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Introducing Nurtured by Nature

Today’s accompanying tune: “Rivers and Roads” by The Head and The Heart

For two days, I drove the length of California. I opted to stay along its spine, so close to its eastern border that I wandered into Nevada more than once. The Joshua trees faded early as I dropped in elevation. I whispered my goodbyes along the state highway that served as one of three ways out of the town I had called home. I followed the granite towers of the Sierra Nevada; Oliver took his first bathroom break in the shadow of the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States. Moments later, leaving Independence, California, we saw the band of wild horses.

I almost missed them, so habituated I had become to an equine presence after driving through the ranching towns along U.S. 395. But this herd, with its impressive size and ragtag appearance, was different. One horse, in particular, had a face unlike any domestic horse I’d ever seen. There were paints and duns and one horse with a face that can only be accurately described as ancient, as from a line of creatures that stretches so very far back in time. They were there, outside of a town that counts only a few hundred people as residents in the shadow of a great mountain range and down the road from one of the country’s embalmed internment camps, making easy a search that had eluded me for years. I had the overwhelming sense that they had come to send me off, to give me one last piece of the state that had claimed the better part of my last decade. Waving me off from the docks, handkerchiefs of dried grass and dirty manes blowing in the wind.

I don’t believe in starting over, in starting a new life, in turning a fresh page. It is not how life works, to erase all that came before and leave the present moment untouched. We are all products of our choices, our fears, our decisions big and small. To take that route back from work. To cook that for dinner. To adopt that dog. To buy that car. Together, they add up to a life, or at least something resembling one. I prefer to think in chapters, one after the next. There is a break, a breath, a pause. A moment to collect ourselves, with all that we’ve learned held closely and thoughtfully, coloring our perspective as we start the next chapter. It is not often that you can crack a book’s spine down the middle and begin, with fresh eyes, somewhere in the course of a story and leave it feeling fulfilled. Nor is it satisfying to read the first 50 pages of several unrelated books without knowing how the story ends. There is a reason we think in narrative, in stories. It mimics the progression of our lives in a way that “starting over” can never achieve.

Which brings me to Nurtured by Nature, the new name of this newsletter. Our new chapter together. After leaving the desert, it felt like The Hi-Desert Dispatch had run its course. I’ve written previously about the decision to wind down the local news portion of the newsletter, and I remain optimistic that the Morongo Basin community is in much better hands now than it was when I landed there. The archive remains online and accessible, and I would be remiss to think that the essays I wrote weren’t relevant simply because I changed ZIP codes. Sure, they are covered in a bit more dust and sunscreen, but the dirty work of building a community are as important as ever as I downsize towns and upsize my commitment to it.

When I left my corporate job in 2023, my “reach” goal was to write a book. I’d played around with topics, narratives, characters. What I felt I could contribute to the world, what stories I alone could tell, what lessons I could share. I wrote the first 50 pages and shopped it around to agents and publicists. It quickly hit a dead end, fizzling in the heat of the daylight when it had so flourished in my mind. A key idea for the idea I ultimately settled on was chapters that oscillated between nature and nurture, highlighting the ways in which the two forces had shaped my life. As I thought about what I wanted this newsletter to do next, which chapter I wanted to begin, I thought of the book. Of its future. Of mine.

This time, I am exposing these thoughts, these essays, these general meanderings, to the sun earlier on in their lives. To let you all in as I explore how these forces have shaped me and continue to do so as I embark on a new chapter in life in the soft greenery of the Pacific Northwest.

I knew my book lived in the little blue house tucked away in the forest the moment I saw it. Knew my book lived somewhere on its 20 acres, among the garden and the sun-drenched deck. Knew it would hole up in the office covered in bookshelves and wood ceilings. Knew it would curl up by the wood stove, huddling with the dogs on the coldest, darkest days. Its presence was everywhere, hanging in the air damp with mist. It was never one for harshness, for the rough sand and rougher sun. It never appreciated the grate of the rock against skin or the spiny edges of the cactus. It learned from those things, sure. But it was only ever visiting. It was never truly at home.

I’m eager to find it, to make myself at home in its home. To bring you with me so that we can learn this new path together. To explore the elk trails and winding creek beds and mountain passes. Come rain, come sun, come wind. We will make it onto the next chapter. The ending of the last chapter so sweet, so poignant, so perfect, as to only force the question of what comes next.

Here’s to kicking off the next chapter together.

- Megan