Chapter One Part Two: Growing Up

Some of my favorite memories from Palouse aren't attached to anything important. There wasn't a huge family vacation or some life-changing event behind them. Most of the time, I was just outside being a kid, completely unaware that the ordinary days I barely thought about would eventually become some of the ones I missed the most. I climbed trees, rode my bike, dug around in the dirt, searched for four-leaf clovers, and somehow managed to turn our yard into whatever world I needed it to be that day. The bushes could become a secret hideout, the giant tree in the front yard could become the highest point of some imaginary kingdom, and the space around our old house seemed enormous because I was still small enough for a backyard to feel like an entire world.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time searching for four-leaf clovers. I don't know where I found that kind of patience because I definitely don't have it now. I could sit in the grass forever, carefully moving through clover after clover, convinced that if I kept looking long enough, there had to be a lucky one hiding somewhere. Finding one felt like I'd discovered buried treasure. I'd carry it around proudly like I'd somehow beaten impossible odds. I didn't need much to make me happy back then. Apparently sunshine, a patch of grass, and one clover with an extra leaf were enough to make an entire afternoon feel successful.

Animals were an even bigger part of my world, which probably wouldn't surprise anyone who knows me now. I've always been that person. If there was an animal nearby, I wanted to know where it was, what it was doing, whether it liked me, and most importantly, whether I could somehow convince it that we should be best friends. It didn't matter if it was a dog, a bug, a squirrel, or something I probably had absolutely no business trying to approach. I wanted to see it, touch it if I was allowed, and somehow become part of whatever little world it lived in.

The squirrels around our house became one of my first attempts at befriending wildlife. I'd sit outside with peanuts and wait for them to come closer. At first, they'd stay near the trees and watch me like they were trying to decide whether I was trustworthy or completely insane. Honestly, both were probably reasonable possibilities. I'd sit as still as I could with a peanut held out in my hand, waiting for one of them to get brave enough to approach me. Eventually, they did. I still remember how exciting it was when one finally came close enough to take a peanut directly from my hand. Every part of me wanted to jump up, laugh, or yell for Mom and Dad to come look, but I knew I'd scare it away. So I just sat there trying not to explode with excitement while this tiny animal snatched its peanut and disappeared like it had just successfully pulled off the world's smallest robbery.

I didn't know words like ecology, conservation, wildlife management, or animal behavior yet. I certainly wasn't sitting there thinking that someday I'd be in college studying animals and the environment or dreaming about working with them professionally. I just knew animals fascinated me in a way almost nothing else did. I wanted to watch them and understand them. There was something about animals that felt simple to me. They didn't care whether you were awkward or weird. They didn't need explanations. If you were patient enough, sometimes they simply decided to trust you. Looking back now, I can see little pieces of the person I'd eventually become in that child sitting perfectly still in the grass with a peanut stretched out in front of her.

Not all of my animal-related behavior was quite that calm or dignified.

One memory that still makes me laugh happened while Mom and I were sitting in the car outside a store. Dad had gone inside to get whatever we needed, and Mom and I stayed behind. I couldn't tell you what store it was, what Dad was buying, or how long we sat there. Apparently none of those details were important enough for my brain to keep. What I do remember is that I decided the best way to entertain myself was to bark at people walking past the car.

Not wave.

Not say hello.

Bark.

I'd watch someone getting closer, wait for just the right moment, and then start barking like there was an angry little dog trapped somewhere inside the car. People would look around trying to figure out where the noise was coming from, only to discover a little girl staring back at them. I thought this was absolutely hilarious. Mom was sitting right there with me, and I remember us laughing about it. It's such a stupid little memory, but that's exactly why I love it. Nobody took a photograph of it. It wasn't important enough to write down. It was just Mom and me being silly while we waited for Dad to come back from the store.

I think those memories tell you more about a childhood than the big ones sometimes do. I felt comfortable being weird around Mom. I didn't have to behave like some perfect little kid every second. I could bark at strangers from a parked car and think I was the funniest person alive, and for a few minutes, she let me believe it.

Then there was Bela.

Bela was our Komondor, which meant he was basically an enormous white walking mop with a personality. If you've never seen one, they have these long cords of fur that look almost like dreadlocks, and Bela was huge compared with me. Naturally, being a child with excellent decision-making skills, I looked at this giant dog and decided he should also function as a horse.

So I rode him.

I don't know whether anyone officially approved this arrangement or if I simply climbed onto his back one day and announced that this was how things were going to work now. Knowing me, the second explanation seems more likely. I remember sitting on Bela like I was riding across some enormous open range, completely unconcerned with the fact that my majestic horse was actually a very patient dog who was probably wondering what he'd done in a previous life to deserve having a little girl climbing all over him.

Bela wasn't just a pet, though. When you're little, animals have a way of becoming part of the structure of your life. They're playmates, protectors, companions, and sometimes the only ones willing to listen to an incredibly long story that makes absolutely no sense. Bela belonged in my childhood the same way our old house, the giant tree, Mom, and Dad belonged there. I couldn't imagine that world without him because I hadn't yet learned to imagine a world without anything I loved.

Growing up in Palouse also meant boredom had to be dealt with differently. There weren't smartphones or tablets waiting to entertain me, and if I complained that there was "nothing to do," there was a pretty good chance the answer would be to go outside. So I did. I rode my bike until my legs hurt, climbed things I probably shouldn't have climbed, watched bugs, wandered around looking for animals, made up games, and created stories in my head. A stick could become practically anything. A blanket could turn into a fort. A cardboard box could keep a kid entertained longer than whatever expensive thing had originally come inside it. We didn't need much because imagination filled in whatever was missing.

Palouse felt enormous to me even though it wasn't. The streets I knew seemed like the whole world. The church across from our house was a permanent landmark, and the rolling wheat fields surrounding town seemed to stretch forever. I didn't think about what was beyond them very often. Why would I? Everything important to me was already right there.

When the weather kept me inside, television and movies filled in the rest of the world. We had VHS tapes, and I watched my favorites until some of them probably wondered what they'd done to deserve that level of abuse. There was no endless scrolling through streaming services trying to decide what to watch. We had whatever tapes were sitting on the shelf, and somehow that was plenty. You picked one, pushed it into the VCR, and hoped whoever had watched it last had followed one of the most important rules of civilization at the time: be kind and rewind. If they hadn't, you got to sit there listening to the VCR loudly wind the entire tape back to the beginning while you waited.

The funny thing is, having fewer choices probably made those movies more special. I didn't watch something once and immediately move on to whatever was new. I watched the same movies over and over until the characters felt familiar. I knew what scenes were coming. I knew the songs. I knew which parts would make me laugh and which ones would make me sad, and I still wanted to watch them again anyway.

Disney was a huge part of that. Dumbo, Bambi, The Fox and the Hound, The Little Mermaid, and Cinderella were some of my favorites, along with The Land Before Time and all the other old animated movies that seemed to live permanently in our VCR. Apparently I had a special talent for loving children's movies that were determined to emotionally destroy me. Between Dumbo missing his mother, Bambi, and The Fox and the Hound, it's honestly amazing any of us who grew up on those movies made it through childhood without demanding answers from Disney.

I loved Cinderella too, although that movie would take on a much stranger meaning later in my life. As a child, I saw the dress, the glass slipper, the fairy godmother, and the girl who eventually escaped a house where she was treated terribly. I had no way of knowing that years later I'd spend nearly four years in California living with people I considered family friends, only to learn they weren't the people I'd believed them to be. There would eventually be a time when the idea of feeling trapped in somebody else's home wouldn't seem like such a distant fairy tale. But that part of my story was still years away. Back then, Cinderella was simply Cinderella, and the ending always worked out.

The children's shows I watched became just as familiar. Arthur, Bear in the Big Blue House, and The Big Comfy Couch were all part of those early years, along with whatever else happened to be playing on PBS. There was something comforting about those shows. They were bright and familiar, and their problems could usually be solved before the credits rolled. Arthur dealt with school and friends, Bear's big blue house always felt safe, and somehow nobody questioned why Loonette the clown seemed to have an entire life centered around a giant couch. Children's television in those days was strange in the best possible way. We didn't ask questions. We accepted the universe we were given.

As I got older, the shows playing around our house changed, but watching television together stayed part of our routine. Jeopardy was one of those shows that just seemed to belong to the evening. I loved trying to answer questions even when I had absolutely no idea what Alex Trebek was talking about. I'd blurt something out and occasionally get one right, which obviously meant I was a genius for the next thirty seconds. Most of the time, I was probably waiting for an animal or Disney category so I could finally contribute something useful.

We watched The Simpsons and King of the Hill too. A lot of the jokes went completely over my head when I was younger, and going back to those shows as an adult makes that very obvious. I understood that Homer was ridiculous, Bart was always getting into trouble, and Hank Hill cared about propane far more than any human being reasonably should. That was enough. Their theme songs and voices became part of the background noise of home, the kind of thing you barely notice until years later when you hear it again and suddenly remember exactly what it felt like to be sitting in that living room.

Survivor was different because it felt like something you actually had to keep up with. There were challenges and alliances and people plotting against each other, and every episode ended with somebody's torch getting snuffed. I loved trying to guess who would get voted out. Even if I didn't understand every strategy being played, I understood the important part: somebody trusted the wrong person and was probably about to regret it.

We watched all kinds of things on PBS too, and anything involving animals or nature could grab my attention. I didn't realize I was feeding a curiosity that would follow me into adulthood. At the time, I simply wanted to see the animals. I wanted to know where they lived, what they ate, what they did, and why they behaved the way they did. The world outside Palouse seemed enormous when I saw it through television. There were oceans, jungles, deserts, strange animals, and places I couldn't even imagine visiting. Years later, I'd end up living all over the country and seeing places little me had only known from television, but back then the living room was enough.

Star Wars was different from almost everything else because it never really became something I grew out of. I loved the original trilogy, the spaceships, the creatures, the adventure, and the idea of this enormous galaxy filled with places completely unlike my little town. More importantly, Star Wars became connected to Dad. Watching those movies with him made them more than movies to me. I didn't understand that connection when I was little. I just knew I loved Star Wars.

As an adult, I understand why some childhood interests stay with us while others disappear. Sometimes we aren't holding onto the movie or the song or the television show at all. We're holding onto the person who showed it to us. We're holding onto the living room where we watched it, the person sitting beside us, and the version of ourselves who still believed those people and places would always be there. That's probably why Star Wars followed me all the way into adulthood, through tattoos, trips, collections, and eventually my wedding. The little girl watching those movies with Dad in Palouse would have absolutely lost her mind if someone had told her she'd someday have a Star Wars wedding.

Movies and television became little markers of time in our house. Certain shows meant evening. Cartoons meant morning. Survivor meant it was time to see who had trusted the wrong person that week. Christmas movies meant the holidays were finally getting close. Sometimes all it takes now is a theme song or a familiar voice from an old show, and suddenly I'm not an adult anymore. I'm back in that house across from the church, sitting in front of the television while Mom and Dad are somewhere nearby.

Halloween gave my imagination another excuse to take over. Mom and Dad often made my costumes themselves or pieced them together from whatever we could find instead of simply buying a complete costume from the store. I didn't realize there was anything special about that because it was just what we did. I remember one year when I decided I wanted to be a dog. We had a brown robe and found a dog mask, and together that became my Halloween costume. It wasn't fancy or expensive, but I loved it. As far as I was concerned, I was a dog, and nobody was going to convince me otherwise.

Looking back, I love that they did things like that for me. There was creativity in our house. Dad was always building or fixing something, and both of them seemed willing to take whatever strange idea I came up with and at least see if we could make it happen. A brown robe could become a dog costume. A pile of snow could become an igloo. A giant Komondor could apparently become a horse, although I suspect Bela had less input in that decision.

Christmas was when all of those little family traditions seemed to come together. Christmas wasn't just a day in our house. It was an entire season. The decorations came out, the kitchen filled with sugar cookies, rum balls, and all the other things I probably tried to sneak before I was supposed to, and the house somehow felt warmer even when Eastern Washington was covered in snow. As a kid, December seemed to last forever. Once I knew presents were somewhere in that house, time practically stopped moving.

Our Christmas soundtrack deserves its own mention because, for reasons that made perfect sense to us, we listened to Christmas bagpipe music. Other families had their traditional Christmas albums. We had bagpipes blasting holiday songs through the house, and I never thought there was anything unusual about it. To me, that's simply what Christmas sounded like. Even now, hearing Christmas music played on bagpipes can pull me backward in time faster than almost anything else. Suddenly I can picture the decorations, the snow outside, the kitchen full of treats, and Mom somewhere in the middle of all of it.

We watched all the old Christmas movies too. The same ones came back every year, and that was exactly what made them special. We already knew what was going to happen. We knew the jokes and the endings, but Christmas traditions aren't supposed to surprise you. The repetition is part of what makes them comforting. The same movies, the same decorations, the same food, and even those ridiculous bagpipes came back every year and quietly reassured me that the world was still where it was supposed to be.

Then there were Santa's reindeer.

Every Christmas, I looked for their tracks in the snow. To me, those tracks were undeniable evidence. Santa hadn't simply appeared in the house and left presents. His reindeer had landed outside. Rudolph himself could have been standing in our yard while I slept. I'd bundle up and inspect the snow like a tiny detective, searching for anything that looked remotely like a hoofprint. Once I found something convincing enough, the investigation was over. Santa was real, his reindeer had been there, and I had physical evidence.

Mom and Dad could have easily ruined that kind of magic, but they didn't. They let me believe. They didn't seem in a hurry to force me out of childhood. I was allowed to believe Santa's reindeer landed in our yard, mermaids were real, squirrels could become my friends, Bela could be ridden like a horse, and an old woman might actually be wandering through our house at night.

The mermaid thing, in my defense, had evidence too. When I visited Weeki Wachee in Florida and saw the mermaid show, there was absolutely no convincing me those women weren't real mermaids. I had seen them swimming underwater with tails. What more proof did anyone need? Adults could explain costumes and underwater breathing hoses all they wanted. I knew what I'd seen.

I miss that certainty sometimes. Childhood gives you permission to accept magic before the world teaches you to demand an explanation for everything.

School became another part of my little world. Growing up in such a small town meant school didn't feel completely separate from the rest of life. The kids you saw in class were the kids you'd see around town, and everybody seemed connected somehow. If something happened at school, there was always a chance Mom and Dad would somehow know about it before I even made it home.

I was curious and talkative, which is probably the nicest possible way to say I asked a lot of questions. If Dad answered one question, there was a good chance his answer would immediately create three more. I wanted to understand how things worked and why things happened. Why did animals do certain things? Why did something work the way it did? Why was the sky doing that? Why couldn't I do whatever thing I'd just been told I couldn't do? I'm sure that last category was particularly enjoyable for my parents.

Dad somehow survived all the questions. Because he was home with me more during the day, some of my strongest memories of him aren't big events. They're small moments that didn't seem important at the time. When I had chicken pox, for example, I was miserable. I was itchy, bored, stuck inside, and constantly being told not to scratch, which naturally made scratching the only thing I could think about. Somewhere in the middle of all that misery, Dad taught me how to whistle. I have no idea why he decided whistling was the appropriate chicken pox activity, but it gave me something else to concentrate on, and I still remember it.

He built me an igloo after a heavy snowfall too. Dad was always fixing, building, or figuring something out. If something broke, I assumed he could repair it. I didn't think of that as one of the ways he showed love because I was too young to recognize it. I understand it now. Love isn't always someone constantly telling you how much they love you. Sometimes it's a man standing out in the cold building an igloo because he knows his kid will think it's amazing. Sometimes it's sitting with a sick child and teaching her to whistle. Sometimes it's fixing a toy that would have been easier to throw away.

Mom showed love differently. She was the person I couldn't wait to tell everything to. I'd spend the day collecting stories for when she got home, even though most of them probably weren't particularly interesting to anyone who wasn't my mother. Something happened at school. Someone said something at recess. A squirrel took a peanut. I saw something weird. I had an idea. I had a question. I probably had another question after that. She listened.

Some of the memories with her that mean the most now are the ones that would sound completely meaningless to anybody else. Sitting in a car barking at strangers while Dad was in a store is one of them. Watching television together is another. The Christmas music, Halloween costumes, conversations in the kitchen, and all those little things that nobody thought to photograph are the pieces I wish I could step back into now.

I didn't have to explain myself to Mom. She already knew the beginning of the story.

That's a kind of comfort you don't realize you have until it's gone.

The people I called Mom and Dad were biologically my grandparents. Technically, they were my grandmother and grandfather, but those words have never felt right when describing my childhood. They weren't grandparents who lived somewhere else and visited on holidays. They weren't extra adults standing around the edges of my life. They were the center of it. They were the people who raised me, fed me, disciplined me, took care of me when I was sick, celebrated my birthdays, made my Halloween costumes, created Christmas traditions, listened to my endless stories, and made sure I had a home to wake up in every morning.

As a little girl, I didn't spend much time analyzing why my family looked different from somebody else's. Children accept the world they're given. The people tucking me into bed were Mom and Dad, so that's who they were. I knew there were pieces of my story that weren't exactly the same as the other kids', but they hadn't yet become the questions that would follow me into adulthood. I wasn't constantly wondering who I looked like or where certain parts of me came from. I wasn't yet searching for the biological father I would spend years wondering about. Those questions were still quiet.

What I understand now is that Mom and Dad made a choice I was too young to appreciate. They had already raised children, and then life handed them another little girl who needed parents. They could have been grandparents in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, they became Mom and Dad all over again.

When you're little, you don't think about sacrifice. You assume the adults taking care of you simply exist for that purpose. You don't wonder how tired they are, what they're afraid of, what plans they changed, or how different their lives might have looked if they hadn't taken responsibility for yours. I never sat in that old house thinking about what Mom and Dad had given up for me. I didn't understand that they were making a choice over and over again.

I just knew they were there.

And maybe that's the greatest thing they gave me.

My childhood wasn't perfect, and neither were they. No family is. I'm sure I threw tantrums, talked back, broke rules, and occasionally acted as if being told "no" was the worst thing any human being had ever endured. I was stubborn, emotional, curious, and probably exhausting. Mom and Dad had flaws too. As an adult, I can look backward and see things with more complexity than I could as a child.

But perfection isn't what I remember from those early years.

I remember consistency. I knew where home was. I knew who would be waiting there. I knew Mom's car would eventually pull into the driveway. I knew Dad could probably fix whatever I'd broken. I knew where my favorite VHS tapes were. I knew which shows we'd watch. I knew what Christmas sounded like. I knew the wood stove would be warm when I came in from the snow. I knew Bela would be somewhere nearby.

There is an incredible privilege in being a child who doesn't have to wonder where home is.

I didn't understand that yet.

The seasons seemed bigger back then. Summer felt endless. Fall changed the hills and brought that crisp smell that told you winter was coming. Winter covered everything in snow and made familiar places look completely different. Spring brought the world back to life and gave me another excuse to go outside searching for animals, bugs, and lucky clovers. I didn't think about time passing because time moves differently when you're a child. A school year feels like an eternity. December lasts approximately six months when you're waiting for Christmas. Adults seem like they've always been the age they are and always will be.

Mom and Dad seemed permanent.

Bela seemed permanent.

The old house seemed permanent.

I had no reason to believe otherwise.

That's the strange thing about happy childhood memories. Nobody tells you which ordinary moments you're going to spend the rest of your life wishing you could experience one more time. Nobody tells you to memorize someone's laugh or really listen to the sound of their voice. Nobody tells you that one day you'll hear the Jeopardy theme song and suddenly picture an old living room, or hear Christmas music played on bagpipes and feel like you're standing in a kitchen that existed decades ago.

Nobody tells you to pay attention to the completely boring Tuesday night.

You're too busy living it.

If I could go back now, I don't think I'd choose Christmas morning or a birthday or some big family event. I'd choose one completely ordinary day when absolutely nothing important happened. I'd wake up and watch cartoons, maybe Arthur, Bear in the Big Blue House, or The Big Comfy Couch. I'd put Dumbo or The Little Mermaid into the VCR and watch it like I hadn't already seen it a hundred times.

Then I'd go outside.

I'd climb the giant tree again and look out at a town that once seemed enormous to me. I'd sit in the grass and search for a four-leaf clover without worrying about how much time I was wasting. I'd hold out a peanut and wait for a squirrel to trust me. I'd climb onto Bela's back one more time, although the adult version of me who wants to work professionally with animals would probably have a few words for little me about that decision.

Maybe we'd go somewhere and Dad would run into a store while Mom and I waited in the car. I'd bark at somebody walking past just to hear her laugh again.

Then we'd go home.

When evening came, maybe Jeopardy would be on. Maybe we'd watch The Simpsons or King of the Hill. If it was Survivor night, we'd find out who was getting voted off. If Christmas was getting close, the bagpipe music might be playing somewhere in the house while one of the same old Christmas movies we'd already watched every year played on television.

Eventually, I'd hear Mom and Dad talking somewhere nearby.

And I wouldn't think anything of it.

That's the part I'd want back the most.

Not some extraordinary moment. Just the sound of the people I loved existing in the same house with me.

Because now I know those ordinary days were the extraordinary ones.

At the time, I believed there would always be another one. Another dinner around the kitchen table. Another snowfall. Another Christmas. Another homemade Halloween costume. Another afternoon with Bela. Another trip where I could sit in the car with Mom and be completely ridiculous. Another movie with Dad. Another question I could ask him. Another story I could tell her.

I believed tomorrow would look a lot like today because I hadn't learned yet how quickly life could change.

I had no idea how many houses I'd eventually call home. I didn't know how familiar moving boxes would become or that I would someday struggle to answer the simple question, "Where are you from?" I couldn't know that Cinderella, one of the movies I watched as a little girl, would someday remind me of nearly four years spent in California with people I'd once trusted as family friends. I didn't know I'd eventually spend years trying to understand where I came from, search for a biological father I'd wondered about for most of my life, or find pieces of myself in places I never expected.

That story hadn't started yet.

For now, I was still the little girl in the eggshell-yellow house across from the church. I had grass stains on my clothes, a head full of questions, a giant dog I apparently thought was a horse, squirrels I was determined to befriend, movies I'd watched a hundred times, parents who let me believe in magic, and absolutely no idea that any of it was temporary.

I was still young enough to believe the people I loved would always be there and home would always be easy to find.

And for a little while longer, it was.