It’s December 2017. I’m at a windswept campground just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, about to travel to Baja California in a three-vehicle convoy of women I barely know.

Lori hands me a walkie talkie so we can communicate while we’re driving.

“I’m Big Bear. Oso Grande,” she says. “Cami is Little Bear, Osito.” She points to her partner, and then to Julia, the driver of the third vehicle: “She’s Soaring Eagle. How about you? What’s your handle?”

A heartbeat, maybe two, and the name is there, on my tongue, out in the world. “Call me Jenny Quest.”

###

Everybody needs an alter ego, a super hero mask and cape to slip into, superpowers to call upon. Especially these days. Especially women.

Batman. Nancy Drew. Captain Kirk. The Sundance Kid.

These were my childhood heroes, alter egos that I slipped in and out of with ease.

A caped crusader. A titian-haired teen detective. A starship captain. A Wild West outlaw.

Even as a kid, the edge called to me.

###

Jenny Quest is the persona that brings me full circle, into the psychic space where I can set aside my logic-logos-driven way of understanding and articulating the world, and take a deep dive into metaphysics and the mysteries — all the intuitive ways of knowing and being, all the wondrous woo woo that sends my PhD-trained left brain screaming in the other direction.

I like this persona, this space. It feels…edgy.

So, do me a favor, please? Call me Jenny Quest.