I’ve been in my mountain town for a few months now. Long enough to know that the trendy sunglasses I brought from LA are useless out here, and long enough to feel the thing I came for actually start to happen. I reach for the trail instead of the couch. The bike instead of scrolling. I’m taking horsemanship lessons, which is something I always wanted to do, but lacked the courage to begin. There’s still room for a pilates class or traditional strength training, but more and more, I want the kind of movement that puts me outside, exploring new ground, gloriously bad at something new. I feel better. Physically, mentally, all of it.

So I started investing in it. And that’s what this list is.

But before you scroll, a few things to note:

These things aren’t here just to be bought. They’re here because they earn it. Almost everything on this list does double or triple duty across all outdoor activities — the sporty sunglasses that block the sunlight and actually stay on when I bend over, the mosquito bracelets I’ll wear camping and hiking because mosquitos consider me a delicacy. Cross-functional, or it didn’t make the cut.

Some of these are tried and true, already scuffed and beloved. Some are in a UPS truck headed up the mountain to me as I write this. And some are purely aspirational — the stuff I hope to get, after I know these are hobbies I’ll want to keep investing in. I’ll mark which is which as we go.

Because the whole point isn’t to have more, but to do more.

Let’s get into it.

1. Halfdays Gwen UV Jacket - wishlist
Layers, layers, layers. Weather turns fast up here, so I pack a light one even when it’s supposed to be warm. I haven’t tried this exact jacket, but I love Halfdays, so I have a feeling it’ll fit right and feel like quality.

2. Halfdays Gwen UV Pant - wishlist
I’ve been hiking in leggings, but they’re not breathable or durable enough. I want something full-length and airy that keeps the bugs off my ankles without the cling.

3. Colorful Standard Organic Rib Tank Top - tried & true
I have this in butter yellow and wear it all the time — such a good basic. Thick enough that it’s not see-through, still breathable on hot days.

4. Salomon X Ultra 360 Edge Mid GORE-TEX - wishlist
I can’t say enough about Salomon — the grip on these soles is unbeatable. This isn’t my exact pair, but I love that they sit a little higher than the average shoe.

5. Stetson Last Drop Bandana - tried & true
I have this in dark red and reach for it constantly. Bandanas are pure versatility — personality and function in one square.

6. Salomon Active Skin 12 Vest - wishlist
For longer hikes, a lightweight pack is a must. I don't have this one yet, but reviewers swear it's adjustable, barely-there, and carries everything you need.

7. Cliganic Mosquito Repellent Bracelets - tried & true
DEET-free, and they work. Enough said.

1. Beyond Yoga Spacedye Keep Pace Biker Jumpsuit - wishlist
I already have a jumpsuit, and the appeal is simple: I throw it on and I’m done — no standing at the closet trying to make a top and a bottom agree. Beyond Yoga has that buttery-soft thing down, too.

2. Salomon XT-6 GORE-TEX - tried & true
I have these and can’t recommend enough. They’re narrow and grippy, so my feet stay planted instead of flying off the pedals.

3. Smith Engage MIPS Helmet - wishlist
Smith makes good stuff, and — confession — I need a helmet. Right now I bike in a baseball cap, which isn’t technically illegal here. (Mom, if you’re reading this: I’m buying a helmet. Don’t worry.)

4. Retrospec Amok 8-Speed Hybrid Bike - wishlist
Full transparency: I’m borrowing my boyfriend’s bike while I figure out whether I actually like this. Turns out I bike almost every day now, so probably safe to say I’ll be getting my own.

5. Sportneer Bike Lock - tried & true
Have it, love it. Lightweight, flexible, and code-based so there’s no key to lose or dig around for.

6. Rendezvous R2 Dune sunglasses - on the way
On their way to me, and I’m excited to try them. There’s a band you can add to keep them on you.

1. Ballerina Farm Farmer Protein Powder - tried & true
I love a sweet treat, and this one happens to be packed with protein. It really hits the spot on a cold night by the fire.

2. Lodge Cast Iron Classic Skillet - tried & true
I use this at home constantly, and it works just as well set over a campfire. We talked about cooking sourdough cinnamon rolls in it our next trip. I can’t wait.

3. Carhartt Blanket-Lined Detroit Jacket - tried & true
I got a men’s oversized Carhartt years ago and never looked back — ridiculously warm, water-resistant, and only gets better with age.

4. Overland Kitted Drover Double Sleeping Bag - wishlist
On the list so my boyfriend and I can stop zipping ourselves into separate sleeping bags like we’re at summer camp.

5. YETI Tundra Hard Cooler - tried & true
Have it, swear by it. Keeps our food cold for days.

6. KDG Cordless Portable Table Lamps - tried & true
Completely unnecessary, and I don’t care. A little extra light makes a campsite feel cozy, plus I set them near anything you might trip over in the dark.

1. Agolde High-Rise Straight-Leg Jeans - tried & true
Flattering in all the right places and (rare for non-stretch denim) actually comfortable in the saddle.

2. Tecovas The Annie Boots - wishlist
I want to invest in a real pair of cowboy boots, the kind you keep forever, and everything I’ve heard says Tecovas are worth the price tag.

3. Petit Moments Phoenix Belt - tried & true
My sister gave me this for my birthday. It’s western without shouting about it.

4. Buck Mason Natural Cotton-Linen Shirt - wishlist
Buck Mason quality is great and a crisp, breathable button-down works in the barn or out. It plays double duty across categories (throw it on as a coverup for rafting below).

1. STAUD Coast Bucket Hat - wishlist
Chic and actually functional — durable canvas, leather straps, a brim wide enough to shade your face.

2. Monday Swimwear Aruba One-Piece - tried & true
Equal parts sporty, sexy, and classy, a hard trifecta to pull off. The kind you can paddle hard in and still feel good wearing.

3. Teva HydraTrek Water Sandal - tried & true
Tevas are made for rafting, but I reach for them well beyond the river — short hikes, anything that means trekking through water. Comfortable, durable, and they just don’t quit.

4. Sun Wrangler DAILY MINERAL SUNSCREEN SPF 45 - wishlist
Sun reflecting off the water is no joke, and this brand is crafted with the safest possible ingredients, even for sensitive skin (which is really hard to find in a sunscreen).

Here's what these months outside have actually taught me: the gear is the smallest part. Hiking gave me back my mornings. Biking turned a grocery run into the best hour of my day. Camping reminded me how much I love a cold morning curled up by the fire. Rafting — or floating, whatever the speed — is the thing I'm itching to get back to; any excuse to be on the water. And horseback riding, learning to earn the trust of a thousand-pound animal, has rewired something in me I can't quite name yet. All of it worth being bad at, at first.

If you’re stepping into your own outdoorsy era, whatever that looks like for you, don’t start with the whole list. Start with the one thing you’ll actually use. Then go outside, and let the rest follow.

And tell me what I’m missing. What gear do you swear by? What’s the one game-changer that earned a permanent spot in your pack? Leave it in the comments, I’m taking notes.

xx Madison

New horse today. This one’s name is Murphy — light brown with white spots. He seems friendly enough.

I caught him myself this time, haltered him, led him to the post. And here’s the thing I didn’t expect about week two: I was better. Not good — let’s not get ahead of ourselves — but noticeably more competent and confident than I was seven days ago. I remembered how the halter worked. I remembered the knot. When I led him out and he drifted up ahead of me, I stopped and tapped his chest with the rope and he stepped back. When we continued on, when I stopped, he stopped, a few feet back, exactly where I’d asked him to be.

We were off on the right foot.

We did the grooming first — brushing his coat and then picking his hooves. Still hard. Still a workout. It didn’t feel physically easier, but I felt more comfortable and like I, for the most part, knew what I was doing.

Then out to the big dirt arena, where the real lesson was waiting: groundwork.

Here’s what I learned about what we’d work on and why: groundwork is the foundation of equine communication, safety, and trust, establishing the language you will eventually use while riding. You ask the horse to move — back up, step forward, turn, circle — using almost nothing. A wiggle of the rope. A shift of your body. A waving hand. The goal is a conversation so quiet it’s nearly invisible, where the horse is reading you so closely that the smallest gesture is enough.

The GM — who’s teaching me, and who I’m increasingly convinced knows more about horse psychology than most people know about other humans — gave me the framework for it.

*Ask. Tell. Demand.*

You start with the smallest possible request. A wiggle of the rope to ask Murphy to back up. If he ignores it, you escalate — a bigger wave of the rope, *telling* him. If he still ignores it, you escalate again — *demand*, firmer, until he responds. And then, the instant he does, you stop. Immediately. The release is the reward.

You always start with the ask. You start soft, every time, and you only escalate as far as you need to and not one step further.

Murphy, thankfully, just needed the ask. I’d wiggle the rope and he’d step back like a gentleman. He was clearly being easier on me than I deserved.

We worked through the whole vocabulary. Asking him to step forward one foot at a time. And when he got close to me, he’d lower his big head toward me and I’d stroke his forehead, and the GM pointed out something I never would have noticed: he was blinking a lot, and licking his lips.

“That’s him concentrating,” she said. “That’s him paying attention to you. That’s a horse thinking hard about what you’re asking.”

I did not expect to be moved by a horse licking his lips. And yet.

Then the harder stuff. A maneuver where I asked him to turn in tight circles, crossing one front foot over the other, by holding the lead rope up and “pushing” his head — without actually touching him at all — toward his hip until he rotated. And finally lunging, where I let out the long rope and asked him to trot in circles around me, waving him on, moving my hand in the direction I wanted him to go, pivoting in place and calling *trot up!* to keep him moving.

I’d love to report that I looked like a natural. What actually happened is that I got extremely dizzy spinning in a circle in the middle of an arena yelling *trot up!* at a horse who was, frankly, humoring me. But he trotted. In a circle. Around me. Because I asked him to.

And then, at the end — the part that got me.

I took the lead rope and draped it loosely across Murphy’s neck. And let go. No control. Nothing connecting us at all. And then I walked.

He followed me. Everywhere I went. When I turned, he turned. When I stopped, he stopped. A thousand pounds of animal who could have done absolutely anything he wanted, choosing — for no reason except that he’d decided to — to stay with me.

“That means he trusts you,” the GM said. “That he sees you as his leader. That’s what all of this is for.” She nodded at the rope hanging useless across his neck. “Groundwork is how you build the relationship before riding. You earn this part. Then you get the rest.”

I stood there in the middle of the arena with a horse following me around of his own free will and felt something I don’t entirely have words for.

The whole time, the ranch did what the ranch does, which is descend into beautiful chaos around us. Trail rides heading out. Long-time horse leasers moving through with the easy confidence of people who’ve been here for years, so at home you genuinely can’t tell them from staff. I got introduced to what felt like everyone. The lesson got interrupted roughly every ten minutes, because my instructor also runs the entire operation: a horse that needed the vet, a guest being difficult on a trail ride, ten small fires to put out between teaching me how to wave a rope.

I loved every second of the chaos. There’s something about being let into the behind-the-scenes of a place — the real working version, not the polished one — that makes you feel less like a guest and more like you actually belong there.

Here’s what I keep thinking about.

Everything we did — the asking, the backing up, the circles, the trotting — was building to that one moment at the end. The rope draped useless across his neck and Murphy following me anyway. Not because he had to. Because he’d decided to.

You can’t force that. You can’t skip to it. A horse outweighs you by a thousand pounds — if it came down to “control”, you’d lose every time. So it was never about control. It was about whether he respected me enough to follow, and trusted me enough to want to.

And you build that on the ground. Before the riding, before the fun part, before any of the things you actually showed up for. You build it slowly, in an arena, doing the unglamorous work of proving you’re someone who can lead.

I think I’ve spent a lot of my life wanting the ride without building it first. Wanting the relationship without doing the quiet groundwork that makes it real. Trust isn’t the thing you get to skip on the way to the good part.

It’s the whole foundation. Everything else stands on top of it.

Horses already know that. I’m still learning.

Next week is lesson three: the fundamentals of riding. I might actually get on the horse!

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I’m going to document all of it here. The progress, the humbling mistakes, the things the experience teaches me that has nothing to do with horses.

This is lesson one - catching, grooming, and tacking up and down.

Her name is Winnie.

She looks, according to the kids who take lessons at the ranch, exactly like Spirit — the horse from the early 2000s animated movie. I will not pretend this didn’t affect me. Spirit was my favorite movie growing up.

Standing in a pasture at thirty years old looking at a horse who could have walked directly off that screen, I felt something light up that I hadn’t felt in a long time — the uncomplicated delight of a little girl who loved horses.

I’d forgotten she existed. But she apparently never left.

It might seem silly, but I was nervous.

Not only about the horses themselves and trying something new in my 30s (I’ll get to that later). But mostly about the people. I was afraid that I’d show up to this working ranch as an obvious transplant from LA, a city girl in clothes that were a little too new, and everyone would clock immediately that I had no business being there. That I was too old to be learning something the children around me already knew. That I’d be tolerated, politely, as a tourist playing dress-up.

None of that happened.

What happened instead: I pulled up to a ranch on a warm, bright seventy-five degree day, busy with the chaos of a place that’s fully alive. Groups saddling up for trail rides in the arena. Kids running between the barns. The dogs of ranch hands running around as a pack. And, oddly, not a single male staff member anywhere.

The whole operation, fifty-plus horses, run entirely by women.

I don’t fully have words for how happy this made me. There was something about it that settled my nerves before anyone said a word — a place built and run by women who knew exactly what they were doing, who welcomed me not as a curiosity but as someone who’d actually come to learn. Which, I’d later realize, was the thing they appreciated. Most people come for a trail ride — a photo, an hour, a checked box. I’d come to understand the animal. That, apparently, earns you a different kind of welcome.

Before I touched Winnie, I sat down with the ranch’s general manager — a woman with an encyclopedic knowledge of horse psychology and the calm authority of someone who has spent her life around animals that weigh a thousand pounds and is not remotely intimidated by them.

We went over the reading. I’d been assigned the first two chapters of a book called How to Think Like a Horse, which is exactly what it sounds like and is reorganizing how I understand these animals entirely.

Here’s what I’m learning: horses are prey animals. Everything about them is built around that single fact. They have near-360-degree vision with a few blind spots — directly in front of their nose, below their nose, on top of them and directly behind them — which is why you never approach a horse from behind or duck underneath one, why sudden movements read as threats, why the whole relationship is built on helping an animal that is hardwired for flight learn to feel safe with you. They eat roughly 16 pounds of hay per day. They have preferences and dislikes that actually aren’t that different from my own.

And — my favorite part — even domesticated horses maintain a clear herd hierarchy. There’s an order to things. Everyone knows their place. And it’s matriarchal, of course. I’m sensing a theme around here.

I could have listened to her talk about it for hours.

Then it was time to actually catch the horse.

Winnie was lying down in the pasture, taking a nap in the sun, which is its own small miracle to witness — a thousand-pound animal splayed out on the ground. The GM showed me how to approach, how to put the halter around her head, how to lead her out of the pasture and to the tie-up. How to tie the knot to the post — one that holds but releases fast if it needs to.

Then the brushes. We brushed the dirt off our respective horses, and I was not prepared for how therapeutic this would be — the repetition of it, the dust lifting off her coat in the afternoon light. I could have done that part all day.

Then came the hard part.

Cleaning the hooves. You tap the back of the leg and — if you’ve done it right, and miraculously I did — the horse lifts and bends her hoof, and you brace it on your thigh and squat down and start prying out everything packed in there: caked mud, grass, small rocks, the accumulated debris of a horse just living her life. It is a full workout. Like doing a weighted squat while digging in mud with a pick, four times, once per hoof. I was breathless and sweaty by the end of it. Nobody tells you that horsemanship is, in part, a test of strength.

Then the saddle. The western saddle is heavy, really heavy, and you have to hoist it up and over the horse’s back and land it more or less in the right place. I got it over her back and nearly in position on the first try, and the GM looked genuinely impressed, and I gave silent credit to kettlebell classes I took back at my gym in LA, that I had no idea were training me for exactly this. We cinched the straps. We fitted the bridle, gently, around her ears, and Winnie took the bit into her mouth softly.

And then, because this was a first lesson, and the point was the process and not the destination, we took it all back off.

Untacked everything. Led her back to the pasture.

I drove home dusty, worn out, and more fulfilled than I’ve felt in a long time.

Here’s the thing I keep thinking about.

I never got on the horse.

Two hours, and I never once rode her. I caught her, haltered her, brushed her, cleaned her hooves, saddled her, bridled her, and then undid all of it. It might seem anticlimactic, but I drove home feeling like I’d accomplished something significant, because I had.

And at the heart of this horsemanship journey is the fact I don’t like being bad at things.

I don’t think anyone does, but I’ve built a lot of my life around staying in the lanes where I already know I’m competent. Being a beginner — visibly, awkwardly, in front of other people — is exactly the kind of discomfort I avoid.

But I’ve started to believe that discomfort is the point. That allowing myself to be bad at something new is one of the better things I can do for myself. And I’m tired of the other thing I keep doing, the quiet “I wish I’d learned this when I was younger” that I tell myself about horses, and about so many things. I’m done waiting to have started sooner. I’m starting now.

Next up: groundwork.

A cozy bungalow about a mile from Venice Beach. Big palm trees out front. A little sanctuary I’d made exactly the way I wanted it, the kind of place that felt like an exhale the moment you walked in. I sat outside in the sun most mornings with my coffee and told myself that I was happy. That I was lucky. That plenty of people would kill for this life.

I believed it, until I didn’t.

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I work in PR. If you know, you know.

Tight deadlines. Always on, always urgent. The kind of job where your phone is an extension of your nervous system and the line between work hours and not-work hours is an impossible boundary to set. I like parts of it — the writing, the problem solving, the feeling of making something happen. But after a long day glued to my desk, I’d step outside and feel immediately overwhelmed by the crowded streets and traffic that made driving anywhere not an option.

There’s always something happening in LA — an event, a party, a dinner reservation you had to make three weeks in advance. I got invited to house parties in the hills and private events and I would look at the invitation and feel nothing but the desire to find an excuse not to go.

So I’d travel instead. Almost every weekend, I was somewhere else. My parents’ house near Seattle, my sister in San Francisco, friends in Scottsdale, really anywhere that wasn’t home. I told myself I just liked to travel. Which is true. But there was something else underneath it. I was paying a premium to live in LA and leaving every chance I got. At some point that stops being a travel habit and starts being information.

The social life I did have was good. And I had a gym I genuinely loved — it was a “third place,”really. Classes, a sauna, a rooftop that looked out over the ocean, a cafe with the best matcha in town, regular community events. A little oasis I’d built into my weekly routine. And even that, even the most beautiful spa-like version of an LA morning, would eventually end, and I’d walk back out into the city and feel the noise close back in around me.

I had close friends. I hosted dinner parties at my bungalow. I went to outdoor concerts on a blanket, which was always my favorite version of LA. But even that had downfalls. Nobody really mingled at those things. You showed up with your group and left with your group and it was pleasant and a little lonely at the same time.

The dating landscape wasn’t helping either. But that’s a whole other essay.

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With my first summer living in a mountain town just around the corner, I wanted to create my own version. A visualization of what this season is going to look and feel like here.

This is Mountain Town Summer.

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Picture a Sunday with nowhere you have to be. A trail that takes you somewhere you can’t find on Google Maps. The kind of afternoon that doesn’t need a plan, a reservation, or a signal.

It’s not a beach vacation. It’s not a rooftop or a carefully curated anything. It’s quiet, a little bit dusty and a whole lot better.

What I’m Wearing

— white sundresses and turquoise jewelry, layered

— cowboy boots found somewhere secondhand

— a baseball cap with a Stetson bandana tied around the crown because the UV up here is not messing around

— something I can also hike in

— SPF, religiously

What’s in the Backpack

— a sandwich and potato chips that taste better outside, I don’t make the rules

— something cold from the local brewery

— a library book

— a gingham picnic blanket

— a film camera

What My Days Look Like

— hiking to a lake nobody else knows about

— reading on a riverbank while someone I love wades through the water in his Wranglers looking for a slow spot to catch a trout

— homemade pickles and beef jerky from the country mart

— a dive bar with sticky floors and zero cell service

— horseback riding

— outdoor bluegrass concert on a blanket

— corn dogs at a small town rodeo

What I’m Letting Go Of

— waiting for the weekend to live like this

This is the summer I didn’t know I was building toward. Slower, quieter, a little bit dusty. The kind that doesn’t photograph perfectly but feels exactly right.

I’ll meet you on the trail.

xx

Not physically (although that was there too), emotionally. I was drawn to the ones who kept me slightly off balance. Who started strong and faded. Who were full of potential and short on follow through. Who made me feel like if I could just be patient enough, understanding enough, bend-over-backwards and lower-my-standards enough, eventually they’d show up the way I needed them to.

They never did. And even though the beginning and ending were repeated in a loop, I kept being surprised.

Dating in LA is everything they say it is. Mixed signals. False starts. Someone pursuing you with real intensity and then going quiet without explanation, a text thread that just stops mid conversation. You learn to not get too attached. To wait and see. To manage your own expectations so aggressively that you stop having them at all.

I got very good at that.

I wasn’t supposed to meet anyone in small-town Utah.

I was there for a month, housesitting in a town I was trying on for size, not looking for anything except a nervous system reset. I downloaded a dating app out of curiosity — just to see what the landscape looked like — and when he messaged me I thought: What could it hurt? Dinner, drinks. A local guide to show me the town.

I was not prepared for someone who just meant what he said.

He picked me up. Took me to dinner. Dropped me off. Made plans the next day without a 48 hour gap and a vague “we should hang out sometime” and then never hearing from him again. No games, no ambiguity, no slow fade. Just: I want to see you again. Here’s when. Does that work?

I kept waiting for the catch.

On our third date we were playing cards on my deck and he looked at me and said he liked me. Just like that. Honest, direct, no performance. I remember sitting with it for a second thinking — is that it? That’s all it takes? You just say the thing you mean?

It was so simple. So easy. It nearly undid me.

When he called to tell me he’d canceled his upcoming trip — that he’d been planning to stay with someone he had history with, that it didn’t feel fair to her or to me — I said one moment please and hung up.

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In my comments, in my DMs, in replies to my essays — some version of the same question keeps showing up: okay, but where are you?

And every time, I’ve said some version of: I’ll tell you soon.

It still felt too new to name.

But there’s more to it than that. So before I tell you where I am, I want to tell you why I didn’t.

When I was plotting my escape from LA, my plan was not to move somewhere. My plan was to try on somewhere. Several somewheres, actually, two or three weeks at a time, housesitting in small towns I’d been curious about, until I found the one that fit. Low stakes. No commitment. Just an experiment.

I carefully mapped out what I was looking for in a town, and came up with this list:

• Bend, OR

• Boise, ID

• Boulder, CO

• Bozeman, MT

• Park City, UT

• Steamboat, CO

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What I didn’t anticipate was falling in love with a town before I’d finished experimenting.

I kept it quiet until I came back officially with a lease. Not because I was hiding anything. But because I’d learned that this place felt different when it was just mine. Before anyone else’s opinions got in the way. Before the recommendations and the warnings and the “oh I’ve been there” and the “but have you tried.” I wanted to form my own relationship with it first.

Some things need to be lived before they can be explained. This was one of them.

There’s a moment from my first visit there I keep coming back to.

I was still in experiment mode, still telling myself this was just a trial run, still keeping my options open. One morning I woke up early and drove to a spot I’d heard about, a trail leading to a waterfall I’d been wanting to hike to. At the end of the trail, I took off my shoes and socks and waded out to a rock in the middle of the water and let the cold water flow around me and the morning sun stream onto my face.

I just sat there.

And I felt something I hadn’t felt in so long I’d almost forgotten it was possible. Not happiness exactly — though I was happy. Complete peace. The feeling of certainty. I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Friends and family suggested I keep trying on towns. Be thorough. Don’t rush. There are so many places you haven’t seen yet.

And they weren’t wrong. Practically speaking, it would’ve been smart to try on all the towns on my list, and maybe some others, before making a decision. But I’ve learned to tell the difference between the voice that says slow down because it’s wise and the voice that says slow down because it’s afraid of making a mistake. This was the second one.

I’d also met women here, just by being out and about. Women who had moved from big cities alone, who loved it here and said it was the best decision they’d ever made. Women who felt like my people in a way I hadn’t expected to find so quickly. And there was the cowboy, of course — who turned out to be a reason to stay that I hadn’t planned for and couldn’t have manufactured if I’d tried.

So when everyone said keep looking, I said: I could, but I think I already found it.

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I was not looking for a boyfriend.

I was looking for a town. Specifically, a small town with good trails, a decent grocery store, and at least a handful of eligible bachelors who weren’t retirees, college students, or seasonal ski workers. My standards were modest. I was being practical.

So when I booked my housesit in a small town in Utah — alone, with three animals I’d never met and a sheet of care instructions — I did what any reasonable, levelheaded woman would do: I downloaded Hinge and set my location to the town just to scroll. To assess the landscape. I was not going on any dates. I was conducting research.

He saw my profile.

Since I was in what can only be described as Hinge jail at the time — a paywall from the app I’d rather not elaborate on (if you know, you know) — he messaged me on Instagram instead. We started chatting. I wasn’t leaving for Utah for two more weeks but we talked the whole time anyway, and I told myself that meant nothing, which was very convincing until it wasn’t.

A few days before my trip he asked if I wanted to get dinner and meet up with his friends at a western bar afterward.

I thought: that sounds like a great way to explore the town and meet some people. Perfect for my scouting mission.

He offered to pick me up. Chivalry, it turns out, is alive and well in small town Utah. However, and this is important, he was also a stranger from the internet, and I was staying alone in an isolated house and didn’t know a single soul within thirty miles. So I did what any reasonable woman who has watched too many true crime documentaries would do: I gave him the address of a house a few doors down and for an extra layer of protection told him I was staying with family friends.

Safety first.

He picked me up. We walked around town. Rooftop drinks at golden hour, dinner after, easy conversation that didn’t require any effort at all. Then the western bar.

I should mention I do not know how to dance. At all. Not even a little.

He, it turned out, was extremely skilled. The kind of person who leads so confidently that you stop thinking about your feet entirely, which is the only explanation for what happened next. He twirled me. He swung me around the floor. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, hot and laughing and slightly breathless in the best possible way, we had our first kiss.

Being a gentleman, he insisted on driving me home. Which was, you’ll recall, a problem.

He pulled up to my fake house. We said goodbye. He waited to make sure I got inside safely. So I walked up to the front door of a house I did not live in, smiled and waved goodbye like a woman who absolutely lived there, and then casually continued around to the backyard where I stood alone in the dark until his headlights finally disappeared down the street.

I assessed my situation. Strange backyard. Neighbors who might not react well to my late night intrusion. Somewhere in the trees, probably, a bear.

But I made it home.

The next day he asked if I had plans that evening.

Under normal circumstances I do not do back to back dates. I have rules about this. But he was leaving for a trip in a few days and we really only had the weekend, so I said yes and started getting ready. I was running behind, he was on his way and my friend FaceTimed and I couldn’t answer so I typed out a quick text:

I’ll call you later! He’s about to be here and I have to run over to my fake house.

I sent it to him.

I stared at my phone for a beat and in a panic quickly unsent the message.

I walked to the fake house.

He was already parked out front and clocked me approaching from a block down the road. I got in the car. He was already laughing. Sounds like you have some explaining to do, he said.

I explained. All of it. I untangled my web of lies without pausing for breath and he listened to the whole thing and then said, completely sincerely: that’s actually really smart.

I decided, somewhere around that moment, that I was in trouble.

Three dates. That’s all we had before he left. Dinner with his friends on night two, out to lunch on the third day, each one feeling less like a date and more like something I couldn’t quite name yet — the specific ease of someone who just fits, which I’ve learned is really rare.

We said goodbye and I told myself to let it be what it was. A fun, unexpected, perfectly contained chapter. A good story. Nothing more.

On Monday he called.

He’d canceled the trip.

Honestly — and this is the word he used, just dropped it there at the start of the sentence like it was nothing — I was going to stay with someone I have some history with. And it didn’t feel fair. To her or to you. Because I’d be thinking about you the whole time and wishing I was with you instead.

I said: one moment please.

And hung up.

I stood there in the kitchen of a house I was borrowing in a town I was trying on, in a state I’d never lived in, processing the fact that a man had just voluntarily told me the truth when he absolutely didn’t have to. No careful wording. No games. Just: here is what’s happening, and here is what I want. And it’s you.

The audacity of it. The complete, disarming, terrifying audacity.

I called him back. Told him how much I appreciated his honesty. And then we spent the next three weeks figuring out what this was — which, as it turned out, was the beginning of everything.

I went there to find a new place to call home. And I found that too. But I also found him, the way you find things when you’re not looking. When you’re just showing up and saying yes and seeing where life takes you.

I had a plan. A very sensible, practical plan in which I’d find a town first and love would come later.

But I guess when you make plans, God laughs and sends you a cowboy.

I’m still waiting.

I moved to a mountain town a month ago.

I lived at sea level my whole life. Nobody warned me about altitude.

My skin is dry in a way I have never experienced. My sleeping is light and fragmented. Walking around the neighborhood, a mostly flat 30-minute loop, feels like a strenuous hike. Apparently this is normal. Apparently it passes. I’m taking everyone’s word for it.

The weather has also been having a moment. A 70-degree day last week. Then four inches of snow a few days later. I stood at my window watching it come down in a sweater I’d packed away thinking I wouldn’t need it anymore.

The mountains, it turns out, do not care that it is technically spring.

The rituals came faster than I expected.

There’s a trail behind my house I walk most mornings. I have yet to see another person on it. Just animal tracks pressed into the snow. The aspen leaves are just starting to come in, tiny green leaves appearing like they’re not entirely sure yet. I know the feeling.

In town, I found my grocery store. I’ve been working my way through local brands, a sourdough baked here, a coffee roasted here. Its small loyalty that starts to make a place feel like yours. I got a library card and checked out books on the town’s history, which is either very charming or very telling about how I’m spending my evenings. Probably both.

I also learned that snow plows will take out your mailbox without a second thought, which is why there aren’t any. Everyone has a P.O. box. So now I do too. I have a little key on my keyring, a number that’s mine, a reason to go into town even when I don’t need anything else.

I was hoping to meet neighbors. Most of the houses on my street turn out to be Airbnbs with new groups arriving on Thursdays, gone by Sunday, a rotating cast of strangers. It’s a little funny, given that I’m hardly more of a local here than they are.

What I didn’t expect was how friendly everyone else would be. People wave here, drivers, walkers, strangers at a distance, and every single time, my first instinct is “do I know them?” I catch myself scanning my memory before I realize: no. They’re just being friendly. That’s just what people do here.

I took myself out to dinner at a restaurant I’d passed by a few times. A live band, a library book and a really nice waitress made dining alone feel far from lonely.

Last week I DM’d a girl I found online who lives here and asked if she wanted to go for a walk. She said yes. Putting myself out there isn’t always easy, but its worth it. Because really, it only takes one.

I expected the first month to feel like an act of endurance. White-knuckling it through the adjustment until something finally clicked.

Instead it’s felt like slowing down and noticing. The great horned owl that hoots outside my window at the earliest hours of the morning. The tracks in the snow. The way the aspens are coming in slowly, tentatively, on their own schedule.

I don’t know yet what this place is going to become for me, or who I’m going to become here.

But one month in, I’m sleeping better. I have a local grocery store a P.O. box key and a library card and a walking trail I’ve claimed as mine and one friend I made by simply asking.

That feels like a start.

If you’re in the middle of your own version of this, a move, a change, an in-between you didn’t fully plan for, I’d love to hear how month one felt for you.

And if you’re wondering where exactly I landed: more on that soon.

I know you’ve reached your breaking point.

I know how heavy it feels to want something deeply and wonder if you’ll ever be the one someone chooses — fully, clearly, without hesitation.

I remember how convincing the fear felt. Not just that things weren’t working, but that maybe they never would.

I want you to hear this first: nothing is wrong with you. You are not unchosen because you’re lacking. You are not too much for wanting consistency, effort, enthusiasm, and clarity. You are not failing at love because it hasn’t stayed yet.

If there is one thing I could reach back to tell you, it’s this: sometimes the way you meet someone feels impossible. The timing. The coincidence. The way all the variables seem to align to bring one person into your life. It’s easy to believe that kind of beginning must mean this is it. That fate doesn’t miss like that.

But not everyone you are destined to meet is meant to stay forever. It is so easy to get swept up in the fantasy of who you perceive them to be, so much so that you overlook the moments when they show you who they are.

Some people are meant to cross your path, not walk it with you. They come to show you something — about yourself and about what you’re capable of feeling. Perhaps they even alter your trajectory. And then, they go.

It doesn’t mean you imagined it. And it doesn’t mean the time you spent believing and hoping was a mistake.

I know right now you’re tempted to turn every ending into evidence. To believe that if it didn’t last, it must have been a waste. Or worse, a reflection of your worth. A perpetual loop you will forever be trapped in.

It wasn’t.

Those experiences mattered. They taught you how you want to feel. They expanded your understanding of love, even when the outcome wasn’t what you wanted. I look back on them now not with regret or resentments, but with gratitude.

Don’t abandon yourself trying to be chosen.

Don’t make yourself smaller so someone else can stay. Don’t ignore the signals in your body just because the beginning feels like a fairytale. Love that requires you to override your intuition and brings you more confusion than clarity will never bring you the peace you’re searching for.

I know it doesn’t feel like it yet, but the waiting is doing something in you. You are learning discernment. You are learning the difference between intensity and safety. You are learning that the right thing should feel calm, not consuming.

And I want to thank you.

Thank you for every risk you took even when you were afraid. Thank you for clinging on to the tiniest bit of hope after every disappointment. Thank you for believing in love even when it would have been easier not to. Because of everything you went through, I’m able to recognize and accept the love I deserve now — without chasing it, questioning it, or shrinking myself to keep it.

I know you are exhausted. But I want you to know I’m here with you, the same way you’re here with me. We are not separate versions of ourselves. We’re the same woman, holding each other across time.

There will come a moment when love feels less like auditioning and more like exhaling. It will feel like an incredibly clear, “I choose you,” without an ounce of hesitation. But even if you can’t imagine that yet, please know this:

You were always worthy of being chosen. Even when no one stayed.

So choose yourself.

With love,
Madison

I’ve worked in a fast-paced, high-stress industry for my entire adult life. If you know anything about PR, you know the rhythm well: long hours, constant urgency, and the expectation that you’ll always be “on.” The grind itself isn’t new.

What’s changed is my tolerance for it.

In my early 20s, the pace felt manageable, even energizing. A true a work-hard, play-hard era. But as I enter my 30s, I no longer have the energy (or desire) to do both at the same time.

Weekdays are now fully devoted to work. Weekends have turned into recovery from the week behind me, followed by preparation for the one ahead. And somewhere in that cycle, I noticed something unsettling: I was waiting five days to feel like myself again.

I didn’t want to spend Sundays trying to outrun a low-grade sense of dread.

And while maybe the answer is a new job — or even a complete career pivot — what I know for sure is this: I need small pockets of joy that remind me I’m a human being, not a machine.

That’s where week-day whimsy comes in.

Whimsy is a word that gets thrown around a lot in my corner of Substack. To me, it isn’t about being unserious. It’s about refusing to let life become purely functional. It’s about sitting down with my twelve-year-old self and asking her, What would make you happy today?

Lately, I’ve been collecting small ideas — some are tried and true, some I’m experimenting with — that might bring a little light into my Monday through Friday.

A bird feeder

I might hang it near the window closest to my desk. I’d give the birds names. I’d get genuinely excited when they stop by for a visit. There’s something comforting about giving another creature something that makes their day a little easier — the same way they quietly make mine better.

Sourdough starter

Choosing a hobby that takes its sweet time, even when I feel rushed. Just a few minutes each day to nurture something tangible and watch it grow.

Walk with no destination

20 minutes, or an hour. Preferably no headphones, and no set direction. Notice the homes, the shops, the flowers, the trees. Just notice.

Have a project

Gardening. Knitting. Whittling. Painting. Not a side hustle. Not something to optimize. Something made with your hands, slowly coming together. Something you’re excited to come back to. Something where progress is visible and imperfect and yours.

Snail mail as tiny delights

Send a hand-written letter to a friend. Sign up for a subscription — a magazine, a wine club, a book-of-the-month. Proof that even on a random Tuesday, something lovely might be waiting for you.

And lastly,

Thursday night is Friday eve

Even if Monday through Wednesday have to be a grind, make Thursday feel like the kickoff to the weekend. Make a real dinner (not a girl dinner). Have a glass of wine. Take a bubble bath. Put on matching pajamas. Wear a face mask. Watch a whole entire movie. Let it count.

I’m still figuring this out, and I don’t have it mastered — not even close (as I write this article on Sunday morning with a sense of impending dread). These are just ideas I’m experimenting with, ways I’m trying to make weekdays feel more like a life.

If you’ve found small rituals or habits that bring you joy Monday-Friday, I’d love to hear them. Consider this an open invitation to trade notes.

You’re in good company.

xx Madison

Not the version where you light a candle, make a vision board, and wait for your life to change without you ever having to risk anything or be uncomfortable. To be clear, the rituals matter. They just need to be backed by movement, decisions, and a little courage.

I believe the universe responds when you meet it halfway. That’s what I learned in 2025: when you follow the small nudges and listen to the little whispers, when you take the turns that don’t fully make sense yet, when you say yes before you have the entire plan mapped out, the universe actually shows up. Nothing is wasted — not the jobs that didn’t last, not the cities that weren’t forever, not the people who came into your life just long enough to change you.

At the beginning of the year, I didn’t have a perfect plan. But I had a feeling. I wanted a job that let me live freely and work remotely. I wanted a life that felt quieter and more connected to nature. I wanted to stop forcing myself into a life that looked good on paper but didn’t feel right in my body.

Some of what I asked for showed up exactly as I imagined. I landed the remote job I wanted — one that let me travel, see family and friends, and build my days around my life instead of the other way around.

Other things arrived as stepping stones.

I learned this year that manifestation doesn’t always look like getting what you want immediately. Sometimes it looks like getting exactly what you need to become the person who can hold it.

Growth asks only one thing of you: the willingness to see every chapter as necessary — even the ones that didn’t last long or turn out the way you hoped. Sometimes the lesson is simply this: let go, or be dragged.

Sometimes letting go looks like shedding layers of a life that no longer fits. Like moving out of Los Angeles and into my parents’ house, not as a step backward, but as a step back. To pause. To reflect. To listen. To decide where — and how — I actually want to live next.

I also learned to be mindful about what you wish for — sometimes the universe delivers exactly what you ask for (so best to be specific).

I joked to a friend this summer that I’d like to marry a man who looked like my celebrity crush. Months later, I went on a date with my now-boyfriend, who casually mentioned he gets compared to that same celebrity all the time. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe the universe has a sense of humor — and sometimes, if you just ask, you actually receive.

Which brings me to my last point — there is no such thing as asking for too much or dreaming too big. All that matters is having the courage to move when the answer comes.

Sometimes, the answer doesn’t arrive as the thing you imagined. It arrives as a breadcrumb. A turn you almost don’t take. An almost perfect but not quite. A redirection.

But if you follow it, everything else has a way of finding you.

This year taught me that manifestation is about trusting that when you choose alignment over comfort and courage over fear, the path rearranges itself beneath your feet.

You don’t need to see the whole path. You just need to take the next step. And if you do, one day you’ll look back and realize nothing was random at all.

If you’re also following breadcrumbs right now — unsure where they lead but trusting them anyway — you’re in good company.

As we step into 2026, don’t be afraid to ask for everything your heart wants. Ask boldly, dream unapologetically, and then have the courage to meet those dreams halfway.

It was my first time doing something like this — traveling completely solo, to a place I’d never been, to live in a town where I didn’t know a soul. The kind of decision that seems exciting when you plan it out, but feels a bit unhinged when you’re alone on a two-lane highway, driving to a stranger’s house in the Jeep Grand Cherokee they left for you at the airport, watching Salt Lake City disappear behind you and farmland begin to stretch all around you.

Kamas is about thirty minutes outside Park City. Blink and you could miss it. One main road. A handful of shops, a grocery store, and a few diners.

It was a perfect, charming small-town to try on, but the logistics of getting there were far less romantic. I couldn’t reasonably afford my LA rent and an Airbnb somewhere else. I couldn’t find a sublet. And I wasn’t ready to give up my life as I knew it without first seeing if I actually liked living in a small town.

Inadvertently, my parents met a couple who were staying in a house near them for a few months while the owners were away. They had booked it through a site called “Trusted Housesitters.” I got the bright idea to try it for myself and applied to a handful of listings in small towns I’d been curious about — Bozeman, Bend, Park City. I interviewed with strangers over Zoom. We talked about feeding schedules, walking routines, places to explore. Then came the real question: was I comfortable being alone in remote places?

That’s how I landed here.

The animals became my introduction to this life. A Great Pyrenees who took her job of protecting the house very seriously. A very old lab who moved slowly and slept often. A roaming outdoor cat who observed me from a distance, unimpressed.

My weekdays fell into a rhythm quickly. Early mornings. Feeding everyone. Working remotely at the kitchen table. Attempting to go for runs around the neighborhood, gasping for breath in the high altitude. Quiet, dark nights where thousands of stars shone brightly.

On my first Saturday, I woke up, fed the animals, and watched the sunrise from the back porch with a cup of coffee. I realized I had absolutely no plans for the day — and no friends to make plans with. It was time to get creative.

I hopped in the Jeep and decided to drive around the town to orient myself. Given the size of Main Street, that took all of two minutes. At the end of the road, a sign pointed right: Mirror Lake Highway. Resisting the urge to turn on my navigation, I took the turn and kept driving.

I came across a tiny country mart along the highway and pulled over. Inside, the aisles were stocked with bear spray, fishing tackle, and camping supplies. A cowboy strolled in — chaps on and all — and I had to stop myself from laughing at the absurdity of it. I had absolutely no business being there, but I ordered a turkey sandwich from the woman behind the counter anyway.

Provisions secured, I got back in the Jeep and continued on. The Uinta Mountains rose up on all sides. The farther I went, the taller and denser the forest became. I rolled the windows down, blasted music, and felt something overwhelming — and unfamiliar.

I had no idea where I was going. There were no cars around. My phone showed an SOS signal. I had stumbled into surroundings that were not only jaw-droppingly beautiful, but into the feeling I had been searching for without knowing how to name it. Peace.

This was just the first of many realizations I had during the month I spent in Kamas.

The most surprising part of my first solo trip? I didn’t feel lonely for a single second. In fact, I felt less lonely than I had at home in LA.

This trip wasn’t meant to decide anything. It was just an experiment — trying on a small town, seeing what happened when I gave myself permission to choose differently. But the longer I stayed, the more it changed me.

I called my mom to tell her everything I’d been up to, and she said, “I haven’t heard you sound this happy in a really long time.”

I left Kamas knowing one thing for sure: this wasn’t just an experiment anymore. I was going to have to let go of what was only kind of right to find something better.

And this was just the first town I tried on.

My mom has been opening Christmas cards from friends who still send letters. Envelopes with real stamps and sloping cursive. Pages folded in thirds. Long paragraphs about children, travel, health, the passing of time. It made me realize how rare this feels now. How the slow accounting of a year, written for no one in particular, and yet everyone that matters, feels like a lost art.

So here is mine.

At the beginning of the year, during the LA fires, I reached out to the local animal shelter, knowing they were overwhelmed. They replied instantly and asked me to drive over and pick up one of the many puppies they didn’t have the capacity for. She was a 5-week old husky-shepherd mix named Scout, equal parts sweet and feisty, and she quickly stole my heart. My parents ended up adopting her, which feels like one of those quiet wins the year slipped in without asking.

In February, I started a new job at a small biotech company. It’s remote, fast-moving, and I wear a lot of hats. I love the freedom it gives me — working from different places, visiting friends and family, letting work fit into my life instead of the other way around.

It was my second year living in LA. I loved my Venice Beach bungalow, my gym, the community I had built. I hosted dinner parties, walked the canals, tried all the new restaurants, and was overall satisfied with my day-to-day. But still, somewhere in the background, there was an ache — a feeling that I wasn’t fully fulfilled, that something new was asking for my attention.

So I decided to listen.

Single and no longer tied down to a job in LA, I decided to try on some new places the way you try on clothes — carefully, paying attention to how they made me feel. A bit unconventional for a single girl in her late 20s, I narrowed my list down to small mountain towns. That experiment led me to the first place on my list, a small town outside of Salt Lake City, where I lived on farmland for three weeks, taking care of a Great Pyrenees, a very old lab, and a cat. I learned how quiet nights can be. How much space changes the way you breathe.

As that journey unfolded in the background, there were also many milestones worth celebrating. I celebrated friends’ engagements, weddings, pregnancy announcements, new homes and job promotions. My dad turned 60. I turned 30. We marked both with a trip to France — a reminder of how lucky I am and how much I love quality time with my family.

In the biggest plot twist of 2025, I met someone (!!!). He took me to Jackson Hole for my birthday weekend, and later spent Thanksgiving with my family, fitting in as if he’d always been part of us. I learned that some things arrive gently, without needing to be chased.

This year taught me that it’s okay to let go of a life that looks good on paper if it no longer feels right in your body. That choosing uncertainty can be an act of self-trust. That beginning again requires a lot of courage.

If you’re reading this and feeling like you’re standing between versions of yourself, unsure of what’s next but certain that something needs to change, I hope you know you’re not alone.

Happy holidays, and wishing all our dreams come true in 2026.

With love,
Madison

I had spent the last decade working fast-paced corporate jobs in big cities. Like every twenty-something “should,” I worked hard Monday through Friday and spent weeknights and weekends making the most of my time off - dinners with friends, crowded bars, always something to do. My life followed the expected trajectory: build a career, live in the city, meet a man… and then eventually move somewhere quieter together.

But nine years in, I hadn’t met a man I wanted to build a life with. And somewhere along the way, I started to believe that meant I was stuck, tethered to life in the city until that piece fell into place.

I should clarify: I lived in Los Angeles. And for anyone who hasn’t experienced dating there firsthand, it’s rare to find someone ready to settle down, and even rarer to find someone open to leaving. I could almost see their eyes glaze over as I sipped my cabernet sauvignon and told them about my dream of having chickens in my backyard.

At the same time, I had a remote job and realized I was spending more time intentionally traveling than actually being home. And whenever I left the city for somewhere quieter, I felt my lungs release a long, slow exhale, a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

I started to wonder when life, and the place I called home, had become something I needed to recover from. I found myself craving quiet mornings. Places where nature set the rhythm. A life that felt slower and more peaceful.

So I decided to rewrite my timeline.

I started plotting my escape by making a short list of small towns I could try living in that met a few simple criteria:

• near mountains or forests

• a charming, walkable downtown

• an active, welcoming community

• within an hour of an airport

The plan was to “try on” small towns for a few weeks at a time and see what home might feel like when it was chosen and not defaulted into because my friends and job were there. To see whether a life built with a little more space might actually feel fuller.

Somewhere along the way, this experiment in slowing down led me to a mountain town, and to a connection I didn’t plan on finding.

I’m sharing this story because I don’t think I’m alone in these questions. I wonder if there are other women quietly asking themselves whether the path they’re on is the only one available to them. Women who feel grateful for what they have, but can’t shake the feeling that something else might fit better.

Here, I’ll write essays about this season. The towns I visit, learning how to listen to what’s calling me, and the process of letting go of something good enough to make room for something incredible.

If you’re standing at the edge of change, questioning the plan or the picture you once had for your life, I hope you know you’re in good company.