I spent this past weekend in this forest in the Methow Valley.

I love this river, these woods, and the people who travel here with me.

I first came here nine years ago, sure that I would hate the experience. It’s “camping” after all, and I don’t camp.

But I fell in love. With these woods, with that group of people, with the man who would become my husband.

And the father of my baby.

This year we managed to nab our favorite site along the Chewuch River. It has the perfect space for River Bar, where I sat with my lady friends, enjoyed half a beer, and showed off my emerging baby bump.

I sat with our whole group around a fire, constantly fed to fuel conversation, long stories about camping trips that came before, and way too many inside jokes that never grow old.

I love this place, and these people, and the traditions and stories that have made the last nine years, capped off by our yearly venture out into these woods, the best nine years of my life. 

Because it isn’t just about the woods. The woods were just the beginning. It was the first time I got to know Jeremy, who would go on to be my husband, and Karl, one of our best friends. I had only been hanging out with Mackenzie for a few weeks at the time, and it was the first time I’d seen her boyfriend Nick since college.

From that one camping trip back in 2010, I found my community. My people. Over the years, I’ve brought my best friends out to join us, and our group and grown and waned, but every year, we come back to these woods in some form or another. 

I shed more than a few tears this weekend.

Maybe it was hormones.

Maybe it was knowing that this was the last time we’d be able to drive five hours over mountains and into these woods without having to worry about our new, tiny human.

When next year’s camping trip rolls around, we’ll have a seven-month-old baby. Can we even take the baby camping? How will it change the group dynamic if we do? Will we even enjoy ourselves while having to take care of this tiny human on their first adventure in the woods?

Could we leave the baby with grandparents? Would I be okay knowing that I was out of cell range if anything should happen? 

I don’t know. 

And I’m terrified.

But life is change. It’s what makes us human, the ability to change and grow and reflect and understand the consequences of those changes.

It’s what draws me to contemporary fiction. I write about change. My characters undergo big and little changes in their lives and as they process what that change means, so do I. I write to understand the changes in my own life, explore alternate realities where responding in a different way might have had a different result. 

In life, thought, we only get one chance to respond. And that’s what makes it so damn scary.

I keep reminding myself that this life I have is built on change, and every single time I’ve been confronted with change, I’ve been terrified. But without it, if I hadn’t eventually embraced that change, where would I be? 

Not here, in my own home, with a husband who adores me, a puppy in her bed, and a healthy baby on the way.

Everything changes, and in the end it’s for the best.

Even this camping trip, which has been such a core part of my summers for so long, has evolved. It started before me, with three 18-year-old boys who went into the woods. Over the years they came back, and they brought girls and roommates. Some stuck around, some didn’t. Eventually, I stuck.

The woods themselves have changed, shaped by fire and water, birth and death. Nature, more than anything, is borne of change.

I don’t know how things will change next year, only that they will. 

But I know that one day I’ll be back in those woods with a kid in tow. They’ll see critters and crawlies and wake up to the sounds of the river and the morning call of birds. They’ll roast marshmallows and stay up late to watch the stars. They’ll hear our old stories with fresh ears, about how Jeremy and I fell in love, about how deep roots were formed. 

I just hope they love these woods the way I do, no matter how these woods may change.