IT ALL STARTED WITH THE PINK SMOKE
I didn’t set out to build a universe.
I was trying to build a new life.
Turns out, those two things got a little tangled.
For a long time, I knew something didn’t fit.
Maybe it was me.
Maybe it was the life I had built.
Maybe it was all the damn boxes I had spent years folding myself into.
Whatever it was, I could feel something underneath it all.
A woman I hadn’t quite met yet.
She lived at a volume I’d spent years turning down.
Wilder than I had been told was appropriate.
She wanted more than the life I kept trying to
convince myself should be enough.
And she would not shut up.
So I did what any reasonable 43-year-old woman
having an existential reckoning would do.
I handed her a hot pink hat
and let her run wild.
That was the beginning of Wild Jai.
But before I had words for any of this, there was a feeling.
A pull.
A little curl of something strange drifting through the life
I’d spent years convincing myself was enough.
I call it the Pink Smoke.
The Pink Smoke isn’t a destination. It’s what appears when your soul
outgrows the life you’ve been trying to live.
It’s the idea that won’t leave you alone.
The dream that keeps coming back after you’ve explained to it,
repeatedly and with several very practical reasons,
why it is completely ridiculous.
It’s the place you visit and somehow recognize.
The story you haven’t written yet.
The business you have no idea how to build.
The tiny voice inside you that finally gets tired of being tiny.
You don’t always know where the
Pink Smoke is leading.
That’s the trouble with it.
It does not arrive with a five-year plan, a sensible budget,
and a neatly labeled binder.
Although I do love a good binder.
It just keeps drifting ahead of you.
And eventually, you have to decide.
Keep living the life you already know.
Or follow the damn smoke.
I followed mine west.
Toward South Dakota.
Toward a life that felt more like me.
Toward stories I hadn’t lived yet, roads I hadn’t traveled,
ridiculous ideas I couldn’t stop thinking about,
and a version of myself I had spent far too long keeping under control.
Somewhere along the trail, the reinvention became Wild Jai.
The stories became The Rebel Journal.
The words worth keeping became The Library.
The people and animals I love became legends, and somewhere between real life and a little Wild Jai imagination, Pink Smoke Lore began writing itself.
And the food?
The recipes I actually make.
The dinners worth making twice.
The road food, camp food, ridiculous desserts,
and whatever sounded damn good that day?
That became Pink Smoke Social.
Pink Smoke Social is what happened when
I stopped treating food like it needed
a special occasion or somebody else’s rules.
Recipes for wherever the hell you’re headed.
Because sometimes freedom looks
surprisingly good on a plate.
At some point, you have to get up and make something.
Pack the boxes.
Take the road trip.
Write the story.
Make the damn thing.
Make the dessert far more ridiculous
than it has any business being.
Cook something worth remembering.
Wear the hat.
Stop asking whether the life you want
makes sense to people who aren’t the ones who have to live it.
Wild Jai is not the story of a woman who figured everything out.
Thank God. That would be a very short website.
It is the story of a woman who finally stopped waiting
until she had everything figured out before she started living.
A real reinvention.
In real time.
With wrong turns, big dreams, roadside treasures,
wild confections, a tiny Sheriff, a Trail Mama, a High-Roller Cowboy,
and probably more pink than any reasonable situation requires.
The story is still being written.
The dream is still being built.
And the Pink Smoke is still moving.
I’m following it.
You coming?
THE WILD JAI UNIVERSE
Explore the Wild Jai Universe
Six corners of one beautifully unruly little world.
Pick a door. See where the Pink Smoke takes you.
The Rebel Cowgirl
Part dreamer. Part rebel. Entirely done living by somebody else’s instructions, with a growing collection of ideas that probably should’ve stayed hypothetical.
MEET THE REBEL COWGIRL →
The Rebel Journal
Thoughts on reinvention, freedom, and becoming who you were before the world handed you instructions.
READ THE JOURNAL →
Pink Smoke Social
Damn good food for ordinary days, wild adventures, and wherever the hell you’re headed.
COME EAT
SOMETHING →
The Library
Words for the wild ones, the becoming ones, and the ones who never fit the damn mold.
ENTER THE LIBRARY →
The Campfire
Pull up a seat. The Wild Ones are gathering. See what’s happening around the fire.
PULL UP A SEAT →
Pink Smoke Lore
True stories. Strange legends. Questionable evidence. Somewhere between them, the Pink Smoke starts.
ENTER THE LORE →
WANT TO KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND HERE?
Come Find Us at the Campfire.
The latest stories, Wild Jai updates, places we’re headed,
and whatever else the Pink Smoke stirs up.
SEE WHAT’S STIRRING →