Two years ago, at this very moment, Justin and I were sitting on the steps to the front deck of our home. We’d spent the last two weeks or so in an insane flurry of activity, choosing which of our belongings would come with us or be let go, making Kippee (though we didn’t know her name yet) into a livable home, preparing to make a monumental shift toward a different life…
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 MoreSome days the driving feels long. The highway stretches out before us and the view blurs as unspecified agriculture and isolated gas stations and the occasional state welcome sign fly past our windows.
These are good days for audiobooks and long conversations about crazy ideas and…
Read MoreI came across this passage in my reading this week, written by priest, theologian, writer, and activist Matthew Fox:
“I propose that we can fall in love several times a day for the rest of our lives…We could fall in love with a star, of which there are 200 billion in our galaxy alone. Or a species of wildflower... Or a species of bird, of tree, of plant. Or with another human being- preferably one different from ourselves…We could fall in love with music, poetry, painting, dance. If we fell in love with one of Mozart’s works each week, we would have seven years of joy. How could we ever be bored?”
These words keep singing in my head, resonant with such incredible truth. In a single succinct paragraph, this man slices right to the heart of living a full, rich, meaningful, and wondrous life. Curiosity manifested as love, as wonder, as awe. To look out upon the unknown and instead of fear, we fall in love. How singularly beautiful is that…
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 MoreWhen I was in sixth grade, my health class had a guest speaker who spoke about STDs. The lecture included a section about AIDS, which was still relatively “new” at that time and was still shrouded in mystery and bad information and was still annihilating people in droves. He spoke about transmission and facts versus rumor, and then made a statement that stuck with me for how absurd I believed it to be at that time. He said, “The statistics suggest that at least half of you will be affected by AIDS within the next two years”…
I looked at them for a long time. I just couldn’t get enough.
It was late in the day and we were alone on Signal Hill, our truck the only vehicle at the trailhead. As we hiked toward the hill, it looked initially as though we’d only be able to see them from afar, that we’d have to use our binoculars to get a sense of the texture, of the grit of symbol carved into stone. But the trail continued around, winding its way up the mound until we stood close enough to reach out our hands and run them across each line and curve. We didn’t touch them, of course, but the proximity was a siren call, the desire to lay my hands on the stone and feel the ancient symbols breathtaking in its intensity…
I 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 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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