Returning

I've come back home on purpose, with purpose, and, perhaps not surprisingly, discovered the most profound pleasure in life...

I've found a wonderful freedom in choosing my own path home to Alaska:
to be myself,
to like what I like, 
to let others choose for themselves,
to say yes or no as the mood strikes,
to take the risks I want,
to learn from my losses,
to live each day in a way that feels right to me.

I have made a pact with myself not to shrink

for anyone.

Hard times have happened, and will happen again, but I've learned something over the last two years: I will recover. At 37 years old, I finally acknowledged the strength, passion, and wisdom within me to author my own story...and a damn good one it's turning out to be! 

One year ago, I drove the bare essentials of my life (including my son) in a tiny hatchback over 3000 miles of highway from California to Alaska, which was just a year after making that same trip in reverse...escaping from Alaska. Both trips were adventures beyond the horizon of my known universe and the limits of my emotional comfort zone. Both were giant leaps of faith and stubborn determination to get across the yawning chasm that separated me from the life I wanted to be living. My landings were those painful kind of affairs where the leaper just barely catches the edge of something solid on the other side of the gap, banging shins and forearms, and has to claw and scramble and heave oneself up over the edge to stable footing. I did it twice. 

Each leap took me six months to heal and another six months to feel really glad I'd done it.

And now I'm in a beautiful place in life where everything seems to have fallen into its proper place. Each self-affirming decision has created a "pay it forward" momentum that continues to cascade toward more positive happenings. The abundance of joy, affection, support, and gratefulness between myself, my son, and my former spouse is actually ridiculous! We are each finally being who we were meant to be and loving each other better for it.

I am gobbling up the long Alaskan days, the steep trails, the sunshine, the moments with friends, the informing encounters with new people, the late-night campfires, the live concerts, and every possible experience that catches my fancy. 

I feel awake and like life is all re-prioritized to suit my needs and adventurous desires. 

And while it may seem counter-intuitive, all this energy toward myself has actually freed my dearest ones to also pursue their heart's desires. For the first time in years, my boy and the man I once called "mine" are discovering their own pleasures, with vigor! And we all continue to support each other, probably more genuinely than we ever did before. 

So, I guess I'm here to say...I'm back, baby! And things are gonna be different from now on. Better. More real. More affirming. It's not always gonna work out, or feel good, but it's gonna be what I make of it. And when I feel out of sorts, like the choosing has gotten away from me, then I still find solace and focus in the great outdoors...the WAY OUTDOORS! And I learn to get my choices back.

My world can be set right by the moon rising over lavender-lit mountains, the flutter overhead of a bat at dusk, or the crackle of wood-fueled flames licking the night air and throwing sparks up to the stars.

This is a moment in time where I feel perfectly where I ought to be...and I want to create a reminder that it is possible. If I am willing to take the risks, to not hold back, to be my best self...truly lovely things can happen. They HAVE happened. Wherever I go from here, I'm grateful for each connection, every moment of vulnerability, all the opportunities I've had to test my mettle. I think things are just getting interesting.

Remodeling

PARDON MY ABSENCE

My life - and this blog - are undergoing a remodel!

But I'm still here and I still want to share my adventures with you...

I will return to sharing my adventures soon, but for now my energy is going into the labor of changing my environment to suit my needs. I've had so many pivotal experiences over the last ten months that I just couldn't find the time to write about it. And my sharing takes more brain and heart power than you might think, too. I pour over every word and contemplate my message. Even though I absolutely love writing about my passion for this journey, when I'm in the thick of it, sometimes it's not clear to me what the point is. And right now I am currently focusing so much attention inward, on building a new foundation that will support my healthy future, that I need extra time to rest and relax.

Here's what I can tell you now:

• I'm living in Alaska and redefining what this means to me while exploring with fresh eyes and an open heart.
• Some days I struggle and want to quit reaching for something better. But I don't quit. I keep getting up and trying something new.
• Being in Alaska means my son has both his parents within a stone's throw and we are all happy, healthy, and friendly with each other. This is a great thing.
• I am staying connected as best I can with my California friends and memories. They keep me focused on where I want to be.
• My efforts are supported by a crew of personal and virtual friends, for which I am so incredibly, fall-down-and-kiss-their-feet, thankful! I can't do this without you.

So, here I am.

Right here.

In the mess of change.

I'm thinking, feeling, designing.

I'm learning to love me.

From that love,

I can love others better.

Sometimes,

it doesn't make any sense.

Sometimes,

I get frustrated and disappointed.

Sometimes,

I'm lonely and tired.

And sometimes,

it comes together so beautifully

that I am filled with hope.

My adventure now is an internal one.

But soon, I'll be able to share again.

Soon.

Meet me here later...and we'll continue together.

Choice

I've begun an adventure to live 3000 miles away from my lifelong home, accompanied by my 13-year old son.  My husband remains in Alaska with my family on a multi-generational homestead where I grew up, while our son and I explore living in Northern California near his family.  I've traveled south to seek sun, heat, and new opportunities. Along the way, I'm sharing my journey about pursuing dreams, discovering what matters most in life, and finding the strength to be brave in the face of uncertainty.  For me, healing and strength are often found in simple pleasures and frequent communion with nature, so join me as I embark into the outdoors to reveal what's inside of me.

~

Choice

(either way, you learn)

"More than anything, I've wed to the certainty that nothing changes without me." - Danielle LaPorte

Sometimes, a decision is so heavy that it knocks the wind out of me. It suffocates my brain and blocks my ability to think clearly.  A difficult choice can make me feel frantic to the point of mentally passing out.  I left Alaska with a weighty decision in my mind and have been worrying over it every day since I arrived in California.  My decision was whether to stay in California or go back to Alaska.  The implications that each choice bore with it were deep and life-changing.  Staying felt like facing forward, moving toward the future. The unavoidable word "back" caused me to shy away from that option.  Going back felt like going backwards. The whole point of my exploration was to change things up, to venture into something new, to free myself from what made me unhappy. These felt like very forward-motion goals. So, how could it ever be right to turn-heel and go back to where I came from? I couldn't embrace it. Yet, I still found myself compelled to consider it.  

I quizzed myself constantly: 

Is Redding the right place for me and my son?  

Am I in the right job? 

Am I with the right people? 

Can I afford this? 

Does this feel right?

Is this new lifestyle better than what I had in Alaska? 

What about it is better? 

What is worse? 

What is most important to me?

What is best for my son?

Should I stay or should I go back?

Answers came in phases (and are still coming) slowly...

Phase 1: Separation Anxiety

I felt a pain in my chest every day for months after I arrived in California, like a constant panic attack. I felt crazy unsure of myself after leaving everything familiar.  Pain in my heart was relentless. I yearned for the comfort of the old aching I knew, rather than this new pain. The only way I made it through this sad and scary agony was focusing on my work tasks and stubbornly refusing to be a quitter. Friends emerged in my new life and my son expressed a compassion I didn't know he was capable of that amazed me.  In time, I learned that there IS life on the other side of an uncomfortable change, and it was totally empowering and alive!

Phase 2: Gratitude

Once I realized that where I landed was safe and that I could manage it on my own, then came the rays of joy that pierced my gray clouds.  I found comfort in new daily routines and discovered a charismatic personality emerging from me that I had long forgotten. I came out of lockdown mode and let loose a bit. I inched forward on my own two feet and learned to believe in myself a little bit more.  A new relationship formed between my son and I that brought out our strengths.  Out of necessity, he stepped up to new responsibilities and expressed surprising empathy and intuition. He made me proud each and every day and was a buoy of positivity. In turn, I had the joy and energy to encourage his pursuits and growth as a young man. I also made friends who supported the emerging me, and I liked me again. Suddenly, I realized how joyful I was in the sunny weather I craved, the social networks forming around me, and the frequent travel opportunities.  I absorbed my new environment and lived more in the present moment where things were happening, good or bad, because it was all learning. My life felt electric with possibility.

Phase 3: Desire

This is where things got razor sharp. I finally felt like an instrument for change in my life, like I could cut through the bad habits I'd let grow up around me, and reveal a better path forward.  When I paid attention to the things I truly enjoyed, I found my desires.  

• I LOVED the sunshine and heat.
• I NEEDED to walk outside almost every day to hear birds sing and watch grass sway in the wind.
• I ADORED road trips - put me behind the wheel and I felt alive!
• I VALUED meaningful work that tapped into my curiosity and intelligence.
• I THRIVED on giving and receiving displays of affection and love - I needed to see it, feel it, and hear it to know it.

I followed interesting rabbit trails and unearthed mentors who taught me to honor myself, my worthiness, and those deepest needs that wanted filling. I learned that I was the only one who could change things for myself.  Only I had the insight on my true yearnings. Only I could pursue them without tiring or losing direction.  I was wrong to think that anyone but me was responsible for my happiness.  The power of choice gave me all the action I needed...if I could manage to remain open-hearted enough to accept what came from pursuing my desires.

Phase 4: Forgiving

The first defining choice I made toward my desires was to rewrite my story.  I needed to create new ownership of my history that felt better.  I replaced stories of shame and disappointment with kinder and more forgiving versions. I particularly looked on my lover and our history with open-hearted compassion. What I saw were choices we made in youth and inexperience that we tried to adhere to at all costs.  After so many years of struggle, we lost our joy, our trust, and our hope in each other.  I could finally see that the source of our unhappiness was rooted in a fear to be fully ourselves, a fear that we would not be truly loved for who we were, which led to years of defensiveness and blame. We had shut up our hearts to avoid pain and in turn shut off our capacity for wide-open joy.  I forgave us and let it go.  I forgave us for not knowing a better way and for naively thinking we could bridge all our differences. I forgave us for mistaking each other for lovers when we were probably better suited as friends.  Then I focused on that strong thread of friendship. I believed hard in the kismet of our meeting and the quick bond we formed with each other.  I chose not to regret one minute, but rather to be grateful for a new outlook. Not a moment of my life was wasted! It ALL counted, even though it changed. 

A heavy burden of guilt lifted off my heart as I forgave us. I felt like I found the way out of my dark dispair and took control over my own happiness.  I released my lover from that responsibility. In a bright moment of beautiful clarity, like sunlight being focused through a prism,  I saw that my choice was not about whether to stay or go...it was about whether to hold on or to release.  My decision was far less about whether my path lead to California or Alaska, and more about open-heartedly choosing the next step in front of me without worrying about where it would ultimately lead.  The destination wasn't as important as the journey taking place in me and the choices I wanted to make. I just had to decide whether to lead my own journey, or keep living someone else's. If you know me...you'll have a pretty good guess about what I chose.

I chose to lead MY OWN journey. 
And I choose to honor my motherhood by setting a better example for my son, to pursue my desires with confidence.

Phase 5: Acceptance & Allowance
I chose to release my connection to the path I was on in Alaska and let my desires carry me down a better feeling path, wherever that took me. I allowed myself to be honest. I began to accept that I wanted something different. I wanted to take better care of myself, my heart, my potential, and my son. The acceptance of what these desires meant was (and is) still difficult for me. California allowed me to release expectations, to accept how I really felt, and to create something better suited to my desires. The atmosphere of my new life encouraged me to grow and transform into a person I wanted to nurture. I felt seen, accepted, and appreciated for who I actually was. This was something I had never fully managed to achieve in Alaska, and yet I couldn't ignore the obligation I felt to go back there. I was like a runaway who had grown-up in hiding and needed to return home, if only to leave again on better terms.  

It was still an impossible notion to me until it all coalesced one morning as I lay in half-slumber and saw a vision of my future, like a waking dream.  I understood that I could give the gift of precious time between my son and his dad, while I simultaneously built upon my dreams amidst the support of a familial safety net.  I saw that this did not have to be a permanent choice and ways I could build in opportunities for flexibility and escape when I needed it. My son deserved that opportunity and I knew I was strong enough. I accepted that outcomes were not guaranteed, but I wanted to try it. Also, and more importantly, I understood that I had to return to Alaska on my own independent terms; I had released too much to just grab hold of the old routines again.  Back, but not backward.  I needed to loop around on a new trajectory and follow it wherever it led me, so long as it was forward moving and I remained true to myself. I didn't know exactly what shape that new life would take, but I hoped to reinvent my Alaskan experience, to reclaim pride in my childhood home, and make it work for me this time. Maybe, it would simply be a launching point to a brighter future in another place after all, but, before that happened for good, I needed to make amends with Alaska and the loved ones I left behind.  I needed to create a home of my own, to build a sense of place that was mine alone. I chose a new journey in an old direction, but I was ready to accept where my heart took me and allow life to unfold naturally.  I was (and am) brave enough to choose change, to shed the old ways and learn to stretch my wings.  I choose to release, release, release.  

Comfort

I've begun an adventure to live 3000 miles away from my lifelong home, accompanied by my 13-year old son.  My husband remains in Alaska with my family on a multi-generational homestead where I grew up, while our son and I explore living in Northern California near his family.  I've traveled south to seek sun, heat, and new opportunities. Along the way, I'm sharing my journey about pursuing dreams, discovering what matters most in life, and finding the strength to be brave in the face of uncertainty.  For me, healing and strength are often found in simple pleasures and frequent communion with nature, so join me as I embark into the outdoors to reveal what's inside of me.

~

Comfort

(the feeling of home)

"Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam, and the deer and the antelope play.  Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day." - Dr. Brewster M. Higley

I went home for Thanksgiving.



I was stand-offish at first, but it couldn't last for long.  Nowhere will ever be home like Alaska.  When I'm home I slip into a way of life I don't have to think about.  Alaska and I are like old dance partners who know all the other's moves.  We fit into each other's grooves and fall into step without much effort.  It's much the same with the people I left behind in Alaska, we embrace each other and take up our old routines without trying.  The feeling of home envelopes me in a comfortable warmth like crawling into a familiar bed. There's even a special kind of satisfaction from the familiar interactions of home. Something eases in my chest when I return, lets go of anxiety, and settles into the reliable assumptions about the places and people I've known best and longest.

I felt myself being drawn toward home weeks before I boarded the airplane, like my heart was leaning that direction so hard I thought I would fall over.  It hurt.  I wondered if it meant that I wasn't supposed to be in California. I heard my home calling to me, beckoning balefully, but my emotions became more muddled the closer I got to answering the call.  I was afraid that when I got there, I wouldn't want to leave.  That's why I was stand-offish at first.  I knew I wasn't done with my quest in California and needed to get back to it, but I also knew the allure of comfort was a powerful thing.  Comfort is a feeling that lulls me into complacency and instills fear toward losing it. In general circumstances, comfort is a lovely thing, but I had learned to become comfortable with things at home that weren't good for me. I had come to realize that many of the comfortable habits I would slip back into weren't serving my soul, my inner joy. I had become comfortable with holding back, sacrificing my pleasures, and believing that more wasn't possible.  I was starting to learn so much about myself during my time away from home that I didn't want to lose my fragile insight, my new perspective, my tenuous hold on inner desires. So, I tried to view my visit in a different way: as a visitor.  I tried to stay in observation mode, to tell myself that I could be the kind of person who returns to her childhood home on occasion to reunite with family and friends, but I didn't have to stay.  They make movies about people who do that sort of thing!  Lots of movies.  I could be one of them.

At first, I felt like an impostor, a black sheep, rather than a prodigal child returned to the snow from whence I came.  But, I waded back into the flow of the lives I left six months ago and was swiftly caught up in the old ways. I laid back in the current and tried not to think about where it would carry me. I reveled in simple joys like snuggling my kitties, warming my back by the wood fire, cooking in my large kitchen with the expansive views outside, and having lunch dates with my dearest loved ones.  These were good comforts that I noted to myself as necessities in an ideal life.  I was grateful for the beauty of a light snow on our first morning, for the orange glow of the fire and the lemon yellow of the walls, for the easy physical closeness of my family, and for the seemingly vast indoor space of the house (compared to the 350 square feet of our California living quarters).  I dually noted that room to stretch my legs and large windows to look out on the world from within the warmth of my home was an essential ingredient to my feelings of joy, and something I missed desperately in our tiny California rental.

As I encountered people during my visit, I had to put away my former pride about loyalty to my home state and learn to tell my story about a new relationship with a warmer, sunnier place.  It was sometimes awkward, like telling the friends of your ex about your new beau.  It made me reflect on my choices and my choice of words.  But I maintained my convictions and did not regret for one second the decision I made to leave Alaska...so long as I could say that it was still temporary.  I was still no closer to knowing where this adventure was leading me, which made me feel untethered and apart from the kind of real lives everyone else was leading.  Their lives sounded concrete and dependable, while mine felt like it was dangling and drifting further away from anything solid.  I felt like the bit of lint at the end of a thread that's come unraveled from a sweater.  My state was precarious and ever-shifting, barely connected to anything, and vulnerable to being cut-off completely.

During my time at home, a sense of homelessness began to grow. It became clear that I had neither a home I could truly call my own in Alaska, nor California.  I felt uprooted and in danger of my roots withering if I didn't find soil to plant myself in soon.  I felt the pressure to choose a soil and at least say that I would end up there soon.  I felt like a traitor, a refugee, from any home I'd ever known and I yearned for the grounded feelings of place and belonging I'd had before.  On the other hand, I was nervous about admitting that I liked the freedom and unpredictability of the place I lived in now.  California was the land of opportunity and surprises for me...each day presented an adventure toward an unpredictable future.  That uncertainty and openness suited me, too.
























Being home in Alaska was exactly the paradox I thought it would be.  I felt at once peaceful and restless; comfort and discomfort; satisfaction and longing.  The two halves of myself were facing each other in the mirror and squaring off.  I decided to allow the Alaska self, the one that found comfort and reward in conformity, to overrule the wilder adventurous self that was visiting from down south.  I decided to lay back into my familiar mould and just sink down in the warm cushion of familiarity for the sake of peace and comfort.  Oh how easily it is done!

Comfort came in the automation of my few days back in the familiar realm of home.  I could drive to town on auto-pilot, find groceries at the store without thinking, relish the provision of heat and light without concern about finances, and fall into familiar routines and physical intimacies without self-consciousness.  There was so little thinking necessary to functioning at home.  Unlike the exhausting rally I had to muster each day I spend on my own in my new sunny surroundings down south.  These were all luxuries I'd learned to live without while away in California.  By the end of my short week at home, despite my initial trepidation, I had sunk deeply into the old ways.  I was a spoon in a jar of honey, slowly submerged, coated, and now impossible to extricate without a sticky mess and a good deal of waiting.

The shock of returning home, and leaving again, hit me the night before I left Alaska.  I didn't sleep.  I rose with butterflies, churning questions that needed answers, and panic over not having enough time.  I felt like there were things that needed to be talked about, but never were.  I felt the urge to make some kind of decision, but I didn't know what it ought to be about. I worried over the future. I lost my feelings of comfort as I faced a plane ride back to the ever-changing battle lines of my life expedition.  I was headed back to the front lines and wasn't sure I was ready.  I didn't know where I was headed and where home was supposed to be anymore.  I hugged my family goodbye, again, and pulled myself away from the solid warmth of their bodies against mine.  My husband said, "We'll figure this out."  And I knew that he meant, "You have to figure this out for yourself."  The tears began to roll down my cheeks.  They didn't dry out until I was somewhere over Oregon.

I recognized that I didn't have answers yet, but I accepted that the kind of answers I was looking for weren't going to be found in the comfort of my family home.  I allowed myself to feel the pain of separation and uncertainty, to let it seep down into my open wounds, to run hot down my face.  I let it out and wasn't ashamed. It helped that my son was right there with a hand on my arm, comforting, loving, quietly hopeful that when I emerged from my longing sorrow we would continue on our adventure.  And so we are.

Sustenance

I've begun an adventure to live 3000 miles away from my lifelong home, accompanied by my 13-year old son.  My husband remains in Alaska with my family on a multi-generational homestead where I grew up, while our son and I explore living in Northern California near his family.  I've traveled south to seek sun, heat, and new opportunities. Along the way, I'm sharing my journey about pursuing dreams, discovering what matters most in life, and finding the strength to be brave in the face of uncertainty.  For me, healing and strength are often found in simple pleasures and frequent communion with nature, so join me as we embark into the outdoors to reveal what's inside of us.

~

Sustenance

(food for body and spirit)

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." - Robert Beault

I had this post already written, but then I erased it.  I wrote about my desire for a "fresh-food-lifestyle" and being "rooted in a local-food culture" and about the "importance of something as little as picking a ripe apple from its mother tree" to tie it all together, but it read like fluffy nonsense.  It felt shallow.  It wasn't what I needed to say.  So, I scrapped it.

What I think I needed to write about is all the searching ways in which I've been struggling to sustain myself on this so-called adventure in California.  I needed to write about the messy side of how I was actually thinking and feeling.  

Long before the time I picked the apples in these pictures, I was starving for something. 

I tried to satiate my undefinable hunger with anything and everything I could get my hands on.  I gobbled up apples like they were the cure to my emptiness; and road-trips were the cure; and quality time with new people was the cure; and sunshine was the cure; and the perfect job was the cure; and my son's happiness was the cure; and blogging about all of it was probably the cure to satisfying that aching hungry pit in me.

I think I did know then what I am pretty sure I know now...that none of those things were the cure.  None of them provided complete, sustainable satisfaction.  They were each nibbles, bites, maybe meals, on the path of this journey.

Each personally fulfilling experience provided the nutrition I needed to feed my mind, body, and soul...for a time, just long enough to crave the next experience.  

I physically and mentally absorbed the essential nutrients from things like farmers market produce, friendship, and an occasional excursion out of town, but I noticed that, like an apple, the nutritional value only lasted for a bit.  I didn't stop to contemplate why.  I reasoned that only in repeating the input of these good experiential nutrients as often as possible was the key to creating the complete and sustaining diet I needed.  After all, the old saying goes, "an apple a day..."

Naturally, I became an experience addict. I developed a voracious appetite for anything new. 

I thought the answers to my deep questions lay in the satisfaction of the experiences themselves.  I was still missing the underlying point of this good diet of happy-moment-meals, which was to feed the vital processes of my spirit and soul - where the true answers lay.

I was fixated too much on the satisfying experiences as the ends, rather than as the means to nourish bigger, deeper, more basic functions of myself.  I was living to eat rather than eating to live.

Or, in other words, I was living to find happiness rather than finding happiness in living. 

I naively tried to achieve fulfillment through happenings - thinking that those happenings would bring me happiness and give me focus. The satisfaction of happenings supplanted my ability to be satisfied wherever I happened to be.  I hoped that good happenings would write my purpose across the sky in an undeniable way.  But happenings can't be relied on, they're transitory and notoriously unpredictable, especially when other people are involved.  It's almost impossible to successfully coordinate the desires of more than one person into a single event or plan.  People inevitably diverge, unless there is compromise.

I needed to end my reliance on perfect happenings, and learn, instead, to perfect my own happiness from within.

And what I had within me was a lifetime of wonderful, nutrient-rich experiences that demonstrated my ability to find happy moments in a variety of circumstances.  If I viewed the endless variety of events that could happen in my life as just various combinations of nutrients meant to feed my soul, then it didn't matter what happened so long as there was enough nutritional substance for me to extract what I needed.

Any nutrient-rich event could be used to fuel the process of my spirit creating happiness.  There's no formula for a perfect happy-moment-meal, but I know it when it happens...and I'm grateful.

I think my point is that I don't know what events will provide answers, or will become touchstones to future pathway decisions.  I never can tell, until I look backward, what little things have become big things.  

I'm like Johnny Appleseed scavenging wild apples 

from an untamed forest floor, tasting the bounty, 

saving the best seeds, and sowing them along my path.

I am as surprised as everyone else when something I've done produces good results. 

So, I just make my choices, enjoy the happenings, and send all the valuable nutrients down into my soul where I see how it makes me feel.  The answers come from down in me, hidden from the external events, but fed by them.  The answers are my own and my choices are perfect, because I made them.  They can't be any other way.  Good or bad, I make my choices and reap the harvest from the small seeds I've planted along the way.

Instinct

I've begun an adventure to live 3000 miles away from my lifelong home, accompanied by my 13-year old son.  My husband remains in Alaska with my family on a multi-generational homestead where I grew up, while our son and I explore living in Northern California near his family.  I've traveled south to seek sun, heat, and new opportunities. Along the way, I'm sharing my journey about pursuing dreams, discovering what matters most in life, and finding the strength to be brave in the face of uncertainty.  For me, healing and strength are often found in simple pleasures and frequent communion with nature, so join me as we embark into the outdoors to reveal what's inside of us.

~

Instinct

(listen to your heart)

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." - Carl Jung

There was no question...I needed to go to the beach on my birthday.  As the day neared, my soul tuned into the beckoning call of the scrubbing waves and the cleansing breeze of the ocean. I longed for it like a thirst for cool water on a hot day.  I desired the discovery of the continental edge like a first kiss.

I sensed a need for the freedom and

 unstructured expanse of a long beach to

 explore and unwind.

I found my bliss at Moonstone Beach near Trinity, California.  On recommendations from friends and my favorite magazine (Sunset) we found our way to this oasis at the end of a single track road skirting a high ocean bluff. 

I didn't over-think my options, I just followed 

my first inclination, which turned out to be 

just right.

Being that it was my birthday (36, if you must know), following my instincts seemed doubly justified.  I didn't even entertain the notion of guilt for indulging in a day off of work to treat myself.  I knew I needed it and all I had to do was claim it.

By letting go of worry and over-planning, I accepted whatever experience awaited me...which, in turn, lead to a perfect outcome. Every moment of discovery and joy was fulfilling.

The key to enjoying my stolen moment was giving my full attention to it...closing my eyes, if need be, and letting every sense store a memory of it.

We traced our long shadows in the sand.

I flung my senses wide open and filled them with the beach:

• SIGHT: sun, sand, rocks, water, and a child running wild and free

• SMELL: salt, crisp air, and briny seaweed

• TASTE: chowder, fish n' chips, larrupin sauce, and birthday carrot cake.

I treated myself to carrot cake from a local eatery...my favorite.

• SOUND: waves, gulls, laughter, and "look, mom!" a million times.

• TOUCH: a smooth shell in my palm, the ebb and flow of sand under my soles, my child's warm hand in mine, sun and wind beating upon my face, and the pull of the tide at my ankles.

There's no need for an excuse.  If you know you need it...go get it.  I followed my instincts and found refreshment.

Survival

I've begun an adventure to live 3000 miles away from my lifelong home, accompanied by my 13-year old son.  My husband remains in Alaska with my family on a multi-generational homestead where I grew up, while our son and I explore living in Northern California near his family.  I've traveled south to seek sun, heat, and new opportunities. Along the way, I'm sharing my journey about pursuing dreams, discovering what matters most in life, and finding the strength to be brave in the face of uncertainty.  For me, healing and strength are often found in simple pleasures and frequent communion with nature, so join me as we embark into the outdoors to reveal what's inside of us.

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SURVIVAL

(keep breathing)

"Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible." - St. Francis of Assisi

It's not totally unfitting that today is the day that I feel relieved to be a survivor.  After all, for Americans in my generation, the date September 11th is forever marked in our memories as a reminder of the importance of surviving.  The instinct to survive and protect was etched in our psyche in 2001 due to acts of hatred, but our emotional take-away of that day is so often grounded in finding community amidst the suffering.  It was the kind of day that everyone remembered exactly what they were doing the moment they became aware of the tragic events happening in New York City, the needless and confusing deaths of innocent people at the hands of closed-minded individuals.  I remember picking up my infant son in my arms, while watching the tragedy unfold on TV, and feeling the need to protect him from some faceless threat.  I felt lucky that day to survive, to be near my family, and to be in Alaska, which seemed worlds away from danger, yet surprisingly vulnerable.

Thirteen years later, today, I feel grateful again to have come out on the other side of an emotional trial.  For the past five weeks, my son and I have lived three thousand miles from our safe place in Alaska, and from our family.  Thankfully, though, they still bring us comfort, and I am realizing the irreplaceable role they have always played in our lives.  As I negotiate my way through the hoops and obstacles of being a single-parent in a new place and with a new job, I am often overwhelmed by stress and responsibility.  Yesterday, I felt at an all-time low, ready to pack my bags and retreat home.  I was sure I would not survive the collapse of my resolve to see this schoolyear through in California.  The urge to return home was immense and near-debilitating.  As with all survival stories, though, I made it through my  crushing doubt and found the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep breathing in and out, until the day was done.  I reached out to my parents and found exactly the kind of support I needed to press on toward a more hopeful and stable place.  Hearing their empathetic and encouraging voices was the sustenance I needed to renew my resolve. Their humble acceptance of my decisions was enough to allow me to refocus my intentions.

I realized that, as my dad said, "the weather is nice somewhere in the world any day of the year, but family is only in one place; relationships can't be replaced."  The biggest question I came to California to contemplate, became clearer through my homesickness.  What is most fulfilling to me, nice weather or proximity to family? It seems that family satisfies something in my heart that weather can't do alone.  I'm far more social than I realized and quality time with loved ones fills a deep well in me even on the coldest days, whereas a perfectly pleasant day in outdoor paradise feels somewhat hollow without loved ones to share it with.  Only one month into my California adventure, this seems like an unfortunate epiphany to have, but I don't think so.  It is a step toward knowing myself better and knowing what I need to live a fulfilled life.  I don't think it is the last lesson to be learned in California, by far!  This is a lesson of great importance that will be further shaped by all the other lessons to come.  It is an answer which I am grateful to have, as I am grateful to have survived the emotional process it took to reach it.  Now, I keep moving forward to honor this event and count myself a survivor.  There is more to experience to come and more to be learned.