Life seasons, settling, and collected moments

I think of my life in seasons rather than in years. It makes more sense that way.

I think this past life season for me has been a lesson in learning not to settle. Relationships--both friendships and romantic--should be fulfilling, encouraging, honest, and should make you feel capable. They don't need to be measured by the amount of conflict, but rather, by the manner in which that conflict is dealt with.
Gravitate towards work that develops and brings out your greatest strengths.
You can always be more kind.
And most of all, if you're settling for things that are half-hearted, you're exemplifying that to others.
Really, life is way too short to feel obligated to stay in something that isn't making you better. I don't think problems are black and white, but I do think that happiness should be placed as a higher importance than a lot of people make it.

All of these things are growing into my bones and though I've got a long way to go, I've felt like there can be major progress in the most trying of times. I feel like I've climbed out of that trying-ness, and oh, I can't even tell you how in love with life I've been lately, because I'm not even sure there are enough words to tell you how beautiful it's been. There have been moments in the past month that I will come back to when I'm feeling the absence of home and am drained from overcrowded cities and too little wildness.

Lately I've had slow cooked meals, long conversations with lots of laughter, and sunny cups of coffee in the morning; the previous night's wine bottles still left on the patio table.
I've walked barefoot on bright moss and curled up in trees shaped like hammocks to be closer to the water and to listen to the movement.

I've driven through clouds of mountain bluebirds, stirred up from the meadows and found pieces of home in people's conversations and actions.
I've walked through forests of trees-blackened and burnt by flame, but still standing and creaking with the wind.

I've watched waterfalls and read hundreds of book pages, and have sat on hills in the middle of rainstorms, watching the cumulus clouds form, growing dark and heavy.

I've sat on wooden porches and have seen the heavy mist hang low over the foothills, watching moose eating the willow branches twenty feet away from my chair.
I've run on trails through fields of wildflowers in alpine meadows, looking over great mountain ranges while mud jumps up behind my heels.

I'm just not sure that I can conceivably explain the excitement I feel...that everything seems to be just beginning; the start of something I can't wrap my head around because it's too large and intertwined to separate out. It's a large intersection of collected moments that are carrying me into another life season with more lessons learned and a couple more lines around my eyes.

I'm off to follow the yellow highway veins to giant glass cities and then onto places where the redwoods grow. There are some amazing things in the works.

Running as poetry.

My brain was full of crowded thoughts, so I went running. I'm not much of a runner, but there's something to be said about the feeling of movement and the simplicity of only needing shoes.

I think there's some kind of disconnect that has to happen when you uproot and start in a new place. I feel like I'm straddling a line; one part of me craves a home and the other craves travel and I'm not sure which to feed. All sorts of things were swirling in my head and the sort of sadness that comes when you start leaving a place that you love. It's amazing that a year ago I started to make this place my home, and it's just started to feel that way more than any of the previous months.

It was the late afternoon when I started running. The sun was dodging in and out behind the lodgepole pines as I ran past, and it felt like I was flipping pages on a chapter book. The river below was moving so swiftly and all I could hear was my shoes hitting the dirt below and Veda's trot to my side and--oh, life moves so quickly.

Time is such a valuable currency.

As I ran further into the mountains, the sun started to dip below the ridgeline and the pines turned blue and dark green with early evening. When the last of the sunlight was beaming onto the trail and the pine needles seemed to glow, I stopped and laid in the tree groves because sometimes you just need to pour love into something and I wanted to lean my back against the 50 feet of bark that has seen more life than I have. And I sat and listened to the river move, and felt my lungs so clearly and the muscles in my legs appreciated the movement.

Ah, it felt like poetry.

getting into the rhythm of travel

I'm getting ready to move my few possessions into a storage unit. I think this part of vagabonding is always a little odd for me--packing up my things. I'm a person that likes homes. I love spending the mornings barefoot in the kitchen, starting coffee on the stove and crawling back into bed with the snoring beast-dog. I'll be sad to put my record player away and hand my plants to caring hands for the summer. There are good things on the horizon and I'm terribly excited to travel, but it always comes with trade-offs. 

Once I start travelling, I move into the rhythm of being on the road. The car is organized, there's always climbing equipment, a camera and coffee cups on hand. Veda curls up in the passenger seat, and my folded maps are tucked into the back of the seat. Up until last fall, I didn't believe in using GPS to get somewhere. I like having to sit and read the maps, scattered with blue and red highway and interstate veins. 

I followed some of those veins down to Idaho for a couple days to see a friend of mine that creates amazing art. It's always so nice to feel at home when you arrive somewhere that's not yours. We talked about how the creative world is so competitive and how artists should encourage each other, and let go of the feeling of possession and competition. We talked about how there are two ways to live and act: with love or without love. And we tapped our boots to the deep voice of the iconic country singer, Don Williams. Well into his 70's, his voice sounds matched to his records, and it took me back to childhood, hearing my parents talk about how they danced to his songs at their wedding. It was a lovely time, tucked into the rolling Idaho hills, and I can't wait to go back. 

Shake The Dust.

Don't be afraid to shake the dust.

I've been feeling time slip so quickly lately. It's been a heaviness on my shoulders, tapping me to remind me that it's dwindling. I'm not sure how to write this post, other than to tell you that we always think we'll have more time than we do.

I guess I'm selfish in wanting it all. I want to live so fully that it fills me up to the brim, spilling photographs and conversations and experiences and words that translate that feeling.

I just want to accurately explain to you the freedom of walking in a sagebrush plain, mountain bluebirds and robins, dashing in and out of the brush.
And if I could contain the feeling of my hair blowing in the wind, I would. I could tell you about holding the whiskey bottle that's glowing blue from the fire, after we've said a 'salud' to our good fortunes of all being together while ashes dancing up the sky.

I want to tell you the deep happiness of listening to the sound of nothing but the wind in the pines and the fullness of the world away from computers and cubicles.
I've been feeling so disconnected because it's been far too long since I've seen the stars and counted the constellations.



I want to bottle up the feeling of cold hands working in the morning to get things moving, the first taste of coffee when you wake up, and how everything magically tastes better when eaten in the backcountry.









I kept saying that I'd do this soon, that I'd get out of the routine and just go. But it got put on one of those to-do lists that gathers dust on the shelf. I'm lucky that I had two friends in town this week that wrapped my soul in conversations about mountains and travels and big dreams.

The people that you should keep around are the ones that should make you feel capable.