I Will Be Myself
I had been out of college for less than a year when my Grammy’s bright light of divinity began to flicker. Up in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, the blue-room that we were forbidden from entering as children, had its glass-paned doors swung wide open and its walls painted rose. The antiques and collectibles and all the fancy fragile knicks and knacks were removed and replaced with a hospital bed and cards hanging from the wall. Where the porcelain boxer dog (that I forced myself to stare into the bulgy eyes of) was once perched now held a framed 8x10 photo of Pope John Paul II and a prayer card for Mother Teresa.
I was back in Charleston, South Carolina. I say "back," because in the fall, I packed up my little life and my freshly minted Bachelor of Science degree and moved it up to Charlotte. To the big city. To ‘begin my career’ I told myself. I had not yet developed my three criteria for a job. All I knew is the office world was not for me. Neither was the door-to-door sales world. Nor the living in an Apartment Complex. I repacked up my little life, turned the car back to the Low Country and landed in a spare bed in my pal Martha’s enormous bedroom.
Martha and I met a few years earlier on a Tuesday, the day we both saw the same flyer on campus for a women’s rugby team. That Thursday, I was riding her on the handlebars of my bike to Salty Mike’s Bar after practice, with our fake IDs tucked inside our sweaty sports bras. While we waited for Martha to finish up her senior year, I worked several jobs and stockpiled cash for our trip in a green metal box under my bed. I adorned our walls with a few photos from my family’s trip to Jackson Hole and magazine pictures of Alaska we had been cutting out of Backpacker all year. Once we celebrated Martha’s graduation, we headed west. We loosely planned to land in Homer, Alaska…but we were both open to see where the road led us.
I spoke often to my grandmother that winter. As often as practical when I had to run ½ mile up the street in the Charleston humidity to the payphone at Colonial Lake. It was the peak of the calling card era and 1.800.CALLATT dial up the middle. One time, after the morphine drip started, Gram asked whimsically if I thought it would be simply the best thing in the world if someone would wheel me under a keg and just let it pour into my mouth. I happened to agree. I’m sure I had just done a keg stand at a rugby party that weekend. We were so alike, I thought. I did not learn until later that my Gram had a complex relationship with The Drink. When we spoke of my plans to cross the mighty Mississippi, she told me, “you are not going to find yourself, you are going to be yourself.” I hung on to that. All these years. I hang on to it still.
In February 1999, I wrote my Gram a letter. It was a vow to honor her legacy in ways big and small. When her flicker faded out on April Fool’s Day, they asked me to read it at her funeral. It is a moment that I can relive with vivid clarity. I walked up to the altar at St. Rose Catholic church, genuflected, and turned to stand in front of my entire family. I gulped a few breaths of incensed air to steady myself, and then I relaxed my shoulders and smiled.
Dear Gram, 2-1-99
I will sleep all day and dress at noon…
I will wait for the magic words
I will peel vegetables, and I will cut fruit
I will coin silly phrases (no nee na nee noo noo)…
I will correct grammar…
I will eat clams and drink beer…
I will laugh out loud…
I will learn to do that garggly thing with my throat…
I will take many adventures…
I will pick 4-leaf clovers…
I will be a floater, not a sinker…
I will not pierce my ears…
I will be a good hugger…
I will love my friends…
I will be La De Da…
I will make chicken and rice…
I will make blueberry dessert…
I will say “toy boat” 3 times fast…
I will play cards…
I will plant a garden…
I will appreciate everything and ridicule nothing…
I will spit on the sidewalk…
I will wear purple…
I will be a devoted wife…
I will love my children and their children…
I will love my brothers and sister…
I will look for you everywhere…
I will be happy,
And I will be proud,
Because I will be you.
It was easier to share than I imagined. I didn’t need to look down at my letter much. I knew. I was six weeks away from setting my sails and leaving my family. Only one of my dad’s cousin had flown so far from the coop. Everyone else remained within a morning’s drive of each other. They would never miss each other’s baptisms, communions, graduations, or holidays. As I spoke, I felt right with myself. I was explaining to my family, as I looked them each in the eyes, that although I may not know where I’m going, and I have little idea of what I’ll be doing, I will be okay. I will take all the teachings with me. I will be led by example. My recipe for good-living was set in that letter. It had no mention of location or vocation, just how I planned to live and how I planned to love…deeply and richly. All of which was taught to me by watching my Grammy interface in her own unique fashion with the world. I watched the entire world embrace her for her authenticity.
I began my personal westward expansion with Martha a month after my Gram’s funeral. We loaded up my Ford Tempo "Whitey", pointed is due west and drove and adventured and laughed and explored and wondered. We stretched our dollars by eating plenty of peanut butter and jelly saltine sandwiches, ramen noodles, and nibbling our way through two cases of mint chocolate PR Bars. PR bars were the even chalkier predecessor to Power Bars. One of my handful of jobs, I worked as a personal trainer and my boss lady sent us packing with a couple of cases of our daily calories high in protein and low on taste and flavor.
I signed up for AAA and had "Quick Trips" made for each section we planned to travel. It was before I knew what a Gazetteer was. Those Quick Trip booklets and our Road Atlas were our sole resources. Well...and a bag phone. We were encouraged to take it with us by Martha’s mom to use it in case of an emergency. We laughed about it every day.
Martha and I read adventure books and magazine articles to each other while we drove. We took a few Cosmo quizzes. We drove during the daylight and stopped before dusk. We did not want to miss a thing. We camped in State Parks or National Forests every night. We stopped in St. Louis and put ourselves right in the Mighty Mississippi. We watched the landscape change at the same pace that the people and the radio stations changed. The further between the structures, the fewer voices there were to hear. I noticed for the first time how many cows there were in our country. In every state. Right there off the highway. I became aware, for the second time, that every place you show up in America, the people are experiencing a different version of what that exactly means. Mid-Atlantic upbringing, southern schooling, Midwest observing, and western living. Same but different. Different but same.
It was late May when we drove through Wyoming. We left the Interstate behind and hopped on the Oregon Trail. Our route took us right through the town I have lived for the past 20 years. When we first drove through the open windswept lands from Rawlins to Dubois, we played out different scenes of what it must have been like back in-the-day. Wyoming had not yet been a state for 100 years. We were on the Oregon Trail. We were on the sacred land of several tribes. This was a true adventure for two girls who, until recently, were wrapped in kudzu and Spanish moss and smothered by humidity.
Three summers earlier, I experienced Jackson Hole and the Tetons for the first time. My parents were on a month-long cross-country voyage with my younger two siblings. It was the summer after my sophomore year in college and I spent it in Charleston working several jobs, taking a few classes, and earning my in-state tuition. I only had a week available to join them. I flew in to Jackson Hole. I did not know a single thing about the place. It was dark when I landed. The five of us road tripped together in a sedan through the Tetons, Yellowstone, South Dakota and Colorado. I had just turned twenty. My brother and sister were in high school.
We stayed just off the town square in Jackson Hole that first night. My father, who has an affinity for excellent coffee and fresh tasty pastries, had already discovered the Bunnery. Our first order of business, after devouring a sugar spiking Almond Stick, was to go horseback riding on Snow King Mountain. Although I had never been super keen on horses, I had spent little time around them, so I was game. We mounted up and headed into the timber. It was an August morning, and the air had an unfamiliar arid crisp and the sky was a hue of blue I had only seen in paintings. We thrillessly plugged along the trail one horse trudging after the next. I felt like an ingrate for not loving it, and if you know my dad, an ingrate is an awful thing to be. Luckily, I got snapped right out of it when we left the shelter of the trees. From a clearing on the slope of Snow King, I saw the Tetons for the first time. I lost my breath. I looked back with full moon eyes at my brother and sister, but they looked unmiffed. They had been in town for several days before my arrival. The heart-burst I still experience today when I catch a glimpse of the Tetons after any length of time away did not exist in them. My life was significantly thrown off kilter and readjusted three times in that single day. Wearing khaki shorts, a cotton t-shirt, and Adidas Trail Runners, sitting on the back on Tonto, and drinking in my first view of the Teton Range, was the first.
Later that afternoon, we drove into the Grand Teton National Park. We took the scenic loop and parked in a lot along Jenny Lake. We all scuttled down the slope to the edge of the lake to get the closest look we could. It wasn't close enough. I had never seen the color "clear" before. My brother Mooch, my sister Colleen, and I walked right in and stood in the clear. I wasn't certain it was going to feel like water. It didn't resemble any water I had ever seen. I stood in the water staring across Jenny Lake into Cascade Canyon. I scanned the mountains from the bottom to the top and from the west to the east and back and forth over again. I could not truly comprehend what I was taking part in. I had zero prior knowledge and less expectation of where or what Jackson Hole, Wyoming, was until I stood in Jenny Lake. Then I heard voices. Not the voices of all the other roadside tourists that scrambled down the rocky slope, but voices coming from the other side of the lake and up in the canyon. People were up there! You could walk right up those hills if you had the wherewithal. I felt like I was going bonkers. Suddenly, while standing in the cold clear of Jenny Lake, I realized I had access to dreams I had not considered dreaming. I knew as well as I knew my times tables in the first grade that I would climb up those mountains someday. Even though, at that point at age 20, I had never even climbed a molehill. It was the second tectonic life shift to occur that day.
My father asked if I'd like to go for a walk late that night. It was a new moon. We were staying at Signal Mountain Lodge and next to the lodge is a campground. We walked in that direction, towards the area with zero lights shining and zero transfer boxes buzzing. I am certain that we were chatting during our walk, but the memory of that conversation was shattered to smithereens with the crystal-clear sharpness, magnitude, and multitude of the stars in the sky. As we walked that loop through the campground, it was a done deal. My game had changed.
Three times in one day. I was in the middle of college, without direction of where I thought I might head once I wrapped up. The cosmic highway lit up; my path revealed. I knew enough to hold the experience dear and know that my life now held new possibility. That all I thought was so, did not necessarily have to be.
There was still plenty of late spring snow on Togwotee Pass where Martha and I pulled over to camp. Our tent door was opened to the splendor of the Tetons. We got in late, and had little time to relish in that splendor before dark. Around 5am, I woke up having some trouble breathing. Asthma has been a thing for me since my whole life. I unzipped the tent as quietly as I could and crawled outside. I found a rock to sit on and dangle my feet. We were up quite high, 9,000+ feet, perhaps the cause for my breathing difficulty. I sat as tall as I could on the rock in the early morning Wyoming pale and striking dawn. I was filling my ribs up with as much air as I could possibly sip, and I was forcing it out as far as I could past the bronchioles, clearing out the avioli. It was a new kind of cold. Opposite the frigid weather in the Northeast, I felt it more on my outsides than on my insides. I smiled to the tune playing inside my head of Dave Matthews Band "wouldn't you like to be, sitting on top of the world with your legs hanging free?".
I felt it before I saw it. I saw it before I heard it. After I heard it, I felt it again. A crane. It came up behind me, flew right over my shoulder, and dove down to the great big open below. Flap flap flap. It was one of those freeze-in-time moments that my Gram warned me never to take for granted. Despite that crane's best effort to take it away, I got my breath back by the time Martha emerged from the tent. I wanted to tell her about it, but I didn't have any words that matched the experience. So I kept it to myself.
Later that morning, we pulled up to the trailhead parking lot at Jenny Lake. I was jumping up and down inside my pasty Irish skin. I was going for it. I was going to strap a pack to my back and journey up Cascade Canyon, where I had set my sights a few years before. Martha and I rolled out looking legit. I mean, we did both outfit ourselves with a new pair of Vasque Sundowners and the first model of a Petzel headlamp when we swung by Sierra Trading Post in Cheyenne. The headlamps required a full 12V battery pack that suspended at the base of your occiput.
The ranger that issued us the permits asked if we had snowshoes because without them, we would be post-holing once we rose from the valley floor. We looked at each other and back at him and nodded without knowing what post holing meant. Neither of us had heard the term before. Post-hole schmost-hole, we got this. Pros. Look at our red laces and our loosely woven wool socks.
We took a few puffs off one of our pre-rolled joints we stored in both our toothbrush holders and our tampon boxes for our road trip, packed up our backpacks and heaved ho around the lake. Once we began to climb up the canyon, we got a quick lesson on what post-holing meant. We gave it our best go. Truly. We did not quit right away. We put several hours of effort in without gaining much ground. It is one of the best things about Martha and me adventuring together. We are both committed to going for it. All in. Eventually, we agreed to just set up camp on the most level snow spot we could find. Both Martha and I are superb students, so we read the material the Ranger gave us once we were inside our tent. It said we were to hang a bear bag with all our trash, all our food, and anything that smelled like anything. There were no actual trees with accessible limbs around. We plan B'd, it is my specialty. We bundled all the food and smelly items and jammed it all in a big plastic garbage bag. We tied it to the trunk of a tree and slung it down the mountain, dangling off a cliff. That was my first experience camping in Wyoming. What later became a career in which I was a professional began with waist deep post-holing up Cascade Canyon and a bear bag dangling from a cliff. And lots of laughs and a really great time figuring the whole unfamiliar landscape out with Martha. We were fabulous adventure partners. Any bullshit that needed to be worked out got worked out quickly. The novelty, the experience, the challenge, the unknown. Twenty-plus years later, I’m happy to report it is the same as it ever was.
After our inaugural backpacking trip, we rolled into Jackson Hole. We were eating lunch while looking through the local classified ads in the Jackson Daily. This was 1999, and there were plenty of jobs - even back then. One job stood out cause it was up-my-alley. After lunch, we swung by the Teton County Rec Center to see if we could learn any more about the position. The lady that was doing the hiring was out of town and would not be back till Tuesday. This was a Thursday, and we were headed out that very afternoon. This was before I ever heard of the off-season, or mud-season. We were such newbs! I left my resume and said I'd get in touch in the next week. This is the time of CarrotTop and DialDownTheMiddle, remember? We still had Whitey pointed toward Homer, Alaska. We were not counting any un-hatched chickens as we rolled west out of town.
When we made it to Seattle, we took out the special envelope that we sealed while we were still in Charleston. We had safely stored it at the bottom of the green metal money box. We busted open the seal to treat ourselves to a salmon and halibut feast. We both agreed that it was worth every mile just for that dinner.
The only rule to our route was to choose Westish and Northish toward Alaska. Since there was no particular destination, there was no rush. Some places we lolly-gagged leisurely, while others we flew in a flash. When a town seemed to suit our fancy a touch, we’d get the local newspaper and cruise the Classified Ads and the Apartment for Rents. We kept the potentials in a file folder in the backseat as we travelled along.
We were proud of ourselves, and fuck if we shouldn't have been. We made it from sea to shining sea. The world remained our oyster. We landed up in Bellinghame after our Pacific seafood feast. We drove in at night, so did not expect to wake to flocks of peacocks pecking at our tent in the morning. I punched my calling card number into the payphone at the campground and dialed the Teton County Parks and Rec office. They scheduled an official phone interview two days away. We changed the rules, pointed Whitey south, and put Alaska on hold. We would spin our wheels in Washington and Oregon until we learned more about Wyoming. We soaked up all the experiences we could about PNW life. We pulled over at another payphone somewhere along the Columbia River, watching the windsurfers while I had my phone interview. Since there was no way to get in touch with me, I was to call back in one week.
We were both wonder struck by Washington and Oregon. We were straddling the rainy season. When the sun came out, it was glorious and magnificent, unlike any reality I had known until then. We hiked around Rainier. We traipsed through forests that must have harbored Ewoks. We soaked in high mountain hot springs with naked people. We had town days in Bend and in Eugene. We did our laundry and drank their beers. We were just getting our toes dipped into craft beer and micro brews. We had just acquainted ourselves with Fat Tire on a big night in downtown Denver two weeks earlier. The craftiest the beer got for us in Charleston was Pete's Wicked Ale and a Sam Adams Seasonal. Otherwise, Amstel Light was considered clever.
Some days it rained and rained. The type of rain that flashes first in your brain when you think of spring in the Pacific Northwest. Far beyond a drizzle, yet shy of torrential, the kind of weather that challenges the joyful flow of road-trip car camping. We set up our tent in a state park outside a small fishing town in Oregon. There was no sign that the storm would lift, so we plan B’d to the local brewpub for an afternoon of fish and chips and those clever, tasty, crafty beers.
Martha and I were rugby teammates, and we were in our early 20s. We knew how to spend a rainy afternoon in a bar. We played pool, and darts, and that video golf game that was popular back in the late 90s. We kept our quarters on the juke box and our tab open. We mixed it up with some locals and befriended the barkeep.
One fella was amused by us, as we were amused by him. It's the groundwork for so many of my most lifelong lasting relationships. Mutual amusement.
He wanted to introduce us to behind-the-scenes life in his small village. As we settled our tab, he made us an offer. If we showed up at the docks at 6:30am, he would take us out for a day of sturgeon fishing on the Columbia River.
No matter how many pitchers of amber ale we might have consumed, there was no way I was missing that opportunity. We were on the docks by 6:15am.
He toted us around the tiny village as he gathered supplies and coffee and snacks. His way was deliberately friendly and engaging to every person he encountered. Nothing happened quickly that morning. Everything and everyone deserved time and got the time it deserved. The interactions with the gals at the coffee shop mattered. The conversation with the fella we got the bait from mattered. The introductions mattered. The pace of it all was intentional. People were legitimately interacting with each other on every level everywhere we went. Small town living. Community. I was drawn to it.
I had no schema for sturgeon, so I was surprised by its funky looking appearance when Martha caught a beauty fit to feast on. He invited us to his house that night to prepare it. While we were showering for the first time in weeks, he was gathering fresh vegetables from his garden and popping the cork on wine made in his spare room. The same room where the mead was fermenting for the appropriate full moon cycle, and vats of ale were brewing with the hops that grew outside his kitchen window. He showed us his extensive arrowhead and artifact collection and kept us entertained with wild stories. His laugh made my insides bounce, whether or not I got the joke.
We spent the rest of that week with him while we waited to call back about the job in Wyoming. He called out of work and we day-tripped together up and down the Oregon coast. He took us to magical places, and he knew all the lore. He dug for razor clams and rooted out mushrooms. He referred to all women as “gals” and all trucks as “rigs”. He strolled with joy springing his step. He was curious, knowledgeable, wise, and kind. He was a good mood.
I was 22 years old, and I knew then the kind of life I was looking to manifest. The simple one. The friendly one. The never-in-a-rush one. The not too busy one. The one that met all the criteria of my vows to my Gram and connected me deeply with my community and my environment. That week I got a magnificent view of my future good life. The next step was to learn to watch for the path to light up in front of me - or to the side of me, or even behind me, and then to step fearlessly onto it.
I got the job in Jackson Hole. Facility Manager of the Rec Center. It was an evening and weekends position, but evenings were over by 9pm, so not a bad gig. Especially in Wyoming summertime when the sun does not tamp itself out completely until after 10pm. Walking out of work at 9pm felt like happy hour. I treated it as such.
Martha immediately landed a job as a reference librarian (a human google). We both had jobs in Jackson Hole before we had lodging. The night before my first day at work, we stayed at the hostel below the Anvil Hotel so that I could shower for my first day on the job. After that, I had access to the locker room, so we set up a camp in Curtis Canyon. It was a long bumpy commute to town, yet we grinned like fools as we journeyed in each day to live our new adventure. I fancied myself as Uncle Travelling Matt from the Fraggle Rock. I sent postcards back to the east every week.
It was a mighty fine time for me. Every single thing I cast my line out to was absolutely novel and outside my zone. I kept showing up. Whenever anyone asked me to do anything, I said yes. I am not a runner, but when my boss asked me if I wanted to go for an early morning weekend trail run, I was there at the Trail Head with my hydration pack - handsewn webbing on a stuff sack with a platypus bladder inside. I bought myself a mountain bike that was the most expensive purchase I ever made. I was awful at mt. biking that first summer. I was over my handlebars more times than I could keep track of, and the rocky, rooty terrain intimidated me. But I kept slinging my leg over the saddle until I connected with the thrill of zooming down a singletrack with shoulder high wildflowers blurred into a blanket on either side of me. Broomball? Had never heard of such a sport. Turns out, it is the one I’m second best at, right behind rugby.
I bought a snowboard at the Ski Swap and a pair of boots at the local chain sporting goods store. My Rec Center job came with the perk of a shared ski pass to Teton Village. There were two available per day for check-out. Since I worked weekends, the passes were often available on my days off.
Trying to learn to snowboard connected me to my elementary school self in an uncomfortable way. I couldn’t get it. I was all cognitive with the inability to physically integrate. I tried to will myself out of the “falling leaf” at age 23 as much as I tried to will myself into a layup at age 10. Theoretically, cognitively, I understood. But it would take physical practice galore before I could pull off either.
Athletics never came naturally. I developed skills through practice, practice, practice. By high school, I could catch and throw and strike things well. I would never be speedy or agile, but I was strong and could generate power. My greatest athletic strength was always game strategy. Sitting on top of the Aprez Vous ski lift at Teton Village reminded me of that. Strength and power were of no use up there. Neither was strategy. I had to get visceral and vestibular, and I sucked at it. Over and over and over again, I simply sucked. I could not connect my turns. My brain would yell inside my head, “turn! Turn! Turn, NOW!”, but I could not get my body to behave its commands. My body and my mind were not integrated. Through repeated efforts over several seasons, I developed some muscle memory and could finally string a few turns together. At last, I could tap into the joy of carving and floating down a mountain. It was over a decade later, when I discovered yoga, that I could finally narrow the divide between my body and my brain. Only then did I begin to integrate.
Jackson Hole was expensive, even back at the turn of the century. I was working many jobs that first winter, all of them indoors. I had to keep up with the payments for my new-to-me Ford F-150 that I purchased with a cash advance on my credit card. I spent five years transferring the balance between cards to keep a 0% interest rate. After my shift at the Rec Center, I worked the Adult Rec League evening programs too. It was always dark. I felt myself, for the first time, falling into the darkness with it.
I recognized it shortly after surviving Y2K and was on the road by the end of February. I took a solo road trip back across the country, living out of my truck. I landed back in Charleston and spent the spring working and playing in the sunshine every day. It was the third time in my life I was deliberately choosing to leave a situation because it did not feel right — it was no longer serving me. I spent my freshman year of college at a Catholic Benedictine Monastery. Monks taught many of our classes. Incredibly grateful for that year of my life, but definitely did not want it to be two years. I transferred to the College of Charleston from there. I committed before ever going to check it out. I was certain I could make it work living near the beach.
I never knew what exactly I was searching for, but I was keen on knowing what to leave behind. It was the beginning of decades long practice of hightailing it out of Wyoming after the novelty of winter ran its seasonal course.
I returned to Jackson Hole that May to run the summer Day Camp programs for Teton County Parks and Rec. It was a perfect fitting job for me. I loved the kids, I loved my staff partner, I loved all the places we programmed, I loved Wyoming in the summer. I lived out of my truck until August. My staff partner bought a house and offered me a room if I would stay through winter. Although fearful of another deeper bout of depression, I committed to trying it. I knew by then that growth only occurs when you are out of your comfort zone, and I was interested in growth.
That fall, instead of working at the desk inside the Rec Center, I worked for the maintenance crew outside. I learned to drive lawnmowers, tractors, and a dump truck. In a tractor, I cleared the pathways and the ice rinks with a snowblower and a brush. I hooked up a fire hose in sub-zero degrees to resurface the ice rinks for skating and broomball. I visited all the town parks to empty the trash and check the equipment. It was 100% better than indoor office work and I thought perhaps I could make it.
But it happened again. It got to a point in late February when, for two days straight, I called in sick to work and just hung out all day in my PJs. My boyfriend at the time called to alert me that whatever funk I was in was not flattering. I could feel the heaviness of Fatty Go Blatty consuming me. She was my childhood nemesis. My worst self, full of worthlessness, darkness, hate, and self-loathing. My brother Jeff created her and summoned her at his will. He fed and exploited her fears and insecurities to keep her alive and miserable for years. She was mean. Mean to everyone, especially to me. Fuck you Fatty Go Blatty, I thought, I’m not getting stuck with you again. Ever.
To grow out of my heavy winter funk, I searched for other options. When I was swirling in the ‘I don’t want to keep doing this, but I don’t know what or where I should be next’ quagmire, a fella that I worked for asked me a simple defining question “How do you want to spend your days? Start with that.”
It did not take me long to get to the bottom of that. I wanted the life I promised my Gram I would have. I wanted the life that the fella in Oregon had. Then, I added to it the three criteria I have clutched to ever since.
I would like to spend my days more outdoors than indoors.
I would like to spend my time more active than sedentary.
I would like to spend my energy more in service to people than to tasks.
When I daydreamed as a kid about life as an adult, I always visioned myself at 28. I suppose I thought by then I’d have my shit together. I never saw clearly what I did or where I lived, but I saw myself as vibrant and happy and healthy. I did not see a husband or kids in the picture at 28, but I really thought I’d have a motorcycle like Jo from Facts of Life. Just like Alaska, the motorcycle has not happened yet.
After running away from the Wyoming darkness two winters in a row, it did not seem likely that I’d be hitting my stride at 28, so I moved the goalposts. All the way to 62. I have clung to the notion, since then, that I will reach my peak at 62. I don’t feel like I’m going to drop off after that, more like riding along a high alpine plateau.
At the same time I moved the posts, I realized I am solely responsible for how high the zenith reaches. The trajectory is up to me. My deliberate choices and intentional actions must set the course. I knew it would not be linear. I trusted there would be spikes and dips. I knew I would have to choose uncomfortable things and grow through them. So, I did.
My dad is a comic book guy. He’s also a Hollywood guy, a literature guy, a Greek and Roman mythology guy, a folk music of the 60s guy, a devout Catholic guy, a middle school drama director guy, a pickup basketball game guy, a Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit guy, a spelling bee guy, and a bunch of other titles that mostly fit under Arts and Entertainment with a dabbling of Sports. We spent much of our youth gathered around a black table-top cassette recorder passing around the microphone. My dad wrote up skits about Comic book Superheroes, had us rehearse them till we knew our lines, then hit the wide Play button with the red Record square nestled inside. The origin stories of Superman, Achilles, and Jesus were all the same familiar to me by the time I entered the fifth grade.
Once my soul was set free out in the great expanses of the wild west, I felt less inclined to bring it inside a church. I could feel the connection to the Universe and my place in it with my feet in a mountain stream or with the wind attempting to blow me from a summit more than I ever did reciting the Apostles Creed or shamefully pouring out the Act of Contrition.
I had just proved to my regular old self in the two failed winters of Jackson Hole that I was capable of checking out and self-sabotaging to the max. I needed there to be a part of me that would not allow that to happen again. Lots of folks advise to “give it up to the Lord” when there is a big undertaking to tackle or a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to overcome. Since I had cleared that option from my table, I invented my own superheroes and gave it up to them.
I tapped into my first superhero alter ego to help get me started. Mad Faith. Mad Faith gave Fatty Go Blatty no light. She boxed her out like a champ. She sold the truck that I was living out of and moved in with my brother in Colorado. I considered it to be a wellness retreat to get myself on track. Mad Faith set the course and I had to follow through. She signed up for a membership at the gym, ran outside in the open foothills, learned to watercolor paint, joined the Denver rugby team. She read, wrote, sent postcards and letters, studied for the GRE, and started drinking lattes. She kept travelling to the resorts and learned to point the nose of the snowboard down the hill and steer it through the trees. Mad Faith grew confident enough to take me on my first full-moon backcountry snowboard adventure on Loveland Pass.
Mad Faith was helping me to sometimes forge, and other times follow my path to the tall peak of 62. She trusted I would stay true to myself and continually shoved me out of my own way and in directions that seemed to light up right before I leaped.
Once I arrived in Columbia for graduate school, she blossomed. The independence of living alone and anonymously for the first time in my life allowed her to grow in ways I feared, and to try things I could never. She made the choices while I was all alone and no one was looking to become better and better. The threat of Fatty Go Blatty lurking just below the surface kept her true to her tasks.
Mad Faith put in the groundwork to make sure my trajectory could rise from a secure and nourishing foundation. A foundation rich in challenge, and fresh air, and nature, and friends. Mad Faith kept choosing the path I said I wanted to take. She was practicing all the things I wished I could do, but didn’t have the courage or confidence to try.
It was with Mad Faith’s help that I transitioned from school life in Columbia to making pizzas in Boulder with my new not-quite-yet-paid-for-Masters-degree. Mad Faith marched me outside and led me up into the foothill’s trails on the overwhelming days I had to pay my bills. Mad Faith helped me take a job I did not love, at a school I did not love, and reminded me to always “play for the king”. Mad Faith showed up at rugby practice in Boulder after vowing to never play again. Mad Faith sat me in front of the Gateway computer monitor, powered up the tower, dialed up the internet, and searched for jobs that were congruent with my interests and strengths. Mad Faith bought canvases and acrylic paints from McGuckin Hardware, cranked up the Primus CDs and painted for hours and hours. Mad Faith packed up the ’89 Oldsmobile, covered the holes in the exhaust pipe with pop can patches, drove through the feed lot lands of Kansas, and landed in Western North Carolina. Mad Faith loved every minute of every day and did not let making minimum wage with a graduate degree dampen her spirit a bit.
Mad Faith found me miserable and depressed and unsure of my future, sitting on the couch for days on end in February 2001. She delivered me to a picnic table in the mountains of Western Carolina in June 2004, about to begin my dream life. It was the summer I turned 28. I didn’t need to move the goalposts after all. I had my shit together, and I was vibrant and happy and healthy.
I have been aided by the strengths of several superhero alter egos ever since. I need one. A hoodie-caped superhero. Without them, I am just ordinary. I can only get so far and then I hit the wall or crash or fizzle. My superheroes have accomplished all the great things. I can dream my life, but they are the level of ego who help me to live my dreams. They are my dream me. They don’t see the limits. They have confidence only available to superheroes. I don’t even wish I could do it on my own. I love having them around. I love giving them the credit they deserve. I love knowing that no matter the obstacles or fears I may have to face, one of them will step up and lead, or they will pair up or band together. Occasionally, a new one will emerge, and I always look forward to that too.
I felt I needed to outsource – or up source – to live my best life. The things that seemed far out of my reach, impossible for me to grasp, were always attainable when I could tap into the higher source. Especially once I learned it was inside myself.
Mad Faith sat silently at that picnic table bench during staff training in Balsam, North Carolina, in the summer of 2004 and knew her end had come. Mad Faith was the perfect transitionary hero for me. She gave me direction and confidence to pursue the authentic life I was beginning to see more clearly.
It was Ultra-Violet that emerged shortly after the staff training ended. I picture it happening much like the birth of Athena. Mad Faith bent down to take a final bow, to acknowledge that I had arrived at the spot I belonged, and her head split open and out sprung Ultra-Violet. Ultra-Violet was inside all along, waiting for her turn. She needed Mad Faith to get her to the right place before she could step on the stage. Ultra-Violet was shining from the start. She was spunky, zesty, and cheerful. Her energy knew no bounds. She derived her powers from breathing outside, being active, and helping others live on the bright side of life. In her first year, she spent 200+ nights sleeping under the stars. She traveled the country with groups of children and attempted to teach them the keys to happy, healthy living. Ultra-Violet could not believe her good fortune and never took it for granted. Mad Faith allowed her to incubate and brew until the stars aligned perfectly for her to make her debut. Ultra-Violet began accomplishing things I never thought possible for myself. Ultra Violet is an inhale.
Ultra-Violet climbed to the top of the Grand Teton, the very summit I stood and gaped at with my jaw dropped open years before. Ultra-Violet hiked the Glacier Trail from Dubois to Pinedale and crossed glaciers with crampons and ice axes. Ultra-Violet rode her bike daily in grizzly bear country with bear spray in her water bottle holder. Ultra-Violet raised a puppy. It was my first fearless commitment to love. Ultra-Violet accepted a full-time job with a company she believed in with all her Ultra-Violet heart. Ultra-Violet bought a cabin. Ultra-Violet ran 5 miles at 14,000 ft when she summited Mt. Whitney and accepted a wedding proposal when she was done. Ultra-Violet married a fella. Ultra-Violet grew a garden—a beautiful, luscious, bountiful garden. Ultra-Violet began to practice yoga. Ultra-Violet rode her bike alone from Steamboat Springs to Estes Park in September. She was the manifestation of all the impossible dreams I had when I was stuck with Fatty Go Blatty shoving my face full of frozen Suzie Qs she stole from the freezer out on the front porch. Ultra-Violet was sure-footed, that’s for sure.
Ultra-Violet swirled out of my solar plexus and loved to shine. As my career morphed into one that was more indoors than outdoors, more sedentary than active, and more on computers than with people, Ultra-Violet began to shrink and wither. She made appearances now and then, when the conditions were right…but those times seemed to grow further and further apart.
I was aware of what was happening to UV, but life continued to move in that direction, and despite my efforts at balancing it, UVs shining light mostly tamped out. There was a period as UV was fading away that I felt like each of my days was like playing Whack-A-Mole. Being the director of a high-adventure summer camp for kids with ADHD, things came up. I whacked ‘em down, only to see something different pop up somewhere else. It was a frustrating game–but I got good at it. I was competent–but unhappy. I did not like being without a superhero one bit! I am a mere mortal. I am incapable of accomplishing the greatest things without an alter-ego. I decided during the Whack-a-Mole phase that I blatantly lacked grace. I wanted to glide smoothly from one mole to the next. Instead of whacking them with force, I wanted to gingerly step on them and balance for a while until my understanding and compassion urged them to gently recede. That alter ego never emerged, however.
Then, one day, it all became clear. Since I’m peaking at 62, who am I to ask for that kind of grace now? I reckon if you are not born with it; it takes a lifetime to develop to grace. I stopped longing for her and feeling so rejected. I surrendered.
When Betty was a freshy, just a few days old, my mom was sitting with me in the teeny living room of my tiny cabin. I had hoped that as the Pitocin titrated out of my body, that the heaviness would flush out with the swelling. It did not. The heaviness remained…it was FEAR. I must have looked as overwhelmed and lost as I felt. I simply did not know how to be a mom.
My mom paused from folding little onesies and looked at me with a warm and validating smile. “You just have to hug her and kiss her and love her. Let her always know you love her. That’s it.”
La Madre leapt out of my chest, clutched those words, and strung them like twinkle lights on the pathway that connects my heart with my brain. La Madre understands things I cannot fathom. Her patience runs deeper than the darkest crevasse I have ever stepped across. La Madre knows selflessness. She could see a bigger picture than my narrow mind could grasp. When I was discouraged or grumpy about my level of fitness or time spent outside, she gently squeezed me and whispered reminders about all the wonderful things there were to balance now, and everything will get its fair share. La Madre is gentler than she is tough. She’s an exhale.
La Madre takes on the role of both giving and receiving love. She is not only a mom. She is a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a niece, and a friend. She books all the tickets back east. Or she drives. She is my muladhara chakra. She is deeply grounded and connected to the earth and her friends and family through her robust, healthy roots. I needed to practice grace to allow La Madre to slip in. The irony.
La Madre honors herself. She is the softest ego I have. Her yoga practice is restorative and gentle. She could settle right into the fluff of a cloud if I didn’t keep a sharp eye on her. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I allow her to lap up a bit of luxury. I suppose it’s why Hardscrabble arrived on the scene. To make sure La Madre sharpened her edges from time to time.
Hardscrabble surfaced right as we were transitioning from life with two kids under two in a tiny cabin to life on the far side of our wildest dreams. Hardscrabble is the one who filled the rucksacks with all our rocks to make the move. She’s the one who stacks the odds against me just to see what will happen. Hardscrabble has a deep understanding that all things are temporary, so she is able to endure. Not the way a martyr endures, the way a bad ass does. Hardscrabble is my MacGyver. She assesses the resources and creates a plan. Hardscrabble executes the uncomfortable parts of the action plans that Mad Faith sets in place. Her yoga practice is a mix of Ashtanga and Kundalini. She does not have the soft self-care routines of La Madre. She rewards herself with restrictive cleanses or piney hoppy beers. She is breath retention.
That’s my squad: Mad Faith, Ultra Violet, La Madre, and Hardscrabble. They were with me in my Pathfinder with our two mountain mutts, several sacks full of rocks, and all our potted plants the day we moved in to the Moose Willow Ranch. We bounced 12 miles up the dusty road from our remote mountain town with a population under 1,000 people, to our remote mountain ranch with a population of four. Our nearest neighbor would be eight miles back toward town. Our winter driveway was now a 7.5 mile stretch of snow dumps and drifts that we would learn to plow through. In fact, a feather in my hat is the ego swell I get when I toss a sexy rooster tail of snow in my wake when I take a plow lap on a blue bird morning the day after a big storm. We would also learn to figure it out on skis or side by sides or eventually snowmobiles when the plow truck rendered itself useless against the fickle and fierce Wyoming wind.
When I stopped the car, rolled down the passenger window and marveled at my great fortune, all my superheros were gawking over my shoulder. A pair of cranes were wading in the pond to welcome me to our new life. We committed two years to caretaking the remote ranch. Once I saw those cranes, I knew two years was a laughable notion.
We’re working on our tenth year of isolated mountain living now. It is uncanny how congruent my life is to the one I promised my Gram I’d be living, and the one I witnessed in Oregon.
I was flying solo recently on a desert camping trip and that fella from Oregon was on my mind. I was strolling through a slot canyon, wondering if he ever made it down to the desert. I thought that the landscape of the Southwest would have blown him wide open. I wondered how far the scope of his adventures had reached since we lost touch. I wondered if he were still riding mountain bikes and vacationing at Club Meds. I began reflecting on that week with him and seeing clearly all the seeds that he planted in my fertile mind.
I climbed up to the top of a sandstone knob and spent an hour writing him a letter. Wanting him to know the impact and significance that week 22 years earlier had on my life. How grateful I was that tasty, clever, crafty beers brought us together and how I had manifested my version of the small town, wild life he showed me was possible.
I let him know Martha is still my best pal and that we are both still living in Wyoming, only two hours apart from each other now. I told him I was a gal with a rig and I hoped to take my children on a road-trip to his neck of the woods and that it would be terrific to meet up for a hug. I asked question after question about his past two decades and how the world has spun for him.
Once I returned home, I wrote the second draft of the letter on a card. I smiled as I sealed the envelope and printed his address, thinking fondly of his house on the hill with the lush garden and the good happy vibes.
After I already affixed the stamp to the corner of the envelope, I googled him. It had not occurred to me sooner that his circumstance could have possibly changed. I was hoping the search result would bring up a photo because I was keen to see what 22-years-later looked like on him.
I felt a loud thud as my heart dropped when the google search resulted in his obituary. It did not stay heavy for long, though. With each line written about him, it lifted and buoyed. It mentioned his adventures and his garden and his smile and his relationship with the local woods and ocean side. It read much like my letter to him. I found a great solace in that. He was legit, and he stayed true. Me too, pal, me too.
With his example to follow, my Gram’s wisdom to heed, my super hero alter egos’ strengths to count on, and my consistently inconsistent yoga practice, I have thrived in our life on the far side of my wildest dreams. The past decade living on the edge of the wilderness has both challenged and rewarded me beyond measure. I certainly did not come to the Moose Willow Ranch as a stay at home mom to find myself. I came here to be myself.
