06/29/2022
Two years ago, on this day, I made my first post to launch my business page. Four years ago, on this day, I made a post after hiking Supai Falls with some friends, one of them being Carah Leda Sattler
The last time I talked to Carah was December 18. I was in Sedona and had just posted a story of some javelinas and a beautiful view. We chatted about it for a bit saying we were overdue for another road trip, especially since she’d (finally) gotten a badass new Bronco but the holidays are so hectic for small business owners (Carah was a successful and well known glass artist, among many other things) and we’d talk again in a few weeks after we had time to breathe.
We never talked again. The next night she suffered a brain aneurysm that put her in a coma for 5 days. She was eventually taken off life support and passed away just after midnight on Christmas.
I haven’t done any adventuring or really much art-ing since then.
Carah was my adventure buddy, whether it was by my side or just inspiring me with some of her wild and often solo trips. Finding time to get together was tough but once our trips started, we’d find ourselves driving just one more trail on the way home because we weren’t ready for real life yet. She was who I would reach out to when I was in a creative rutt, always letting me know that it was ok to take a break to make sure I never resented something that I loved for turning into a job. When I was stuck on the business aspect of things, I’d call on her. She usually didn’t know the answer either but it made me feel better to know that someone (with over 10K fans of her art) was just as clueless as I was. When I was fired up about something in the world, I’d gripe to her and she had this incredible way of making things seem less enraging. We’d share silly little things we saw online about dinosaurs or true crime almost daily and even if a conversation didn’t spark from it, it was a nice distraction from the day.
…(Continued in comments)
