barnyard animal noises in the woods of Yosemite.

Summer of '06: Tequila Wednesday.

ANNOUNCEMENT: For the next eight weeks, I’m writing essays of Summer. Summer of now, Summer of yore, dark and bright Summers. Summer! These essays will all be paywalled at some point in the post, for a couple reasons:

1. I’m getting better at writing! (it’s a muscle… I write and publish a personal essay each week.) I’m a writer. This is (at least a part of) what I do for a living.

2. It’s time. So many of you are reading and supporting and enjoying and I am so grateful for you. (especially you.) But some of you are just watching. And that’s creepy. You don’t have to be here, if you don’t want. It’s okay!

I might go back to a free-for-all after Summer. Or I might not. We’ll see how I like this little VIP area. And hay! Consider throwing in some money for the cause. xxo.

In early Summer of 2006, I drove from Georgetown, Texas, to Yosemite National Park to work between my junior and senior year of college in Yosemite Valley. I went out with a friend from college, who was also working in the park. When we weren’t playing Phantom Planet on repeat one of these two bricks…

We were playing mix CDs from boys I wouldn’t kiss or real CDs my dad gave me. There was this one super weird CD that my dad gave me a couple years ago that INSISTED I listen to. I never listened to my dad, so I rarely listened to this CD. It was in this thick, white casing that had decorations on it that were raised up. I loved the packaging and I loved that this was a former Beach Boy (my 10-year-old self swooned), but the farm animal noises embarrassed me.

I included it in the stack, just because. I tried to listen to it once on the multi-day drive to Yosemite, but didn’t make it through the entirety, because I got embarrassed in front of my passenger. I’m sure I put The Shins on instead.

Yosemite was the first time in my life that I was outside of a comfort zone. Until 2006, I had put myself in super Christian situations. Summer camps I was a counselor at. The Bible college I went to, 20 minutes from my home. The friend groups I would adventure with. All of these were the safe places I put myself in, because I needed that in my life. I was 21 and now I live in a tent in a community called the Terrace with a bunch of other 20-somethings from all over the country.

Cat was my friend I made at my job at the taco stand. She was short and had this wild, curly dirty blonde hair. Cat and I laughed about how different our dark green standard-issue polos fit each of us. We giggled as we gave away thousands of dollars of free food to cute boys and our friends—on our boss’ orders. He would say, “We help out our friends!”

This time in Yosemite was magic. Smartphones weren’t yet a thing and even our flip phones didn’t get service. If we wanted to get on the internet, we had to take a seven pound laptop to a mobile home that was the “staff lounge” and wait for the shittiest wifi you’ve ever surfed in your life. It was actually a dream. We all made food in the same kitchen. We had a boombox with a CD player that we would put mixes in. We had one-song dance parties. We read books. When we found a poem or a passage we really liked, we read it out loud to each other. It was the best. The world was opening up to me.

I was in Yosemite, because I loved climbing, but I was also there because I loved Jesus. I was a part of a fellowship called Crossway. Crossway wasn’t super, super Jesus-y. We weren’t allowed to drink. We weren’t allowed to room with our boyfriend or girlfriend. (spoiler: not a problem for me! shocker: I was a virgin!) We met once a week and talked about Bible passages and living our best Christian lives. Pastor Steve would give us updates on the “God Talks” that he had had that week and encouraged us to have our own God Talks with people in the Valley.