WHERE THE HELL IS HOME?

A stop at the beautiful Badlands of South Dakota.

It’s been over a week since I was rejected by a romantic interest in Bar Harbor, Maine. I’m vacillating between anxiety due to my bravery of offering a sexually safe container and “Who the fuck does he think he is turning down this hot piece of ass?!?”  

In order to fully embrace my sexual fullness, it has been necessary to break free from the chains of my sexual starvation. Meanwhile, the healing process feels like a knife slowly penetrating my heart. For weeks, I obsessed over what I thought we could have been even though reality was showing me otherwise. Even though I questioned my attraction multiple times, it didn’t matter. I craved attachment. The yearning was so damn strong that I decided to pack it in my bag and bring it on my solo journey across the United States. 

I originally set out to find home, but the universe was working its magic on me, and my definition of home started to evolve.  I reconnected with friends in Detroit, Chicago, Pine Island, Minnesota and Spearfish, South Dakota, and realize how blessed I am to be supported by these beautiful souls. Each experience provided warm hugs and yummy conversation, catching up on our lives since the beginning of Covid and years beyond. 

While in Pine Island, I crashed with my friend Amy and her teenage daughter Opal. It was the first time we ever met in person and I was giddy with excitement. The universe brought us together over a year prior on Facebook when I offered a safe circle for people to discuss how Covid was affecting them. We found each other without any friends in common and still try to identify the divinity of our initial connection. We nibbled on sushi after attending a magical yoga class Amy facilitated and came back to her shared apartment. I suggest we build a ceremonial fire and offer written letters to the flames describing our patriarchal attributes that are ready to be released in order to give rise to our inner phoenix. Although still recovering from their obedient Christian upbringing, Opal and Amy were game. 

As I accepted the continuous stream of love from friends, I reflected a deeper gratitude and love of self. A small voice emerged as I dripped with gratitude, driving through the wild beauty of the Badlands...”I am ready to not be on this life adventure alone anymore.” I wanted to go deeper with someone and share what I was birthing. I have faith and could feel someone coming into my orbit energetically. I patiently waited for the universe to decide when I would be ready. 

At the same time, the road was beginning to wear on me.  I channeled my inner Britney Spears during her conservatorship battle as my intuition whispered,  “Keep Fucking Going”. The more I exposed myself too, the less I felt clear on where home existed. I continued to faithfully hope that a destination would enrapture me in all the right ways and call me home.  

After an intense week and a half of driving cross country, I descended on Sandpoint, ID site unseen. I was originally scheduled to be at another Workaway in the next town over, which would have required this city girl to milk goats and chop wood daily.  Instead, by a miracle, I was invited to stay at a friend-of-a-friend’s stunning lakefront condo for the month of September. It was absolutely spectacular. I was in heaven! 

Sandpoint is a sleepy resort town with a reputation of natural beauty, kind people, and a lack of racial diversity.  Surrounding the quiet town are pockets of fundamentalist libertarians oozing with radical views. Their psyche is patiently awaiting a Muslim invasion even though they probably couldn’t even identify a Middle Eastern country if their life depended on it.  As far as diversity is concerned, I saw one black man during the entire month I was staying in Sandpoint, and when I pointed it out to a date I went on, he knew exactly who I was talking about. For the first time in my life, I felt weary of wearing my “Stand with Black Women” t-shirt in fear of my safety. In true Katie Shannon fashion, I wore it anyway. 

While walking to We Yoga daily, I felt the tension of two white worlds colliding: nuvo-hippy locals with a holistic approach to life and white men driving large jacked up trucks with confederate flags and loud exhaust making themselves known. A gaggle of white men stuffed into a double cab gawk and honk at me as I cross the street with a look of sexual hunger and false ownership in their eyes. 

I sense that these men and countless others who have made their way to Idaho to claim their false sense of external freedom are fighting a war in their minds. They live in a place that simply has no crime and yet the false fear of it invading all around. 

I embraced the stillness of the month and spent most of my time, sleeping, going to yoga and binging on Netflix. To stretch my relational muscles, I went on a few dates with men who were overall simple, nice and uninteresting. My unaroused vagina remained asleep. The repetitive message of, “You are asking for too much”, penetrates my mind after every date.  Alas, I would soon meet my match. I couldn’t have envisioned the wild love that would find me cross country in the crisp foliage of Eugene, Oregon.

Edited by Patrick Shannon