Our Story

The TL;DR Story

We met in May of 2022 at a retreat by Charles Eisenstein in North Carolina. Annika was living in Portland, Oregon at the time, Aaron in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On the last day of the retreat we talked about moving to Asheville together. In July of 2022 we gave it a trial run, spending 3 weeks together in a cabin in the Appalachian mountains. During that time Annika heard a calling to spend a “year and a day” seeking to get to know ourselves, each other, and God. We bought a travel trailer, found a place to park near Asheville, and embarked on our year and a day. In May of 2023, a year after meeting each other, we surprised Annika’s family and friends in Germany by announcing our official engagement announcement at her birthday party.

More of Our Story

Below is the story of how we met and what we did for our year and a day from Annika’s perspective. You can find all the parts of the story as well as additional writing on Our Substack “Realing”.

Part 1 - What’s In Asheville?

In 2022 I (Annika) drove from Portland, Oregon, to North Carolina to go to a retreat hosted by Patsy and Charles Eisenstein - The New And Ancient Story or NAAS Gathering. It was at that retreat that my life took a drastic turn. I stopped writing and paid only very occasional, brief visits to social media. After more than a year of living life offline, I’m here to share what happened during that year and how it changed my life.

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“So where do you live?” I asked.
“Philadelphia” he replied. “You?”
“Portland, Oregon” I said.
We sat in silence…

Then he spoke again:
“So, do you want to move to Philadelphia?”
“No!” I said, immediately.
I hate living in big cities…
His face fell.
But I meant to ask him back.
Ask if he would move to Portland.
But I didn’t.

Then I spoke again:
“So, do you want to move to Asheville?”
“What’s in Asheville?” he asked.
“I guess I am. Or will be.” I said.
“Huh. Asheville is nice…”
”Yeah, I think so…”
”Yeah, sure, I’ll move to Asheville.”

And that was that. Just like that I had decided I’d leave Portland, where I thought I’d spend the rest of my life, and move to Asheville and so had he. It was a hot Sunday afternoon and we were sitting on a ruined stone wall at a retreat center in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was quiet because everyone else was at the closing ceremony for the retreat, everyone except us. We had come to these ruins to have our own private closing ceremony. Except that we had kept talking and were running out of time. Any moment now people would leave the closing ceremony and pack up their camping gear. 

“We should pack up our camping gear,” I said.
”I know, my ride will be leaving soon,” he said. 

So I packed up my tent and he packed up his. We were camped right next to each other, much to my initial chagrin. When I had arrived four days earlier, I asked those who were carrying my borrowed tent to help me set it up as far away from everyone else as possible. It had only been three days since my car accident and I was bruised and hurting, I was also used to the solitude of sleeping in my now-totaled car. My extended family did everything they could to help me after the wreck and one of my cousins drove me all the way from Georgia to North Carolina. The organizer of the retreat loaned me comfortable camping gear and recruited people to set it up for me. I watched my borrowed tent go up right next to a creek and was so grateful to be here and glad to have my little oasis of solitude. 

But the first evening, when I made my way back to the tent after the retreat’s opening event, I found a tent pitched right next to mine. It was a small one person tent that the owner could have set up anywhere, but instead chose to pitch right next to my no-longer-isolated spot. Who was this jerk? I just hoped he or she didn’t snore and would leave me alone.

Hungry for more? Check out part 2 on our Substack here.