Get In, We’re Going to the Woods.

These suspiciously fall-like winds have my spicy brain going.

Something about this seasonal shift has me reminiscing. Maybe it’s the weather changing, the air feeling refreshing instead of stagnant. Whatever it is, I’ve been longing.

For adventure. For nature. For community.

I want to find my people and seize the damn day.

Nobody can seize the day like an Alaskan. That might be the thing I miss most about Alaska besides the beauty. There was this willingness to latch onto a moment and just GO.

A flash from the past. Bea is on the far right in her fabulous green visor, holding court at a long-ago Moose Turd Picnic. Photo courtesy of Jean Mason.

One of my very favorite people and BFFs, Bea Lingle, rest in peace, was probably the greatest example of this. She was in her 90’s when she passed away, and she knew how to live.

Many years ago, before I was around, Bea had a friend who was scared to go out into the woods. So Bea took her over the border into Canada, and told her they were going moose turd hunting.

She brought a card table and set it up with a candelabra and champagne. They got little baskets and collected moose turds from the game trails. And somehow, this grew into the annual Moose Turd Picnic.

More and more women were invited, until eventually it became the most anticipated event of the year where cases of champagne were loaded up and several women took off in their cars. They would drive around town rounding up other women, showing up on their doorsteps and “kidnapping them.” Or so the story goes.

Some were in their pajamas. Some were out doing yard work. Some were just walking down the street.

Didn’t matter.
Get in.

And then they all drove out into the woods and were just absolutely feral together in the most delicious, joyful, communal way.

I can neither confirm nor deny that skinny-dipping may have happened. And possibly some border flashing.

By the time I finally got to join the Moose Turd Picnic, it was much more organized and tame than this, but dang do I love the stories of those earlier years.

And these are the things I feel like we’re missing.

I hear so much talk about women tearing other women down. “This is why I’m not friends with women.” “Women are catty.” That is probably another journal entry entirely, but I don’t believe that story is some inherent truth about women. I think there is a whole lot of patriarchal bullshit wrapped up in teaching women to compete with, compare themselves to, and distrust one another.

And maybe it’s time we change the story.

Let’s kidnap each other out of bed to go enjoy the wilderness.

Let’s get our feet in the earth. Let’s skinny-dip and laugh and cackle and cry. Let’s dance in the woods with abandon. Let’s bring food and bottles and blankets and whatever the hell is in the fridge. Let’s support each other. But more than that, let’s celebrate each other. Let’s catch some whimsy!

There’s a difference.

I don’t want women just holding each other up when things fall apart. I want women showing up because there is something worth celebrating. Or because it’s Tuesday. Or because the wind changed and suddenly being inside feels impossible.

I want women calling other women and saying, Get in.

And the more I think about Bea, the more I realize maybe this thing I’m longing for isn’t gone at all. Because Bea’s lineage is still here.

Maybe the women aren’t hunting moose turds anymore, but I see that same wild abandon in her daughters and her granddaughters. And honestly, I see it in me.

We leave things with each other. We give each other permission. We show another woman what it looks like to be ridiculous and spontaneous and loud and fully alive, and some little piece of that gets carried forward.

That’s lineage too. Not only what gets passed through blood, but what gets passed from woman to woman.

Bea did that. And I don’t think I realized until now how much of it I carry.

So if any of you women are wondering what would happen if you showed up at my place of business or my home and said, “Get in. We’re having a bonfire in the woods. Grab whatever bottle and snack you have in the fridge”

I would close the shop. I would come in my damn underwear if that’s all I had. Because how else do we pass on the wisdom we inherited from women like Bea? It’s not just some story we should tell. It’s something to practice and to share.

Some people were put on this earth to impart certain wisdom. Bea showed us how to gather women in community and celebrate each other. She taught women how to get outside, how to enjoy the hell out of it, and how to leave it cleaner than when you got there. 

And as I go completely off the rails on a journal entry that started with I need some damn whimsy and adventure, I think that might be the deeper truth underneath all of it.

Seize the day. Love each other. Gather together. Get outside. Celebrate each other. Learn from the women who came before us.

And then maybe, when we live it and share these gifts with others, these lessons and this lineage carry on.