One Year of Mother Neff - My State Park Journey in Photos of Visits Throughout the Year

Happy one year, sweet Mother Neff

Check out this awesome state park! Mother Neff State Park in Moody, TX. My very first visit was exactly ONE YEAR AGO from today, so I'm celebrating by sharing my journey with the park in photos. Enjoy the captions and visuals. It's been a wild, wonderful year. If you're interested in visiting my park, come out on Saturday, February 18! I'm organizing a volunteer opportunity. See me on Instagram or Facebook for more details. Volunteers visit for FREE! Plus, the Buffalo Soldiers are doing a reenactment on the same day. Or just come when you can!

JANUARY 31, 2016

On this day, I remember being aching to go outside, so I looked for green spaces on my map app. The first green space that showed up was Mother Neff State Park, and it was DEFINITELY a green dream last January!

Absolutely perfect day. I napped pretty well.

The wash pond was mesmerizing, as always. This is my very first look at the wash pond, so it grabbed me by the heartstrings and never let me go. 

The trails are short yet cozy and beautiful.

NOVEMBER 5, 2016

The next time I came was during a CCC event at the park. It included food, crafts, and fun. I brought my two youngest siblings and introduced them to Mother Neff for their first time.

The wash pond was flowing and lively! 

Parks have a special vibe when its raining. Like this damp yet lovely shot.

This section right next to the cave was entirely alive! My little brother had fun looking cool.

The cave provided a nice relief from the rain, much like we imagine it did back then for native people. My baby sister stands in the background as I attempt to get an artistic shot. Did I succeed??

NOVEMBER 8-10, 2016 

This is the pond near the prairie loop. On this visit, I camped out alone for my first time.  

I had dreadlocks! My first solo trip was very rewarding.  

So many things were gorgeously carpeted with moss.

I did a little backpacking practice to prepare for our training. The park rangers thought I was funny for walking their short trails with a backpack until I explained why!

It was also rainy during my solo trip. This time, the trails were haunting and eerie, which was fitting for the mood I was in at the time.

Overall, I had a great time! During the night it was a bit scary, wondering if any animals or weirdos were out in the woods watching me. Other than that, Mother Neff was an amazing place to practice solo. 

DECEMBER 5, 2016

During this visit, I brought my friend Sarah along for a formal photo shoot! She was raising money for the World Race via photos, and I was introducing yet another person to Mother Neff! Win-win :)

And...Once again...it was raining! Made the shoot extra fun. 

Spicy Cat.

It was Texas fall time, so everything was bursting with color. Sarah did her best to capture the colors in the artsy way she does.

This photo looks like I'm living a pure dream. I love it!

Wash pond water-play. 

This was also the shoot designate to feature my unibrow, which I wrote a blog about and you can find here.

Sarah does absolutely amazing work. I'm missing her as she galavants around the globe.

DECEMBER 10-11, 2016

Mother Neff had a Christmas event and I brought some friends along! Mother Neff events are fun, PLUS we have a beautiful headquarters, which makes the partying EXTRA jazzy.

They had a campsite decorating contest. This is what you can do with borrowing/dollar store items.

Camping with friends is the BEST! And these people were great. Would 10/10 go with them again.

DECEMBER 22, 2016

Then Melissa, the park superintendent had a party and it was a good bit of fun :)  I didn't take photos, so I have screenshots from videos. The human hiding behind this caption is Daniel, one of the park employees. He's pretty cool!

This photo literally says it all.

JANUARY 1, 2017

On January 1, we had our first day hikes. Mother Neff topped the attendance charts with 549 people walking our trails! It was a fun day of dogs, humans, and nature. Photo taken by Ky Harkey.

I helped out Jeremy and Ky with guiding our longer hikes. I got my 'official' on with my ambassador name tag and a walkie   talkie.

JANUARY 8-10, 2017

During this trip, I was filming some videos and taking some more time for myself.

I also met up with my park superintendent and saw another ambassador, my friend Seph!

A perk I got for being an ambassador was staying in our CCC cabin for free and staying in the intern cabin as well.  I created some very cozy feels in those cabins.

The intern cabin!

My adventures are memories here are very dear and treasured. Thanks for taking time to step into my Mother Neff world. See you there soon!

Transitions & Natural Hair - Um, Dreads?? and Change

Okay! I get it! The young are capricious! It's kind of like having younger siblings - you want to tell them not to do the same stupid shit you did because you know how it ends...but they simply will not learn until they experience it for themselves. Same for parents to kids. The interplay between your personal knowledge and someone else's need for personal experience can be frustrating - or beautiful.

Life happens in stages of development. There are physical stages, like puberty and old age. There are psychological stages, which lead to increased maturity. Sometimes people miss certain stages. There are all kinds of theories on what the stages are, but we know for sure that we experience different things at different ages, and the lessons we learn (should) help us continue in maturity/wisdom. If you miss a stage, you can't typically progress to any other stage after that because each stage builds on the one before.

All of this to say, I'm deep inside of a searching/questioning/exploring phase. Sometimes I feel like circumstances rocket-launched me into this phase. Mostly, I'm very aware of the choices I've made to be here.  Occasionally I question if I should have gone through this sooner, but no matter - where I am now is where I am. Honestly? I love where I am. I FEEL WILD AND FREE.

It's tough, too. I'm no longer:
-a student
-a child
-employed
-a christian
-in a relationship

And all of these labels have provided each their own false sense of security before. Now, I'm naked, unbound by any group, label, identity and WOAH, if you've been here, you know it's scary. Maybe you never made it here and you crave it. How I wish everyone gets their own chance to be stripped of all the baggage put on by family and society.

What is happening in this stage? I'm all over the place wild, changing my hair every few months (hence, no longer having dreadlocks), exploring new places, searching for meaning in a workplace, attempting to be true to my deepest passions I've known since I was a tiny kid (when I was unexposed to the heartache and bias of the world).  I'm fighting to understand my intrinsic value as a human being - the value that isn't defined by what I do/can do, what I think/believe, what I look like, etc. In part, I wrote this blog to talk about my dreadlocks.

DREADLOCKS - they were short lived this time around. I suspect I might try them again, but who really knows? They were purposeful when I had them. Remember what I wrote before? When I was inside some intense transitions, I began working on dreading my hair.  It was helpful for me to have something tangible I could control with my hands while the rest of the world was spinning out of my control.  Eventually, when the dreads were a bit more normal, I did not make enough time to maintain them at the level I wanted.  I desired to feel confident with my hair, but I didn't make the choices to reach that confidence level.  My dreadlocks got very messy, and I no longer admired myself with them.  So I took them out.  It was rapid and it was unexpected, but it was right. I made yet another change in my life, and now I'm blogging about it. Typical!

In all truthfulness, though, I'm sharing this to tell you - it's okay to change.  It's actually okay to do something different, something out of the ordinary. Also, you're allowed to return to something you left. My parents choose to believe I'm still a "Christian" or "believer" in order to make it through another day. My sister Shanna has left the door open for returning to Christianity (and I've left it open vice versa; more on my transition away from my childhood belief system in the future). I'm putting in the work in accepting the rapid unsureness of my present stage. While I don't plan on returning to anything of my past any time soon, my hair has been a safe place to practice change and transition. What a gift.

Now, I'm rocking my natural hair again, and I love it! Since I recently began exploring going natural with the rest of my body (growing out my armpit hair, eyebrow/unibrow hair and leg/toe hair), it makes sense to return my head hair to its natural state. It's like completing a puzzle. The last piece, at least for now, was saying goodbye to my dreadlocks. So many people loved them and met me for their first time when I had them.

Yet I'm shuffling the puzzle pieces all the time, all the same. Here's a quote from an empowering Ted talk about being in your 20s:

"These are the facts... We know that personality changes more during your 20s than at any other time in life, and we know that female fertility peaks at age 28, and things get tricky after age 35. So your 20s are the time to educate yourself about your body and your options."

 Honestly, it does no good to look down on millennials for their wild changes. Every adult goes through being in their 20s. Give this Ted talk a listen, no matter what age you are, and get on board with empowering 20 year olds.

What does this have anything to do with all the major shifts happening in the world right now? When you connect someone to the freedom to choose their own path and change their mind, you open doors for authentic, active change. When you quit requiring young people to appropriate their true self to religion or law, you will see good changes happen. Once again, I'm offering this small story in hopes that one less person will feel alone in their wild, shifting, changing 20s. I'm really hoping you listen to the Ted talk and feel proud to embody the stage you're in. Being in your 20s doesn't mean you have a decade to waste. It's the PRIME time to put in the work that will impact the rest of your life.  I used to tell people my age coupled with the phrase, "I'm just a baby." Now I'm closer to feeling confident when I say I'm in my early 20s. And it's tough, but I'm putting in the work. Here's to changing!!

Some days they rocked!

Bye bye dreadies.

Enjoying my natural hair again. I lost half my volume! #DoItForTheTwenties

Bare Naked in Winter

I love deciduous trees in winter, when they are naked before me and I can see into their souls.  What do I see beneath the eaves of trees with no leaves? What lies behind their wintry hibernation?  Which knocks reach their dormant doors?

Survival - 

Slow...everything...moves...so...slowly... until it seems nothing is happening at all.  Water quits moving to their tips; their dry bark huddles to pause all glowy growth and energy flow. Self-preservation looks a lot like trees in the winter - slowing life down to become centered again, grounded in a sense. Pausing the overwhelming flow of energy that comes with spring, fall, summer and simmering down to my core.  I want to make it through another winter.  I become bare naked, like the trees.

Raw Beauty - 

With my skin exposed, the natural elements take a special toll.  Wind knocks off many of my dead branches, people look at me a lot less often, I break at the cracks.  I feel so much less beautiful, in all honesty.  But, on certain days, I enjoy my own raw beauty, and I sing along with the sore throat of the dry tree bones.

Skeleton Hopelessness - 

Dry bones that sometimes make me feel it will never end. Winter is going to stay around forever, my lips will always be chapped, and I will always remain unloved. I feel weak, thin, frail, crackly, and flat-out hopeless.  I'm dead inside, yet I still have potential to thrive.

Eager Hopefulness - 

And then I feel it once again.  My nakedness is only for a time.  I desire to love it for what it is - a clearing of my palette for a new time of growth.  I'm not growing weaker, I'm growing stronger.  Every single day that I survive the winter in my nakedness, I become woven into the strength of the earth. 

I see the trees as a mirror, reflecting everything about me.  Things are seasons. Sometimes people are seasons.  It doesn't mean it hurts any less when they fall away.  I imagine trees have some kind of grief over their lost leaves they've nurtured for two seasons.  Maybe the colors are a sweet farewell in the fall, to make the hard time ahead just a little more bearable.

To all my dead leaves, I miss you.  You will always be a part of my history, a part of my story of survival, a part of my memories of thriving.  I love you and I know you will make your way back to me.  As you decompose and seep into the earth, your love is recycled into my roots and tubes.  I think this is the only way I know how to let you go - in believing you're never really leaving, just changing the way you love me. I'm bare naked in winter, and I'm excited for spring.  For now, I dance, unabashedly. Winter is just one season.

A Quiet Post

When I was younger, I wrote secret things to secret nobodies. I forged little passive notes of love or agression, tucked them in public spaces, and hoped the one person I wanted to read them would not only find them, but read them and ALSO know they were from me to him.

In this present day, I remember that feeling of hope which penetrated my entire being. My naivety back then sure colored my world a bright, passionate Pollock of hope and desire. It was a survival tool to help me through the angsty hormonal teenage years, and as I'm in the midst of my angsty young 20s, I remember my passivity.

Truth is, it's an option. Most nights are silent pockets of lonely, hoping for a phone call or a message yet doing nothing to be connected to anyone else. Most nights see my mind raging through lists of possible ways to medicate my lonely. Drink? Smoke? Sex? Netflix? Instagram? What's the next distraction?

A solid community cannot be taken for granted. It also doesn't appear out of the blue. On this night, as I reflect on all the ways I've chosen to assuage my lonely, I feel I'm coming full circle to my passivity. Posting a quiet blog entry. Yet, I know inside, I'm not who I was before. I'm no longer the passive kind. I think I can see now how the circles of life repeat, yet show us the distances we've conquered each round. I'm far from where I was before.

Back to community. In an ideal world, no one would ever feel alone. Yet, the yin-yang begs to say, how would we ever appreciate community? Human touch? Another's presence? So on this night, I choose to medicate with silent honesty to myself - I'm alone, yet I know it won't be forever. I'm in a world full of beautiful, hurting, healing people. In this quiet stillness, my anticipation of community and genuine human contact could not be larger. When it comes, I will be ready. For now, I know I'm by myself, and it's actually okay.