Jackie Fleming

ON HOW SHE MANAGES THE "NESTING INSTINCT" AMID A NOMADIC AND FREE-SPIRITED LIFESTYLE

Dirtbag Profiles: Jackie and Kofi

The Cutest Pair on the Outdoor Education Circuit

ABOUT JACKIE

• Type of rig: A periwinkle Honda Fit.
• The name of her car: Kofi, after Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations. The name symbolizes peacekeeping, nonviolent activism, social and political progress, and environmental justice. But don’t be mistaken; Jackie’s periwinkle Kofi is a female.
• Number of years living out of her car: Since the spring of 2008.
• Her favorite thing about her car: The back, with the seat folded down. “It’s like a studio apartment,” Jackie says. “It’s my bedroom, kitchen, studio. I can be in the most remote area, freezing cold and lonely, and all I have to do is crawl back there. I can hangout, play the guitar, write in my journal, curl up and be cozy.”
• Occupations: Raft Guide, Outdoor Educator for the Boojum Institute, Instructor for Wilderness Ventures and Outward Bound, Ski Instructor for Mammoth Mountain
• In her words, what defines a dirtbag: “A free-spirited person, with the ability to go where the wind takes them, and to be self-contained. A car isn’t required, but it helps.”
• Why she has chosen this lifestyle: “…the discovery of new places, building friendships, the affirmation of independence, discovering what I’m capable of….”
•  A saying she lives by: She who is brave is free.
  
  
  

Follow Your Horoscope: You’ll Find the Perfect Line

Ed, one of my ski partners, sits on a stool next to the potbelly stove, crinkling up pages from the Idaho Mountain Express to start a fire. With each page he pauses: skimming the headlines before slowly forming the paper into a ball and placing it in the stove. When he reaches the horoscope section he clears his throat to get our attention.

“Chase,” he says, “you won’t learn anything if you do it right the first time.” I’m sitting across the yurt from Ed, a mug of tea nestled in my hands. I take a sip, lower my eyelids, and peer at him through the steam rising out of the mug—exaggerating, to his amusement, that I’m thinking deeply about the advice.

“Brian,” Ed continues, beginning to giggle. “Don’t argue with your adversary even if he, or she,” he accentuates the she and shoots a sideways glance at me, “is wrong.”

“Very interesting,” I say, refocusing my glare on Brian, who is lounging on the bench next to me, with his feet resting on a chair and his fingers intertwined on his belly: a confident half-smile on his face. We learned at the beginning of the ski season that our styles occasionally don’t jive: we are both stubborn, competitive, and hate being wrong. He is a more aggressive skier; I am a far superior arguer.

Guiding in Bright Pink Long Underwear

“This next stretch should be fast,” I say to the group of women standing uphill from me. “Try to carry your speed to the road.” I point my skis down the fall line, but the snow is slower then I expected: I’m barely moving. The women behind me are laughing: none of them follow.