Yellowstone

In June of 1993, I was twenty-three and pregnant—again. Despite having been on the pill for years and using a diaphragm correctly, this was the third time my body tried to make me a mother before I was ready. Nothing had changed since the last time it happened: I was still living in the Ocean Beach enclave of San Diego, still in a rocky relationship with Richard, still a part-time student inching my way toward a bachelor’s degree, still a waitress, still broke. Things were worse, in fact. My roommate informed me that she was moving to Guatemala, and as I couldn’t afford the whole apartment, I had to move out. Richard had just graduated college and planned to ride his motorcycle up the west coast to Seattle, so we decided to break up (again.) When a co-worker heard me complaining about a lack of summer plans, he suggested a hospitality company that hired seasonal workers in Yellowstone National Park. Employment included room and board, so I applied, they accepted, and I packed my bags.

And then, a missed period.

I had planned on moving to San Francisco in January to finish college, but how would I do that with a newborn? I wanted an abortion, but it was the first time that I wondered if a person should be required to follow through at some point. Richard was no more ready than I was to have a child, and when I told him I was pregnant, he asked how much an abortion cost as he was willing to pay half. My friend Pam came with me to Planned Parenthood for the procedure and took me to the beach after it was over. We bought ice cream cones and ate them sitting on the sand in comfortable silence. I felt safe with her, unjudged. Momentarily satisfied by the ice cream, I was vaguely aware that I’d just ended something as common and spectacular as the sun setting in front of us. Summer had begun, though, and there was no time to mull the loss. I was unclear about the future, except that I was embarking on an adventure, and it was not the kind that had a baby in tow.

Boarding the Greyhound bus two days later, I prepped for a twenty-seven-hour ride with countless stops and transfers to West Yellowstone. My body was recovering, still spotting and cramping, but my heart was more tender. I’d done what was best for me at the time, yet I was struggling not to judge myself. I tried to look forward to a new environment to distract, perhaps even restore me. Curled up like a snail, I rested my knees against the back of the seat in front of me with my sweatshirt bunched up between my shoulder and cheek and slept. When I woke at midnight, we were pulling into Barstow, and I popped out to use the bathroom inside the station—a luxury after the janky toilet at the back of the bus. When I came out, I saw a cute guy with shaggy brown hair and glasses, his head buried in a book. He was lying against a massive backpack with dangling carabiners, holding multi-colored ropes and water bottles. I sat down next to him, extending my legs out to stretch. He looked up from reading, smiled a goofy grin, and asked where I was headed. His name was Mark and by the time we boarded the bus, I knew I wouldn’t sleep until we parted ways in Wyoming.

Mark was intelligent and curious, an environmental studies graduate student, and headed somewhere in the Canadian northwest territory on a research grant. We talked about everything—the fall of the Berlin wall, the disappearing ozone layer, philosophy, religion, and of course, love.

“Communism is oft misunderstood. And idealists can’t control how people interpret their concepts,” he said.

“Uh huh,” I responded with my family’s brand of sarcasm. “I’m sure Castro was a real nice guy.” Truth was, I hated history and politics back then. My strategy of only reading highlights and bullet points had served me well but dig any deeper and I would be lost. Thankfully, he changed the subject.

“I can’t buy into organized religion, it does way more harm than good. I’m a recovering Catholic now,” he said.

“Me, too! My best friend from high school is Hindu and my catechism teacher said she would go to hell if she didn’t convert. I mean, please. Her religion is older than ours!”

After a bumpy start to my summer, it was exciting to share my thoughts and dig into my beliefs which, it turns out, were malleable at the time. We used every inch of space between our two seats to eventually fold on top of each other—legs on legs and arms intertwined, spooning as the countryside passed us by. It was easy to forget who I was in that compact bubble. Somewhere in Idaho, as I rested my head on his shoulder, Mark asked, “So. Why did you leave San Diego for the summer? What are you running away from?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Everyone is running from something.” He looked out the window then and I realized our conversations had been insightful but not deep. I didn’t know how to access that part of myself, let alone share it with someone else. Yet, here he was asking, so I told him about the last, final decision I’d made. I didn’t want to begin my summer with a lie, and it felt safe to tell this stranger that I’d been cuddling. Mark listened, and waited until I was finished before saying, “I’m sorry you had to go through that.” No judgement, no questions, just an acknowledgement that it was difficult. Exactly what I needed then.

When we parted ways in Yellowstone, I was exhausted from the journey. My body was stiff from the small quarters and my lips were swollen from hours of kissing. The hospitality company didn’t care what you’d been up to before you set foot on their property, so from the moment I got off the bus it was a flurry of activity. We barely had time to acknowledge the beauty that surrounded us. First, we were assigned to a location—the restaurant in Grant Village for me, on the western edge of the park. Orientation was a blur… what to do in an emergency, how to avoid waterborne diseases, and to never approach roaming bison. I half-listened, until we were given our dorm assignments.

My roommates were Shannon, an eighteen-year-old from Georgia who looked like she’d stepped out of an L.L. Bean catalog, and Jill, a nineteen-year-old from Michigan who was dressed in an oversized tie-dye t-shirt. Our inner door opened to another room with two girls named Dominique and Gena, and across the hall were two guys, Leo and Bradley. They were all between eighteen and twenty, and this was our crew for the summer. From working, eating, and drinking together to hiking, camping, and exploring the surrounding areas, we became inseparable. Most of the park’s seasonal employees were from affluent backgrounds and their parents ‘forced’ them to work during the summer. They often slept in, showed up late, and trashed their dorm rooms. I envied them, and even emulated them once but when I was written up for calling in sick aka hungover, I went back to being (mostly) responsible. I’d been on my own financially since I graduated high school, and I needed this job to make my next tuition payment. Their behavior made me wary of trusting them with something personal, so I kept my healing heart and body a secret.

The Grant Village Dining Room overlooked the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake. Floor-to-ceiling windows provided an unobstructed view across the still, dark water. Occasionally, I had a breakfast shift, which required showing up at 6:00 a.m.—far too early for my peers, and certainly for someone who had been drinking and smoking until three hours earlier. Yet, I began to look forward to this rise at the crack of dawn, a forced entry into the morning air where I would ride my bike on the trail from our dormitories to the restaurant. I moved too quickly for the mosquitos to catch me and when I looked up at the swaying canopy of lodgepole pine trees, I felt protected. In those moments of quiet and solitude, I could forget what I’d done before I arrived.

In the day-to-day, though, I was experiencing an uptick in my usual free-floating anxiety. Choosing to live in a National Park meant I could hike and camp in my free time. Except that my fear of the unknown, of the ‘wild’, was keeping me with one foot in the safety of my dorm room. Though I’d had a childhood spent outside, that was suburban wilderness. I loved climbing to the top of the tall tree in my backyard, carving my initials into the bark and resting my weight on its limb while it swayed. I watched our house below, far away enough to seem an inch tall when viewed between my finger and thumb, but close enough to watch my mother clean dishes through the kitchen window. Yet, I was terrified to be somewhere truly unfamiliar. Every step I took at the beginning of that summer in Wyoming, I fought the stream of questions running through my head: How much longer will this hike be? Will I fall and get a concussion? Will I be bitten by a snake or attacked by a bear? My brain was tired. So, when I let myself be peer-pressured into getting outside, I stuck with mellower hikes on well-trodden paths.

Then one day, Gena and Dominique asked me to join them on a fifteen-mile back-country camping trip around Heart Lake. There was strength in numbers, they said. These two popular girls would never have hung out with me in high school, so to live out some unfulfilled fantasy of fitting in, I said yes. The first day of hiking was easy, mostly flat. We set up camp near the lake with a view of the still-snow-capped Grand Tetons. No reservations were required, we simply left a handwritten note at the trailhead. The next day, we were out for a day hike when I started to feel ill. Adrenaline roared through my body and my guts rumbled. I’d experienced this feeling with anxiety before, a needing to let go of my innards. I quickly found a place to relieve myself, drank some water, and rejoined the girls. I had a yoga practice by then and I checked in with my body and mind. Is this anxiety or intuition? Is feeling sick now somehow related to my abortion weeks ago? About thirty minutes later, I felt the swift onset of a headache. Shortly after, cramps and another bout of diarrhea. A lightbulb-slash-question mark went off in my throbbing head. When our group went swimming at Moose Falls the week before and I filled up my Nalgene bottle, had I remembered to use my water filter?

No, I did not.

My heart raced. I told Gena and Dominique that I was tired from not sleeping well. I made frequent bathroom breaks away from our campsite. At one point, I took a selfie with my disposable camera. I had draped my flannel shirt over my hat and head, though I can’t recall why. It was warm outside, but the threat of heatstroke was certainly lower than the current dehydration that was setting in. I still have this photo and see a chubby-faced girl, confused and alone but present enough to want to document the moment. Eventually, I confessed to the girls that based on what I could remember from orientation, I might have giardia. Thankfully, they had enough concern to go find a ranger.

I sat down and felt the cold ground through my pants, my legs beginning to shiver. They were gone for a while. Had it been hours? I had heard that you could check the time by counting how many fists are between the sun and the horizon, but I didn’t know what time it was when they left. My intestines were still churning, but there was nothing left to come out which gave me some peace. Where I’d been afraid earlier, I’d now reached a state of resolve—as in, I resolved to die out there. Maybe this was nature’s way of punishing me for terminating another pregnancy. I stayed put and after what felt like days later, a man on a horse appeared. The horse was chocolate brown and enormous, or perhaps the man was tiny. I looked up to the ranger from where I rested on the ground. I felt the sturdiness of the earth below me, the immensity of the sky above. My belly had stopped churning and I lay empty. The ranger picked me up and draped me over the back of the horse. The ride back to the trailhead was bumpy but there was an ambulance waiting to give me an IV. I perked up almost immediately—incredible what electrolytes will do for the body—and then embarrassment set in. Gina and Dominique had packed everything up at our site and hiked back to the car, carrying the extra load of my gear. I felt awful for not remembering to filter my water and for having a body that couldn’t manage a little parasite. Though when I saw them at dinner, they had their own adventure to share about a black bear that crossed their path on the way back.

In July, there was a talent show for park employees. Signs had been posted for weeks, inviting campers to bust out their kazoos and hone their magic tricks. Bradley and Leo were musicians, guitar and drums, and only listened to some combination of Blues Traveler, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and Phish. Every single day. They wanted to enter the contest and asked if I could sing. I thought so. My father and I had sung show tunes when I was growing up and I loved singing along with the radio. My sister Jeanne told me that my voice sounded nasally but I knew that I could sing on key, so I said yes. The guys wanted to play something that would allow them to get ‘deep in their jam,’ but had to be songs I knew well. We settled on Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” and Sinead O’Connor’s “Last Day of Our Acquaintance.” I thought it appropriate, given my recent break-up. We squeezed in a few impromptu rehearsals in the dorm hallway and when the big night came, I was terrified. I didn’t have confidence in any talent, save occasionally as class clown. Despite his short stature, Leo had enough natural confidence for the three of us, though, and he thought we were ready. The contest took place in the cafe where we had our meals, an industrial boxy building with low ceilings and white walls that campers were encouraged to write on. Each summer started with a fresh coat of paint and by the end, the walls were covered in artwork, song lyrics, and poetry such as, “Life is worth living. Love is worth giving. To know wonder in this world is reason enough to be,” and “Had the time of my life when I wasn’t passed out on the floor.”

The act before us was an improv session of kitchen staff, sitting on milk crates and beating out rhythm on a tall pot, using whisks and scrub brushes as instruments. When it was our turn, Bradley and Leo bounded onstage giddy, while I tried unsuccessfully to adjust the microphone. A guy in the front row jumped to my aid and the boys began to play. From there, it was seamless. I hit all the right notes. I felt the levity of “Mercedes Benz”, encouraging the audience to sing along with me, and the ache of Sinead’s words. I wailed with her at the end, releasing my fear. In that little cafeteria, with the crowd cheering, I was lifted. And then, somehow, we won.

Later that week, I received a postcard from Greyhound Mark of Glacier Lake in the Canadian Rockies. “I’ve been thinking about you since you got off the bus. What a ride! I should have married you in Las Vegas when I had the chance. I wonder if you finally slept when you got to Yellowstone. Seems like I’ve been trying to catch up since I left you but it was worth it. I really, really, really enjoyed our trip and wanted to make sure you know it. Miss you.” Whenever I felt alone, I would take out his postcard and it gave me a boost of confidence. While a man’s attention would be something I’d continue to seek for the following two decades, in that moment it was the tether to my self-worth.

By the end of the summer, I’d successfully completed another back-country hiking trip, camped with a group of twenty new friends in the Grand Tetons, and whitewater rafted the Snake River. Fear became my friend; I acknowledged her briefly then moved forward. On the last night of the season, we had a bonfire on the lakefront beach to watch the meteor shower and contemplate our futures. Out there, under the stars and the big sky, the safety and terror of the forest, the bison and the bears, the cool kids and the misfits. I realized that I might never know if my decision was the right one, but I had to forgive myself. Sipping my beer and gazing into the darkness across the lake, I knew that if I ever brought a life into the world, this is the beauty I’d share.

One day.

-Christine O'Donnell

Christine O'Donnell is an essayist. She is a native New Englander, California resident, and New Yorker at heart. Christine has traveled to 27 countries, practiced yoga for 30 years, loves baked goods, chocolate and the truth. She holds a BA in Theatre Arts from SFSU and an MFA in Writing from Bennington College, and has been published in the Cosmic Daffodil Journal, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, and The Feminine Collective.