So many things to worry about; getting stuck in the middle of the Shirleys during a blizzard at night, no signal, no help. I worry whether my boys will find work in the state, wonder if they’ll choose to stay…of my many frets, I do not worry about sharing a bathroom or a community with someone who does not look like me, someone who, by the way, is made in the image of God.

Raising political candidates is like having children. Our state loves and nurtures them.  We see the promise in them.  We grow and support them and happily send them out to the big wide world to represent us. Once launched, we hope to produce someone to which the rest of the country aspires so that we can boast ‘look what noble statesmen we produced, this visionary, one with a keen intellect who sees beyond the gloomy horizon. You’re welcome. 

But we do not live in times of statesmanship and Senator Lummis is not that.

When I decided to leave the only church I’d ever really known, I carefully scripted my breakup speech. I envisioned a heartfelt conversation with my pastor, respectful and devoid of drama… None of this happened, however. In the moment, I chickened out. I merely walked out the door and never came back.

Come to the west.

It is a reflection of who we are becoming, citizens willing to place their lives in the hands of candidates who parrot an agenda rich in threats and slim on facts, a proxy for our worst instincts.

Perhaps the thoughtful are ill suited for politics.  Lester Hunt was an earnest public servant trying to do the right thing by his country, his constituents, and his family. He never wavered in his love and support for Buddy at tremendous political cost. He was not borne for this gritty ring. His refusal to capitulate to the barbarians in his midst cost him his life.

If folks moved here because of our Cowboy culture why are they so busy rejecting the very ethos that drew them here? Giving the keys to our kingdom to unskilled, silver-tongued, ham-handed outsiders runs far deeper than shoddy legislation.  We risk losing our soul.”

In Wyoming, we are white, we love God and Mr. Trump.  The result is bad church and bad law. The evangelical church has proved to be a supplicating audience for the Christian nationalist roadshow.  Indeed, it is unclear to me many Sunday whether we are hearing a sermon or a stump speech.

There’s a joke that Wyoming is two-party system: red and reddest, no Democrats allowed . . .given that Trump has endorsed Mrs. Cheney’s primary challenger, Harriet Hageman, it is a short leap across a dry bed to assume Ms. Cheney is toast.

We swung from unfettered idolatry as we boasted and beamed at every swing of the bat, every recitation, every recital.  That’s the thing about parenting.  So in love with you the itch to catalog and capture the very you-ness of you never quite scratched.

Welcome to the dumpster fire we call healthcare in America.  Navigating the system is like being an unwilling contestant on a Hunger Games show where pulling the wrong lever looney tunes you to a gauzy netherworld of impossible and ever-changing cruel challenges, none of which will get your bills paid.

Is it fair to distill the stew of who we are into one word? A party affiliation, a slogan, a word? I think it’s safe to say we are all a happy mess of contradictions. 

It was a frigid December night when my little boy disappeared.  Off he toddled into the inky darkness.. . the wind howling, blowing his tiny feet off the ground.  In a split second, my little Huckleberry had disappeared.

When I was a kid, we lived near the confluence of the Roaring Fork and Colorado River.  We played on the banks of the raging river, constructing ropes lines across the river and building water vessels from river junk and willow branches.  When we got bored, we’d leave pennies on the railroad track, lay down parallel to the track to watch the furious locomotives run over the coins and smash them, watching the sparks fly . . . we’d watch the creepy guy who parked his creepy-guy van on the bank, under a canopy of sloe-eyed willows. He never got out of his car, just sat in the front seat, staring ahead. Convinced he was dead, we took turns sneaking up to his car, daring each other to get the closest possible look.  No one got hurt.  No abductions, but we never forgot the power of a spring run-off, nor the force of a locomotive blazing past you, nor the need of forming an quick exit if  creepy guy rises from the dead and snatches you.