Although our Youth in Asia film didn’t take off as we had dreamed, it was the springboard that launched our future further.

Tristan and I moved to Los Angeles, into a little apartment in West Hollywood. We decorated it like a jungled hideaway, plants encompassing the living room, complete with a space dedicated solely for production and editing. Wolfgang was in post-production of his wildlife family feature film, and Tristan was deeply involved in finishing it.

I had secured a job guiding adventure trips for Philip Morris. The company would hold a competition, and the winners would be gifted a vacation of a lifetime. It was a western trip, guided by me, that started out at my family’s dude ranch in Wyoming and wound down through Colorado’s hot springs to motorcycling through Utah’s deserts, flying a Cessna in the Grand Canyon to hot sauce testing in New Mexico and ending in the musical alleys of Austin, Texas.

Those trips I guided were just the beginning, as I was then asked to guide trips around the world from the headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. They also needed the trips to be documented, so it was a perfect chance for Tristan to join me.

With 8 Eastern European “dudes”, we started out beer tasting in Amsterdam, to technology classes in Tokyo, surfing lessons in Australia, and samba school in Brazil. It was exhausting, as the guests were having the time of their lives, I had to be 3 steps ahead to make sure everything ran smoothly. Although an amazing experience, I was tired of guiding, more like adult babysitting, and I wanted to focus on the wilderness of this world rather than the parties.

It was during this time that someone caught wind of Tristan’s and my path, and it seemed we would have another chance at making a wildlife series.

We came back to LA after months traveling, exhausted but ready to leave the Hollywood world behind us. A production company wanted to shoot a pilot for Animal Planet, of a wildlife filmmaking couple.

Tristan and I readied for the next adventure, he as the wildlife filmmaker, and I as the naturalist producer. The pilot for the series was to be shot in the Pantanal of Brazil, in search of one of the country’s most elusive creatures.

The Pantanal is the largest tropical wetland, covering more than 42 million acres. It is a pristine, complex system that was the home to a myriad of wildlife species, and we were so excited to explore beyond the city limits of Rio de Janeiro that we had known from the Marlboro trips.

Our base was in the Mato Grosso do Sul, a wetland with the largest concentration of caimans in the world, about 10 million of this species hides under the cover of the swamps. This dense population is the favorite food of the largest feline in the Americas, the jaguar.

Canoeing down a wide, brown-colored river, we searched the banks for any footprints or markings. A giant rainbow stretched overhead, as we called out in our best Chewbacca voices, summoning the Brazilian skies to let us have a glimpse of any creature of the Pantanal.

We were mimicking the giant river otter. These creatures are loud, calling in grunts and whistles, with a length of up to 7 feet and 70 pounds, they could easily fend off jaguars and caiman. Tristan, camera in hand as I scanned the forests with my binoculars for any sign of life. A slippery marking on the muddy bank hinted that our aquatic friends had just been here, and around the river bend we caught them in the act.

The 2 otters were huge, much bigger than the smaller playful ones of Yellowstone. Long white canines grinned at us, their webbed feet spread into the mud. I watched in awe as the giant velvet bodies slid down the banks, silently into the water, as brown bobbing heads floated past us, as if to tease “That’s all you get, lucky you”.

At least we did get a shot! Wildlife filmmaking was waiting, searching, hoping you are in the right place at the right time.

The Pantanal was a breathtaking experience into wetland wildlife, Tristan climbed high above the canopy to get shots of “Arara Azul” nests, the endangered blue Hyacinth macaws. These birds were the largest of the flying parrot species, with striking sapphire feathers highlighted with yellow rings around their eyes.

Our truck got stuck in deep mud many times, reminding me of the Borneo expedition, and I reflected how far we had come.

We slept riverside in hammocks with biologists, tracking jaguars at night, only to catch a fleeting glimpse in our headlights as one crossed the road. Mosquitos feasted on my feet as I slept, making way for itching mornings. Capybaras and giant anteaters graced our cabin deck. The wildlife didn’t wait for us, and we filmed from sunrise to after dark, it was exhausting and inspiring.

With underwater cameras, we snorkeled Olho d’Água, as transparent as glass, schools of freshwater fish scurrying out of our way. 3 kilometers down the crystal clear Rio da Prata, we floated past massive pacu and caiman. This river boasted the clearest in the world, and I had to agree, the visibility was incredible. Tristan and I held hands, proud of this moment we had worked so hard to achieve. We were out in the planet, trying to capture the rarest moments of endangered species to share with the world.

The wetlands were under intense threat, deforestation for cattle ranching, jaguars being hunted and habitat loss at a disturbing rate, the truth behind the beauty was shocking and hard to swallow. But if we didn’t share it, how would people know?

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The Pantanal shoot opened the gates to our television series, but just as the forested wetlands were shrinking, I felt our hearts closing a bit. It was during this shoot that I started realizing that we were acting more as business partners than high school sweethearts. Tristan was headstrong into his work, editing his film and getting this series going, and I felt a little left out of his thoughts. We both set our work as our priority, instead of each other. It scared me a bit, the moment, when I found myself noticing our patterns, going through motions of love, getting annoyed when I used to find myself loving that part of the person. It was a foreign feeling, as if we were falling out of love into something else after 11 years.

Working on our relationship had to take a back seat, we had the world in our hands, we had landed a 13-part series on The Animal Planet, starring us, a couple of star-crossed lovers and wildlife filmmakers. The series was to be called “Caught in the Moment”, and production started in a few months.

“Wildlife filmmaker Tristan Bayer and naturalist Vanessa Garnick travel the world in search of the animal kingdom’s most magical moments. From British Columbia to Costa Rica, Tristan incorporates the latest technical advances in filmmaking with rarely seen behavior of the animal kingdom in a series of epic wildlife adventures. Each episode is capped with a music driven montage of the footage they have captured along the way.”

And we were off. I had never felt so alive.

Those years were full of movement. We filmed across continents—Africa, Southeast Asia, the Amazon. I wore my cowboy boots through the jungle and handed out Polaroids of the Tetons in markets halfway around the world. I wrote poems in airport lounges. I filmed lemurs and hammerhead sharks. I learned how to live out of duffel bags and make stories out of silence.

I began to feel like a citizen of the planet.

But even in the wonder—even in the dirt and laughter and stunning wildness of it all—I carried the ache.

Because no matter how far I went, I hadn’t yet found what I was looking for.

I was still searching. Still haunted by that early fracture. Still carrying the question: Where do I belong?

The films, the travel, the freedom—they were beautiful. But they weren’t enough to answer that question. Not yet.

The wild years taught me how to see.

But it would take a little longer to learn how to stay.

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I loved writing poetry, I loved the lilting rhymes and silly ways I could write to explain a moment. I always wrote them when inspired, and shared them to explain how I felt. Almost Dr. Seussian in feeling, my poems reflected my inner child, my inner muse.

Home on the range, a home we must keep
The jagged mountains and canyons deep

The first national park, one of a kind
Where we can see nature and man intertwined

Geysers, boiling, bubbling pots
Tall forest timber and pine trees with knots

Bison and grizzly call this home too
As did the Cherokee, Blackfoot and Sioux

Beaver and moose, coyote and owl
Eagle, trout and wolf on the prowl

Migrating elk move twice a year
Escaping the cold, lack of food they fear.

Colter’s Hell once was its name
Before the explorers saw and came

Here we see why we want to conserve
Save nature’s places – make parks and reserves.

For where can you see the earth to its core
And witness firsthand the mountain man’s lore?

Wake to a rocky mountain bluebird
And follow the trail of a buffalo herd?

It is a heaven placed in the West
Truly a remembrance of the Last and the Best.
~ WilderNessa

Growing up with the world’s first national park, Yellowstone, as your backyard is breeding ground for adventure and an easy love of the natural world. Tristan had filmed wildlife in freezing winters and baking summers there with his filmmaker father Wolfgang Bayer, and I had guided, cooked and explored the backcountry under the guidance of my outfitter Dad. Our friends’ families were Park rangers, extreme skiers, cowboys and rock climbers. This wild world of the rocky mountain west was home, and we loved it.

Wolfgang had started the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, a gathering of wildlife filmmakers from around the world to come together, share films and network in the beauty of Jackson Hole. This year, as autumn bestowed her blazing colors on the rustling aspen trees, the festival announced a new competition. The BBC Time Life Natural History Grant. A chance to present your idea for a natural history film or series and win a $100,000 grant to actually make it and have it shown worldwide.

Futile Attempt Productions, our little company of young misfits, was intent on entering the competition. We spent endless all nighters in Wolfgang’s office, brainstorming ideas. Who were we? This teenage group of just graduated high school wanna be’s? We didn’t really know, but we knew one thing, and that was Yellowstone.

I had graduated from high school the year before, Tristan and the “lost” boys a year ahead of me. In my 19 years, I felt strong minded and had a passion for the natural world. College seemed like just a passive action I just went through without a thought, so we HAD to win this grant, get out of the university world and back into the wild one.

Our pitch was simple, the behind the scenes story of young, aspiring wildlife filmmakers from Wyoming, who compare and contrast their home to a place new to them, Borneo, Malaysia. The filmmaker Tristan, the producer Vanessa, the writer Ken and the sound-man Nick, on a journey to film orangutans, sea turtles, and emerge into a culture on the opposite side of the world. It seemed like a far stretch, but our dreams were bigger than reality.

We stayed up night after night in Wolfgang’s office, perfecting our perfect pitch. The deadline fast approaching. For Tristan, it would never be perfect, but we had to send it out. The application filled, the pitch written and then the fax went out. The familiar ringing as the papers sucked into the machine, sending our dreams across the continent to Washington DC.

We hugged each other tight, praying for the miraculous.

That April, my family had welcomed baby #8 into my family, the wild and wonderful Cheyenne, whom I nicknamed Cheyanimal. It was strange to be so much older than your sister, but it made me want to ensure that she would have a beautiful world to grow up in.

My passion for “Saving the Planet” was fueled even more by her birth. The best way I knew how, was to be a storyteller and share the stories of the animals, wild spaces - to try and make others care. We really had to get this grant, make films, for I knew that was our way of changing the world.

“Fantasy with order, Freedom with order, you can do anything you like.” Tristan lived by that truth, and as wild and disorganized as a production company of 20 something year olds was, we had a commitment to this small blue planet we lived on.

The call came in the summer of 1998, and we were off to film a new kind of wildlife documentary. New digital video cameras, a real budget, and a dream- this was going to be a show that no one had ever seen before. We had won! Against all odds, they picked our idea to be the film that would change the broad view on how wildlife films could be made. BBC/Time Life believed in a story we didn’t even know ourselves. Futile Attempt Productions would produce our first documentary for mainstream TV, it was amazing.

“The sun shines only on this planet that gives these trees life to live. And yet it’s pretty much gone. There are few reserves, few national parks, the rest been exploited by human race and along with the wildlife and the ways of people and their cultures are gone. I’m just an aspiring filmmaker. My first debut, trying to put things together and learning as we go type film. And guess what? It’s hard because there’s no animals and there’s no real wildness…” Tristan mused as we readied to make a journey far from the aspen trees and jagged peaks of Wyoming.

Aspiring, what a word. So full of hope, and that is what we were. That grant changed everything.

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We started filming at my family’s Dunoir camp in Wyoming, dreaming under western stars while writing our film. We wanted to give the viewers a glimpse into the backcountry beauty of our home we loved so much. We camped in the canvas tents, packed in by mule train and brainstormed over the campfire. Ken fly-fished in the rivers and journaled at sunset. Nick wore old fashioned red long underwear proudly and danced Irish jigs while pouring cowboy coffee. We were silly, creative and joyful- this was our stomping ground.

Tristan was obsessed with filming everything, and now with mini DV cameras, it was possible, affordable therefore, he was never without a camera in hand. I was so excited, it truly was a wild dream come true. My boyfriend and best friends, off to understand the state of the planet and share our film with the world. Comparing and contrasting Yellowstone to Borneo, growing as a production company, paving the way for future wildlife filmmakers.

There were 5.9 billion humans on the planet, and I felt I was the luckiest of all boarding Malaysia Airlines headed to a jungled island I knew little about. The stewardess smiled warmly as they served me a plate of fried rice, their beautiful patterned uniforms starkly different from the ones worn in the USA. I snuggled close to Tristan, he was filming out the window as billowing clouds welcomed us to the rainforest of South East Asia. My heart felt it was about to burst. I traced his profile with my finger, happy in love with this life.

We landed in Sabah, Malaysia to get our 4x4 truck rental, loaded it up with all the camera gear, slapped a bright yellow “Wyoming Native” sticker on the bumper and we were off to Kota Belud. Annually, in October, the magical festival of Tamu Besar was held there, where artists, farmers, and fishermen come together to sell their produce. Locals donned their colorful, folkloric costumes to share their specific traditions.

We had packed a huge mural of the Teton Range, and set it up between the baskets piled with smelly durian and the spiny red “rambutan”. The boys were decked out in cowboy gear, we planned on selling polaroid photos with us in front of “our home” to the locals for 1 ringgit.

A beautiful woman pulled me aside, showing me the ornate dresses and golden crowns that the local girls were wearing. Then somehow between hand gestures and smiles I found myself being dressed in the gorgeous costume. I stood there, my blonde hair piled under a golden head piece to match the stunning Malay women.

Nick participated in the Bajau people’s colorful horse parade, and I giggled at the water buffalo races. The horses were smaller than the ones we ride back in the USA, but the horsemanship was amazing. Tristan filmed the Cowboys of Malaysia to compare with ours from home. The pirates of the South China Sea brought the first horses to Sabah from the Sultan of Brunei’s stable. To the Bajau people, just like in Wyoming, the horse plays a significant role in everyday life. Yet to both cultures, beyond a creature of man’s labor, I found the horse remained a symbol of power and freedom around the world. Dancing to Malaysian music, we were engulfed in the radiant culture of this wonderful festival.

I loved finding the connection to cultures through horses, as they had been an integral part of my childhood. Those amazing animals had been considered part of my family, and the small frames of the Bajau ponies reminded me of my beloved Moondancer.

After the festivities, we went off filming our main goal of Malaysia, and to find out what was happening to the forested reserves that housed our red-headed star of the show, the orangutan.

From my untrained eye, who hadn’t experienced much rainforest, the landscape was green and full of tall palm trees, but it was those trees that were endangering the ecosystem. The primary forests were being slashed and burnt to make way for the perfectly planted trees to produce palm oil, used in everything from potato chips to Nutella. During this process, orangutans must flee their jungle home to escape, but sadly there is a burgeoning pet trade for the babies. Mothers are killed and the helpless infants are taken to be sold on the black market.

Our muddy truck winded up an old logging road, and then the torrential rains started. Ken was at the wheel, and the tires started to slip. We were heading uphill, but it wasn’t looking promising that we could get back down. Palm plantations weren’t the only threat to these beautiful jungles. Illegal logging had long been an issue here.

The truck was slipping sideways, so I got out to see if I could at least help guide it from the top of the hill, Nick was at the bottom. The mud was so slippery I immediately fell hard to the ground, we all were laughing hard. In hindsight it was a dangerous situation, but youth seems to make everything easier, and definitely funnier.

That night we spent in the truck, a mosquito net draped over the tailgate to keep the biting critters out. Nick went to record the cacophony of the jungle. We were muddy and tired. It was Thanksgiving in the USA, and the four of us were stuck in a truck eating durian in a rainstorm. It was perfect.

The next day was more of the same, slippery roads and rain.

“More campin’ boys!” I called cheerfully. It was obvious we all wanted to get out. As darkness shrouded the jungle, we noticed sounds of machinery not far off from the road. Cameras in hand, under the cover of darkness, we crept towards the operation. From beneath the canopy, we knew it was an illegal logging operation. Tristan was recording, and we were sure they couldn’t see us, but one man kept looking our direction. He pointed at us.

“The record light!” I whispered, frightened that they saw us. The red light of the camera blared into the black night.

Without looking back, we ran into the pitch darkness, not caring if we fell or ran into a creature, as the men’s voices were too close for comfort. When we were sure no one was following us, we made it back to the truck. We had to get out of here now.

I snuggled down, still startled from the illegal logging escapade, and wrote in my journal in the cramped back of the truck. The wildness we seek, to find untouched land and wild animals, it seemed impossible. Borneo was scarred by the metal claws of man, her tangled jungles removed to make way for perfectly lined palms. The creatures scattered and orphaned. I was sad, and scared for what was happening and had happened. What will be left for the future generations?

Yet, there were people here in Borneo fighting the good fight.

We decided to break up, to cover more ground. Tristan and Ken went to film the plight of the sea turtles and illegal turtle egg trade in Sipadan, while Nick and I headed to camp up the Kinabatangan River in search of wild orangutans.

Slogging thru muddy riverbeds, sleeping on wet mats under leaking tents, eating food we couldn’t decipher, we searched for days from the banks for a glimpse of the fiery “man of the jungle.” It was disheartening to hear the tales of what it used to be like, when the orangutans swung through the trees, their families intact and their homes a safe haven.

Orangutans are one of the only true arboreal apes and share 97% of their DNA with us, humans. Only 3% difference. They can live up to 45 years in the wild, I found them so fascinating, so similar to us. Newborn orangutans hang tightly to their mother’s chest, nursing every 3 to 4 hours, never letting that grip of red fur go. They hold on for years, only venturing off when they get about 4 years old- but always in line of sight of their red-headed mother.

Those orangutan babies need their mothers, and it was shocking that matriarchs were being murdered, babies ripped from her arms to sell for exotic pets. I was infuriated.

We searched and filmed, but Nick and I were living up to the Futile Attempt Productions title. No sign of a wild orangutan. We took a dugout canoe further up the watershed, until it was nothing but a silty pond. I thought I saw something move in the trees, I was so excited as I grabbed the DV camera. Too excited, as the dugout tipped precariously over and I stumbled to catch myself, as the brand new videocamera dove into the muddy waters. I watched in shock as the ripples smoothed out. Nick’s jaw dropped.

No camera, no film, no orangutans. All we had now was sound equipment and diarrhea.

Defeated, we hitchhiked out of the river basin, to the small town where we were to meet Tristan and Ken. The only silver lining was our next location, where we were guaranteed to get some shots of this critically endangered species. Bornean orangutans populations were less than 14% of what it had been up until the mid 20th century. All this loss had been recent, it was mind blowing.

The wooden boardwalk creaked below my feet, I followed closely behind Tristan, we all were silent moving forwards. And there he was, his fat padded cheeks and massive body enshrouded in shaggy rust colored fur. He was so much bigger than I expected, and I hope he didn’t find us threatening. He was beautiful, and moved across the railing with incredible agility. He looked at us nonchalantly, and moved into the deep trees, gripping limbs with both his hands and feet. It was a glimmer of hope here at the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. He was one of the few males at the center.

It is here that orangutans are rescued from logging sites, plantations, and the pet trade to be given a chance to learn how to live free again. It was a beautiful idea, and I felt optimistic for this jungle creature’s future. At least people had been noticing, this centre had been established in 1964 as the first official reintroduction program. It was open to the public to walk the boardwalks and quietly observe the orangutans that moved freely through the 10,000 acre virgin rainforest.

The Centre also had an orphanage, which was not open to visitors, as the babies are vulnerable to human disease. They are our cousins after all. But we had been given permission to go in with the rangers and film the orphans’ stories.

It was not just an orphanage, it was a nursery, hospital and school. These helpless babes find connection with their caretakers, and most importantly - each other.

A tiny couple of spiky haired orangutans tumbled through the branches towards us, holding onto each other for comfort. They were in the playground, where they learned to climb and jump, the things their mothers would have taught them.

I felt my heart sink a bit, although they were taken care of completely, and fed delicious bananas and milk, they needed their real mamas. Tristan filmed them tumbling, acting like human toddlers, having fun on tire swings and swinging sticks. I smiled, they actually looked genuinely happy.

The older juveniles graduated to a real forest playground, as the goal of the centre is to give the babes the tools and skills to live in the wild. We finally were able to get footage of the famed creature that we had searched the jungle for, but the stark truth slapped us hard.

The planet was changing rapidly, and if we don’t start changing our human ways, we would lose it all.

The sunset glinted off of the orphans’ fur, their little heads almost glowing. I held my hand out to the little one on the platform, she grabbed my finger tightly. “Yes, I promise.” I reassured her in silence. “We will share your story.”

P.S. Did you ever chase a dream that big when you were young? Tell me in the comments.

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I was trying to be okay. I was trying to find joy in the small things—watching the sunrise over the Tetons, boiling water over the fire at the backcountry camps, hugging my little brothers and sisters. But grief doesn’t disappear just because you keep moving.

There were moments I felt like I was walking through fog. Moments where I felt the old life flicker behind my eyes—the smell of the tack room at Heart 6, the sound of my dad singing and rocking in the truck, the way my Nicely Nicely used to hump everything that was below 2 feet from the ground.

But they were just memories now. I was learning to live without them. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to.

In those days, I started to sense a restlessness inside me. Not the kind that wanted to run away, but the kind that wanted to find meaning beyond what I knew. Something in me had been cracked open. Something was starting to grow in the space grief had hollowed out.

I didn’t know then that I would go on to travel the world. That I would one day feel at home in the African Savannah, or in the jungles of Borneo, or on the ocean floor filming sharks. I didn’t know I’d live out of duffel bags and carry cameras across deserts and raise tents under stars most people never saw.

All I knew was that home didn’t feel like one place anymore.

And maybe it never had.

Maybe home was going to be something I had to find—in people, in wild places, in the work I would one day come to love.

Or maybe it was something I’d have to build, one heartbreak and one sunrise at a time.

We were living on the new ranch by then—Triangle C—but everything still felt temporary. Like we were visitors in our own story. My mother was trying to keep everything alive: the lodge, the theatre, the family, the dream. I don’t know how she did it. I just remember watching her move through each day like someone running on fumes and fierce belief.

And then High School started.

It was that fuzzy sweatshirt and a hug to blame. I tiptoed into the art room- my sketchbook clutched close to my chest. I was one of the only sophomores in the advanced art class, and I was nervous to start the spring semester. Jackson Hole High School is not a large school, and most everyone knew who each other were, it was just the sense of seniority that made me anxious.

I turned quickly back to the door, as I remembered my pencils were still in the other room and ran right into him. Tristan. I knew him, but never really had spoken that much to him. He was tall, dark and huggably handsome. My heart stopped for an instant as I tried to catch my breath. He was beautiful.

“Hi.” He said very nonchalantly.

“Hi..ummm, uh, well, uh - that’s a very fluffy sweatshirt you are wearing. It looks so nice to hug.” I said suddenly. Flabbergasted that I just said that, I wanted to smack myself right in front of him.

“Why did you just say that?” I thought as I felt my face turn hot and burn crimson. “Sheesh, what a perfectly ridiculous way to start the class.” I scolded my inner teenager.

Then he pulled me in, close to that fluffy mustard colored fleece that smelled of downy dryer sheets, and hugged me tight. I felt my whole soul melt into a wondrous swirl of that deep, real hug. What was happening? I had never felt this way before- like a pulse or shock thru my system, and I knew I had to have more, so I hugged him back with all my heart. I felt weak as I pulled away, my eyes barely able to look him in the face. He smiled a crooked smile, lifting the mole on his cheek. My goodness, this is the end of me, I thought as I sheepishly sat in whatever chair was closest. Oh Art Class, oh how I love you, and I started to draw.

The next few months we were inseparable, I didn’t even notice school or people or the outside world. Our nights were spent talking endlessly on corded telephones until we fell asleep to each other’s breathing. Our days were spent playing, as we called it, as we “don’t work we play.” My heart ached to see him after one hour of class without him, and I thought I might pass out if I didn’t see him for a day.

“The first cut is the deepest”- and this cut ran deep into my heart and soul. Somehow I made it through my sophomore year, with good grades even. But all I knew is that I was in love, and that was more important than any grade would ever be.

The new ranch was farther out of town but a perfect place to rebound from. It was an old Tie Hack town, the Triangle C Ranch and my father was “back”. He could light up a room, or burn it down. But when he was on a horse, he was calm. The wilderness steadied him. He had the work ethic of an ox, and hated if you didn’t sweep with intention while cleaning. I understood it, because his father (grandpa Bill) was a military man, and if your sheets weren’t tight enough to bounce a nickel off of, you had to start over.

We had a new beginning, a new ranch to build dreams, a place for the legacy to continue. It didn’t feel like home at first, but we didn’t need it to. We just needed a place to begin again.

Advertising, building, it was all happening again, and there was a sense of well being and purpose. Triangle C gave us back some rhythm. Horses in the corrals. Coffee on the stove before the sun crested the mountains. Guests arriving wide-eyed and leaving with dust on their boots and stories in their pockets.

I was still grieving, still quiet in ways no one could see. But I also started to feel the first spark of joy return. I rode horses again. I wrote in my journal every night, filling pages with sketches of mountains, lists of wildflowers, fragments of questions about the world beyond these fences.

We were still holding on by threads, but it felt like the threads might hold.

I watched my parents love each other the only way they knew how—fiercely, imperfectly, with passion and friction and a shared love for the land. I saw how hard it was for them to forgive life for what it had taken, and how much they tried anyway.

Grandma Billie was behind the reservation desk again, her beehive as high as ever and the wranglers gathered at the corrals at dusk to spit tobacco and gossip with the guests. We teetered on stability, but life was slowly getting back on track.

The ranch was further from town than Heart Six had been, and the theatre was still in full swing. It was hard to balance the time between the two businesses, especially for my mother. Particularly with a new baby, but she did it in the way she always made tough things seem easy. If anyone could be a pioneer, it was that woman.

Little Golden brought sweetness back to Dad’s eyes. He loved that towheaded boy, and everyone in the family was healing with a baby as a beautiful distraction. I didn’t know it then, but it was the last summer before everything changed again.

I was sixteen. Still carrying the grief of our first ranch, still navigating the quiet aftershocks of my father’s rage and return. But something about that summer felt suspended—held gently by the mountains, protected by firelight and trail dust. It was a pause in the chaos. A season of soft miracles.

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We had a new pack-trip camp set up in the backcountry, at the base of craggy peaks presented by a wide grassy meadow. The Dunoir. I loved that camp, with the gurgling brook that passed by the wall tent. The keyhole to heaven on the cliffs above, and mostly this secret river bend my Dad named “Vanessa’s Wonderland.”

The water flowed through the rocks, carving deep caves, and a fairy like moss covered beach sparkled with springs that blessed us with the cleanest drinking water. It was an elixir for both my Dad and I, as we lay drinking that cold Wyoming water straight from the source. Splashing the liquid magic on our faces, it felt as if our damaged souls had another chance. I laid on the moss, the Clark’s nutcrackers chirping in the Douglas fir trees. The earthen smell took me back to an effortless time, when all I knew was that natural enchantment of nature and peace that used to come so easy. Now, I had to look harder for it.

My Dad was happy, and in turn, it was easier for all of us to be happy as well. We rode together through wild lupine and across cold creeks, our pack train trailing behind us like a moving thread through the wilderness. When he wasn’t angry, my father was magnetic. He had a way of commanding the trail—calling out mule orders in a deep, sure voice, making the dudes laugh with his jokes that never quite made sense.

That summer, he was more laughter than anger.

He called me his forest fairy and let me lead sometimes. He told me I made the best pancakes in the West. He gave me space to be who I was: half dreamer, half wild girl, full of wonder and questions.

That ranch gave me something rare: a brief breath between storms. A place to be sixteen, to ride high in the saddle, to wake up at 4 a.m. in the backcountry on a pack trip and fry eggs over an open fire before guests stirred. A place to fall in love with wilderness all over again.

That summer was brief. But it was gold. It was the kind of peace you don’t recognize until you’ve lost it. The kind you carry with you for the rest of your life, like a pressed bloom from a trail you may never ride again.

It was the first time since losing Heart 6 that I felt whole.

And maybe that’s the gift of grief—it makes you notice when the pain pauses. It teaches you to cherish the soft moments, the steady ones. The ones where the people you love are still within reach.

I didn’t know it was the last summer we’d ever have like that.

But I knew it was something rare.

And I held onto it with everything I had.

And even though I still didn’t know where I belonged…

I knew that out here—under these skies, among these animals, beside my family—I was learning how to keep going.

But things were shifting, I was in the middle of high school, and ranch life wasn’t perfectly suited to my life at that stage. I wanted to be with my friends, school dances and being with Tristan in town. Jackson was 75 miles from the ranch. I had another passion, besides being on the ranch. I was deeply in love with a boy that lived miles away. He was magnetic in a way I hadn’t expected—an artist, a filmmaker, a boy with a camera and a vision and just enough chaos to feel familiar. We fell into something fierce and fast. He understood the way I saw things. The way I needed beauty to mean something. The way I burned for a purpose that hadn’t yet taken shape.

Summer finally came, and the stress of finishing school passed to easy breezy Jackson Hole days. I was so excited to share with Tristan a part of my life that he didn’t really know, the lifestyle of a Wyoming backcountry cowboy. I was the pack trip cook at the ranch that summer, and much to my utter surprise, my father had allowed Tristan to join me on one of the trips.

This pack trip we were heading to Five Pockets, up the back of the Dunoir with a group of botanists. It was an interesting cooking experience, as it was all vegetarian. That was rare in my cooking experience on the backcountry, but I prided myself on my Dutch oven skills- and whether meat or eggplant, I was just excited to have Tristan with me.

This part of Wyoming is grizzly bear country, so we took a lot of precautions to make sure we never had any food or goods left out to attract them. This was the first time Tristan had to sling food pans up in trees, hobble horses or taste this part of my backcountry life. It was breathlessly wonderful, we were in love and the world was our playground.

We would write love notes, in calligraphy and watercolor. We were both artists of sorts, and that made for beautiful letters. He wrote to me that trip: “You’re as sharp as a tomahawk and pretty as an Indian paintbrush.” That meant everything to me.

We connected on a level that brought teenage dreams and creativity to the forefront. I taught him names of flowers, and he drew them in his leather-bound sketchbook in that amazing raw talent he had.

I gave myself to him completely, and it felt safe. We made love in the woods, in tents, and back of cars, sneaking into back alleys, getting to know every part of each other. I marveled at his even boyish skin, long legs and Teva tan lines as we lay naked under the starry skies of Wyoming. We painted huge canvases with abstract bright acrylics and left them in the forest for hikers to find. It was Neverland, and enchantment was back in my spirit. A new sparkling type of magic - that had no boundaries and came with a handsome Peter Pan.

Our friends were a band of lost boys, and I was their Wendy. We had ideas of creating a company of creatives, quite a feat for high-schoolers. Futile Attempt Productions was born below a grove of aspens in Tristan’s backyard shadowed by the Tetons.

We just had to “Do something cool” … and we did.

Grief had quieted, but it hadn’t left me. It had simply grown roots—deep inside, pushing me outward. I didn’t know what I was looking for, only that it wasn’t going to be found standing still.

I was still young, still wild, and already carrying a longing that didn’t quite fit inside the fences of Wyoming. I wanted movement. I wanted stories. I wanted to see the world.

P.S. Did you have a summer like that, one you didn't know was rare until it was gone? Tell me in the comments.

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Not long after we returned to Wyoming and the ranch life, my world came crumbling down. Little by little, the enchanted castle I had built lost its foundation, and the King’s wrath would make any being shrink into the shadows. The magic was lost and my world went dark.

My father’s partners had filed a lawsuit against my parents and grandparents. To this day I still don’t know all the facts, but it was gruesome, conniving and mean. It brought out the worst sides of human beings. They wanted to sell, my family did not.

I was young, and didn’t understand all of the proceedings, but soon there were court dates and moving personal items off the ranch. I was scared, mostly about what my father might do. He didn’t fare well with people mistreating his family, or his animals.

One day I remember, we had to move all of my grandparents’ belongings off the ranch, and my Dad was in no space to be anywhere near the ranch. He believed that your handshake was your bond, and he had yet to learn how to curb his temper. My mom and I and my sisters moved everything, from freezers to sofas. With our Wonder Woman strength, we were able to move huge appliances onto the trailers, how we did it, though it seemed unlikely, emotions ran through us and fueled our energy.

I always felt I could calm my father, especially in the times when rage filled his eyes like a wild animal. I stilled my heartbeat, tried to reach him through the unspoken words I knew reached the wild creatures I felt communicated with me.

He would talk to me, listen to me. But at this stage of life, he was broken and then, he left. And for good reason. Violence was something he had to work on, his tantrums as bad as a 2 year old. Terrible 2’s or terrible 42’s. Broken toilets and holes in the walls, his anger blew up and he had to express it. But this was worse than the little fits he would throw, these people threatened his family and way of life. So he went to stay with his friend in Big Sur, disconnected from all of this. It should’ve felt magical—like living inside a story—but the magic had cracked. The walls were thin. My father was gone, trying to outrun his rage. My mother was holding up seven lives with bare hands.

And we were alone, with my mother. Who was stronger than anyone. She was running the theatre, running the family, running herself into the ground for the sake of keeping our world intact. She was fierce, fighting, and quietly breaking. And I began to understand that strength and grief aren’t opposites. They live in the same house.

We lost the ranch, the horses and everything. The land my father loved. The house where I learned to ride. The place where our stories had roots. Then came the horses. Then the dog. Then the silence in the log hallways that Dad built, like the walls themselves were stunned. We had each other to take care of, and that was my mission at hand.

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Dad came back from California after what seemed like forever, dragging himself into the theatre like a beaten puppy. We had been staying in a two-bedroom apartment above the theatre, waiting for him (the sparkling vibrant being he was) to come back as well, but dreams were far out of reach. The fire in him hadn’t gone out, but the flames weren’t so sharp. He walked back into the new life with his boots still muddy from the old one, and we pretended the storm had passed. But I knew better. I could feel the cracks in the walls.

We had the theatre, and each other. And a new baby on the way, number 7 of our clan. The future, well, who knew.

That year, I started to understand that grief wasn’t a pause in life—it was life, reshaped. It became a rhythm I carried inside. It taught me how to hold on and let go in the same breath.

I used to believe home was a place. A gate that squeaked. A fire burning in the stove. Horses in the pasture and wind in the cottonwoods. I believed it could be measured in grassy acres and held in your hands.

It was then that I began to learn: grief doesn’t wait for someone to die. It comes when the rhythm of your world disappears. When the dog is gone. When the horses are loaded into a trailer headed for someone else’s barn. When you come home and realize… home isn’t there anymore.

That was the first break.

I never forgot the ache of that first loss. Even then, I started to understand that home might not be a place you hold onto.

It might be a feeling. A person. A moment. A memory.

That realization would shape everything that followed. That year, something shifted in me. I began to look outward. To imagine what else might exist beyond the fences, beyond the mountains, beyond the version of life I had known. Not because I wanted to escape—but because something inside me was calling for more.

Not more stuff. Not more success.

More meaning. More truth. More space to feel everything I couldn’t say.

I started pressing flowers into my journals. Writing late into the night. Dreaming of places I hadn’t seen yet but already missed. I didn’t have the words for it then, but now I know: I wasn’t just grieving. I was beginning to grow.

Loss wasn’t an ending.

It was the start of the search.

Because from that day forward, I was always searching—not just for a place to live, but for a place to belong.

Thank you for reading A Mother's Earth. A new chapter arrives every Sunday at 8 AM MT.

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P.S. Where do you go when grief and strength show up in the same house? Leave a comment. I read every one.

My parents ran the ranch with my grandparents, Bill and Billie. My dad’s parents. A perfect cowboy couple. They met at the University of Wyoming, where grandpa Bill was on a football scholarship and Billie was getting her teaching degree. They knew dude ranching, rodeos and livestock, and they always dressed to the nines. They lived just across the grass circle at the ranch lodge, and raised me as much as my parents. I would come home from school and head over to do homework with my grandma, whom I lovingly called Gigi.

They loved to travel, and they would take one big trip every few years. Bill was in the army and had traveled around the world in the 1930’s. He was a farm boy from Nebraska, but he loved exotic cultures and meeting folks from a different walk of life. He would talk any stranger’s ear off, drink his coffee black and wasn’t afraid to offend.

My grandmother Billie was refined, well educated and always had a pair of high heels handy. I looked just like her, minus about 5 inches and the bra size. At 6 foot, she was the tallest grandmother, with big beehive hair and gigantic bosoms. She commanded any room she walked into, and spoke in a deep rehearsed voice that echoed of a 1940’s movie star.

“If I know a song of Africa, she writes of the giraffe and the African new moon laying on her back of the plows and the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me?” - Karen Blixen

Out of Africa was that song for me. I was in love with that book and Karen Blixen’s adventures in Kenya. She brought the pioneering spirit of my America to Africa. I was so excited to go visit this land, to see this place that inspired her, what pulled on her heart as she wrote. I was about to experience a place completely different from what I was used to. As a girl growing up in Wyoming in the 1980s, it was not full of human diversity, but plenty of wildlife and botanical diversity. Jackson was a cowboy town with some artists and tourists, and we were mostly all cut from the same ethnic cloth.

It was a cold March morning when we got to the airport in Jackson Hole, the Tetons were blanketed with snow, despite spring on the horizon. I held my passport tight and the paper tickets that were like a little booklet. I had Xeroxed all of them just in case. We had packed a bunch of the ranch logo t-shirts, pencils and little toys to give to the children we’d meet along the way.

I actually was on the greatest adventure of my 13 years on this planet. We boarded the plane and I stared teary eyed out the window at my beautiful Teton range, getting smaller and smaller. My heart ached a bit, as I really hadn’t been away from my parents and brothers and sisters. I was going very far away, across whole oceans to a new continent, but, I reminded myself- I was with my grandparents. They held those roots for me.

The flight was long and smoking was allowed on the airplanes. I spent most of my time hidden under a blanket, trying to escape from the putrid old smoke smell in the confined air. I learned to play a lot of Solitaire on that flight.

As we landed in Nairobi, Kenya, the first step out of the plane, my nostrils were filled with a scent that I’ll never forget - sweat, leather, camp smoke and animals. It smelled like…Africa!

Our driver was waiting in the terminal, a handwritten sign that told the world the tourists were here. He was going to be our guide and take us through this great adventure. Three weeks in a wild new world, he smiled and waved, his teeth were bright in great contrast against his dark skin. He was laughing as he introduced himself. His name was Jackson. I laughed alongside him, “That is the name of the town that I am from!”

Jackson chuckled- he seemed to be always laughing, “Well, we are all connected then aren’t we?” Africa was stranger than I ever thought possible, but here I was, feet planted on a new continent.

Our first destination was the Maasai Mara national reserve on the Southwestern border of Kenya and Tanzania. We had missed the infamous wildebeest annual migration, but we were guaranteed to see elephants, zebras, hippos, lions and cheetahs. And of course the Maasai people. It was March, just before the long rainy season. The ground was parched and waiting for rain.

We’re going to go on horseback rides through the savannah and sleep in a tented camp in the African bush. I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect for my first stay in Africa.

They would send the luggage in a dugout canoe connected to a rope across the river paddle it across and you’d wait. And then the boat would come back and pick us up. Grandpa Bill (who was actually in his late seventies and had a bum knee) had a hard time down the steep trail to the river. That angered him of course, as age made it hard to do the things he was proud of, and he didn’t like to ask for help.

It was the first time I had ever seen that old cowboy in shorts. His legs were bowed from years of straddling horses, and white as they never saw the sun. The guides offered him a hand, which he replied, “Hell no. Dammit.”

They laughed it off, telling him to take it Poli Poli- or slowly, slowly in Swahili. This eventually became my pet name for him. Old stubborn Poli Poli.

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We crossed the river and were led up to a beautiful tented encampment. Sturdy green safari tents, peppered amongst Acacia trees. I had my own tent, poli poli and grandma’s tent, was about six feet away from mine.

We unloaded our things and I sat looking around at the similarities between the tented camps that I grew up with, camping in our backwoods of Yellowstone and these tents. We called them wall tents and here they’re safari tents. I laid down on the bed for a second breathing in the familiar hot canvas, readying myself for our first safari. We were going out on horseback.

There’s something incredibly freeing, scary and primordial about being atop a horse and in a place where you are top of the food chain. It was very much the same in Yellowstone where there’s Grizzlies and cougars, wolves and other things. And here it’s lions and cheetahs and leopards and the rogue hippopotamus. It’s a step back into our past when we feel alive. When you feel the rush of actual being, as we set out on the trail, Poli Poli and Gigi in front, chatting with the guides, me lagging behind. I stared at the curious arms of the Acacia trees, armed with sharp points and the thorny bushes, and I wondered how anything could survive out here. Every plant was armored!

And then I saw them, my first herd of African elephants. They were bigger than I imagined and darker in color. Something changed in me. I felt such a connection to this land, to these animals, this place I’d never been, it felt like a home, one I never had known.

The herd was eating and there was a tiny baby taking cover in the shadow of his mother’s legs. She caressed his face with her trunk and it made me smile. They were just a family having lunch. It reminded me of my mother, kissing my head good night. I ached for her. This herd was like my own family, they were looking out for each other, enjoying the company. A couple of the older calves teased each other, pushing a log. A family, a herd, a unit of hearts connected by DNA. I missed mine with my whole heart, and they were a million miles away in our normal life routine.

I watched the herd in rapture. They were huge and wild yet gentle. Fearsome yet loving. It was an amazing paradox. I could have watched them for days, I had fallen in love with an entire species. The elephant.

The sun was making its way towards the horizon, as we looped back towards the camp. The air was heavy with camp smoke. I couldn’t believe that I was actually here. I pinched myself and it hurt. I guess I was still alive.

That night, we dined underneath a trillion African stars that I couldn’t recognize because we were in the Southern hemisphere. At home, I knew the stars and was able to make out the different constellations. The big dipper, the north star, the little dipper, but here the stars were different. I stared into the dark infinity. Wondering, is there someone out there also experiencing this much joy? I hoped so.

I crawled into my tent alone and very scared. I didn’t ever sleep alone at my house. When you come from a big family, there’s always somebody that wants to sleep with you. We called it our love puddles. I pressed close against the wall of the tent, listening hard. Straining to hear my grandparents breathing, at least.

I heard the nightwatchman walk by. He was humming. It made me feel better. I was petrified to go to sleep. Maybe my African dream would end and I really wouldn’t be here…or worse, I would be eaten.

Strange animal sounds gurgled in the not so distant reaches of my tent, that sent me cowering deeper into my blankets. Other worldly creatures talking to each other in the cover of night, my imagination ran wild. I imagined the heavily maned cat prowling my tent, sniffing at my new scent, one not from this land…. And he would rip open the side of the tent closest to my head and drag me by hair into the thorny bushes. And that would be the end of my story. A good ending, I added, but I wasn’t ready yet.

I wondered what African gods existed in these southern starry heavens. I prayed they would protect me, “Please don’t let the lions eat me…” I whispered into the darkness.

Sleep didn’t come easy for me that night. I was relieved to see the glow of a kerosene lamp, that sharp aroma reminded me of my Wyoming pack trips and I felt a glimpse of comfort. The rattle of a tea tray being set on the table out front of the tent, I assumed I could get up now, and watch the African sun make her way to the new day.

Unsweetened hot chocolate and a hard biscuit lay waiting for me, the morning grey before the dawn. Everything was waking, the birds and insects, and the humans. Despite the complete conviction that last night was to be my last and I would succumb to the hungry lions, it was going to be an incredible day.

I drank in the African morning, as a pink hue accompanied the sun as she made her way to our camp. Jambo! I said to the great glowing orb, for I was intent on learning Swahili.

On this particular day we were going to visit a Maasai village. We pulled up to a circle of mud and dried manure huts, cracked from the African sun. I had never experienced a home like this.

Colorfully clad women and children adorned with amazing beaded jewelry, welcomed us with bright smiles, as I kneeled to open my backpack stuffed with t-shirts from a far off land of Wyoming. Little hands grabbed at the red Heart Six branded t-shirts, it looked like we chose the right color. Red was a coveted color of the Maasai. Our guide told me it symbolized courage, bravery, and strength.

The men came over to greet us, tall and beautiful. Sinewy and thin yet incredibly strong. They were introduced as “Morans” - the strongest warriors. My heart glowed, I was also a “Moran Warrior” from Moran, Wyoming.

The Maasai children encircled me, the gangly teenage American tourist, trying on the out of culture t-shirts I had brought from the ranch, and I couldn’t help but beam, my heart filled with love and gratitude. Not from the giving of the t-shirts, but the joy that exuded from the children that made me feel safe. I had always felt secure when I was with my family, surrounded by a bunch of younger siblings. As the eldest of such a large family, it was never strange for me to hold a baby on one hip and play with a toddler, and that was exactly what I was doing here in the red dirt of Kenya. I bounced the chubby baby on my hip, the mother about the same age as me. We exchanged smiles and sign languages, not one of us knew words to communicate, but sometimes eyes and faces can express much more than words.

She laughed into my blue eyes, her dark eyes not even flinching with the flies buzzing around them. Her son gurgled up at me, pulling my blonde hair. I was the one out of place, they each belonged and blended beautifully with the landscape and village. How amazing, I thought. That they live like this every day, just like we do. Looking after their animals, loving their family, surviving whatever Africa threw at them.

The Maasai believe in Enkai/ Engai- a God who manifests himself in the form of colors, according to the feelings he is experiencing. This seemed to make sense to me, for the palette of the savanna was an experience all its own. It was god-like to watch a foreboding storm cloud roll over the parched red dirt, quenching the thirst of the grey limbed acacias. Tawny grasses camouflage sandy coats of the impala, long necks stretched to the sky, the colors and shapes blending to create a vivid masterpiece.

The Black God, was the worshipped and one of good, bringing grass and prosperity. He is found in rain and thunderclouds. The Red God, unforgiving, brings famine and hunger. He is found with the dry seasons and in lightning that ignites the parched grasses.

I scanned the African bush, so vast with tiny white zebu cattle dotting the horizon. These magical people, sharing a moment of their life with me, a happy afternoon with a strange visitor, had greatly impacted my soul. I felt it necessary to acknowledge the color god. I nodded to the sky, “Asante Sana. Thank you for this day Enkai, thank you for these animals and wild lands, and thank you for the Maasai.”

Everything besides their family bond was different. From the long hooped ear lobes hanging strings of seed beads to the blood and milk concoction that was drunk from a gourd. It was as foreign to me as visiting another planet, but something changed in my heart. I felt connection through the unfamiliar. I felt peace in knowing that something does connect us all….this very ground we all are standing on, the hazy sky hanging above us.

It was all the same earth and sky, here or in Wyoming. If I just headed east from this spot, across the Pacific Ocean- I would be home. And if I kept going, I would be full circle back to this very Maasai village in Kenya.

It was the first time the planet felt whole, round and connected.

Thank you for reading A Mother's Earth. A new chapter arrives every Sunday at 8 AM MT.

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P.S. Where were you the first time the world felt connected? Leave a comment or hit reply. I read every one.

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Summer finally came in all her warm, lovely glory, the aspen’s full bloom of green and colorful wildflowers blanketed the mountainside. The horses came home from their winter pastures, and the ranch was alive with new guests every week. June was the best time of year in Wyoming. For it was my birth month. The summer solstice.

This summer I was helping out on the pack trips, which meant most of my summer would be in the backcountry and wilderness, in a tent, with my Dad.

My first love had to be my dad. He was strong, beautiful, funny and wild. When you’re a young girl, having that big, masculine figure made me always feel safe, which is so incredible. I was never afraid of anything hurting me or my family because I knew my dad would take care of us- whether it was a grizzly bear or one of the scarier creatures… a human. My father would never ever let anything happen to his children or his wife, his parents or his horse.

He was easy for me to love, because he adored me. I was nothing like the cowboys or people that worked on the ranch, in wrangler jeans and dusty boots. I loved flowing dresses and pressing flowers and believed in fairies. My horse was half unicorn, and I was convinced that the barn cats could understand me. I had an aspen tree that granted wishes and knew the secrets of the forest creatures.

My dad believed me. He encouraged me, played with me. He loved my funny ways and wild imagination. I was his first daughter, and he had no sisters. Besides my mom and my grandmother, I believe I was his first love. The love you fall suddenly and incredibly in when you see your baby born. The creature you created with that other person who you love. My parents created that love, that ME and he fell deeply. He was young at heart (and actually in age when I look back). He loved me and I loved him. We were partners, friends, and confidants, with dreams in common.

This was to be a great summer. I was to turn 12 on the summer solstice. And we were taking the Cody pack trip, twice! The Cody pack trip was an incredible trip, guests paid my Dad to take them on horseback along the John Colter Trail from Buffalo Valley to Cody, Wyoming, in the span of a week. Setting up camp every night, eating over the campfire, far from any reaches of society. No electricity, no phones, no contact with the outside world, and a deep dive into the Shoshone wilderness that bordered Yellowstone National Park for a glorious seven days.

We would ride every day and then set up the tented camp each night as we crossed the Continental Divide. Ahhh, this was the fulfillment of my every pioneer dream. We had a mission, we had to survive and we were out in the elements every moment.

My Dad had a horse named Sky, who was pitch black with a white star on her forehead. Her gait was challenging to keep up with, taking great strides with her powerful hooves along the trail. Moondancer trotted to keep up with his short, striped legs, an uncomfortable ride for the fairy princess seated atop him. For I was the royalty of this magical retreat into the dark pine wilderness. My entourage consisted of 10 white mules, packed tight with all the necessities, a pack train they called it. The peons (actually the paying guests) moseyed behind, unsure of the adventure ahead.

My knights in cowboy hats obeyed the King, my father Cameron, who boomed out to keep the mules tight on the string, as they led them on the skinny trail across the quiet forest. The knights never disobeyed, indeed afraid of the fury they would cause. They seemed good enough for the journey, they only spat tobacco once in a while (to my royal disgust) but alas - they were unaware of the magic around them, so I forgave them.

As we settled in the Soda Fork for the first night camping, I gathered flowers from the surrounding creek bed in the fading sunset. Yellow headed Arrow leaf balsam root, Lavender Lupine, Rusty Indian paintbrush and Hazy Showy daisies. They were to be my new line of all natural makeup, along with campfire charcoal for eyeliner and smashed rose-hips for lip gloss. Just what a fairy princess needed, and my first glimpse at entrepreneurship in the forest. I couldn’t wait for the guests to head out for a morning trail ride and I could test out the new makeup.

Underneath a milky way untouched by light for a million miles, I lay awake in the tent, comforted by my dad’s snoring (that will keep the bears away!) This was paradise. I snuggled deep into my sleeping bag that smelled of camp fire. Thank you heavens for this day, I prayed to all the beings that I knew of. Please keep the grizzlies away, I added.

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It was my job to go get the water from the creek and boil on the campfire for coffee before the guests got up. I loved getting up when the frost made the grass crunch below your feet and the sound of the waking Sandhill cranes, that deep throated song across the meadow in the mist. The bells of the horses and mules getting wrangled in, the air - sharp and cold, fresh and clean.

Sometimes there’d be a thin layer of ice on the creek, I would break through the shimmery crystal with the plastic bucket, in awe of how cold it must have gotten over night. The water was frigid even in mid summer. I’d take it to the campfire to boil, pour it into the black cast iron pot for Chris, the camp cook, to make his infamous cowboy coffee.

I had no idea why people would drink that black, thick concoction, but the recipe was as old as the first explorers I guess. Chris would pour the grounds into the bottom of the coffee pot and boil it over open flames. And then he would put a whole egg into the swirling mess. That was to settle the grounds, but no matter what, every time I washed the dishes, each coffee cup was deeply smudged with thick coffee grounds and the guests would weakly smile over breakfast with pieces of coffee stuck in their teeth. Disgusting.

Chris was the camp cook this summer. He was a funny cowboy who liked heavy metal music. And for some reason he could not make a pancake over the campfire. All of his other food was really good, but he really struggled with pancakes. So my job was to help him make the pancakes better. I found out, I am an excellent pancake campfire chef. Fluffy, round and perfectly golden.

I spent that summer helping Chris the camp cook in the backcountry and we became good friends. Although I was still convinced that no wrangler or cowboy was well versed in the magical world, at least Chris humored me. When the guests and Dad would head out for fishing or a ride, I would stay back and help clean up the kitchen tent with Chris.

I had decided to learn all the names of all the wildflowers, and had a wooden Victorian flower press. I would carefully pick the most flawless, beautiful specimen and press it perfectly to put in my journal with a detailed description of it.

My favorite was the wild Flax, a pale blue so dainty and peaceful that it seemed perfect for a mystical world. Linum perenne lewisii. A fairy’s petal playground. It had 5 rounded periwinkle petals, with shimmery golden stems… that last for only one day. Only one sunrise, one sunset and then that bloom is gone. Like a kiss or a wish, you just can’t keep.

The Showy Daisy reminded me of a Muppet hippy. Wild fringed purple hair and a bright sunny center. A happy little blossom gathering of a flowery music festival below sagging Douglas firs.

Then there was Pedicularis groenlandica, a peculiar flower that always made me laugh. Otherwise known as the elephanthead, and for good reason. The grouping of minute flowers that each have a long, pointed beak which curves upward, resembling the trunk of an elephant, and the outside petals fanning out like elephant ears. It was a perfect likeness of an Asian elephant. I wondered if at night they came alive and danced across the meadows, a tiny herd of Mountain Elephants playing under the rocky cliffs and glaciers. I longed to see that parade.

The edible and medicinal flowers fueled my passion for potions. Flat-topped clusters of small, whitish petals balanced atop a gray-green stem, Plumajillo in Spanish for “little feather”, the Yarrow plant grew in abundance in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. I would set the crushed petals and leaves out on a rock to dry to make a somewhat acrid tea that I was convinced cured all ailments, and also worked as a love concoction. Not many of the knights cared to try it around the campfire, but at least my father did, with a heaping spoon of honey.

The Indian paintbrush held the most status. She was noble, mysterious and scarce up at this elevation. Castilleja, or prairie-fire. So regal that she was named the Wyoming state flower. Crimson petals that reach up towards the sky, small blazing flames that ignite the scenery. Hardy and strong, the blooms can last all summer long. I kept my eyes alert for that spark of auburn, I didn’t find many up here.

How unexpected and wonderful, each species, so tiny in this vast, wide wilderness. I found the blossoms to be so comforting. That something delicate, colorful and small can be that robust and courageous to survive out here. With the elements and creatures against them, they still bloom.

“The rarest flowers grow up in the mountains, up where it’s close to the sky. And if you pick them and take them to the city - their blooms will wither and die…” - pioneer song

I felt connected to those small bits of color that dotted this rugged landscape. We were the same. Searching for sunshine and roots among a huge, looming world.

At the end of the pack trip we just had to go across this part of the trail called the catwalk - which was about three feet wide of dusty trail with a steep cliff tumbling, 20 feet below to a river. You didn’t want to meet another trail ride coming towards you from the other direction.

I was terrified looking down. A hawk glided below me, it was strange to look down on it flying. I imagined sliding quickly, rolling, plunging to my final finish there before we reached the town. It would be a dramatic ending, fit for the expedition- but I swallowed, deeply breathed in and remembered I was forest royalty and we were almost to the new kingdom, and more importantly, the rodeo with fast food and cotton candy.

That night, dad and I shared a room at the Irma, the fanciest and oldest hotel in Cody Wyoming- historically decorated with a brass bed and a clawfoot tub. I stood in the hot water, showering for the first time in a week and noticed that the tan I thought I had was actually just dirt swirling down the drain. Dang it. I thought I at least had captured that glossy, bronzed skin fit for a princess. Alas, just a week’s worth of red dust and dirt heavily caked on my skin. Shouldn’t have used soap and kept the earth tan, I thought.

Still, I felt like royalty in that old fashioned suite that was once owned by Buffalo Bill. I slipped on the cleanest of my dirty clothes and smiled at myself in the mirror. Not exactly the perfect face I imagined, with wide gapped front teeth and bright bald eyes. It was strange to see myself after a week of not even caring to look or search for a reflection. My hair was a mess, I couldn’t find a brush, but my happiness was shining through.

She will do, I said nodding at myself. It was time to rodeo.

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I come from a long line of cowboys. I grew up on dude ranch, the Heart 6 Ranch, in Wyoming, on the outskirts of Yellowstone National Park, 45 miles from the nearest town or grocery store. It is like the Serengeti of the Americas, as everyday I would see some wild animal, from moose to coyotes, eagles, elk, bison and if I was lucky, a bear. We had a 100 head of horses on the ranch and a basset hound named Nicely Nicely Johnson, all set within breathtaking view of the Teton Range.

My father Cameron ran the ranch, with his parents Bill and Billie…but my mother Vicki had a theatre, the Jackson Hole Playhouse, in the bustling town of Jackson Wyoming. The oldest building in town, it was a live musical theatre venue that ran in the summer months, displaying amazing talent that my mom directed and produced. Life was a beautiful chaos of cowboys and theatre gurus. We had just welcomed #6 in our family, a little boy named Sky. He was named after my father’s favorite horse. Vanessa, Jessica, Savanna, Rachael, Creed and little Skyboy. I was the eldest of the clan- the leader, instigator, and perhaps the strangest.

I could talk to the animals. They understood me. I knew if I was still enough they could hear my thoughts, the tranquil pulsation of my heart would calm them and we would be friends. I would lay still and breathe so softly and slowly, that telepathy would come easy. We would communicate through heartbeats and nuzzles, it was amazing and as real as any conversation. It was my superpower.

My horse’s name was Moondancer, a tiny bit of a horse with zebra striped legs and a perfect white moon on his forehead. He was half unicorn and my partner in crime. He was sassy, but we understood each other. In fact, I loved that he wasn’t perfectly obedient- it gave us something to talk about.

Every summer morning, as the “dudes” saddled up for the morning ride at the ranch, my sister Jessica and I would ready for the days adventure. Her horse was named Apple, he was a fat appaloosa that loved her as much as she loved him. Jessica was a tomboy, who was always up at the first crack of dawn to sneak out of the house and help the cowboy’s wrangle in. I much preferred dresses and skirts as I thought, anything a boy could do, I could do better in a dress.

As for me, I would sleep in a bit, until I heard the bells of the wrangle and knew it was time to start the day. It was always a little chaotic in the morning at our house, breakfast and babies and the constant nagging from my mother to clean my room but I had a big day planned ahead, and needed to get going.

The cowboys at the ranch always helped us catch our horses, and though I was convinced none of them could read or write, I assured them all that tonight after the last ride we would have school at the barn. That was when I turned into a Catholic nun and ran a very strict school for wranglers and cowboys, but right now- we had another mission- we had to get to Zion. Luckily for us, our mother had a theatre, which meant an endless costume box. And this time we were pioneers. We had our bonnets with matching calico prairie dresses and lace up boots, and bits of bread with cheese mashed into a leather pouch. I straddled Moondancer, trying to tame his punk-rock styled mane. “You ready boy, we have a long trip ahead of us.”

He whinnied and stamped his hooves. Of course he was ready- hadn’t he been up and at it since before sunrise? He shook his head impatiently at me. I firmly tied my bonnet around my chin, and gave Jessica a nod. It was time. The trek had begun. I turned Moondancer to the trail that led out of the corrals and Jessica was right behind, with our chubby basset hound Nicely Nicely at her heels. The smell of dust and horse sweat fueled our spirits as we left the comforts of the ranch behind.

We look perfect, I thought. Two prairie girls out to conquer the West on their trusty steeds, with matching outfits, today was going to be an amazing day!

“ Hurry up Samantha!” (Samantha seemed a much better pioneer name for Jessica today I thought.) Apple was never known for being speedy, as every dandelion or tall green grass was a pit stop for a snack. He was a great grazer, if ever there was a term for that. And at this point, Samantha seemed fine with it. “ We are never going to make it to the Great Aspen at this rate”.

I trotted along ahead, frustrated at the slow moving expedition. We had to get to the Great Aspen, where we would find the map to get to Zion….and we had to be back at the ranch by lunch; so this had to be a pretty quick journey today.

The Great Aspen was the largest aspen tree in the forest, it rose majestically above the rest, on a bench across the hillside right above the ranch. Many afternoon naps and picnics happened below her great branches, the breeze creating that leafy wind chime that whispered through the forest. The Great Aspen’s enchantment came from the fact that she had been blessed by a magical forest spirit that gave her the ability to speak to us if we hugged her tight, the bark making deep prints in our cheeks as we embraced to hear the secrets of the past and grant our deepest wishes.

“Samantha really! How do you expect to reach Zion before winter at that speed! We will surely perish from the cold and never reach the wagon train like this!”

Jessica, er, Samantha gave Apple a quick kick and pulled his head away from the juicy arrow leaf balsam root he had his muzzle buried in.

“Sheesh, didn’t Pa teach you how to keep his head up?” I yelled back down the trail. I knew this would make her mad, as in reality she was a much better horsewoman then I, but I wanted to get going and the best way to get a reaction from her is to challenge her.

In a blink of an eye, my prairie companion was right behind me, Apples nose just brushing my pony’s tail. Much better, I smiled. Now we can make time. We winded up the trail, shrouded in lodgepole pines. I took a deep breath, breathing in this fantastic new frontier.

“ Shall we sing to pass the time Samantha?”

“Why of course, let’s sing one of the old Pioneer songs – like the ones we used to sing when we circled the wagons.” Samantha replied, knowing full well which song we were about to sing.

I cleared my throat, as we started to sing along to the orchestra of quaking aspen leaves and the bubbling brook beside us. “Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked….Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked…”

“Oh Samantha, aren’t we blessed that we have horses to carry us to Zion? Those poor other children that have to walk all those miles. We should be ever so thankful.” Samantha nodded. “Are we there yet?”

Pioneering always seemed to get me into a bit of trouble. Whether it was being late for school, getting us terribly lost in the vast Shoshone National Forest, being treed by a mother moose or the one time when Zion was just around the river bend.

That was a cold, clear spring day. It had just started to thaw, and the snow had melted muddy trails into the pasture below our house. The Tetons were stark white towers against the bluebird sky. It was a breathtaking day. The perfect day … to go to Zion.

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I readied my pioneer team. Jessica, Savanna, Rachael and little Creed- who was just 2 years old. All dressed in their pioneer outfits, standing oldest to youngest in a row in the basement, I looked them over, and smiled approvingly. This will be the best trek yet.

“I know you are scared, since ma and pa went missing with the other wagon train but we will be just fine. I have talked with the Native Americans, and they have given us permission to cross their lands without trouble, so really the only thing we have to worry about is dying from bears, starvation or frostbite.”

Rachael, in all her 4 years, started to sniffle. “Buck up young lady!” I sharply pointed at her. “This is our chance at real freedom, to claim our land out West, and plus we probably will find our parents out there, somewhere.” I sighed dramatically.

I heard our “real” parents upstairs in the kitchen cleaning up breakfast, and knew I had little time to escape with my crew.

“So, here are the rules.” I pulled out the metal handcart from below the deck. “ Savanna, Rachael and Creed in the handcart. No crying or whining. Jess, er, uh Samantha- you help me pull. We can sing without fear of attack, so I think that is our best option to pass the time. It is going to be rough, but we can do it.” I tied Savanna’s bonnet tighter. “ Can I bring Nugget?” She had the orange kitten wrapped in her scarf.

“Of course, but you know she may be bait for the wolves.” I glanced at little Creed huddled against the back of the cart. I placed a wool blanket around him, and realized he was quite small for this type of trek. “Well, we are pioneers, we don’t have a choice.” I thought.

Then I saw the snowmobile helmet hanging on the basement wall. Perfect! Even though it was definitely not from the pioneer era, at least it might protect him from any accidental handcart tips or random attacks from wild beasts. I strapped the helmet over his little cowboy hat, and he struggled uncomfortably. “Shhh. It is going to be fine. Just keep your helmet on.” I shoved a bit of bread into his little hand. “ Just be strong and sing along.” I pulled the helmet shield over his face, as a puddle tears welled in his big blue eyes. “Poor dear, it is always the children that suffer.” I said knowingly.

Samantha (Jessica) pulled the cart out into the yard, to the break in the buck’n rail fence. I glanced to the kitchen window upstairs. Our parents were still talking at the table, playing with baby Sky. Excellent timing! They hadn’t noticed our escape.

The pasture spread in front of us like a vast wild world of adventure. It was hard going, as the tires on the handcart dug deep into the muddy earth. We pulled, and pulled. This was how it should be, terribly hard and discouraging. Getting to Zion shouldn’t be easy. The going was slow, as every step we took plunged our wheels deeper into the mudded ruts.

The morning cold bit at our fingers, but Samantha had been smart enough to grab a pair of ski mittens. I had forgotten mine, so I pulled my dress sleeves over my hands to barrier the cold from the metal handcart handle to my skin. Brrr. This was going to be a cold one. Oh, but to be lost in the freeze, waiting to succumb to the elements, and then magically rescued by a strapping pioneer boy on a painted horse, or better yet a shirtless Native American – now that sounded romantic.

“Savanna dear, could you please start the song?” I grunted as we pulled the cart out of the snow bank and back onto the muddy trail.

Savanna bright voice broke the silence of the team “ Put your shoulder to the wheel push along…do your duty with a heart full of song..

We all joined in, our pioneer chorus, “ We all have work, let no one shirk, put your shoulder to the wheel.” The song seemed to lift everyone’s spirits as we pulled and pulled towards the pasture gates.

Rachael struggled to get out of the cart. “Let me out. I am going home!”

Savanna quickly shoved her down. “ We are going home, our new home. In Zion.”

“I want my maaaaaammaaa!” Rachael started wailing.

“Stop that this instance. Do you want to wake the bears? Lucky for us they are still in hibernation, but with that racket they will surely come looking for their first spring snack. Now just be still, we are almost to the pasture.” I cautioned. Really I was worried that my parents might hear her crying, and then the trek would be over before it even began. “ Eat your bread.”

The pasture gate was closed with a chain, and luckily not locked. Jess, uh, Samantha climbed up the fence to lift the chain that opened the gate to our ultimate escapade. She swung the wooden gate open, and I struggled as fast as I could to pull the cart full of my siblings thru. The ground was harder, it was still frozen and less muddy, so the going was much easier as we passed thru the gates. And there it was, the majestic Buffalo River, snaking thru the pasture like a great silver ribbon, chunks of ice flowing swiftly pass in the spring runoff. I hadn’t told my fellow pioneers, (as I don’t think they would have joined my quest) but Zion lay just across this freezing body of moving water. I saw it over there, the untouched land of red willows and melting snow of the Buffalo Valley. It was so beautiful, there, just across the river. I knew it would be dangerous, but what pioneer didn’t face danger? Yet I knew, the biggest obstacle really was that our parents had forbidden us to go to the river without them, thus the urgency to get there and across the water as fast as possible.

Spring runoff is no joke in the Rocky Mountains, the high mountain snows drain into the valleys below, creating deeper, faster, colder and obviously more dangerous river crossings. Most people wouldn’t dare to cross a river of this size during the runoff, but they evidently weren’t trying so desperately to reach the Promised Land as I was.

Samantha saw the glint in my eye. “Really? We are going to get in so much trouble!”

“ Really Samantha, the trouble lies in the unfaithful. Zion is just across the river and you doubt that we can make it! You should have stayed back East if you weren’t up to the journey!” I rebutted nervously.

The river still laid a football field away from us. Samantha and I stood frozen in fear, not from the river crossing- but the repercussions we may face if we were caught. We had to make it across or our parents would kill us! It was life or death to reach that other bank- we had to hurry, time was not on our side. I quickly glanced back at our warm log home on the hill, the wood stove puffing comforting smoke into the sky. I whispered a quiet prayer that my Dad would not notice that most of the family was missing, and at least I could beat him across the river before he saw us.

“ How about another song dear Savanna? Shall we?” I dug my heels into the frozen dirt to get a good speed up for the pasture crossing. “ Pull dear Samantha, we haven’t much time. The river is growing and the day is closing in on us. We must cross before night fall.” This was really testing the limits, but Creed had a helmet on and everyone could swim besides him. If I took him in case we lost the cart in the river, we should be ok. “Samantha, you are in charge of Rachael, should anything go wrong. Savanna, you stick with me and Creed. Just keep your heads above water, but I think this cart floats anyways.”

“We’re crossing the river!” Screeched Rachael. “NOOOOOOO! I want my mamama!!”

“ Sit down young lady and sing. We cannot go back now, we have come much too far. You better sit down right now or you’re going to tip the cart. Sing dangit.” Samantha and I lunged forward with all our might, getting the handcart up to a nice trotting speed.

Savanna started singing Rachaels’ favorite song, from Guys and Dolls. “Take back your mink, take back your, eh, curlers. What made you think, that I was one of dem girls?”

“Not that song Savanna! Really, sing something more appropriate. Like, um, the song from Paint your Wagon.” I barked. Surely, if we were to have music it must be suitable for our adventure.

And so the choir of little voices started up, and even Creed sang some of the words. “Where we goin’, I dunno. Where we headed, I ain’t certain, all I know is we are on our way. Got a dream boy, got a song- Paint your wagon and come along….”

Now that was an inspiring song! We sang and marched to the beat towards the edge of the pasture. I realized the current had undercut the banks, so we had to choose our entry carefully so we didn’t fall over with the unstable earth into the icy water. A small stream entered the river to my right, hidden by willows, where the banks eased into the waters. That was where we would make the put in. It was hidden from view from the house and the parent’s eye, and the land sloped easily into the deeper part of the river. It was an ideal place to pull the handcart across. “Ness, it is really cold.” Jess ( oops- ) Samantha had dipped her hand into the stream. “We are going to freeze.”

“Nonsense. If we hurry we can beat the hypothermia, I am sure of it.” I threw a rock as hard as I could to see if I could make it across the river. It fell with an unassuming splash barely reaching the middle of the Buffalo River. It was farther across than I thought.

Creed had started crying, big sad whimpers. Rachael was trying to escape the cart, and Savanna was hugging the kitten much too tightly. It was now or never.

“ Come on, where is your pioneer spirit! We are so close, look over there- across the river…keep your eyes on the other side. C’mon Samantha. Pull!!” We jerked the cart towards the stream that flowed outwards from the main river. As my boot touched the water, already my socks were wet with the liquid ice. It was amazingly cold. I had taken only one step into the stream, which at its deepest was maybe a foot, and I could barely feel my ankles. The handcart’s wheels were still safely on firm ground, but Jessica and I were calf deep in the coldest water ever. I watched a large piece of ice hurry down the bloated river and I shivered with terror and cold.

And then I heard it. The booming voice that carried across the pastures and over the willow cover and straight into my soul. Uh oh. “VANESSA!”

Should we make a run for it? Straight into the freezing waterway? Should we hide in the willows. Oh dear, the gig was up, and I was about to face the biggest danger yet. My very VERY mad Dad.

“PULL!” I screamed- plunging deeper into the stream. “We can make it! Sit down and hold on- we’re going in!” I heaved and pulled and shrieked at the piercing waters that lapped at my tights.

“STOP RIGHT THERE.” My dad flew across the pasture it seemed, his long legs barely touching the ground. I collapsed in the stream, my entire body wet now. I couldn’t even feel anything anymore. I was numb and done for. The trek was ruined, and now, I knew I was confined to punishment beyond any pioneers imagination.

My father yanked the cart back from the river, grabbing Creed and Rachel in one swoop. His face was distorted with a mix of fear and fury.

I started sobbing, bawling, whaling my indescribable tears. “ At least Creed was wearing a helmet.”

“Jessica, you take the kids to the house.” My father demanded in a tone so loud it felt like thunder.

My father stared down at me, his rage steaming in the frigid morning. I lay in a puddle in the frozen stream, praying that I might be washed away, to that enchanted land, called Zion.

And that, my fellow pioneers, is the worst trouble I have ever been in.

Even though I was grounded for a while, eons really to a pioneer woman like me, I was not deterred from endeavoring to find a promised land. Spring break came to a sad end, so my dreams of finding Zion never came to fruition, and school only meant that there were still 2 more long months until Summer.

But I did love school. We went to Moran School, right at the entrance to the Grand Teton National Park and the south entrance to Yellowstone. It was a 2-room schoolhouse next to the ranger station and the post office. A little brown building in the middle of nowhere, yet filled with more creativity and love then I have found at any school anywhere. 20 kids from kindergarten to 6th grade – filled with farmers, ranchers, Park rangers kids, and the occasional Wyoming hippie love child. What school really meant, was I got to see my friends, the best friends a girl could imagine.

My class consisted of 5 girls. Meadow, Kenzie, Katie, Jimmi and myself. We were commonly known as “The Moran Girls”. Since 2nd grade we had the same amazing teacher, Mrs. Tucker. She was a gutsy, round woman, who took education and fun seriously. We were her girls. There was no one in the grade above us or the grade below us, so we were the sophisticated, upperclass 5th graders that all the other 15 kids in the school looked up to. She taught us about Fibonacci numbers, let us move our desks into the sagebrush to have school outside, where we had an imaginary sage home. We only feared when she said she would get so frustrated with us that smoke would come out her ears.

This was the year we all looked forwards to. The year we got to go to the Teton Science School, a place for education in nature. We would get a way from our families for about a week, and stay with kids from town! It seemed so exotic and wonderful. No parents, new boys, and a school completely conducted outside.

This was the dream childhood, a school that loved the outdoors and teachers that loved teaching. So in return, we loved learning.

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I believe in love at first sight.

It’s not the kind that you see with your eyes. I believe in the love that you KNOW when you make a decision as your heart and your head hold together tight and the moment just seems right. Even in a split second. I make all my biggest decisions that way, as irresponsible as it may seem to others, most of the time it has worked out for me, in the best of ways. I don’t overthink, I go with that first, dizzying, electrical burst of love. I have often asked myself… what is the meaning of life? This sometimes crazy, often tedious, frustrating and beautiful time on this planet. What does it mean?

I believe it’s leaping wholeheartedly into magical tapestry of experiences woven together with love, pain, nature, creativity, adventure, grief and laughter.

My memories are dedicated to my family, the ones who held me up, and always gave me happy thoughts. And to the future, may we not disappoint you. May my wanderings give you hope, wonder, a zest to live and learn more about this world we share.

One of my favorites poems :

Here’s an example from

A Butterfly;

That on a rough, hard rock

Happy can lie;

Friendless and all alone

On this unsweetened stone.

Now let my bed be hard

No care take I;

I’ll make my joy like this

Small Butterfly;

Whose happy heart has power

To make a stone a flower.

-William Henry Davies

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“CUT!” the director yelled from across the frozen ice, her face set as if I’d committed some crime against humanity. “You are acting so… so… so underwhelmed!” She stomped heavily in the deep snow, her frustration punching through the crust.

I stuttered. I stood in shock—not from the below-freezing cold that had pierced every extremity and left my fingers numb, and not from the fact that I was balancing on a precipice overlooking a river where one wrong inch would send me falling a hundred feet to break through solid water and rush downstream under the ice.

I was in true, soul-shaking shock.

Had I truly become one of them? The person who walks past life, not noticing, not caring—not thinking, and definitely not being? Had I come to this? Where I could actually not see—or worse, not be—where I was? Had the world, the internet, digital life, Facebook, Instagram, the constant travel, the mass of information at my fingertips—had all of this made me hard and forgetful? Had I really become one of them?

One of the… underwhelmed?

I looked to the curious angles of the roof that slanted up ever so slightly at the edges, as if the building were smiling at my state. Steam clouds billowed from the rocky pools of the hot springs where soft falling snow found a resting place on the wet fur of Japanese snow monkeys. A rambunctious little monkey splashed water over the motionless elders who sat like monks in the hot waters. An angry slap from his mother sent him sulking into time-out in the corner of the pool. Tree limbs clawed out with icy fingertips toward the tiny sliver of sun as it peeked behind the grey-filled sky. A bird with a red wing flapped the only bright color from the frozen scene.

I stood in silence as the film crew busied themselves with gear for another shot.

I would not be that person. I would remember.

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That moment in Japan—filming for a wildlife series, standing in a landscape that should have left me speechless—became a hinge in my life. Not because the director was cruel (she was doing her job), and not because snow monkeys in hot springs aren’t already one of the most photographed miracles on Earth. It became a hinge because she named something I had been quietly afraid of: that wonder can go dull if you let the noise of modern life sandpaper it away.

I grew up on a dude ranch in Wyoming, on the outskirts of Yellowstone, where moose and coyotes and eagles were ordinary neighbors. Wonder wasn’t a vacation mood for me as a child. It was breakfast. Horses in the corrals. Wildflowers pressed into journals. A Great Aspen that, if you hugged it hard enough, might whisper a secret. My sister Jessica and I rode out in prairie dresses toward an imaginary Zion. My horse Moondancer—half unicorn, with a white moon on his forehead—was my partner in crime.

So how does a ranch kid who could talk to animals end up on a frozen Japanese hillside, being told she looks underwhelmed?

The honest answer is that adulthood is sneaky. Cameras, flights, deadlines, feeds refreshing in your pocket—you can stand in front of magic and still be somewhere else in your head. You can film wonder without receiving it. You can become a tourist in your own senses.

That day I made a private vow, and I’ve been renewing it ever since: I will war on the underwhelmed. I will notice the red wing. I will watch the monkey splash the elders. I will let steam and snow and icy branches rearrange me. I will not outsource my awe to a screen that already decided what I should feel.

This Substack—A Mother’s Earth—is part of that vow. Over the next weeks I’ll share stories from a life spent searching for home across Wyoming, Kenya, Borneo, Costa Rica, Panama, and Montana: childhood pioneer disasters, first elephants, a ranch we lost, a coconut wedding, an orangutan’s tiny fist around my finger, and a fairy safari with my son. Some pieces will make you laugh. Some will sit quiet in your chest. All of them are invitations to stay awake.

Because the planet keeps offering miracles. The only question is whether we’re still soft enough to receive them.

If this landed somewhere true for you, you’re welcome here. Subscribe to follow the series—new stories each week as I walk the long way home on Planet Earth.

Thank you for reading A Mother's Earth. A new chapter arrives every Sunday at 8 AM MT.

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P.S. When was the last time something in nature stopped you in your tracks? Leave a comment or hit reply. I read every one.

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