I’m writing this from a cheap hotel room in Fort Nelson, British Columbia. It’s -9 degrees fahrenheit outside, so we’ve been crossing our fingers and hoping for pet-friendly hotels open in mid-winter as we’ve criss-crossed rural Alaska, then the Yukon, and now British Columbia as we make our way south to Seattle, praying that we don’t end up huddled under sleeping bags in the back of the truck (just because you can doesn’t always mean you should)…
Read MoreWe are closing in on the end of another year and I have found myself thinking more and more about what’s next for us, where we go from here (both figuratively and literally…our time in Alaska ends December 29th!).
We’ve been talking a lot about home lately.
Again. (When you move every three months, this is a topic that comes up often.)
We’ve been asking ourselves if we want to keep traveling as we have been or if we want to begin the process of really figuring out what we want next in our lives. Where we want next in our lives…
Read MoreWe walked in sub-freezing temperatures across a rocky and snow covered landscape to reach the base of a massive wall of ice. We walked inside that wall and stood in awe of its power, touched the prehistoric stones caught in the ice, looked warily at the cracks in the turquoise ice creating a spiderweb over our heads….
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 MoreWhen I was in college, I fell in love with the movie Sabrina, first with the 1995 remake starring Julia Ormond and Harrison Ford, and then with the Audrey Hepburn original. I watched them both repeatedly and for a time could quote them with ease…
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 MoreJustin and Geoff had gone on a long run/hike for the day, leaving my introverted self some much needed alone time. I headed out with my journal and my camera and a dog-eared copy of a book I was reading for the fourth time, no specific destination in mind…
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 MoreYou guys.
I have so much to share, so much to say. I can’t wait. But today is just for a few announcements and updates, so bear with me…
Read MoreWe are talking when Justin halts mid-sentence for a moment and then says it’s stopped raining, pointing at the roof of the truck cap. I pause and listen. Sure enough, the drilling of raindrops that has been ever present since last night has stopped. We smile at each other and I turn to wipe the film of condensation from the window closest to me and peer out. I start laughing.
“That’s because it’s snowing instead!”
We open the back window wide and look out at a world turning white before our very eyes…
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 MoreTwo 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 More
