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On August 19th I started the Leadville 100 Run, on August 19th I got picked up at Winfield - the half way point - after not making the cut off time.
On August 23rd I decided it was time to move on from my current job that had filled its purpose in my life, I felt like there was something bigger I was being called to do. On August 30th I visited my friend Andy, a great artist in Evergreen, and he cut our first rock. He has had that egg shaped rock since he was 16 years old. Andy was born a day before me - so he’s been holding on to that rock for about 15 or 16 years. On September 23rd Nolan and I went to The Spot in Louisville for Rocktoberfest and made our first sale - a poplar wood jug that had our EOTW logo wood burned into it. It’s been a whirl wind of wood, rock and people… and we’re just getting started.
Nolan and I often talk about how excited we are, how this all feels “good in our jellies” aka we have a gut feeling that we are on a special path - a path we were meant to go down with EOTW. Nolan’s gifts in art, woodworking and climbing have set us up to make some pretty awesome holds. We both learned to use a sewing machine so we could make EOTW T shirts … with POCKETS … and we also felt good getting our shirts from ECHO Resale here in Evergreen, where all the money goes to their food pantry and social work programs. It’s more than feeling ‘good’ in those times, it just feels right.
My background is a little different. I was an ICU Nurse and got burned out during COVID. I didn’t necessarily use these words then, but along with the burn out, there was a bad feeling in my jellies when I was nursing. Not always! There were so many inspiring and touching moments I will take with me for the rest of my life. But something wasn’t sitting well in the hospital. I try to explain it but I don’t know if I ever really feel I am painting a perfect picture. Something about the sterility of the hospital, the lack of art and creativity, the lack of nature and life, a lack of autonomy and a lack of hope. While I was often amazed at what we could do in the hospital to help people… I was also often disappointed with what we couldn’t do.
Edge of the Wood is something that is hard to explain as it is a constantly evolving concept. But at it’s roots - it is a community just as much as a business. The U.S. Surgeon General has issued an official advisory (a rare occurrence) about our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation - link to this below. At first this may seem like a ‘soft’ public health issue… aren’t there bigger issues in the world? There’s global violence, homelessness, division everywhere we look. These may seem more pressing issues… and they certainly are important to address. But doesn’t community, connection and isolation tie into them all?
It feels like humanity is struggling. With all these advancements in technology, it feels like we should be thriving. Yet I look at myself and my close circle of friends and family and see mental health’s negative effects take their tole. It makes me sad, often. How can we expect to deal with these global problems if we can not deal with life on a very individual level?
People are made to be with people. Whether that’s in a relationship, friendship, work relationship or just being in a coffee shop around strangers - this is how we have evolved and it is how we are meant to live. COVID isolated us, for sure. But we have to move on and learn from this. Isolation weakens our immune system, it weakens our cardiovascular system and our neurological system. This is why it’s associated with heart attacks, dementia, depression, strokes and more. It also, ironically, makes it harder to feel connected to the world around us. Now.. you may read this and already know all of this. But what are we doing about it?
Here’s my experience over the last few months while we build up this company. People are lonely, unhappy, unfulfilled and feeling disconnected. It feels harder and harder to make plans with friends and actually follow through on them. And it seems like we’ve forgotten how important it is to get together, to talk to each other, to connect and create and be in nature. Those things seem like they fall to the wayside when it comes down to brass tacks. For example, for our seed funding we asked our friends and family to contribute/donate to EOTW - since we want to make it something special and we also want to be able to keep a roof over our heads. Our goal is $5,000 and we have not reached it. I’m so grateful for those who have donated, but we are still not reaching our pretty small goal.
Money. This seems to be a touchy subject. I am fully aware we need money to survive and operate in this world… but I also think of money as a way that people show what they value. “Donate money? Just give it away to some climbing start up?” …. “maybe take on investors” …. “what do we get in return?”. These are hard questions to answer in the moment… because we have be conditioned that you must GET something physical (mostly, more money) if you are going to spend money. But what if that’s just not the point? What if… money is just money and we truly have more of it that we actually need. What if we stopped putting these dollar bills on this pedestal and looked around at the people we are going through this life with? Or the world that we are living in? It seems so clear to me that money is not going to solve problems or make the world a better place - despite the fact that it is a necessity.
And I guess now I’m getting at the point of this all. Why donate anything to this little start up we have going here? Because we are trying to help people in a way that may take a bit to understand - because it is different. But I know it will change lives if we can keep doing it.
Last week we had some friends over and did crafts all day together. Just sitting there in the living room, sipping tea with the dogs. I kept saying how fun it was - but it was more than fun - it was healing and inspiring. Being around people, making things with your hands, learning new skills, listening to music and looking at the mountainous horizon…. it feels good in your jellies. And that matters.
I have a blog I have been doing for a while now, and in one post I talk about Jane Goodall - and her belief that to have hope we must have agency and we must believe in the human spirit and be in touch with nature - something larger than ourselves. I truly believe this.
I believe in Edge of the Wood. I believe in it because I believe what Jane Goodall said is 100% true. When I look around I see a lot of hopelessness and a lot of people feeling like they are stuck where they are and can’t do anything about it. I know this isn’t true. I look at people I admire like Hillaree Nelson and Jimmy Chin and Jane Goodall …. and I see that it is all possible, to make a difference, to be a source of light, to use passion as a compass, to make dreams come true. It comes back to people needing people.
Yes, I would love if you read this and donated a ton of money to EOTW because you believe the same things. But more than that… I just want people to understand what we are trying to do. This is not a pitch deck nor a marketing scheme. It is a call to thought versus action. Can we conceive of things that are different than what we know? Can we build a culture of community and give people agency and therefore hope? I think so, and I know others do as well.
https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
