Our Ashland Story

7 years ago, after two life-changing events when we were living in Philadelphia, PA, Ashley and I decided we needed to make a change. We needed to move.

The first event was finding out how polluted the water was in the Schuylkill River Trail that my daughter played in and the second was being threatened by a man in an oncoming car when walking my daughter to the park. 

My daughter was sick for weeks after the first event, and experiencing the fragility of my daughter's little body to the pollution of the water, made me feel angry. It was so overwhelming to me at the time, that I set my intent to find a place where my daughter could play freely in the clean and fresh water. 

The second event was even more confronting, I was walking my daughter to the park on the side of the road without a sidewalk and a man swerved at us. I was shocked and I raised my arm in a demonstrative way. This infuriated the man, and he stopped the car. He got out and he threatened to kill me. What was I to do with my little daughter as the man threatened me, not even noticing I was walking a stroller? In my earlier years I would have confronted him, now I knew my only choice was to slowly walk away. Looking back on that fragile moment in my life, it was clear something was holding and guiding me to walk away. I had to find a silence that I had never known. I took one step at a time, in the most peaceful and non-threatening way. As I made enough distance he yelled that if I wrote his license plate down "he would find and kill me."

These two events changed everything…

Months later we found ourselves visiting Eugene, Oregon to finalize a job for Ashley and find a place to live. However, everything felt off. The company was nice, but it did not feel like home and for the life of us we could not find a single place to live. We finally decided to just go for a ride. We ended up stopping 3 hours south in Ashland, Oregon on the way to Mt. Shasta. We pulled off the highway and drove into town. Upon our arrival, we came to the Ashland, Plaza where there was at the time an organic juice and salad bar. After finishing our meals, we walked across the street to find a Pride Parade underway. The joy of the people drumming, singing and dancing brought smiles to our faces, it immediately felt like home.

Then we walked through the magical park to the playground, and I was overtaken with a state of awe. There were kids splashing in the creek and joyfully playing. This was going to be home, other than the obvious problem that we had spent months planning and preparing for a move somewhere else. It was one of those moments, where we had to trust our hearts and not our reasoning. Ashley looked up jobs on craigslist and magically found an opening.

She interviewed and was offered a job in Ashland and within two weeks, we were living along that creek. Ashland was home. 

Yesterday, we were walking to the park and realized it had been 7 years to the day when we first visited. We walked right into another Pride Parade. Then we went and played in the leaves at Lithia Park along the creek and met a beautiful family from San Fransisco who joined us in throwing leaves up in the air and having them fall all over us. They had been coming to Ashland for over 15 years, but this marked the first time to bring their daughter. She was the same age as my daughter was when we moved here. Seeing her innocence and joy, made me realize all that had transpired. I was again overwhelmed by what life had brought us, but this was a different kind of overwhelm…

A beautiful kind of awe and wonder of how this moment came to be.

The little girl was so excited to play with my daughter and my son (who was born here in our home in Ashland just a year after we arrived). 

My kids play all year round in Ashland creek. We joyfully explore our little town by foot without any worry. Ashley no longer commutes for two hours a day to her office in Philadelphia, she is her own boss and has a five-minute walk down our street to get there.

As I watched our friends in the parade, who many are our clients, I felt a long awaited peace and silence.

Two life-changing events which could have created anger and resentment, were instead catalysts for change.

This change turned into our beautiful life here in Ashland.