It’s been a busy month of travel, immersions into rugged landscapes, teaching and transition and it’s finally winding down to a slower pace. I have a lot to process, a lot of inspiration to follow and tend to, and I’m excited for whenever some of those things can be shared here. I’ll be doing pottery the next month, and working on some writing projects, organizing data from the Green River trip I just did with 8 other folks, teaching a field ecology class (there’s still room), fixing more things on my truck, renewing my passport, and fixing my water pump on my airstream which broke in a cold spell recently.
My Ford truck from the late 90’s slowly trudged up high mountain passes in northern Arizona going 40 mph, overdrive shifting on when hitting the apex, then down, up and down. Passing miles of Ponderosa Pine forests, Piñon Pine and Juniper woodlands, rolling hills of eroding dusty badlands with ‘no more uranium mining’ signs on the Navajo reservation, abandoned gas stations, tumbleweeds that float into my tires and get stuck in the greasy metal. High winds, the wide open, hogans and tires of doublewides. Red rock emerges more frequently and then more grandiose, the landforms creation stories begin from, as we got closer to the four corners region where we landed the first evening going back north. A friend was caravaning with me, following behind me with my airstream trailer in tow. We left from Arizona outside of Phoenix where I housed my trailer half the winter at a friend’s place, while I came and went to Mexico, New Mexico for trips. We were headed north back to where the Rockies meet the Canyonlands. Trailering these days brings me a lot of anxiety- I have invested all my savings in my trailer to make a space to live, and the trailer too holds a lot of past grief and lost dreams, loneliness and unwanted solitude. As well as pieces of the lands I connect to, walnut, Douglas Fir, Pecan, Oak. Every little project inside, just like the map of the natural work ‘outside’ paints a map in my body, and I feel and see into every moment each world that was created. The hopes, the frustration, the mystery, the stress and the creative joy. I’ve spent more time in this trailer crying than loving and feeling loved — but I certainly have had moments where the love and togetherness is present in the space, and I revel in it, savoring every ounce of beautiful company to share something I created. I’ve had sleepovers in the space with 4 friends finding nooks to shelter up. I’ve made my table a place to make jewelry with my friend, where we shared tools and materials. I’ve had lovers hanging with me by the fire, albeit brief and fleeting encounters. When traveling, I shared it with my friend so we could make lunch, do dishes, take naps and breaks. It gives me anxiety too though because I fear something happening to it and destroying the time and work to create a sanctuary — one the mice and packrats have finally found their way in after years of keeping them out— and I lose it all. I’ve got insurance- but would they actually cover the damages, and if they found out I put in a wood stove so I can heat off grid, what would they think? Rvs and insurance companies and wood heat don’t match up these days. The clashing of worlds, the classism, the modern standards meets a way living closer to the elements. Traveling with someone eases my anxieties. I traveled alone for years, and it was both freeing and nerve-wracking. Some of my most amazing experiences came from this solo time, the spontaneity, the random encounters, the breakdowns and curious explorations. The freedom to be a stranger. At that time I traveled with a slide in camper, and my truck didn’t break down very much.
My truck broke down 5 times this past fall. Glow plug harness, then my transmission cooler line split, my starter went twice, then the fuse box that might be communicating weird to my starter, my oil cooler, my thermostat, my radiator hose got hit by my serpentine belt and almost did twice, flushing the radiator full of oil only to have it with oil mixed again. Then in New Mexico, my leaf springs broke on a crappy back road to one of my favorite places I go every spring. Another 1400$ down the drain just for the leaf springs, and now the rig sits six inches higher. My truck has left me in remote places, and yet got me to remote places where few go. I am in a position where I can’t afford a new one, and the old one won’t sell for much despite a new transmission, and tons of maintenance. But my truck is my lifeline, and for years when I lived on the road more, it was my sole home- the only consistent thing I had, my slide in from the late 1960’s I had on the back was my safe space to hide from strangers, noise, wind or busy parking lots. I know this thing well, though I know I need a change so I don’t have to worry so much about breaking down all the time whether I stay in a smaller circle or larger one.
We pull into the four corners region, camp at a friend’s place who has been tending to grief for a year now since their partner tragically passed away, right in a valley that once I first explored with someone I loved where we scouted for feral fruit orchards woven in thick clonal Gambel Oak groves. I was told stories of spirits in the cave dwellings. The vandalization by students at the college. Pothunters taking things to sell. But before all that, I came to the area for years solo, for an herbalism conference where I was shown Pulsatilla by a lake from a queer herbalist I used to know in North Carolina who was attending the conference. Pulsatilla is flowering right now all over and one of my favorite plants. I camped at a road near the beginning of the Colorado trail then in the Pine forests and knew no one in town then. I had no concept of the vastness of the canyons just hidden out of sight, the cliff dwellings that dot this landscape to the south and the northwest, the history of trade, farming and conflict, the enormous San Juans which I later walked across. I had no idea. I also had no idea I would come to call the place home for awhile, and become infinitely fascinated by its ethnobotany and history, that I would have my heart broken in such a place, pulled into its mystery, to then be spit out, where I have to slowly crawl back in my own way, to the Lomatium dissectum patches at lower elevation in the rocks, the Camas bulbs planted probably flowering in the tiny openings, the variety of Biscuitroots on the hills right by town totally unknown to most who spin around in busy-ness, the abused Animas River. I sat by these solo journeys, fascinated. I biked along this river with an old love gathering cultivated fruit, Shepherdia fruit for putting up. I cried by the river because of how it broke my heart, in the middle of frozen winter after teaching online in the parking lot next to it. Drinking a hard cider by her shores after 6 months of rarely drinking praying I could have a good relationship with alcohol that is sacred and medicinal not poison and rafters float by with bass music and whisky shots acting wreckless. Slowly, crawling back. In my own way, in my own time, even if just driving through and saying hi to the roots and the river.
Another friend drives from Texas late into the night and arrives to meet us, to caravan forward from there, in togetherness. We wake up from our tired den, my friend on my guest bed, me on the back bed, to see her awake and walking around in the grass, and have coffee in my space piled with sheepskins to the ceiling, in the mysterious canyon, all together. It was brisk compared to the Sonoran desert as a cold front was coming. For a moment I smelled the place and remembered, I looked out at sunrise for the golden light and frost. I saw old trees, some I recognize. the shadows in the cracks of the rock. This valley also holds a bad memory, where in the night I wandered frantically alone in this field I had once planted, after asking my partner at the time if they were ok when they woke from a stomach ache while we slept in a friend’s bell tent across the road, to being yelled at for asking, for caring, for moving the wrong way. The bad memory comes up here too. Wishing I could be there for my past self, and tell them that their love was good, and enough, and special and that simply asking someone if they were ok when they were feeling bad, was not wrong. At one time I poured my love freely, into care, touch and concern. Now I’m having to rewire and remind myself that I will be able to do that again without being punished for doing it wrong. But this time the valley makes a new memory. I’m here with people who don’t treat me that way. Remembering this reminds me to vow to protect my spirit, to keep trying to have good boundaries, to remember the actions not the words that try to convince you later it wasn’t that bad or that it didn’t happen.
We take off to go through the mountains before the snow storm hits. I’m told I better not try Red Mountain Pass with a trailer this time of year, or ever with a trailer, and I decide to go the long way to the next pass, which is not as intense. We stop in Dolores at a vintage thrift store, find a stuffed animal raccoon for my friend who is fond of raccoons and we name it ‘Creature’. I find a little red trunk that snaps shut, to store my little things in. Right now It hold a buckskin sewing project, some unfinished dogbane cordage, a handmade book, and felted pouches. Containers for other containers is important. My friend had never been in Colorado, and I was excited for him to see these mountains. We got over the pass, into the snow, in gear on the hills down, while 20 cars pile behind me probably annoyed, slow and steady. I take my time, I creep up and down, through thin air. It wasn’t snowing yet, thankfully, or this would be a terrible idea. I remember spinning out on one of these passes once. I remember another bad memory of being yelled at in the night in Dolores for accidentally showing affection the wrong way in the night, where I was kept up all night begging someone while crying to be kind to me. At an airbnb, that was supposed to be a nice evening. I slept in the middle of winter in my car that night, as it snowed outside little flakes. A flash. My body memory. A deep breath. My heart aches for my self then, wanting to hold her and rock her to sleep telling her it will be ok and that my love is enough. I walked across these mountains once. I’ve seen them outside the car and the machinery, the fast pace zipping through. They are rugged and unpredictable, commanding presence and patience. They melted me a little and re-formed me. They are full of tiny biscuitroots, pygmy bitterroots, alpine miner’s lettuce, way up there. They wave at me going by, wondering when I will venture up there again on foot to say hello. You can’t just come see us like that and never visit again, they say. I tell them in passing prayer— It’s not that simple. It hurts my heart to come back and visit with my feet, but I will one day.
We land at Orvis Hot Springs to take a break after the pass, and then realize we are exhausted after we slump into hot pools. We stay overnight, my friends sleeping in my trailer with me, in little nests with the propane heater on all night, to wake to a white out snowstorm and my flywheel sounding weird engaging my starter when I go to try to start my truck. Its hard for me to stay fully calm. How the heck do we all manage driving every day, and putting out nervous systems through the speed, the thinking quick, the close calls constantly, and be ok? I try to be brave, I cry a lot in the first part of the drive, and then calm down. We looked at the radar and saw that once we get out of the mountains the roads were good. The snow clears as we move out of the mountains, I feel a heaviness coming back as we inch towards the west elk mountains. Not an excitement, but a heaviness. It still feels like winter here, winter where I felt starved for companionship, winter after winter even beyond this place. But, like the seasons, and the growth of slow moving trees, everything changes always, and these feelings felt don’t have to be permanent states. Maybe my loneliness is from my own doing, burning bridges or breaking trust from oversharing not always realizing it, or maybe I overshared more because of my loneliness?
I pulled the Rabbit tarot card, which said ‘Be careful, you can become that which you fear if you let fear rule your life. Do not fear what has not yet happened’
We take off in the snow and get down to lower elevation. We are on a schedule because we we about to meet up with our friends to go on a river trip on the Green River, a couple of us had been planning this project for months, and invited like minded friends who we thought would agree with the mission. This was the transition moment, the going between worlds, where the movement was comfortable and yet stressful, familiar going through familiar places, but not staying long enough to let the feelings settle in. I realize traveling, that I’ve gotten used to that in-between for so long, and find comfort in the impressions of worlds I don’t fully belong in, seeing them and being curious, wondering what its like to inhabit, and yet, I get out and smell, taste, and feel for moments, they mean something in the end.
I move into the adobes, full of sagebrush and salt tolerant plants, and back into the valley I have tried to home base in for a few years now out of a desperate need for consistency. I haven’t found a place where I am welcome to live in community and take up space here exactly, instead I’ve bopped around land bases wondering if I am even welcome to stay or wondering why I am here, since the original reasons have dissipated. Other formerly nomad friends of mine have expressed that they too sometimes get in their heads about these things- connecting quick and deep and then never seeing folks again. Never knowing if you've stayed too long visiting and moving along feels more comfortable. Visiting easier is staying and living. And yet, the mountains are beautiful. The Cottonwoods are about to burst, though I saw the ones in southern New Mexico burst already. It’s cold, weathery. We back my trailer into a nook right on the river, the North Fork of the Gunnison, where I can see the water moving out of my kitchen window. Ok fine, this will work for now, I will watch the river for awhile.
Such a tender and vulnerable journey, Kelly. Thank you for bringing us along with you. Blessings and much peace as you return to the North Fork Valley. May your roots find good soil to grow and nourish you, and may you find the warmth of community to welcome you!