Trial by Fire

The year 2020 did not go as planned for anyone, including me.

In late December 2019, I had shared a story called Double or Nothing on Out There podcast. It was a love letter to my little cabin that I had purchased five months earlier in a Northern Colorado canyon.

The cabin symbolized my independence, and a promise I had made to honor my creative life as a writer. At the time the episode aired, I was happy and content, settling in for my first cozy winter. I would turn fifty years old in 2020, and had made a resolution to start the next decade off strong.

Be careful what you wish for.

In today’s episode of Out There podcast (audio player at bottom of post), we pick up my story in August 2020, right before my fiftieth birthday. It was the middle of the pandemic, and I was about to leave behind my mom, who has Alzheimer’s disease, to embark on a two-week backpacking trip, alone in the mountains. I thought as long as I planned well enough, I would stay in control of my life.

But as I emerged from the wilderness at the end of my trek, I came face-to-face with a raging natural disaster that threatened to destroy my world.

Today’s episode “Trial by Fire” explores my quest to find strength and serenity amidst the chaos of COVID, my mom’s Alzheimer’s disease, and the biggest wildfire in Colorado history.