I am writing this morning from under my fluffy comforter, nestled into my bed, Tessie snoring beside me.
We arrived here in Saratoga on Saturday and have been running around doing the 647,000 things big and small required to settle into a new life…
Read MoreI’ve been thinking a bit about last week’s post and wondered if you guys might be interested in my “toolkit” on the road, how I hang onto that “creative fodder” until I get settled in our next location and can start sifting through it and molding it into something complete…
Read MoreI am writing this days before we depart and life is a flurry as we pack up and grocery shop and do the million and one mundane tasks that must be dealt with before hitting the road.
We’re taking two weeks between locations to head off grid, to simply be together in the quiet with minimal interruption from technology or obligation. We have plans to…
Read MoreWell…this is my last dispatch from Tucson. We hit the road on Sunday and begin making our way to northern California.
I’ve said it before, but this is always a bittersweet time for me. When we land in a new place, it always seems like three months is this enormous wealth of time…
Read MoreI like to start slowly in the mornings, to wake early and move quietly, thoughtfully. I like to savor my coffee and let my thoughts wander, to listen to the raucous racket of the birds and notice the feel of the still cool breeze as it slides through the open window.
I’m a lover of the snooze button and favor waking in staccato, rising to awareness of the deep comfort of my bed and sinking back into its depths at a nine-minute interval. I love to scribble in my journal or read the words of writers who capture the meaning of life in their pens.
Mornings lend themselves to small joys and tiny comforts. Wide stretches and hot showers and steaming mugs cupped in our hands just so. They are for watching shadows brighten as they move across the kitchen table, highlighting the mundane beauty of half-eaten toast and spilled salt and the perfect geometry of a fork across a cheery plate…
Read MoreHas it really already been three months???
It has, unbelievably. We are closing out our time here in Tucson and have just signed on the dotted line for our next assignment:
Read MoreToday has been one of those days where I sit down to write and then immediately have to pee/ get a drink of water/ check my email/ comment on Instagram/ go pee again (hydration, man!)/ eat a snack/ check the mail…I think you get the drift.
I was reminded recently of a quote by amazing painter Chuck Close:
“Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work.”
I love this, you guys.
Read MoreMoment of truth, you guys.
The other day something happened. It began benignly enough- a small sidetrack during a moment between tasks in which I thought I’d use a spare ten minutes to listen to a webcast related to some business research I’m doing. Ten minutes and then I’d get back to the list of things that I needed to do before the week drew to a close.
Ten minutes.
That turned into almost four hours. And not four hours of productive and enlightening research. Four hours down a rabbit hole of overwhelm and comparison that culminated with the voice that lives in my head ringing out with the clear phrase, “I can’t do this.”
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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:
Read MoreWe returned last night from a long weekend in Joshua Tree National Park. While there, we were admiring the many different homes-on-wheels that people had crafted for themselves, spanning the spectrum from shiny new Airstreams being pulled by luxury brand SUVs to rusted out jalopies with the passenger seat removed to make room for its occupant’s sleeping pad and bag. There were Sprinters housing climbing guides and college kids packed into their parents’ minivans and retirees in 40-foot RVs. There were full-timers and weekend warriors and every build out you can imagine. It was inspiring to say the least.
It also started a conversation about the parts of road life that almost never make it to social media or blog posts. I actually don’t think it’s because everyone is attempting to cultivate a “highlights reel” of perfection. I think it can feel really wrong to “complain” about the hard parts of road life when so many of the people doing it won’t hesitate to tell you that they feel like it is a huge privilege to be able to choose to live like this. And that’s the catch, right? This life is a choice and it is often a lifestyle for which sacrifices were made in order to make happen. So complaining about some of the “hardships” (which for the most part are more often actually just inconveniences) can feel a little whiny and gross.
But we should share them...
Read MoreWe drove late into the night, pushing across the Arizona border into Utah and imagining the wonders we passed in the dark. Time was growing short and the new contract’s start date meant we had fewer days than we’d planned to play in the in-between, fewer days to reacquaint ourselves with the western skies we’d been pining for these last months in New Hampshire. But we weren’t skipping Zion, by golly, even if it meant driving until late became early, and peering into blackness hoping for glimpses of the threatened desert landscapes we’d dreamed of immersing ourselves in for a few extra days....
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