take our goals seriously.

I suggested to Wolf that we pull a card from Reverse Charades (a game our family occasionally plays) and we’ll write for 15 minutes about that topic. (I’m not sure Wolf is on board or not, but I’m guessing he will be – especially if there is extra popcorn or hot chocolate involved.)

The card I drew is bald eagle.

The card I drew for this week's writing topic.

When I drew the card, many memories of bald eagle sightings came to the surface of my recall. But one stands out more than the others.

In 1992, newly married to my awesome husband, Jerry, I was finishing my second year as an advertising consultant at the Missoulian daily newspaper. It was my first career job after graduating from the University of Montana Journalism school and it was a good one! But I was growing a little bored with sales and eager to cut my teeth on the other aspects of publishing.

At the time, my parents were owners or part owners of several community newspapers, including the Winner Advocate in Winner, South Dakota. At that time the newspaper was struggling. If Jerry and I wanted to make a go at it as publishers, the opportunity was ours. (Come to think of it, I have got to be one of the only persons in the world who had a great job in Missoula who chose to move out of Missoula?)

I remember my mom trying to talk us out of it. She knew how much I loved Missoula, and Winner is a lot different from Missoula. But we had made up our mind. Jerry, who’s a teacher, (in his 20th year of teaching), at the time was also eager to try his hand at operating a business.

We moved on Christmas day of 1992. It was the worst Christmas ever! I was throwing up-sick, and literally having to pull our uHaul over every 30 minutes to “get sick.”

As we left the mountains and foothills of Missoula, about 15 miles out of town, a bald eagle swooped down and flew parallel to us. It was a spectacular and unforgettable sight as the eagle stayed with us for what was a significant amount of time.

Bald eagle in flight. (Carole Robertson photo)

Seeing the eagle was a highlight of an otherwise challenging trip, what we me being so sick, and then driving in white out blizzard conditions for much of the way, and I was, as I mentioned, quite ill.

But, after 14 hours, we were finally approaching what would be our new home base, Winner. As we entered the area, a pheasant swooped in front of us.

Pheasant. (Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS)

It was then that we realized we had traded eagles for pheasants. (There are eagles near Winner, but there are more pheasants. Winner is known for being “the pheasant hunting capital of the world.”) And, for the record, pheasants are also amazing birds. I guess I say we traded eagles for pheasants to say that, at least in our case, we traded a wonderful experience for a learning experience.

We lived in Winner for almost 2 years. It was a challenging experience and I missed the mountains, but the people were wonderful, and it was one of the greatest learning experiences I’ve ever had. Jerry and I both agree that while we wouldn’t want to do it again, we wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I’m curious: What memory or story do you think of when you think of a bald eagle? Or, when was a time when you consciously traded a preferred experience for a challenging one?

• Categories: Family, Life and Leadership, Travel
• Tags: bald eagles, missoula, sacrifice, winner
• Comments: 4 Comments