Where'd That Darn Strawberry Go?

When I think of Wyoming, I can't help but smile. So many amazing friends were met and phenomenal memories were made. The past couple of days, one person in particular has been on my mind, probably because of the ceramic strawberry he gave me that reminds me every day to "eat my strawberry".

I still remember the moment Jackson arrived at base. I had finished making dinner and was sitting down with Sophie to enjoy a warm meal. This tall, skinny, gorgeous, blonde guy with a hat and outdoorsy clothing came walking up the path. My body tensed up with excitement. Sophie's left hand grabbed my knee and squeezed. "Hi y'all," he said with an slight twang.

"Oh my goodness! He even has an accent," the words had escaped my lips before I realized my thoughts were not on mute. He smiled at me and went to the kitchen to grab some food.

The next couple of weeks were spent exchanging flirtatious banter and being inspired by his stories and quotes of the day. I remember waiting every morning for the moment he would pop his head into the kitchen to check if the coffee was ready and ask if I needed help cooking, which I always did. One day, I mentioned a cool lighter that was shaped like a pistol I had seen in town. The next day, he poked his head through the door and told me he had a surprise for me. Yup, you guessed it; he went out and bought the lighter for me. I jumped up and down giddy with excitement.

I spent a lot of time in that kitchen while people were out getting to know each other. I remember everyone talking about a strawberry story Jackson had been sharing. One night, after leaving the Outlaw, Jackson drove me to meet the others at the look out. On our way, while blasting Shania Twain, I asked if he would tell me the strawberry story. "The timing has to be right," he informed me. "You don't need to hear the strawberry story yet. I didn't understand.

Weeks passed and soon staff training was over. Tucker, Elle, Jackson, Brock, Mackenzi, Rachel and I took a trip out to Shadow Mountain for a night of camping next to the Tetons. It was a great trip, but for some reason, I was really missing Josh. I was pretty homesick in general. As everyone sat around the fire drinking whiskey, I stole away back to Elle's and my tent. As I allowed myself to cry a little bit, I heard someone come and lay their head next to mine on the outside of the tent. It was Jackson. "Hey, Jackson," I mumbled. "I think I'm ready for the strawberry story."

I don't know what convinced him that I was ready to hear this epic tale, but tell it to me, he did. I remember being in awe of every word he said. I really cannot do this story justice, so I am going to allow Jackson to tell the story for me:

"There were a couple of things I wanted to do after graduating high school. One was go to underwater soldering (that word looks nothing like it sounds) school, and roll in the big bucks – the other was to make a difference in the world. I uneducatedly decided to go into the Peace Core. To make a section of a long story shorter, I ended up in Nigeria managing prairie fires – which apparently are a big issue down there.

So.. I’m in Nigeria, and I’ve spent the past couple of weeks in a colossal tower in the middle of the middle of no where east Jesus - looking at grass. Yes… grass. Lots of it. Everywhere. For miles, and miles, and miles. In the middle of that never ending sea of boring - on this particular day, the grass was irregularly boring me, just swaying pretentiously back and forth like it was trying to make a statement,  so I left my little tower to eat my cucumber and mustard sandwich... or whatever. I ventured out into the prairies and found a nice rock surface to eat on top of.

LNT fo’life yo.

Relaxing on my durable surface, I slipped into a day dream, you know when you kind of forget that you're in real life? That happened. And I tuned out for a short while– most likely swimming past the occipital lobe, breast stroking through black marmalade towards the cerebellum. The thing that brought me back to reality was the sound. The sound I will never forget. The sound… was a bowel shattering roar.

A ROAR. I cannot say that with enough annunciation on the word. This was no ordinary roar. This roar had weight. The most weighty roar I’ve ever heard. Say it again in your mind, “A ROAR.”

This sound express delivered reverberations of terror into my eardrum.

In the middle of Nigeria, in the middle of a prairie, with no one around for miles.When you hear a roar in this setting, you literally shit your pants. I tightened up and resisted this innate feeling. My senses heightened, pupils dilated, muscle fibers oxygenated, adrenaline and cortisol coursing through my veins – I stood and scanned the horizon. Through the eye height grass, I saw movement… and the grass shaking. Before my mind could even process, the head of a lion emerged.

At this moment, when our eyes met, no words were exchanged, no thoughts ran through our minds, we both knew.. exactly what was to happen.

I flew, the natural flight or fight response was of course inevitable - like a California condor on crack I flew so hard. Flames followed my feet as I ran faster than the Back To The Future car. I realized as my mind and body were racing, that my triumphant safety watch tower dingy was much farther away than would be optimal in a situation like this, because optimally.. it would be right next to me... so I ran towards a cliff edge that I knew I could climb down. As I approached the cliff, I swiftly turned my head to check up on my lion friend, and I could see it, not running, not walking. Stalking me, with an ominous intent. I got to the cliff and down climbed fiercefully. When I got about halfway down I looked up, and saw the terrocious lion (terror and ferocious)… pacing, back and forth along the cliffs edge. Salivating with hunger.

I figured, what’evs. This lion is a dumb dumb. I’ll just down climb this cliff and get back to my kick ass watch tower. So I started to follow that course of action, and when I looked down, there was ANOTHER lion at the foot of the cliff. ANOTHER! They had cornered me! Communicated like fucking Velociraptors.

So, I decided I would wait them out. Yeah. Wait out a pair of starving lions. After 4 hours and the sun starting to set, the lions were still there. I came to the conclusion that I was probably completely screwed. And then it hit me. It hit me that I would be dieing in the middle of Nigeria, via lion. Something happens to you, when you realize your going to die. And right as I approached a literally once in a life time epiphany, I caught the glimpse of something red in the corner of my eye.

I said to myself, “might as well check it out. before I get eaten, by most likely, pure bred lions.”

So I climbed over, grabbed the side of this cliff, pulled myself up, and discovered this beautiful thing, laying in a little crevasse, a little nook, a tiny trench, a wee cranny crack.

A strawberry, just precariously growing.  Large, luscious, succulent, strikingly stunning, beading with dew and glistening in the setting sun. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life and I realized right then, that there was only one thing left for me to do in my life. So.

I reached out my hand
grasped the strawberry with my fingertips,
plucked it,
and delivered it into my mouth.

And I ate it. It was the best thing, I have ever tasted.

If you’re by any chance asking yourself what happened next? What happened to the lions!? Did you die!? Well, the moment I enjoyed that monumental strawberry, the lions went away. I then realized that those lions were not just any lions, and that strawberry was not just any strawberry. The lion above me, pacing back and forth, was an archetypical symbol for my future. All the things in the future that were mere stressors in my life. Everything that was awaiting me. All things distracting me from one thing. The lion below me was everything in my past that bothered me and harassed me from one thing.

That one thing, was thestrawberry.

The strawberry. That moment. The one moment that is incomparable to any other. The strawberry was a symbol for this moment. YOUR moment. The one that is beautiful, surreal, and once in a life time. Literally! Once in a life time! The eternal joybliss mountaintop of your existence. You mustn’t be taken off track, or disrupted by the lions in your life, because they are fierce and hugely distracting, and their roars are so easily heard in a sea of dry grass waiting to catch on fire. These lions live to distract you, they were designed to lurk in the prairies, pounce on you and let out booming roars that are only subtracting you from the magnificence that lives in every infinitesimal instant - every tiny cranny nook, that are sometimes hard to find. The only moment that counts. Right now.

Live each moment with certainty that it is your moment. Live each one and live it with YOUR style. Always know that around every corner, however unsuspecting it may be, a strawberry awaits."

Thank you, Jackson, for the strawberry story. My life would not be the same without it. You are missed.