Love letter to Reno

It’s a funny curveball life threw me. My east-coast raised, NYC-educated, Alaska-obsessed self met a guy from Reno, NV in 2009. Before committing to giving the relationship a go, I visited him a few times in this strange place I’d vaguely associated with casinos, aliens, and nuclear waste (and assumed was an hour’s drive from Vegas). And, oddly enough, I didn’t mind the place. It had a nice art museum, a decrepit-around-the-edges, sunburned western city vibe, and plenty of outdoors and wilderness access.

When I moved to Reno from Anchorage in 2011, I didn’t feel brave like everyone told me. I felt like I was pursuing a relationship I needed to see through. This was the path. Reno was the setting. And I knew that if I really wanted this thing with Wes to have a shot at working, I’d need to cultivate my own sense of place and community. I wouldn’t do well upping and leaving everything only to arrive in a new place and have him – anyone – suddenly be my everything.

I got a bike, lined up a gig as a volunteer on an urban farm in exchange for room and board, and scored a part time job at the nearby Patagonia Outlet where I made friends.

I said “yes” to everything those days, even if I was tired, anxious, sleep-deprived, or unconfident.

I went trail running on dusty dirt roads – at altitude – when invited, even though the Patagonia people were intimidatingly fit and I often lagged behind, walking. I hadn’t really run on trails in Alaska, preferring to stick to the flat, paved, and delightfully sea-level paths.

When a coworker prodded a section of newspaper announcing a guy at a downtown tattoo shop making a run for the Guinness record for number of tattoos completed in a 24 hour period, I chose the outline of the state of Nevada for my thigh. It marked this chapter of life, after all. We went at 5am.

I signed up for a half iron-man at a friend’s encouragement. We trained for it all summer, and completed the race in Santa Cruz together.

Basque food at long tables, served family style and accompanied by the iconic, brown, boozy, and bittersweet picon punch. Aces games in the setting sun, people-watching with my stepdaughter because we don’t really follow baseball. Driving up to Tahoe early to stake out a spot on the beach and hang out for the day by the lake. Riding bikes to the bar on a Sunday afternoon, arriving hot, gleaming from sunscreen and sweat, and triumphantly cheersing a beer in the cool dark.

Through it all, a particularly potent sagebrush scent, especially on the outer reaches of the city. When it rained, even briefly, the air would fill. When I went running on the trails – a new habit – I smelled it all around me. It seemed to change seasonally – cool and enormously fragrant in the spring; tamped down but still faintly there during scorched summer.

The place imprinted on me. Or I imprinted on Reno at this particularly cracked-open, exciting, scary, pivotal point in my young(er) life. Maybe it was those long bike rides clear across the city. Or it was the early days of forming a relationship and, over time, a family with me, Reesa, and Wes.

We’re here for the summer and this place is so filled with living memory for me, but I also feel myself enjoying and creating new memories as I experience the city in all of its sameness and it’s (many) changes. So much of it is, of course, the people here that I know and love. But just like before, the context of Reno itself works for me. It feels like home – a magical, wild, gritty sense of comforting desert landscape mixed with possibility and joy.

I’m grateful to know this place. I’m grateful to have made the leap for that guy, my husband, and my now-stepdaughter who – amazingly, because what is time?! – just graduated college.

A mix of pictures from throughout the years below, to give you a sense of the sense of place mixed with memory and people!