real badasses don’t look like what you think real badasses look like

For Charna, who gave me a place to stay and shared her story with me.

Charna is soft-spoken and small, as imposing as a wintertime shrub.  

But talk to her. You’ll find out she left behind a career as a biologist to be a wild land fire fighter, and spent decades jumping out of helicopters with men young enough to be her sons. She had to give that up when she turned 50, of course, but she couldn’t bring herself to go sit still in a laboratory, so now she works as a handywoman and goes on long bike and kayak trips on the weekends.  

What’s tougher than bare, living branches in the cold winter wind?