Cave Junction, Oregon
Sometimes just knowing that things could be better, even if you don't know if they ever will be, is enough for now
By the time I finished driving up the Pacific Coast Highway, through Redwoods National Park, and completed the coast of California, I didn’t know where to go next. Maybe some people who live in their vans plan real trips, but ever since I took off on the road last September, I’ve found it much easier to plan a few “anchoring events” to keep in my line of sight - a concert in Vegas, a bachelorette party in Charleston, etc - and let the rest of the planning just come together in the moment. If it sounds romantic, I assure you that this strategy is rooted more in decision fatigue than just being a chill girl.
I was growing tired of the dreary northern beaches and their grey misty mornings. Though I had only made it into Oregon once before, back in October, I wasn’t in the mood to continue north along the coast. Plus, through an incredibly vague calculation of dates, I knew I’d have to drive back south through the interior of California soon, so I looked instead for another few days’ worth of destinations in southern Oregon.
As I sat in a coffee shop one morning in Grants Pass, something caught my eye on Instagram. An account I followed - a picturesque farm in Cave Junction that I have no real recollection of following in the first place - was posting about a gathering of women1 planned for that upcoming weekend. The posts showed an event of what seemed to be hundreds of women of every age, donning naturally-dyed linens and perfectly messy hair, holding each other and their babies in their arms. They reshared women’s Instagram stories depicting their travel to the farm for that upcoming weekend and their beautiful, genuine excitement to reunite with this space. I didn’t even give it 20 full minutes of research before I’d seen enough to know I was going there. I bought a discounted resell ticket and hopped up in the van.
There are moments in the van that feel too synchronous to be a boring coincidence. Too many “right place, right time” stories for someone who does basically no real trip planning. Lately, I’ve been finding it’s best to lean into that subtle push and pull happening to and around me, but is not of me. Being only an hour and a half away from this event, which only happens once a year, only two days out from the start felt like a gentle push in that direction, and I was ready to allow that to happen.
I arrived at the gathering and parked my van alongside a few dozen other trailers, vans, and car campers. That’s when it hit me that I had literally no idea where I was or what this event would even be. I felt a wave of anxiety rush through my entire body.
You know how the point of Mindsommar is that, if, by the end of the movie, you’re pleased to see her happy and feel she is fairly vindicated, you would’ve joined that cult? Yes, I smiled along with Florence Pugh. That little fact buzzed in the back of my mind as I gathered my things and left the van to walk around and orient myself.
The farm was covered in big pine trees and camping sites. Everything had been laid out like a summer camp complete with hand-painted directional signs pointing you to the beach, the archery field, the menstruation tent, or the saunas. I still had no idea where to go and finally worked up the courage to approach two early 20-somethings: “hi, you look like you know where you’re going, can I come with you?”
“Of course!” they replied. “We’re on our way to the river, do you wanna join?”
“Yes, absolutely, thank y’all so much.”
We walked along a tree-lined dirt road next to fields of tents and large yurts. “Is this your first time?”
“Is it that obvious? I have no idea what’s going on.”
“Don’t worry about it, they go over everything at orientation later.”
When we stepped off the path onto the river bank, I turned the corner and stumbled over my own feet trying to keep walking normally at the sight of a dozen or so naked women, of all ages, sizes, colors, and shapes. No one was gawking or making a fuss, everyone was just minding their business in the sun, tits out, unbothered. I had to genuinely focus on not accidentally looking in anyone’s close direction, but also didn’t want to seem disconcerted. No one was looking at my body, either. Someone might look over, make eye contact and smile, and then go back to reading her book. And I realized at that very moment that I have never been in a space before that has felt so immediately and simultaneously safe and free.
It’s an impossible line to balance, safety and freedom. Stability and flexibility. Commitment and opportunity.
It was like stepping into some parallel universe where there were no men. Any anxiety I felt before that moment was instantly gone. My whole body relaxed in a long-held sigh. I walked out into the freezing water and laid my whole naked body under for a moment. I shot up and stood there in the sunlight, stretching up towards the sky. I didn’t really care what the rest of the weekend looked like, I could have swum in that river and read a book on the pebbly beach the entire time.
Throughout the weekend, we would all be living in this communal space, taking classes together, and just sort of hangin’ out. A kitchen of volunteers cooked breakfast and dinner every day, and it was always deeply filling and nourishing. Classes ranged from how to give yourself a breast massage to conducting tea ceremonies to literal basket weaving. I signed up for as many as I could. It felt like being at summer camp, and just as in childhood, we carelessly moved about the grounds without fear of being harmed.
As we all gathered for the first time around a large fire, I noticed just how many babies and children were there with their mothers. Women tended to their children openly and communally, taking care of or entertaining strangers’ babies seemed to be all of our jobs. There was even a call for women to meet at the showers every day at 2 pm to hold babies while their mothers showered, giving them some much-needed alone time. I had never seen communal motherhood before, let alone been a part of it. It felt so easy.
It’s not that I don’t like babies. I fear them. I feared what children did to the autonomy of a woman, what they did to a woman’s body and mind, and how they require every morsel of one’s attention to keep them alive. But maybe they wouldn’t be so terrifying to me if this is how we tended to them: as a unit.
As I sat on the ground for dinner, I made space for another blanket next to me, and a woman around my age sat down with the most adorable 2-year-old daughter. They both wore brown and beige flowing shirts and pants, surely made of 100% cotton. We chatted about the basics and the “where are you from’s” were exchanged.
“Well, we just moved to Billings about a year ago,” she told me.
“Oh yeah? I hear great things about Montana, how are you liking it?”
She gave a soft smile. “Actually, we’re looking to leave. It’s just not our community. It’s hard to be an outsider there.”
Don’t California our [Montana, Idaho, Texas, etc]. These signs are everywhere across the West. While it’s true that the fastest-growing states between 2020 and 2021 were Idaho, Utah, and Montana,2 a record number of those home purchases were by private investors.3 And investors aren’t just buying empty homes, they’re quite literally pushing people out.4 And yet all of the blame and frustration will be put on families trying to find a more affordable place to exist. It’s so much easier to hate your literal neighbor than a faceless swirl of capital and institutional influence.
“Where are you thinking of moving to?” I asked, selfishly trying to apply her lessons to my current search.
“We love Asheville, we may try there next,” she said. I told her that it gets small, fast. She told me she wouldn’t mind that.
Within classes and in the downtime in between, I made friends formally and informally. There was the woman who had just become an empty-nester and came to the gathering to reconnect with herself. There were two the best friends who were about to begin living in their small, intentional community in Costa Rica. There was the woman in her 30s with her mother in her 50s who invited me to pray with them by the river one morning. And of course, sweet C.
C and I became friends in a class about how to regenerate the earth using fungi. She had such a light presence to her, and we had an easy bond. When I told her that I was 30, she looked at me a little expressionless. “There’s no way you’re 30.”
I know I’m supposed to take this as a compliment, and maybe one day, I will. But there’s something a bit disappointing about not feeling your age. I didn’t seem 30 because 30-year-olds have their shit together and don’t waste their potential wandering around in the woods getting high and ranting about the government in their little metal box. 30-year-olds are making strides in their careers and are engaging in family planning. I can’t commit to the next state to go to, let alone a fucking life plan.
She didn’t assume I was 30 because she thought I had a gen-z sense of humor (I think I’m just on TikTok a lot). I take the compliment and save my rant about aging for another audience.
One of the last sessions I sat in was taught by an Elder Medicine Woman. The goal of the ceremony5 was to cut our ties with something or someone. What we’re left with is a red piece of yarn tied around our waists, meant to be there until the thing we have released has released us back. I wanted to release feelings of self-doubt and unworthiness and perfectionism. And that little bitch is still tied around my waist a month and a half later. I don’t know what needs to happen in the universe to get this wilted, tattered string to fall off of my body, but if I’m buying into the woo-woo everything happens for a reason part of this trip, I had to buy into all of it and assume it would happen when it needed to happen.
All of us had gone there amid some transitional phase of life, in search of where to be and who to be with next. Even though this community didn’t physically exist out in the “real” world, I felt such a relief knowing that there was at least one example of a place that felt that idyllic. Like it’s not impossible to imagine a better way of living someday. But I knew that once I left this place, in the immediate world, there would be no communal motherhood, no easy friendships, and no truly safe and free spaces.
I was too sad to leave Sunday morning, so C and I spent the afternoon by the water drinking real watermelon slushies and talking about astrology and our periods. We packed up her massive camping bags in the van and I gave her a ride an hour or so south. I’m certain she gave me more sage 24-year-old advice than I gave her, but I still felt like I was dropping off a little sister at home after school. I’ll see her again someday soon.
There are moments in the van that feel too synchronous to be a boring coincidence. Too many “right place, right time” stories. But I know that I needed to see an alternate reality to ease my cynicism that the world is falling apart. Something brought me to that freezing river to snap me out of some haze I’d been in for a long time, maybe even since Covid started.
I drove south to Mount Shasta and stayed in quiet isolation on forestry service land along the Sacramento River for a few more days. I needed more time to reconcile the differences between this dream-like utopia and the inevitably disappointing real world. I woke up with the sunrise on day three and knew it was time to go back into reality and test if my optimism was real, or if I’m just totally full of shit.
This space was safe for cis and trans women alike. The use of women in this piece refers to all women, inclusive of trans women.
https://www.deseret.com/2021/12/27/22855777/the-fastest-growing-states-in-the-u-s-are-all-out-west-utah-idaho-arizona-montana#:~:text=Idaho%20was%20the%20fastest%2Dgrowing,it%20tied%20Florida%20for%20eighth.
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/02/25/investors-are-buying-up-a-record-share-of-us-homes/
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/28/1114128514/corporate-landlords-used-aggressive-tactics-to-push-out-more-tenants-than-was-kn
Out of respect for this Native practice - and, as I am too ignorant about this space to trust myself to contextualize it correctly - I will not be describing any of the ceremonies.