Hello from extremely charming Bozeman, Montana– and my 4th month of 2020 living as a nomad.

Someone introduced me to Townes Van Zandt recently and I’ve fallen into that particularly rare and soothing kind of understanding only a great song can provide. This time its his “I’ll Be Here In The Morning” and the lyrics “I’d like to lean into the wind and tell myself I’m free”. He continues however to describe all that waits for him at home, those precious reasons that make a person chose to be anything other than free.

If you’re here, you know that the quantity of freedom is something that intrigues me endlessly. When I moved out to Wyoming from Chicago, it was for the feeling of freedom, being free. Then driving over the mountains this January with Wyoming in the rear view, I was chasing the idea of freedom again.

And in some respects, I found it. My three months in California were wild and uncharted. I think about it being one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life. Especially as I seized what has proven to be a very fleeting window– with the state of the world today under this pandemic. I literally pulled back into Jackson just as we were given an order to shelter in place. And while many folks are taking to road trips now, I still feel great fortune for the particular freedom those months held for me. I know that leaving today I would harbor a level of hesitation that was gloriously absent as I drove up and down an entire coastline and rested my head in a million places. I feel proud of having been able to trust my intuition that those exact months were THE time for this trip. It felt not optional because, as it turns out, it wasn’t.

Returning back to Jackson then I felt fulfilled by my journey and like I was arriving home. And, even more, I felt a sense of something that’s alluded me for the entirety of my three years out here– and that’s that “people” seem to finally “understand” why I live in Wyoming. As I settled back into my small town life and its many moments out in nature or nestled up in a cabin, the rest of the world followed in its own capacities. Once, living in Wyoming had seemed to the vast majority of people in my life a very hard choice to understand. I had to weather a lot of assumptions about why I would ever do something like this, many negative. And while I don’t seek to govern my life on other’s validations, I have to admit its felt pretty great for everybody from all different chapters of my life to finally get the advantages of this path I’ve chosen for myself.

But the dance continues– as Townes describes– between the home you make and the rustle of the wind sweeping through. Thus here I am in Bozeman, on yet another month of this nomad life. I feel the appreciation for being able to do this, for there being so many places a person can hop in a Subaru, drive to, and belong. But I feel too the growing significance of a home. Of holding generous assurance that all your things and all your people are already around you. I know I still have a ways to go to making Jackson fit that definition and feel something truly all encompassing and supportive. But I do already believe in the fullness of a home. And of people and connections and opportunities special enough to warrant Townes’s lyrical promise– to just open his eyes every morning and be present for them all.

So Bozeman, our time together spans out in welcome and exciting ways. I’m going to lean into the wind of this time and see what all it brings me. But I’ll also hold the dual intention of continuing to build my sacred little home.

Moment of Gratitude: And know that, like always, our soul’s purest realizations come amidst all the truths.