Photo by Ronny Rose, www.ronnyrose.com
My boyfriend, Chadley, and I left Boston with our dog Ziggy and all of the belongings we could fit into our small Hyundai Sonata on the morning of January 1st. It was cold, and we had been up until the wee hours of the morning going through what items to take and leave behind, packing, unpacking and repacking the car, and, finally, cleaning the apartment before the new tenants arrived. At around 2 AM I sat on the floor in the living room surrounded by piles of clothes crying over having to leave all those vintage dresses, fringe boots, sunglasses and sweaters behind. Growing up with a mom in the fashion business, I always loved clothes. They reminded me of special times in my life, and I enjoyed collecting unique pieces whenever I traveled. But I had no use for the majority of my wardrobe where we were going, to a wolf sanctuary in New Mexico where I would maybe get away with wearing a dress on my day off. It’s funny now to look back at how despondent I was over those clothes (and there were more than one pair of fringe boots that really were amazing), but at the time it was like ripping a band-aid off a fresh wound. These were the things in my city life that made me feel like me.
This was just one small part of letting go that I experienced over the time Chadley and I eagerly accepted positions as the Program Director and Event Coordinator at Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, and when we actually arrived at our new tiny home, 7500+ feet above sea level in the mountainous high desert of the southwest where we live mostly off the grid.
Since volunteering at Wild Spirit, I had always dreamed of returning, but hadn’t found the right timing, the right way to contribute, or, most importantly, the courage. There was part of me that always felt like wanting to return to my life with wolves was like wanting to run away from the ‘real world.’ In fact, I was told this by any number of people. Yet, I knew that my time there felt more real and rich than any other experience I had in the so called ‘real world.’ Living at Wild Spirit brought me into the wild for the first time, when before that, I was a city girl through and through. So much so that the wilderness scared me.
The reason for my volunteering at Wild Spirit six years ago was to learn more about wolves, the nature of man, and our relationship with the wild for my novel, The Nature We Become, excerpts of which are being featured on this website as the novel is being finished. What that title and the book means to me, in a nutshell, is that nature (and people and animals) all evolve over time. Who we are and what we are becoming is in constant evolution. But how do we play a role in that destiny, and conversely, if we go where the tide takes us, where we will end up? In exploring the evolving nature of each of my characters, I have come to ask myself these very questions, because how can I talk the talk if I don’t walk the walk?
Having always identified as an artist and a writer, I found myself really struggling throughout my 20’s to balance my work/life/art priorities (which came down to that order). Graduating from a liberal arts school with a degree in writing in an age where print media was becoming obsolete and writers, though valued, were being paid even less for their work (if at all), I felt an impetus to “get a real job” out of the fear of not being able to get by on my art. Always pursuing jobs that fulfilled some part of my civic mindedness, I wound up working with a number of great people and organizations during my time in Boston, making life long friends and learning from fabulous mentors.
My last job in Boston was a great one at the New England Board of Higher Education, where over a four year period I developed from a part time assistant into a full time project coordinator, helping to run a curriculum and professional development program for high school and college instructors that focused on connecting industry with education to make learning real. I sincerely enjoyed my job, was proud to be a part of a movement of educational change, and loved my colleagues. I traveled nationally, worked with a community of educators who were truly inspiring, the results of which were tangible, with new and exciting opportunities being presented all the time.
And yet, a question in my mind always persisted: when would I allow myself to do what I really wanted to do? My art, my idealist, my rebel, these pieces of myself that in my early twenties were uncompromising seemed to have been trampled by routine, promise, comfort, stability, and fear of loss. What would I be without my professional trajectory? Would leaving my career ruin my future prospects forever? These mantras, and the one that always told me I would finish my book later, that I would go back to the wild later, repeated for years. But when would ‘later’ be?
I would often think about getting back to walking my walk, and how my current situation, despite how much I enjoyed it, was not something I chose, but what I fell into. What simply was. In this way, I couldn’t help but feel like I had stopped tending to who I really was. My wheels were turning. Under the surface I was ready for a change, though the time didn’t feel right. Alternatively, I knew that waiting for the “right time” was just another one of my fear mantras.
So that September, Chadley and I visited Wild Spirit together for the first time. It was a trip I had always wanted to make with him, and one that I will forever treasure. On one of the last days of our epic vacation (we also visited the Petrified Forest, Painted Desert, Lowell Observatory and the Grand Canyon), we sat down for a conversation with Wild Spirit’s Executive Director to discuss the potential of returning for a stint of part-time volunteering – in the nebulous future – that would afford us space and time to work on our art. This was really a pipe dream for me, and one that I wasn’t even sure my man was very gung-ho about. It turned out that the Sanctuary had just acquired a Lodge and Retreat Center with the help of some wonderful and dedicated donors and was looking to add some new members to the team. It was the right time after all, and by the end of the conversation we were offered seriously awesome brand new staff positions that would begin in the new year. We left for Boston the next day with our minds already made up, though we forced ourselves not to talk about it until we got home.
Once we accepted, there was all the planning and relinquishing that had to be done surrounding leaving our city, loved ones, jobs, social lives, the majority of our things, and the conveniences of city life (including flushing toilets, frequent showers, and 24 hour stores) behind. All of this was both exhilarating and terrifying. I knew there would be people in my life who wouldn’t understand, who would disapprove, feeling disappointed, hurt and even angry, and I feared these reactions from my loved ones that I had built up in my mind. Would my boss and colleagues feel they wasted their time on me? Would my family think I was running away? Would I lose touch with my friends?
In reality, the world was happy for us, even those for whom the decision was difficult to accept. Though my friends, family, and colleagues would miss me, they were happy that I was pursuing my dream. With my loved ones support I realized all of my anxiety around what they would think of my decision, of me, was just another lesson in letting go.
As we prepared to drive across the country leaving our lives behind, I felt continuously assured and inspired by friends and mentors who had walked a similar path, closing one door to open another, facing the necessity of change even when it was unpopular, challenging, or abrupt. What their stories told me was that altering my course would never get easier or more possible than right now, that my life needed me to walk my walk. And now that we are here, I know that all I did – my work, my time in Boston, the reasons I stayed, those I met and how I spent my time – led me back to the place I chose to be, and that in return chose me. When you follow your heart, I have learned, nothing can be taken away from you.