“We can do hard things,” I whisper to myself as I grip the steering wheel and head up the mountain in a midday sleet. “We can do hard things!” I say louder, for Isla in the backseat, who is probably sleeping anyway. We say this a lot, words courtesy of Glennon Doyle, one of the women we call “Mama” in our house. The women who speak truth into our lives, who put words to our hardest feelings, who write books or music or host conversations on the hardest and most beautiful things in life from which I learn and hope Isla will too as she grows. Mama Brandi (Carlile), Mama Cheryl (Strayed), Mama Glennon.
Isla, my three-year-old daughter, and I are on our way to Christmas Mountain, a choose and cut Christmas tree farm about 40 minutes from our house in Portland, Oregon. We’ve turned off the main road and are climbing upward, windshield wipers on high, hairpin turns about every minute or so. I’ve never cut my own tree and I have no idea what to expect but I’ve set aside all of my fear of the unknown with an attitude of “we’ll figure it out.”
As we get close I’m feeling a little more nervous.
What awaits us on this mountain?