We met in Summer 2013. I was in a band (Appleseed Collective) and we were touring up to the Upper Peninsula to play Marquette's Ore Dock Brewing Co. and make our way to Houghton/Hancock from there, and beyond. The boys in the band were very excited because we would be crashing at Natalie's house. "Natalie is so awesome!" They waxed poetically about her amazing vegan cooking (most of them were vegans at the time and - let's be honest - most vegan food sucks. Not Natalie's food, however!), they talked about how down-to-earth, kind, sensitive and wise she was.

Well, they said a lot of stuff, but all of that did turn out to be true. I was processing the very intense loss of a close friend at the time, and so I actually didn't talk to her much that time. I remember I asked her for some sage and how to get to Lake Superior and went off to be by myself. If you know anything about touring in a van 10 months out of the year, you won't blame me for being a little anti-social. Even in the brief interactions that we had, though, I could tell that she was a very special person.

Her cooking WAS amazing, and we became Facebook friends. She sent me an Event notice about Tibetan Buddhist monks coming to MSU to showcase some ancient Buddha relics ("What makes you think I would like this?" I asked her). I responded to some very sweet, optimistic thing she posted by messaging her and telling her I was looking forward to the day when she cussed everybody out and was like 'Screw everything!!!' (She told me I'd probably be waiting a very long time for that.)

We kind of kept in touch. I was out on the road, living the bleary-eyed existence of a full-time independent touring musician. 75,000 miles a year in the van, all over the US. Drive, load in, sound check, dinner, show, load out, drive, sleep, wake up, repeat. After a year or so, we had 3 weeks off in the middle of the late summer. We decided to crash at a buddy's place in Ann Arbor for our sabbatical. It turned out Natalie was now living just 10 minutes away from that house.

So we started hanging out. As we were sailing beyond the 'friendship' waters, I had to have a serious talk with her because I was worried that if we got together and it didn't work out, that I would lose out on the possibility of having a friendship with her and that honestly seemed like a big loss, because she was so cool and smart and interesting and sweet and unique. Luckily, I don't have to know how that might have felt because here we are more than 10 years later, still together.

Natalie took me out of my comfort zone into a lot of wild life experiences I never would have had otherwise, and my life has been made richer for them. Left to my own devices, I tend to just practice. I spent most of my teenage years and my 20's just playing music, practicing, learning, sometimes teaching, and performing. I remember the first time Natalie was like "Do you want to come to Thailand with me?" I was just like, "No I'm not interested in traveling." LOL. We ended up doing LOTS of travel together, and some of the best and most beautiful and enriching experiences of my life have been with her, hiking for days on end through the mountains of Italy and France, journeying through the cloud forest of Costa Rica, exploring the vast and varied landscape of the United States. We have been all over the world together. More importantly, she has taught me so much about traversing the inner territory of the heart and psyche with grace, compassion, courage and determination.

Everything my friends in the band told me about how great she was turned out to be true to the nth degree, and then some. We are lucky to have found each other, and we are looking forward to celebrate our good luck with you! See you in September :)