NAKEDJEN

Category: Advocacy

  • Afterwords

    I’m not here to write about how August was found.
    That story is already orbiting the globe, carried by hearts far larger than mine.
    What I need to write — what I must write — is how these last 24 days rearranged me from the inside out.

    Because something in me changed.
    Shifted.
    Cracked open like a geode that didn’t know it was full of light.

    For 24 days, this city — this state — this strange and stubborn place we call home — showed up with a force I was not prepared for. I’ve lived here long enough to be grumpy about it. Long enough to feel like Utah and I have an ongoing feud. But let me tell you something with my whole chest:

    Don’t tell me this city ain’t got no heart.
    I heard it beating. Loud. Unified. Unstoppable    .

    People I had never met became my family.
    People who shouldn’t have had time made time.
    People who were exhausted kept going.
    People who had nothing still gave everything.
    People who live outdoors — who navigate survival every damn day — carried the torch with a clarity and grace that humbled me to my knees.

    Yesterday, on a hunch that didn’t make sense on paper but burned in my gut, I drove to Redwood Road. I walked into the pockets of humanity we call “the unhoused community,” gently, respectfully, palms open.

    I didn’t demand.
    I didn’t accuse.
    I didn’t interrogate.

    I said, softly, “I know the code. If you’re helping him, you have your reasons. He’s an adult. You don’t owe me anything. But his mother is on day 24 of her own hell, and she just needs to know her son is alive. Please. Let him know she loves him. Let him know it’s okay to check in. That’s all I’m asking.”

    And something changed in the man standing in front of me — not his posture, but his energy.
    It was like watching a lantern ignite behind his ribs.

    He looked at me steady and said,
    “I’ll make sure your message gets where it needs to go.”

    I clasped my hands.
    I bowed my head.
    I whispered, “Thank you.”
    And I walked away.

    Hours later, August was found.
    Not because of me —
    because collective care is a force of nature.

    Because Salt Lake City —
    in all its contradictions, its rough edges, its quiet resilience —
    showed the hell up.

    Because people who live outside, who are dismissed and overlooked and judged daily, were the ones who held the line with the most dignity and strength. They are the heroes of this story.
    Say it out loud.

    And let me tell you what all of this did to me:

    I have been the Chief Love Beet my whole life.
    I show up.
    I take care of people.
    I fix the things I can.
    I hold the ones I love.
    I drag my glittery boots into the dark and try to make it lighter.

    But this?
    This was different.

    This time, I wasn’t the one holding the container — the container held me.

    Salt Lake City held me.
    The volunteers held me.
    The mothers held me.
    The grievers held me.
    The searchers held me.
    The unhoused community held me with a kind of honor I will never forget.

    We cracked our hearts together like a chorus of fault lines.
    We refused to give up.
    We refused to look away.
    We refused to let “impossible” have the last word.

    I am changed.
    I can feel it.
    A new chamber in my heart, carved by 24 days of strangers-turned-family, by the hum of hope vibrating through every street, by the relentless love of a mother who would not stop.

    August is alive.
    And so, somehow, am I —
    in a way I wasn’t before.

    Thank you, Salt Lake City.
    Thank you to every single person who loved outside their bodies.
    Thank you to those who showed up even when it felt impossible.
    Thank you to our unhoused brothers and sisters who carried this story with honor.
    Thank you to the fierce, unshakeable ache that binds us as humans.

    This wasn’t a search.
    This was a remembering.

    We belong to each other.
    Still.
    Always.
    Especially when the world forgets.

  • 💜 Purple Alert: Why I Still Search for August

    💜 Purple Alert: Why I Still Search for August

    People keep asking me why I’m still searching for August.

    Here’s the truest answer I have:
    Because I can. And because I hope you would, too.

    Because if your heart beat just a little louder —
    if you heard a tremor in the universe,
    a missing pulse,
    a soft human who hasn’t come home —
    I like to believe you’d go looking.

    Even if you didn’t know him.
    Even if he was 29, grown, and complicated.
    Even if the world insists adulthood equals safety.
    (Trust me, it doesn’t.)

    Sometimes a brain goes haywire.
    Sometimes it lights itself on fire.
    Sometimes a person walks away naked into the snow
    and doesn’t even know they’re gone.

    I know this because once — I was the one who wandered.

    New Year’s Eve, 2008

    (which was technically still 2007 because time is a suggestion)

    I had just moved to Salt Lake City.
    A blizzard.
    No friends yet.
    Just two black labradors — Buddha and Stella —
    who carried my heart on eight paws like it was their holy job.

    I don’t remember the seizures.
    I only remember becoming conscious in the snow.
    Naked. Disoriented. Freezing. Alone.

    Not metaphorically.
    Actually and literally wandering the city,
    no memory of how I got there,
    no idea where “home” even was.

    I saw the glow of a Smith’s supermarket.
    Closed. Empty.
    But a payphone in the vestibule leaked just enough light
    to feel like a lifeline.

    I remembered one number.
    Collect.
    My mother.

    “Mom… I’m naked and cold and I don’t know where I am.”
    “Jennifer, you’re in Utah.”
    “Why would I do THAT?”

    She called emergency services from Maryland.
    She told them where to find her daughter
    wandering state-newborn and soaked in snow.
    They found me.
    They wrapped me in blankets.
    They got me home.

    And when we arrived?
    Every single light in my house was on.
    Front door wide open.
    Two dogs sitting guard — waiting.
    Holding vigil over whatever was left of me.

    If I hadn’t found that payphone,
    if I hadn’t seen those lights,
    if Buddha and Stella hadn’t anchored me to this world,
    if — if — if —

    I could have disappeared.
    Forever.
    Just like that.

    No alert. No network.
    No hey Utah, one of us is missing — go look.

    That is my WHY.

    That is why I search for August.
    Because someone should.
    Because his mother deserves not to wonder.
    Because he deserves to be alive and found if he wants to be.

    Because there is a world where that night was me
    and nobody knew to sound an alarm.

    Utah doesn’t have a PURPLE ALERT.

    But it should.
    Every state should.
    A Purple Alert for adults who wander,
    who are neurodivergent or vulnerable or lost in the fog of a burning brain.
    Not a punishment.
    Not a trap.
    Not a “gotcha.”

    Just a net.
    A community rally.
    A lifeline in the snow.

    It is not a miracle.
    But it could save one life.
    And that is enough.

    I have systems now.
    Layers.
    If I go missing again — alarms will go off.
    Texts will fly.
    People will look.

    Not everyone has that.

    August doesn’t have that.

    He is missing.
    Still.
    And I’m not ready to stop searching.

    If you’re reading this, you don’t have to know August to care.
    You just have to remember something simple:

    There was a night I could have been the one you were searching for.

    And every mother deserves to sleep knowing
    that if her child wanders naked into the snow —
    a city will rise like hands to catch them.

    💜 Utah deserves a PURPLE ALERT.
    💜 August deserves to be found.
    💜 And any one of us could be next.

    If this moved you — share it.
    Talk about Purple Alerts.
    Help me make noise.

    We’re still looking for August.
    Let’s not stop.