Gretchen Staebler is a wandering adventurer who left decades of grown-up life on the East Coast at age sixty to return to the mountains, beaches, and rain of her soul’s home in the Pacific Northwest. She blogs about her adventures from coffee shops, her father’s desk, national park lodges, her tent—wherever she feels cozy. She lives with her cat in Centralia, Washington (the real one).

Gretchen Staebler promised to spend one year in her childhood home caring for her stubborn ninety-six-year-old mother—sort of a middle-aged gap year. Then her mother would move to assisted living and she would return to her own life, their relationship magically having become all she ever longed it to be. Could it be that easy?

As mother and daughter each try desperately to keep a firm grasp on their independence, their daily battles in Mama’s kitchen fiefdom echo the clash of adolescence and menopause in the same spot decades earlier. Penetrating the fog of her mother’s advancing dementia, hypochondria, and blindness with humor, frustration, and compassion, the author slowly comes to accept and respect the mother she got, if not the one she wished for. In the process, she becomes a self-taught authority on aging, dementia, the healthcare system, and self-care. But how long will healing between mother and daughter take—and how long do they have?