I was 24 years old when I decided to leave the only home I’d known, traveling clear across the country to my own parts unknown, and move to the Pacific Northwest.  Literally.  I had never traveled any farther west than New Mexico.  My husband had, as a child, bounced back and forth between Texas and Oregon after his parents divorced and had always felt torn between the two states.  We met when he moved back to Texas to live with his mom in the tiny Texas town I’d lived in my entire life.  We met as juniors in high school and married one year after graduation.  All I had heard from him, since that moment, was how ugly Texas was and how gorgeous it was in Oregon.  We had been married for 5 years when he posed the question, “How would you feel about moving to Oregon?  Seriously.”  …HA!  Serious, indeed.  I had no intentions of leaving Texas.  I loved Texas.  I was a southern born, southern bred, country girl with classic southern pride.  Hell no, I wasn’t leaving.  And how dare he call my home “ugly.”  Clearly, he didn’t understand Texas Pride, or the Rite of Passage known as Texas History.  Bless his heart.  But to appease my husband, I answered with guarded honesty, “I’ll think about it.”

Not a month later, I was doing a blood drive for the American Red Cross, where I had been working as a phlebotomist.  I stood in the corner of the appointed TxDOT location, with my donor hooked up to his pint bag, looking up at a poster on the wall.  On that poster was some of the most gorgeous waterfalls I had ever seen. Green. Lush. Crystal clear water. Ferns. Beauty. Extraordinary.  I remember thinking to myself that those waterfalls were probably somewhere in Ireland and that I would probably never get to see them in my lifetime. Then I looked down at the bottom of the poster. “Proxy Falls – Three Sisters Wilderness – Willamette National Forest, Oregon”.

I’m moving to Oregon…

Funny thing about those falls.  It took me seven years after moving here to hike that trail. We moved to Oregon in June 2003 just a few short months after my life-changing moment with that poster and it took us a while…  okay, me – it took me a while… to get acclimated to the lifestyle that Oregon had to offer.  It was worth every second of the wait. Standing under those falls, everything that had led up to that moment felt completely validated. It was my first dirt therapy experience, though I didn’t really know what that meant yet. All I knew was that I was right where I was supposed to be right when I was supposed to be there.

I think about that poster pretty often.  That was 15 years and many adventures ago; Ooooh and so many more to go.   Dirt therapy has been a vital part of my life since then and I’m excited to finally share what it could mean.  It ever evolves depending on what I need it for – but it’s always there, waiting for me.

‘Scuse me, y’all – I have to unplug.

Peace, Love & Dirt