TO MY LOU ON HER GRADUATION

After four fast years, the time has come to say goodbye to your undergraduate experience. It's bittersweet, and one day you'll remember these years like they were gold.

When I dropped you off in Denver, I knew you would never really come home again. Not because you didn't love us, but because this was the beginning of your own life. As I drove away, I sobbed my eyes out. Every part of me wanted to hold you tight and say, "Julia, don't go." But go you must. It is only right to let the world experience your awesomeness.

We began your college journey with an unforgettable drive west, crossing the country together and stopping to see places like the Badlands and Mount Rushmore along the way. It feels fitting that we will mark the end of this chapter with one final adventure into the American West.

Because before we can know where we are going, we have to know where we came from.

Before you begin the next chapter of your life, I want to take you somewhere old.

Not old in the way we think of age, but old in the way only the earth can be. To the ancient rocks, the hidden mesas, the vast and untamed landscape of the American West. A place that existed long before us and will remain long after we are gone.

I want you to stand in a place so immense, so beautiful, and so indifferent to human ambition that it reminds you how small we are—and at the same time, how extraordinary it is that we are here at all.

I hope this land grounds you. I hope it reminds you that while people build careers, fortunes, and reputations, there are things far greater than any one of us. The earth is not something we own. It is something we borrow.

And I hope the wilderness does what it has always done to those willing to listen: that it takes the restless energy of youth and turns it into purpose.

You now have the education, the talent, and the tools to tell stories. Through your photography, your video work, and your imagination, you have the ability to help people see the world differently—not just what the world looks like, but why it matters.

My hope for you is not simply success. It is significance.

That the uniqueness of this land inspires you to create something greater than you can imagine today. That you leave your own mark on the world, while never forgetting that the greatest masterpieces were here long before us, carved by wind, water, time, and the hand of God.

Go see them.

Love,
Mom