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Hometown

San Francisco/Kenai, AK

Joie de VIVre

My daughter Jeneva: jumping on my bed with her every night, looking straight into her eyes, and seeing everything that is important in life. Hosting FINE LIVING TV Network's "All That's Fit." Extreme fitness: doing things most people don't expect "a girl" to do. Writing my first book. Surviving divorce and thriving as a single mom. Touching a live polar bear in the wild and living to tell about it. Dreaming of future adventures.

VIV Moment

It seems like my life has been filled with VIV Moments, little flashcards of time/life/experience that define my entire being. Most recently, I was swimming in the San Francisco Bay just after the sun broke through the fog early one fall morning. The water was really choppy — rough, inconsistent, restless and cold. Really cold. I’m a crappy swimmer. The only reason I ever tried it was to do the Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon (on a dare). Now, I only continue swimming as a necessary evil of triathlons (which I love).

As I struggled through the surf, choking down gulps of salty water and trying to catch a breath between the smack of the waves, I started getting really scared and thought I might not make the 100 feet back to the shore. Panic comes quickly for me when I’m swimming like that … fighting with every stroke, feeling so vulnerable and “out of control” in the open waters of the bay. I was suddenly struck by how much this crazy-hard swim symbolized my personal and professional life at the time: pushing through fear, relaxing into — instead of resisting against — the unknown, going on when I wanted to give up, allowing something bigger and stronger and more powerful than me to be in control.

I stopped swimming, took off my goggles and just looked across the water. The sun was starting to melt away the fog around the Golden Gate Bridge. Everything had that magical, crisp, pink and blue, bright and fresh early morning glow about it. A flock of pelicans flew over my head, so close that I could hear the flap of their wings. I felt so very alive right then that the wave of fear and frustration nearly drowning me moments earlier broke and simply washed away. I laughed out loud at how miraculous it all seemed.

When I started swimming again, I relaxed and let the ocean be the ocean and allowed myself to be a “good-enough” swimmer to reach the shore. I realized for me, sometimes surviving is more than just living, it is about being alive.

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