We drove north, looking for the quiet places in between.
We drove north, sometimes turned back by wildfire, or rockslide, or the suggestion from a roadside stranger of something not to be missed.
We drove north, unfurling that space within us that sometimes gets cramped, sometimes grows small under the pressures of paychecks and laundry and getting the dishes done….
Read MoreSo often, when we remember the magical moments of our childhoods, those memories are doused in golden summer light. Long days and sunburned noses and the smell of cut grass and hot asphalt and maybe the feel of popsicle melting down our hands. We remember heat shimmering off of cracked sidewalks and drinking tepid water from garden hoses and hair that felt crunchy with salt water.
Read More“Hey Cindy! Dinner’s ready! Do you want to eat at the table or do you need to eat at your desk again?"
It was November of 2014 and I was a week out from shooting my last wedding of the season. It was the first year that my business broke six figures and everything was finally falling into place. Except that it wasn’t…
Read MoreWe have landed, officially.
After a crappy hiccup last week that left us scrambling to find a place to live very last minute (it was a total mess, you guys, but all is well now), we got into a short-term rental on Saturday and Justin began his new contract here on Monday. I think it’s only been in the last 24 hours that I have been able to take a deep breath and look around me, begin to think past the immediate, to get some sense of our life here for the next three months…
Read MoreWe reached Alaska last night.
It was raining and grey as we passed through customs at the border and we pulled over not too long after to boil water for tea and make something warm to eat under the watchful eyes of the boreal forest. We pulled into the Fairbanks Walmart parking lot in the 10pm gloaming and rolled into the back of the truck, falling asleep to the sounds of city life.
Our journey so far has been marked by long days of driving since leaving Seattle ten days ago and life has been a whirlwind since leaving California. But we expected this, planned for it, braced for it. We set our sights on the Brooks Range before it froze solid and knew we’d have to fly past places we yearned to stop if we wanted to make it in time.
There have been the hiccups of any good adventure…
Read MoreI arrived home late last night from a good long visit with a dear friend on the other side of the country. I like to pause occasionally and recall what a miracle it is that it is possible to wake up in coastal North Carolina and go to bed that same night in coastal California and that this kind of speedy travel across thousands of miles is considered routine at this point in human history. Miracle.
As I woke here in my own bed this morning, Kippee rocking a bit as Tess plodded over to drink water from her bowl, it came home to me that we are closing out our time in California…
Read MoreIt’s Sunday morning as I write this. Justin left for work in the wee hours and I have been holed up in this bed ever since, reading and writing and generally avoiding the stack of work I planned last night for “tomorrow” (you know, when it seemed like “tomorrow” would magically have way more hours in it and I would, of course, have boundless energy and be magically able to do ALL THE THINGS)…
Read MoreI have been talking a whole lot lately about curiosity as our ultimate weapon against the fear and paralyzing overwhelm of change. While fear is trying to make us hide in the doorways and play it safe, curiosity peeks its head around the corner and whispers, “oooh…now THAT might be interesting…” and gives us the little nudge we need to take our first tiny steps.
But this idea doesn’t really mean anything in the abstract, does it? We can know that curiosity is a tool that can serve us and we can believe it can make our life better and a whole lot more interesting, but how do we take it from concept to reality? How do we actually apply it?
What does curiosity look like on the ground- in our real lives on a daily basis?
I glanced at my planner, open beside me on the table, and looked at what was next on my agenda for the morning. It read, “Run before it’s too hot- DON’T PROCRASTINATE!!!” I sighed.
I don’t love running in the mornings- I just don’t tend to feel great, it interferes with my coffee habit, and mornings are when I’m sharpest and most energetic in my creative work. But there are a lot of good reasons to do it, not the least of which is that Tucson is regularly hitting the 90s by mid-afternoon now and running in that heat in the desert is a no-go for me. So if I wanted to run outside, it had to be now.
Cue the internal dialogue:
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