I keep ending up in Utah
Standing on the steps of the capitol building in Salt Lake City, I feel inspired by the city again.
Teens speak about their future- how the fear of the lake drying up keeps them up at night- and Indigenous leaders invite us to call it what it is- our sacred lake. Our home, our nourishment, our sacred lake. It’s the rally for the Great Salt Lake, and everyone is chanting together, something that always makes me tear up. Cheeky signs remind us that brine shrimp are important and that our time is running out.
I’ve spent the better part of three years trying to leave Salt Lake City, escape it’s toxic air, horrific politics (Mike Lee still holds office, in case you didn’t want to sleep tonight). I’ve moved to New Hampshire, spent more than a year bouncing around the country and the world, left to hike the PCT, and then the AT. But here I stand, on the precipice of returning again.
Every time I leave Salt Lake, I also get to leave what feels like a past version of myself. I’m no longer the black-and-white thinking post-undergrad that moved to the slightly bigger city, nor am I the straight-out-of-a-toxic-relationship girl that crashed into the pandemic. Leaving is an easier reinvention (stream Irish Exit by Eliza McLamb).
Every time I return to Salt Lake, I feel shoved back into my body, corralled by a valley that feels a little too small. Conversely, I also feel expanded- the community I have here is above and beyond. So many people I love so much live here, and all I want to do is get drunk off their presence. The outdoor industry as a whole is primarily based in Utah, and work is usually plentiful there. And the Wasatch- my mountains, my happy place, my heaven on earth. There are only a couple of places I feel at home, truly, and somewhere deep in the canyons is one of them.
Standing at the rally, I remembered my love of the Great Salt Lake. I remembered the 12 million birds that migrate annually, through the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, one of my favorite places in the world. I remembered the first time I went to Antelope Island, to see the bison (I don’t know where they were, but I didn’t see one that first time). I remembered a lot of good things about this state that I’ve called home for my whole life. Summer picnics and running giddidly down trails covered in wildflowers and deer grazing in the graveyard and swimming in lakes and drinking beers on porches. The list goes on.
I used to lie about where I’m from- saying Utah often starts a conversation. “Oh I’ve been to Zion” (always with the emphasis on the wrong syllable) or “I’ve always wanted to go there” or something along those lines. I’d have to explain that I was born in the part of the state that’s basically Colorado, and aside from dinosaurs, is about 3-6 hours from anything cool. I’d have to explain that SLC is different than any other city, with a church basically running the city (the state really) and that the counter-culture drives me nuts and that there’s a million things I’d like to change. I wanted to avoid breaking the news that I derided my homestate. I feel guilty about that, now. This place deserves my love, because it has always loved me and welcomed me back with open arms. Change doesn’t make itself, and I’d be ashamed to say I walked away rather than even try to help.
I don’t think I’ll stay in SLC forever. The air is bad, and there isn’t a way around that. I can’t imagine raising a child in that, and while I do have hope for a turn in the future, I am not positive our lawmakers actually care about anything other than money in their pockets. When I picture a vague future kid, I think about them running around the sandy beach of a New England lake, tromping through the woods of a place slightly safer from climate-change driven wildfires and arsenic in the air. In the meantime though, I’m throwing myself wholeheartedly into this place, with love and hope.
Some things about this week:
Eliza McLamb’s new record, Going Through It, has sent me spiraling. It’s rosy-glasses view on a traumatic childhood makes me ache for simple days, holding funerals for roadkill in my backyard. Crybaby, To Wake Up, and Anything You Want feel as though they were written specifically and exclusively for me- parasocially, I feel as though McLamb and I view the world through a similar lense. I could go through every song individually, but let it be known that this album makes me feel known (a theme explored through the album) and I am obsessed. It makes me want to write a full album review, just so I can give it 6/5 stars.
I deleted Instagram for a week and my brain feels better. That’s all. I’ll be adding it back to my phone soon because I have a little rat brain and my fear of missing out is eating me alive, but I think it’s grip on me is loosened significantly.
Dance Life is a limited series documentary about an intensive dance college in Sydney. The dancing is top quality, the cast is good, and I watched every episode in one sitting- it’s a similar feeling to the first season of Cheer, but with less Christian overtones and actual criminals, and only a little trauma-mining.
I’m watch Lost for the first time, and man, they really did that! I’m only 20 years late to the party, but to be fair, I was 7 when it premiered.