Baraboo is Where I am Staying

‍ ‍”I came here because of my brother. I stayed because I found a community.”

About two months ago, I attended a presentation by the Baraboo Acts Coalition during a Sauk County Comprehensive Community Services (CCS) Committee meeting. I was drawn to the coalition's commitment to creating an inclusive community where diversity is celebrated, people are heard, and everyone has a place to belong. As a lifelong social worker and advocate, I understand how important it is to feel accepted and supported. Learning about the work the coalition has already accomplished inspired me to offer my voice and writing to the organization. I'm honored to have joined the board and look forward to contributing to a community that has given me so much.

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Where I came from didn't compare to where I've been or where I'm headed. Milwaukee was drastically different. Single life there was loud traffic and tight quarters, with an increasing anonymity. As a person, I became lost in a system not meant for me. I had been a social worker. I had been a consumer of mental health services. I knew systems, or at least I thought I did. Yet there I was, lost inside one.

Coming to Baraboo felt like leaving one planet for another, more humbling one. One of the first things I noticed was simple: people know people. You go to Kwik Trip and someone holds the door. People recognize you. Neighbors begin to know who you are. Little things, maybe, but I began to notice them.

There was a time when I needed people more than I wanted to admit. The volunteer drivers through the Aging & Disability Resource Center of Sauk County drove me to doctors offices in Madison, Portage, wherever I needed to go. After spinal fusion surgery, when I had to use a wheelchair, the drivers who worked for the ADRC handled me with such care. They showed up.

They were on time. Every time. Maybe that sounds like something small. It wasn't to me. And one of the moments I remember most didn't actually happen in Baraboo. It happened about half an hour away in Portage.

I was at A&W eating with my mom and a friend, when my walker started acting up. Something was wrong with it, and I was worried because I needed that walker. The owner of the A&W actually started searching for a screw that might fit it.

I hadn't gone there looking for help.

I had gone there to eat.

But kindness wasn't the only difference I began to notice.

Things seemed connected here in ways I wasn't used to.

I met Norma and Lou through my mom at the senior center. As we got to know each other, we discovered something almost unbelievable. At one point, we'd lived just one block apart in Milwaukee. Their daughter had gone to high school with me, one year ahead of me. Yet somehow, Norma, Lou and I never knew each other there.

One block.

We had to move more than a hundred miles away, to Baraboo, to meet.

But the coincidence isn't really what matters to me anymore. I've come to count on Norma and Lou for a kind of stability in friendship, kindness and support I hadn't known before. Louie comes over and helps me fix things. He even made me a house sign I'd always wanted. Norma taught me how to play cribbage. We've gone to activities together and celebrated holidays.

Even in just this past year, they have become part of my life in a way I couldn't have predicted. In Milwaukee, we had practically been neighbors. In Baraboo, we became neighbors.

I moved to Baraboo in 2018 to be closer to my brother. I didn't know then what this community would become to me.

My brother died four and a half years ago. By then, though, Baraboo had become more than the place I'd moved to because of him. I had begun putting down roots of my own. I stayed because I loved the beauty here, but beauty alone doesn't make a place home. I stayed because I felt connected. I found support. I found people who showed up, sometimes in ways I never expected.

I came here because of my brother. I stayed because I found a community.

Baraboo is where I choose to be.


Windy Lynn Warren is best known in the area as the person who founded and leads the Writers Blast out of the CSMPL library. With a background in social work, HR management and a passion for creative writing, we are excited to bring Windy onto the Board of the Baraboo Acts Coalition.

Welcome to Baraboo and the Baraboo Acts Coalition Windy!

Windy Lynn Warren