A Love Letter to the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho

Dear Tooths,

Long before we met, my heart had been broken, broken so wide open that I feared I’d never be able to sew it back up. But, as I did, I made a vow to never again silence my intuition. It was she who led me to you, but it would also be her who would whisper to let you go.

It’s cliché to say, but I knew from the moment I laid eyes on your snow-kissed peaks that a love story was to unfold.  And when I first saw the sun set behind you: a tickle at my throat, tears trickling. There’s strength in softening.

Each time I hiked up your slopes, your rocky edges, your dry and sunny bare backs, I pinched myself: this was real life. At first, the altitude took my breath away, gasps of dirt and sagebrush. But the more time we spent together, the stronger I got, the easier it was to breathe. The more of your expansiveness you opened up to me, the more beauty you showed me.

When I shed clothes of my past and dipped deep into your alpine pools, my body unwound after years of clenching. Every sensation lit up from tips of toes to that gentle pull deep in my belly—so cold I risked going numb if I dove too deep, stayed under too long. Yet each pinprick was a caress, a reminder I was alive. Where before I only got small sips, I now drank in with deep gulps.

That night, nestled deep below your foothills as you watched, I slept through the night for the first time in a year. I dreamed vivid images of peace, of gentleness, of comfort instead of past dreams of tigers chasing, storms rolling, ghosts haunting.

Now, thousands of miles away, I write from a different bed—guarded by a new set of mountains. I find myself always comparing them to you.

You taught me the beauty of slowing down, of living in the moment and not planning what’s next. You showed me how to love again even if when love is short-lived. I didn’t think I’d learn to trust again, but you reminded me that it’s not about trusting others—it’s about trusting myself.

That intuition told me from the beginning we were never to have more than a summer, maybe two. You want to stand still, to have defined pathways when all I want is to run wild, aimless. Friends tell me that maybe years from now we will find each other again, and it’ll be right for us then. Certainly another voice in my head wants me to agree, wants to tell me that you’re the exception—the only place where I can trust, who I can love. But we both know that’s not true.

I’ll keep on dancing from new moon to full moon, finding comfort where I land. I’ll keep singing to mountain pass after mountain pass, finding my own tune. I’ll once again open my heart to somewhere (someone) new, and for the briefest of moments I’ll feel that tug at my belly once more, remembering it was your who taught me how.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

<3 Kirsten Wild

PS: Day by day, I need to slowly let go because I don’t know any other way to do it. On recommendation from a friend you brought into my life, I’ve been listening a lot to a song by Mike Posner called “Move On.” Maybe look it up and think of me?