My father, Hans-Georg Graf von Rittberg, was born on March 27, 1943, on his family’s estate in Pomerania during World War II. In early 1945, his mother, Karin Gräfin von Rittberg, eight months pregnant, fled with her two sons ahead of the Russian occupation. Her husband was executed in April 1945 for his involvement in the resistance against Hitler.

By the fall of 1945, they were finally able to reach Western Germany, escaping Russian-controlled territory. In our conversation, my father recalls his earliest memories in Königsbach, where they lived above a horse stall. Winters were brutally cold, and to keep her sons from freezing at night, his mother would bind their hands so they would keep them tucked under the blankets.

What I find most striking are the tender memories my father carries from such a devastating time — playing in the woods, building makeshift bridges, learning to navigate the world with curiosity and imagination. He speaks about growing up in post-war Germany with a mother who, despite having lost almost everything, always found ways to create a good life from what they had.

As he grew older, his central ambition became rebuilding what had been lost, and one day offering his own family the life he had always dreamed of. Had my father not received a Fulbright scholarship to study in New York — where he met my mother — I would not be here today.

Their life together has been one great adventure, and I feel deeply grateful and proud to be part of it.

My mother, Gretchen Elizabeth Wetzel, was born in Glendive Montana in 1949. Her mother’s family had arrived in covered wagons in Willow Creek Valley in 1891. But this is not where the traveling ended. After moving to Missoula, my grandfather was hired by the Ford Foundation as an educational adviser for the Pakistani Government to set up pilot schools in East Pakistan. My mom was fifteen, when her family moved to Dhaka (at that time East Pakistan, now Bangladesh). Since there was no high school for her, she was sent to a boarding school in New Delhi. It was her first, but certainly not last, big adventure.

When I look at my mom’s life, I think of my Grandma’s quilt, every piece of fabric tells its own story. My mom has lived in the most breathtaking places of Montana, behind mud walls in an Indian village, New York, Hamburg, Berlin, Valencia, and the quaint little village of Beyenburg, where I was born. Her life has been everything but boring. One of my earliest memories is seeing her as a child, her gorgeous brown braid cascading down her shoulder, thinking she looked like a queen. It is truly an honor to share her story with you.

https://flatheadbeacon.com/e-edition/12_03_2020/mobile/index.html#p=76

https://dailyinterlake.com/news/2018/mar/15/betty-wetzel-102-6/

Born in Scotland, Angie Seckinger spent her childhood moving a lot all over the globe, from Pakistan, Columbia, Chile and Guatemala to Arizona, Washington DC, Maryland and Germany. Her dad was a foreign service officer and her life was never boring. Angie has been an artist and professional photographer for 40 years. I met her through my husband Pata when I first came to Cornudella in 2014. At the time, she was still living the double life, hustling as a well established photographer in the US, and spending her winters on her quiet piece of property tucked up against the Montsant. We have spent hours talking on her deck. Every time her insights resonate and I walk away inspired. Angie seems to always get me and understand my process. In this recording, we talk about feeling stuck, the cycles of life, the creative process and the importance of stopping. Angie also shares how she learned what ‘having enough’ means to her. In her own words: “Today, I am retired and living my best, peaceful life”.

When I first moved to Spain late last summer, I expected to jump straight into my new job at a local winery, guiding tourists and explaining the history of Priorat. I had prepared and studied for the position, but when I arrived the job fell through. Disheartened at first, I then welcomed the unplanned break I was given and realized how much I needed to just stop. After two years of moving things from one storage unit to another, from the US to Spain and finishing our house here, I felt tired, directionless and empty of any sort of inspiration. For a week or so I mostly slept. Then, little by little, I started picking up the pieces and slowly putting my life back together here in Cornudella de Montsant. With this very first solo episode, I would like to give a glimpse into my life here and what inspired me to start recording again.

We recorded this episode with Laura Jolley late last summer. I had found her yoga class in Grand Junction shortly after moving there and it changed the entire experience of a difficult phase of my life. With deep stretches and breath work, Laura helped me sink into emotional layers beneath all the chaos. I always walked away feeling relieved and more grounded. This conversation is a great reminder that even when I think calmer waters are just around the corner, life continues to bring challenges, just different ones. And taking time for myself, whether three minutes or an hour, is not just appropriate, but actually necessary. During this episode, Laura actually guides us through a short meditation. It’s amazing what closing your eyes and breathing can do.

We talk about how Yoga found her at age four, the pros and cons of in-class yoga versus hitting play on your phone, how empowering it feels to realize that we are actually in charge of our own happiness, and all the different ways and expressions of self-care, a widely used term that has become so cliche, and also a thread throughout my episodes. We so often live in the past or the future, trying to plan ahead, re-analyzing what happened, could have happened or should have happened. Ironically, all we really have is the present moment: Now. So how do we find the balance between being present and still functioning in society? Yoga is one method that brings us back into the body and the moment. But no matter what the practice, bottom line, when we slow down we stay in touch with ourselves and can learn how to fill our cup.

To learn more about Laura please visit https://www.laurajolley.com/

If you happen to live in the Western Slopes, I highly recommend checking out her class at https://www.yogavstudio.com/home

Laura’s recommendations for online yoga platforms:

https://yogauonline.com/

https://www.glo.com/

https://yogainternational.com/

Christie Blackmon grew up in northeast Ohio. She studied marketing and psychology at Kent State University and started climbing in her twenties. Her new passion led her to travel throughout the US, Mexico, Thailand and Spain and eventually settle in Colorado, where we met.

Though there have been stretches in our lives without seeing each other, last summer we spent a lot of time together in Grand Junction. Training at the gym was merely an excuse to talk for hours about all the things and with no filters. Christie feels like an older sister to me. I admire her, the life she has created with her family, the way she approaches climbing, how she treats her daughter Marissa and her relationship with her sweet husband, Michael.

Christie sent the Path (5.13c in Rifle Canyon) at age 44, one year after giving birth to Marissa. At the time this was her hardest route. Then, at age 48, she did Magnatar and Tomb Raider, also in Rifle, both 5.13ds. Her family has spent a lot of time in Spain where we got to climb with them and also meet her incredible mom, Joni. Sadly, she passed away not too long ago, but thankfully within the comfort of Christie’s own home.

It took time for Christie to be ready to speak about her mom’s death on my podcast. And when she was, she said: “I thought about what my mom would say, and she would have told me to do it”. Christie and I talk about things that probably most of us try not to think about: aging, death and losing a loved one. Topics that occupy many of our minds (whether consciously or not) but are hard, scary, yet inevitable. My dad is turning 80 this year. He is strong, his mind fresh, young at heart and his memory incredible. But the fact is, he is getting older.

My parents make jokes about how they are the ‘next ones on the line’. I get upset when they talk like that. But I guess for them it’s one way of dealing with the fact that they have lost a lot of friends their age and younger. Sometimes, it can feel as though death is just around the corner, waiting to take them away from me. Each time I get to see them is becoming more and more precious.

I don’t think anyone can prepare us for the moment we have to let go of someone we love so deeply. But sharing our stories helps us remember that we are not alone. No one is exempt from losing someone close. And though we will always miss them, with time, the pain becomes less.

IF YOU ARE CURIOUS WHY MY PODCAST IS CALLED ‘KEGELS AND COFFEE’ THIS EPISODE HAS THE ANSWER FOR YOU!

Susan Vachon and I go way back to the California days. She danced for my company in 2009 and has been a friend for longer than that. Susan grew up in suburban New York. After completing her Masters degree in Health Science she became a Physician Assistant and made her way to the west coast where she felt more at home in the outdoor world. But this conversation is not about climbing or skiing, rather working less and sleeping more. Ironically, when we recorded this episode Susan had just thrown her back out after going full force for too long. We talk about:

We talk about:

• Sleep, or better, the lack of 💤
• How to create a cozy nest to rest 🛏️
• Why to keep it dark at night 🕶️
• Susan’s childhood terror of aliens grabbing her feet from under the bed 👽
• How at 4am our thoughts are totally out of control 🤯
• When we don’t stop, our bodies will make us 🛑
• What we would tell our 27-year old selves 👯
• Stepping out of the work life rat race 🐀

Janet Tsai grew up in Colorado and with parents from Taiwan always was a minority within the white world of the Front Range. In our conversation we talked about what it felt like to grow up in Fort Collins, where classmates mistook her adopted friends from Korea as her siblings, her older sister’s nickname was ‘the brain’ and hers ‘the little brain’. Janet knows what it means to be an outsider not only in the US but also in China. Becoming part of the robotics team during high school eventually led to her first job right out of college: Roomba, maker of the first robotic vacuum cleaner, asked her to move to Hong Kong to be the liaison between American design engineers and Chinese manufacturing engineers for the newest Roomba design. In our conversation, Janet shares outrageous experiences of gender discrimination and harassment during her time in China. When she returned to the US, she became a teaching professor in the department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. In this role, she advocates for women and students from marginalized groups to pursue interests related to engineering and technology. She has tried to use her own experiences of gender and race discrimination and harassment in engineering as motivation to keep going, and inspiration to show younger students that things can be different. In her own words: “Being an engineer is a fun way to see the world, but I wish a lot of times that we connected more to the world.”

To learn more about Janet please visit:

http://www.janetytsai.com/

https://www.colorado.edu/engineering-facultystaff/janet-tsai