Fare Thee Well, from the New Kid in Town
I want to begin this by saying “I feel like I am on the precipice of something big: like the rest of my life.” But, it feels cliche, particularly because of the fact that that statement has seemed true – for different reasons – perhaps every month for the last year. Or for the last two years. Or three. At any rate, I do feel like I’m on the precipice of something big, because this is my last week with Wild Diversity, and next week begins my orientation for graduate school. Which, presumably, will take up, fill, animate the next six years of my life.
I’ll wax poetic for a moment and say that it really is hard to wrap my mind around the fact that just over a year ago, I was sitting at a desk in Rancho Cucamonga, interviewing with Mercy M’fon over Zoom for this job. With this organization that I knew very little about. But that I knew I wanted to be part of. A little over a year ago, the magic began, and my relationship with the outdoors was forever shifted. More importantly, even, my understanding of myself as an outdoorist was forever shifted. Wild Diversity added such vibrancy to the way that I now encounter the outdoor world. So, I write, here at the end, about some of the things I hope to carry with me:
Rest is sacred. Just a little over a month after moving to Portland, I went back and forth about attending Wild Diversity’s inaugural BIPOC Wellness Weekend. I did not know if I could swing it financially. I did not know if I had it in me socially. But ultimately, I got there. And it was perhaps the single best thing I did for myself while I lived in Portland. So, without repeating myself from a newsletter I wrote for us some time ago, I’ll just say this: BIPOC Wellness Weekend reminded me about the sacredness of rest. It taught me about the healing that is possible when you bring your naked self into the woods – literally and figuratively. And that the opportunity to balance quiet solitude and the energy of a collective of BIPOC folks is a magic that I hope to find over and over again.
You can choose your own Adventure (Buddy). Wild Diversity is predicated on the belief that everyone has their own outdoor love language. That adventure will look different for each of us, at different times, in different seasons. That there is no one way to be outdoors. I internalized this belief very quickly, and it changed how I saw myself. But it also made me very cognizant of what it is to be compatible with someone outdoors. What it is to feel safe, and inspired. And it’s fostered this deep gratitude for my partner, whom I now realize is the perfect adventure buddy for me. For various reasons that are not important to get into here, we are well matched when we are outside. Or road tripping. Or on the water. And I think my time with Wild Diversity just made me even more grateful to find compatibility with someone in the ways I like to frolic among the trees.
But, really, Teamwork does make the Dream work. Who knew? I have been fortunate enough to work for several businesses or organizations throughout my life that I have loved. If we have ever had a conversation about my time in coffee in St. Louis, for instance, you probably know how obsessed I am with Rise Coffee House, my last place of work before Wild Diversity. But, wow, it still moves me to think how powerful it is to have a team that you love working with, a group of people that you love showing up for. That has been my experience at Wild Diversity. That this group of people, and the power of our work, creates an energy in the spaces that we occupy that is almost inexplicable. Maybe Mercy is just really phenomenal at hiring (that’s obviously part of it). Maybe all the internet think pieces really are right about what it does to a Black person, let alone a queer Black person, to work in all white spaces – and there is magic in the safe haven that is our Wild Diversity team. Or maybe it is something else altogether. But this team, and the ease of being on the water with them, or grabbing a drink with them after work, or frolicking on the Oregon Coast for a week, is probably what I will miss the most.
A big mission is manifested in small moments. Wild Diversity is a nonprofit organization that aims to help create a personal connection to the outdoors for Black, Indigenous, all People of Color (BIPOC) & the LGBTQ2S+ communities, through outdoor adventures and education. This is a big mission. First, in the fact that it responds to the very significant barriers that BIPOC and Queer folks have to face to encounter the outdoors. And second, in its implications. This is life-saving, life-altering work that we are doing here. On the individual level. And for the planet. A world in which BIPOC folks, especially, are more deeply rooted in their inherent connections to the outdoors is a fundamentally better world. This is what we want. This is what we are building. And what I have learned is that this mission is carried out in the smallest of moments: whether it's Charelle teaching me how to tie a daisy chain when we went kayaking, or Mercy telling me about the trees and the birds and believing that I, too, have the capacity to know them well.
There is a belief, in this organization, that our knowledge is inherent, just waiting to be tapped into. Our capacity is inherent, just waiting to be animated. We are all outdoorists. And I honestly don’t know when, if ever, I would have learned that lesson, without the work of Wild Diversity.
I am grateful. And better. Because of it. So, I’ll see y’all outside.
Kristen Trudo | Marketing Coordinator, former New Kid in Town, incoming PhD candidate at Brown University
