Welcome to Dirt Road Dispatch

Aaand we're back!

A little over a year ago, I felt myself wince when someone asked me the name of my podcast. For months (or more) I’d felt unmotivated to record new episodes, but on this particular afternoon, I understood that something needed to change.

After over a year of preparation, I had launched “A Millennial’s Guide to Saving the World” in late 2018. The podcast, and later, this Substack page, became my primary companion on my quest to create a new life for myself. Previously married, living in San Diego, and working in marketing, I was on a difficult journey toward becoming someone very different from who I had been for most of my twenties. I knew I needed to move beyond my previous life, but for several years, I had no idea where I was going or who I was becoming.

I created “A Millennial’s Guide to Saving the World” as a funnel for my curiosity. I had so many questions I wanted to ask, and so many ideas I wanted to explore. The project gave me an excuse to interview people I admired. The name of my podcast was semi-ironically grandiose. Of course, I had no idea how to save the world. I was always more interested in the questions than the answers.

Ultimately, I suspected that “saving the world” required saving ourselves, so “fix yourself to fix the world” became the unofficial tagline for the project. I was interested in locating myself within a ripple… a place where I could start small, and focus on what was right in front of me, while holding out hope that my little ripple might help create a wave of meaningful change in the world.

Less than a month after launching the podcast, I met my partner, Chris, and less than a year after that, we purchased our first plot of land in Crestone, CO – a quirky little town in the middle of nowhere that we’d both visited prior to meeting one another. In 2020, in the early days of Covid, we started lingering in Crestone, six to eight months at a time. In November 2022, we moved here full time, and bought a house in January 2023. We hoped our friends would join us to co-create a “lifeboat” – a place where we could gather and support each other, as an alternative to our society’s insistence on individualism, consumerism and meaninglessness.

Sometime late last year, I realized that I was no longer trying to create a new life. I was living it. I still have questions, but they’ve shifted. Where should I live? got replaced by How do I build my life here? How can I contribute to a better world? was replaced by, How can I grow food at 8,000 ft? How do I create a community? became How can I engage in the practice of community?

Little by little, my questions become more understated, even mundane. I was less motivated to talk about community, healthy relationships, spirituality, etc., because I was living them. Who has time to talk about the thing when you’re doing the thing?

When Chris and I purchased our house, we weren’t sure what we were getting ourselves into. Most of the time we’d spent in Crestone had been during Covid, so we hadn’t met many people. We’d also chosen not to get too involved, because we weren’t sure if we were going to stay. After buying a house, we started to dip our toes into the community, and before long, an innocent dip of the toe morphed into full body submersion.

We found out that not only is there a lot going on in Crestone, but so many of its residents share similar values when it comes to participating in community life, and getting back to the basics of growing food, supporting the local economy, and building homes using alternative and repurposed materials. In Crestone, our lifeboat idea is far from unique. As we’d hoped, some of our friends have joined us here, but we’ve also met so many local folks who are also looking for a communal way of life in the modern world.

I have never lived in a community so focused on local issues, and so averse to cultural, economic and political partisanship. Crestone residents’ backgrounds and viewpoints vary considerably, but ultimately, we’ve all chosen to live in this end-of-the-road town at 8,000 ft. in the Colorado high desert, and that alone generates a culture of fierce mutual support and community cohesion.

Over the past year, I’ve become involved in running the Crestone Energy Fair, and trying to save the local paper, The Crestone Eagle. My involvement has been so overwhelming that I’ve hardly had time to consider relaunching this Substack account, but I knew it would happen when it was meant to.

I never intended to stop sharing, I just knew I needed to take some time off to recalibrate, and to create new intentions for what I wanted to share. I am no longer the same person who created “A Millennial’s Guide to Saving the World.” That phase of my life deserved an honorable sendoff so that a new life could reemerge in its place.

So, without further ado, welcome to Dirt Road Dispatch, where I’ll be sharing updates and insights from the end of the road. You can expect a behind the scenes look at what it’s like to live in this unique town, interviews with the many fascinating people who live here, and an honest account of what practicing community in the modern world means. Not everything I publish will be related to Crestone, and you can expect some personal stories, poetry and photography as well.

The new logo was designed by my friend Chris Manfield. Chris and I have been collaborating on local design and branding for local projects including the Crestone Energy Fair. Chris is super talented, and a very cool dude.

I don’t entirely know where this is headed, but I hope you’ll join me for the ride.

For now, everything I publish will remain free. If you’d like to support my work financially, you can, and your contribution is greatly appreciated, but at the moment nothing will be behind a paywall.

Thank you for reading, and for your support.