Next week celebrates a milestone. 10 years of growing our family on the far side of our wildest dreams.

Next month marks 25 years since Martha and I first pitched her tent and declared Wyoming home.

Next fall will be 20 years since I settled in Dubois.

The significance of the years coordinated themselves so cosmically that I would be foolish not to celebrate each with the grandeur it deserves.

25 years ago, Martha and I set up camp on the dusty, bumpy road to Curtis Canyon. We had jobs before we had housing, so camping it would have to be. I could not have imagined the Wyoming lives Martha and I are living out today. I would have predicted that we would still be friends, but I did not know how strong a relationship could grow. Although we’ve been two hours apart for two decades now, Martha has always been my family out here. Of course I have my own now, and an incredible community of friends that I love and cherish and spend our holidays and ordinary days with, but Martha knew me when. She’s seen all the versions and iterations of me I’ve created and shed through the decades. She holds space for me, councils me, supports me, and calls me out on my bullshit. We continue to find time when we can to adventure together and we’re drafting up something spectacular to celebrate 25 years since our epic road trip to Alaska where we turned around in Seattle after a halibut feast, and set our stakes in Wyoming. 

20 years ago, I drove Uphill Road to Eagle View Ranch and stepped into my dream life. I was a Wilderness Field Instructor for the semester program at SOAR. My job, along with a staff partner, was to live with a group of 8 students 24/7 for 26 days straight. After four days off, I’d go back at it again. The students were all diagnosed with ADHD, Autism, or other neurodiversity. It was the perfect fit for me at the perfect time. We road-schooled out of a 15 passenger van for three weeks at a time. We visited places I didn’t even know to dream about all over the southwest and California. Our days were rhythmic and intentional. Fresh air, decent food, physical activity, personal goals to work toward, academic school work to complete, gratitude to share, strengths to celebrate, and a purposeful contribution to the common good. We camped under the stars every night. My role was to identify the strengths in each student and deeply learn their unique selves in order to connect with them, hoping to help them grow through their challenges. It was easy to celebrate how exceptional they already were. I shared an enthusiastic “Good to see you this morning” every time I heard a tent unzip, and a “I feel really fortunate to be here, right now, in this place with you” as they pulled the zippers shut at the end of the night. I learned how to be a partner in that job, and I learned how to be a parent. I learned how to be the best version of myself in the best environment for myself–outside, being in service to others.

10 years ago, I gawked at the pair of cranes wading in the pond as I drove the final carload of our belongings out to the Moose Willow Ranch. Devlin was 20-months old and Betty was not quite 3. The decade at SOAR was terrific. This decade has smashed that one through the roof. I’ve been able to remain the best version of myself (aside from the occasionally self-sabotaging episodes that occur less frequently and with less depth as I approach 50). Even when I’m inside, the windows surround three walls, it still feels outsidey. In the past 10 years, we have stood on top of every peak and ridge you can see from the house. We have learned to identify the local flora and fauna and tracks and scat. Though my field of service narrowed tremendously, I tended to it with fierce devotion. I went from interviewing, hiring, training, and managing  35 staff a year and running a program that served 150+ neurodivergent campers each summer, to making beds and cleaning toilets, and entertaining and wrangling two toddlers. I was certainly going to do the absolute best job I could at both. The first several years had many challenges I had to grow through. I was often alone, as Jeremy still worked for SOAR. It was tough enough that we never saw him during camp season in the summer. The stretches he was gone for weeks at a time in the winter were particularly extra. The year we home-schooled and road schooled was outrageously fun and I wish we could have another. It was after that year that Jeremy left SOAR and began working his regular working hours job. Our lives changed drastically then. It was when I began writing the memoir of our time out here, I thought it was the final chapter. I abandoned the book project some time ago. For all the effort I was putting in, I could not seem to get it to flow.

As we approach the 10-year anniversary of our time at the Moose Willow, I can see more clearly that this is actually the final chapter of that story. In the years since Jeremy left SOAR, much has happened that cannot be left out. That the wee peeps learned Drifter’s real identity and they no longer believe in Santa, or Dart, or Pinecone Toyboat. That Betty started “getting ready” for school in the morning a year ago and now wears contacts and mascara. That Devlin asked to go to a barber for a real haircut and showed her a photo from his phone of his new look and asked me to buy him hair gel and deodorant. That middle school is no fucking joke and your role as a mom gets completely re-written and you’re not even invited to the table to write it. That comes with for genuine grief and mourning. I was good at that old role. I played it with authentic loyalty and devotion. I gave it all I got. And my show got canceled.

Two years ago, my brother Jeff moved to town with this family. His kiddos are about the same age as mine. They are in the same class and on the same teams. It has changed so much at a time so much was changing.

One year ago, cousin Erin moved to town. She was at a crossroads, and this place felt like a healthy one to call home.

In all the possible scenarios I ever played out in my mind, I never went to a place where Jeff and Erin lived in my small Wyoming town at a time of intense transition for me.

The book begins with me standing on the altar at my Grammie’s funeral the month before Martha and I set our sails for the wild west. Now I know it wraps up celebrating 10 years at the Moose Willow, 20 in Dubois, and 25 in Wyoming. My Gram, who told me I was not travelling west to “find myself’ but ‘be myself”, will be in that final chapter wearing her Guardian Angel costume jewelry, with her lipstick/blush applied, looking down at Jeff and Erin laughing around my picnic table. She’ll know that I honored those vows I promised to her 25 years ago. She’ll see that of all the lessons she endeavored to teach us, we learned the most important of them all. To Love and Be Loved. No matter what.

I’ve done myself a disservice by abandoning the book. It has taken me out of a personal writing practice that seems crucial for my healthy living. I can ski and hike and bike and sew and paint and yoga and drink plenty of water, but still not be as healthy as I am when I write. I am recommitting.