I want to tell you that all the photos you think you look bad in, you look beautiful.
I want to tell you that you motivate me more than anyone when it comes to exercising and staying in touch with family.
I want to tell you that we will take that trip to New Mexico and the photos will be great.
I want to tell you that therapy is going better and I'm working harder than ever.
I want to thank you for being the best sister a girl could ask for.
I want you to know I'm thinking of you tonight and many nights.
I want you to know that This Too Shall Pass and I will meet you on the other side of it, ready to jump in with both feet.

Embracing the Good

Tonight I'm making special mention of how swwet life has been lately. I've been working on trying to spend more time recording and rejoicing in the positive things in my life so I can remember them, and less time wallowing in the ruts I fall into.

Lately I have a lot to be excited about. I got to take a whole week off of work and spend it with my amazing family, including my dad - sandcastle master, my brothers and cousins, and even the family dog.



In addition to that, I get to visit Georgia for a weekend to hang with the best sister ever and work on an art project for Dad's birthday and do some exploring. September is also blessed with a trip to Utah with my brothers, which, after making a list of things I want to see, has turned out to be a first in a likely large number of trips to the area. This research has driven me (mercifully) out of my house and into coffee shops, lead me to a few really cool travel blogs, and given me a wealth of cool photography advice for shooting in the area. I've been climbing a few times a week again and am moving on to the next grade of difficulty, which really boosts my self esteem. I'm really diggin' the books I've gotten from the library. I am meeting with my boss this week to (finally) dicuss the possibility of a raise, and I feel pretty good about it. I have also been trying to get out and Spend Time With People, something I get into the habit of avoiding and then lamenting my lack of companionship in my life. For the past four months I've been single for the first time in quite a while and I am happy that my lonliness hasn't given way to me searching for/jumping into something just because I'm lonely; this keeping me from being tied down and able to feel less hesitant about the possibility of totally uprooting myself geographically. And even today I accomplished the following: I woke up early, cleaned my room while listening to Inés of My Soul by Isabelle Allende, had a decent breakfast, went for a rigorous bike ride for 45 minutes and followed that up by breaking out my yoga mat and doing some core, thigh, and glutes exercises and actually remembering to stretch when I was finished. I went to Nina's (by far my favorite coffee shop in the cities, though I do love Caffeto) for some iced chai and went on a photo walk with this fabulous woman, a new close friend of mine, and finished out the night by climbing with Dana and Jess D. in St. Paul and writing this entry. I feel really good about this day and can't wait for tomorrow wherein I go to the Minnesota State Fair and take loads of photos and stuff my face for the day. The one thing that I am nervous for, is keeping my positive attitude through the remainder of the week while I cram in 53 scheduled hours of work into five days. Gotta keep positive! Stay the course! Remember this feeling! 





Recent Obsessions

Here are the things I've been obsessing about lately:

: Sprouted almonds

: Looking at job listings for Penland School of Crafts first thing in the morning

:The cost of living in South America and Southeast Asia

: The song You're a wolf by Sea Wolf

: Camera obscura photography in general, but especially by Abelardo Morell

: Lowtechmagazine.com

: Getting my wilderness first aid (and if I stumble across $600-$700, my wilderness first responder) certification.

: Chefchaouen, Morocco

: Porter Fox's travel writing

: Caffetto, three blocks from my house

Leaning Toward the Light

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit."

I am thankful for being reminded of the things I cherish and the people to lean toward for growth, like plants leaning toward the sun. I am the kind of person who tends to shut down and can't find her way out of a dark place after she's been there too long. Spending day after day working long hours and going weeks without a day off make me overtired and blind to the things that inspire me, things that remind me what to do when I do get a day to myself. One conversation with a sister who has inspired me my whole life, and has been the light I lean toward reminded me that there must be equal time spent as the light itself. Everything must remain balanced and circulating to keep upright and breathing. So I have been trying harder to take the time I have and use it to maintain balance. And the first step is resetting the scales that have lain abandoned in my chest; to dust them off and start to equalize. 

So I must remember that it is important to spend a day blowing off errands to walk along the river at the dog park and spend the day making new, sand-spackled friends; to write a letter to family a continent away - something I haven't done in years; to start writing a short story - something I've never really tried; to follow up a tearful breakdown about my continued presence here instead of Out in the World with a conversation with North Carolina connections about job opportunities Someplace Different; to embrace a friend that bullies me every other day to go on a photo walk with her; to take it one day at a time and figure out my "five-minute action that will make tomorrow better."

J - Even when you aren't trying, you remain the single most inspiring force in my life. I will never stop being grateful, only I hope to be far less silent.

Since early this year, I've been silent. Journals with blank pages stacked up in corners while I take a borrowed dog on long hikes near the river. We didn't have a winter, and the dog and I have a shared love of the nearly empty trail and muddy bank. I throw the sticks and she swims to get them, but I don't congratulate her or call her name, we just hike. Every 15 minutes or so she comes back from bolting ahead to place her nose into the palm of my hand and let me know I am her human, even though I'm not, really.
I don't know why I needed the space. It's not my normal barrage of excuses all involving some sort of depression. Sometimes I wake up really early and wonder if my spirit animal is not an owl, but a possum. I sure can relate to freezing up in the middle of the road, eyes wide, than I can of any other animal who feels fear.
About two weeks ago I picked up a pen and started writing again, and now, like before, it has become a necessity. I've been putting my stories away, not sharing them with friends because there is a statute of limitations on pieces of your life. In order to move forward, you might have to acknowledge the past but you certainly don't have to let it swallow you whole.
This is where I am. Letting go. And yeah, sometimes I wonder if 'lettting go' is actually 'giving up'. Resignation. So I worry about this for a little while each day. But then I pick up my lists and start making plans to prove to the world and myself that I'm still in here. I want to hike the Grand Canyon, all the way across. I want to find a new job because I often feel like I've overstayed my welcome at the one that I have. My neighbor was fired recently by her boss of 12 years, and we sit sometimes and think about what happens when decisions are made for you before you make them. Fear: the great motivator.
Once again I find myself aligned with you, throwing shit against the wall because neither of us want to become what people close to us have:stuck. Routine. For me, it's college classes where I try to use my brain again on things unrelated to accounting. And solo trips to the beach and the mountains for a day or two each weekend, mostly to write and take pictures. For you, travel writing and plans to head to NC. I root for you as hard as I root for myself. I know what we're up against inside of our minds and I am not sure of a LOT of things, but I AM sure of this: we can do it.
In my own life coaching sessions with Dad, I've come to realize that the fear I carry around is heavy, and my body and spirit can no longer afford to carry it. I think you feel this too.
Let's move forward, shall we? What the hell.

"No symapthy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride... and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well... maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten."

-HST

I'm just going to start going for it, I think. I want to be that strong type of person who takes risks, dives headfirst, is brave and independent, and confident. I would hate to live a whole life without risk. I don't recall ever really making any stupid, impulsive decisions (maybe romantic?) in my life. Time to change that. As Mary Oliver said, I don't want to end up having merely visited this world. I want to inhale it deeply, dig into it with my hands and find it wedged under my fingernails. I want to wake up next to it before the sun, covered in dew and curiosity.

I am nearly 25 years old. At the quarter mark. I have decided there is no longer time for excuses, for time lost because of fear or over-analyzing. Now is the time for great lunges, leaps of faith, Hail Mary passes. I want to remember making an active choice to stop getting in my own way and to start propelling myself forward with the force of my own momentum.

As a birthday present to myself, I am going to register for the travel writing and photography courses at MatadorU. What the hell? I've never tried to do anything at all with my writing. Not that it amounts to much, but I don't have any other marketable skills, so... why not? What's $350-$600 bucks in the grand scheme of things? I want to get a job that allows me to travel, preferably encourages me to do so; here's an option. I am also going to book a flight to North Carolina in time for the Iron Festival and start networking around Penland to see if I can't get an internship in the photography or iron department, maybe drive to Asheville or Boone to see what employment possibilities look like there. And finally, I'm going to put in some applications for jobs teaching English in Southeast Asia or South America.

All forward motion counts.

These are the things I want to be doing:

: Having a glass of wine with Stephanie

: Learning to knit in the round

: Making kombucha with Dana

: Helping my mother learn to work with whole grains

: Warming my hands on a mug of tea

 : Painting boxes and filling them with treasures

: Biking

: Reading travel memoirs

: Sounding out French words with Matthias

: Taking photographs with you

: Studying bird skeletons

: Exploring abandoned buildings

: Making a mess

: Putting up photographs in my room

: Writing stories

: Cooking with wild mushrooms

: Getting callouses

: Listening to cello music

: Planning a trip

: Seeing magic

Too heavy and for too long

"Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword, a pebble could be a diamond, a tree, a castle. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl that no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In the autumn light her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls, and when the sky drew dark, they parted with leaves in their hair.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend the rest of his life answering."

Ten things in my life right now:

: A History of Love by Nicole Krauss

: Lonliness

: Bed bugs

: Cumin and paprika rubbed pork tacos with cilantro and sauteed portabellas

: Abandoned tea

: Worry

: Pressure behind my eyes

: Plastic

: Frustration

: Silence

Sometimes the Universe piles it on too heavy and for too long.

Dread.
This morning I woke up from a dream that involved an owl. It was flying through my home, not afraid of the cats or of being indoors. I remember letting it outside, and noticing that it didn't fly away, it simply followed us (the cats and I) out the door.
Cue several moments later, where I was trying make myself a cup of coffee, feed the cats and wake up all at once...daunting multitasking at it's finest. My internal dialogue stopped on this: "What if owls in dreams count, too?"
A few years ago, after seeing an owl up close in my own backyard, my life went through some major changes. Some of them I was ready for, others I was not. My mom loved owls, she collected glass figurines of them, and then I suppose because it is what people do, she started getting them as gifts. At that point in my life after seeing the owl, I thought maybe my mom was sending me a message, or that the owl is meant to be my animal in the same way that my neighbor Marcie says turtles are meant for her. And don't get me wrong, I love owls, very much. If it means that my mom is in touch, well, honestly, this is kind of cool too.
But, I am afraid. Even though I made a promise to the Universe that I won't go back on no matter what, there is this huge part of me playing possum in the road: stiffening up as if bright car lights (change) will kill me. Only I am less afraid of dying than I am of change.
The economy is bad, what if I lose my job? What if I am not smart enough to find another one? Everyone is hurting, why shouldn't I be hurting too? About the only fear that I find ridiculous is "I won't be able to feed the cats" because hey, I will do anything in the world to keep those monsters fed. But still. Here I am. Not where I thought I'd be. Not where I wanted to land. And I might not be keeping my promise because perhaps part of the promise was not to just stand here and wait for change. So maybe the Universe is going to step in again, and change things around me while I stand here, frozen.
I don't want to be afraid of seeing owls.

More Important than Fear

This morning all of the fear and the doubt I've tried to keep at bay landed on me with full force. 

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear." 

-- James Neil Hollingworth.

This morning, my fear shut down the importance of any competing emotion or rationality. I am meeting with the aforementioned photographer in a little over a week. I want to bring her samples of my work. That I have. What I do not have are photographs taken since February. I haven't taken a single real photograph since February. I don't know what's wrong with me. I seem to have just Shut Down. I used to take my camera everywhere. Today I actually had to wipe the dust off my camera bag. It hasn't left the shelf more than twice since I moved here. That alone made me cringe, but was nothing compared to the weight and breathlessness to come.

Yesterday I stumbled upon the following self portrait of Erin Johnson, a local Minneapolis photographer that make my chest cavity clench with intrigue and excitement, and had therefore saved.

The color and the clarity in this shot make my skin prickle. After rediscovering it I spent the hours before work pouring over photography websites and the notebooks I keep ideas in, and resolved to spend my time before work today taking my camera out and photographing Something. Anything. Everything. 

I started out by attempting to take a photograph of myself just to remind myself that I Can Do This. Every click of the shutter revealed an old, tired, and stressed face. There were bags under my eyes and that prominent, unrelenting wrinkle sinking vertically between my eyebrows stared back cold and affronting. The camera felt heavy in my hands. The lenses were wrong, the lighting was off, the color was bland. But I decided to pull my face around to the side of the camera it belongs and go out anyway. 

I got one block away. Every step I took I felt weaker and weaker. The pressure to take just one photograph kept mounting and muting the voice in my head trying to shout: "It's okay! Take your time. Any photograph is a success; will feel better than not having taken even one. It will get better. You will find It again. This isn't paramount." Nothing resonated. Nothing resonated except the tingling in my lips and fingers, the weight of the camera, the increased gravity pushing on my shoulders and feet, the tightness in my throat. I felt nauseous and dizzy and terrified. I suddenly had a deafening urge to throw down my camera and run away from it. My hands actually shook as a put my camera in my bag and ran home, locked myself in my room, and cried.

What if I Don't Have It? What if I lost It? How can I meet with someone who I want to, need to, impress with empty hands and a face much older than my years? Today I feel as though I am in mourning. In mourning for a gift I only ever felt I had a tentative grasp on at the best of times. I don't know if I can do this. I don't know that I am strong enough to fight against gravity. Against doubt. Against The Dread. I can't freeze up like that if I want to do this in a meaningful way. I need to discover a new way to interpret a lexicon that is lost on me. I need to learn the language of light and of color. I need to speak with subtlety and lucidity. Through all I've read and listened to about lighting and aperture and shutter speed, so little of it has permeated though any membrane of understanding, and my best work is born out of luck and timing and the kind of curiosity that moves with blind reaching and missed steps along the stairwell. I need to learn to draw from the well when I need water as well as when the reflection of the ripples on the stone catches my eye. 

Another thing that worries me about my estranged relationship with my camera: Have I lost the ability to capture the inspiring things in my life, or is my life absent of inspiring things to capture? Perhaps a little of both.

And now begins the process of rediscovering that which is more important than fear.

Here are ten things:

: Passion

: Curiosity

: Knowledge

: Excitement

: Shallow depth of field

: Candid Moments

: The smell of developer and fix on my hands

: Victory

: Contrast

: Growth

Good morning, Big U and Little Sis.
It's 6:30 am and I've been spending some time downloading new fonts for a project I am working on. My fingers are cold because the cat demands that I keep letting her outside, and it's a bit nipply outdoors at this time of the day. My sunroom is drafty but I can keep watch for coyotes and fast cars - my job as a cat mom.
The rain came, along with a small group of men who call themselves landscapers, and washed/blew away most of the bright leaves. I was angry at the men, as I always am, for removing them so soon. The truth is that one of my favorite things is crunching through those leaves each morning on my way to work. More than the color or sound, is the scent of them - so earthy and pungent that I want to lie down like a golden retriever and roll in them, covering myself completely so I can breathe it in all day.  I managed to grab my camera and take a few photos from ground level before they were gone. Now I'm on to coffee steam - seriously addicted to taking these kinds of photos. I no longer care that people stare at me in coffee shops but I don't really think they do. I feel invisible at times. I rarely wear make up anymore (outside of work) or wash my hair on weekends.
I can't decide if this is a good or bad thing.
I keep waiting for some version of loneliness to wash over me, especially once the Christmas decorations start showing. But it doesn't come. I seem to be happy enough despite (or because) of the solitary life I am living. It's as if it is part of the promise: to focus on things other than worry and dread. Instead, I go to the gym in the mornings and focus on my work outs without speaking. (to be fair, none of the hardcore gym rats speak at 5 am. We manage a nod or two, occasionally a "congrats" if one of us completed a marathon or race of some kind.)
I took a part time gig for a friend who opened two restaurants. It's something I can do from home, using a program to log myself into his computer miles away to gather what I need. I don't charge him much, and he is grateful and sends me gift certificates. I hoard these so that I can use them on visiting family.
Today I have a photo project that involves going to Home Depot and begging someone in the lumber department to cut specific pieces of wood for me. These things seem to be more of an exercise in patience than art, but I figure it's a better way to bide my time than zoning out in front of the TV. I've turned off some of my cable and I am not going to lie: it kind of sucks balls. Mostly this is when I cannot find a book that draws me in. Cracked open a new one last night "Half Broke Horses" by Jeannette Walls. So far so good.

My ten things

Greetings, sister, Universe.

This is what I have been working on lately. Getting the new Minneapolis location of Vertical Endeavors open on time. It means 12-hour days on the lifts pictures above, or inside the walls in a harness with a drill, a bucket of T-nuts, a hardhat, and a headlamp. I am loving it. I come home late at night sore and covered in dust and sawdust and metal shavings. I get to watch welders and remember the days when I used to touch heat and electricity. I miss working with metal and... working.  I love making things with my hands, working with paper, and wood and stone and fabric. I must remember that I love to be a Maker of Things, whether they turn out well or not. 

My friend Nathan, freshly back from New Zealand and full of wonderful stories and new slang on his tongue, stayed with me for the past couple of days while he waited to get into his new apartment two blocks from mine. I missed him very much and am happy to have a friend whose company I enjoy so close. My roommates and myself are looking for a new person to live with us as another one leaves. We've met with two people so far, and finding a good fit has proven an interesting exercise in self-evaluation and the choices I make about who I want to be around. 

My friend on the mountain recently found out she is having serious health problems due to an ectopic pregnancy. I have been writing her letters and even going on facebook to check in with her and see how she's fairing. Last I heard, she needed surgery. So does my mother, for her hand. I am grateful for my health.

I am also writing my friend Matthias, who, after three seasons of hitchhiking, is wintering in New Orleans, a place I'd very much like to see. I am also scoping out a portrait lens, since the one I've used for years has returned to its rightful owner. This year may be the first year in many that I get something I want rather than something I need for Christmas. 

Here are 10 other things that have been in my life:

-The People of Paper

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

-French Meadow Bakery 16 grain and seed sprouted bagels

-Hoch Organic Honeycrisp apple cider

-Overdue library books

-Bombay Black India Ink

-Margaritas with Nathan at Pancho Villa

-Latest episodes of Dexter

-Webster's Dictionary stamp set

-Embroidered boiled wool coat from Icelandic Design

...what are 10 things in yours?

This morning I woke up at 4 wide awake, heart pounding. I wanted to blame the tabby or the acorns falling on the roof in the heavy rain. But I know its something else. Today the contractors come to knock out my shower and begin a demo of my grungy, 25 year old bathroom. I haven't picked out tile, I don't know how to turn off the water, and when I think about the day ahead (cats and I huddled in my spare room, me trying to work while the walls come down around me), let's just say the anxiety is off the charts.


Then, I read my sister's post and some of it dissapates. We are worriers, it's what we do. Some of it is completely out of our control, which means that we can let it go and just focus on breathing through it all. I'm not going to say it doesn't suck ass, or that I don't lie awake some nights wishing I had this inner peace of someone born to a family that told them everything would be OK until they actually believed it. Instead, we have this. Why do we never feel good enough or brave enough?
I wish I were in a place to give advice to both of us. Feel the fear and do it anyway. When you are going through hell (or even just a little darkness because a contractor knocked out your lights, which is not really hell at all), keep going. Fear is a prison.
Knowing this, cool: applying it....whoa. Life is like a carnival ride but motion sickness comes to us as we grip too tight to the cold metal bars when the car starts making it's way down the track. We can't see the safety knobs.
Instead, we write. We take photos and make plans to go back to nature. It is the church given to us by our dad. We tell ourselves that everything is going to be OK, even if we might not really believe it.
And I can say that there is some success to this. A year ago my life was different.I had friends who didn't feed my soul, and I could tell you the names of the TV shows for each night of the week. I didn't keep my promise to the Universe, made on a running trail the prior year, until suddenly I had no choice.
This year I am calmer, surrounded my better friends and less cable channels. I notice things.
Right now I am sipping coffee and listening to a moth hit the sides of my paper lamp as a soft cat sleeps next to my laptop. The tabby jumps each time another acorn hits the side of the building. The paper man (remember when boys on bikes delivered papers?) drives up with his rap music blaring. The anxiety slows if I try to live in the moment, so I practice doing so.
Everything is going to be OK. Even when we don't believe this to be true.

The Ugly and the Crooked

Sometimes things happen all at once.

Sometimes things get messy and the Universe calls for you to lose some of the things you were holding so you may better see what could be in your hands. This week the following happened: 

I lost my wallet. 

Something off-putting happened with some medication of mine. 

I went to my father's birthday empty handed after some missed communications.

I was reminded of others' creativity and that I am squandering what little I have.

The bike I've had for over ten years was stolen. 

I got sick.

After a day of feeling sad about all of these things, I experienced a moment of bravery. I sent a letter to a photographer who photographed a friend's wedding and whose website I've been following since. I am drawn to the way she uses light and color and the way she captures moments. I feel like there is a lot I could possibly learn from this person and I finally worked up the courage to contact her and ask if we could meet and discuss a possible apprenticeship. It felt like a long shot at the time, but I wanted to feel as though I was at least trying to make an effort to meet the Universe halfway. Shockingly, she replied within 24 hours saying she'd be happy to meet with me and discuss an arrangement. The logical part of my brain, with its cogs always turning and its propellers whirring, tells me that there's a very good chance that, like any apprenticeship, this one will cost money that I don't have and cannot get. I know this is the likely ending to this story, but I am choosing to fight The Dread and hold off worrying until I need to. Perhaps I won't need to. Stranger things have happened, after all.

I am trying to become more brave these days. It is not easy, as I so often get lost on the Land of No Words. That place I wall up in after some sensory part of my anatomy sends signals that it is no longer safe to stretch out in a meadow where the other animals graze and then run. There is a certain feeling of invincibility that comes with bearing all honestly and without hesitance. I would like to get the point in my life where I can look into my own chest and point at the bones that are broken and the lung that is collapsed and repair them with air from whispered secrets and the mud dug up from the Kinnickinnic, the river I jump into during the winter to remember the feel of my own skin. I want to look my faults in the face and smile at them. I want the self confidence to enter the Land of No Words when it is time to observe and not to judge, to reflect and not to hold back, to absorb and not to lament the Words That Are Gone. I want my silence to be something I choose instead of something I am forced into. 

This morning I faltered in that bravery. I spent the night dreaming of snakes I could not speak to or keep from striking at my ankles. At 6am I got up and forced myself to eat some breakfast that squirmed around in my stomach with the words I didn't say and the memory of snakes. I kept those words behind my teeth for the sole reason of wishing to conceal my loneliness and not to call out the animal that ran. I will not always be as brave under fire as I'd like to be, but I shall see that Fear for what it is and show it that I know its name. I await a letter from a friend in the mountains who knows what it is to speak truths through the ice that lurks under the tongue. I will visit her on the mountain next year and we will talk of time and of change and how far from linear they seem. We will draw lines and shapes on maps and drink wine on either side of an oil lamp and take the dogs up the mountain and take a piece back down. I look forward to this. I look forward to growth that shows the ugly and the crooked. I look forward to exploring the beauty of that process. 

Tuesday, October 4rth, 2011
It's 4:30 am on the dawn of my 51rst birthday and I've already received two gifts. The first, (and without hurting another person's feelings, the best!) is this blog. We've talked about doing this for awhile now. In Heimer language, "awhile" means we come up with an idea, then go back to our corners of the world and make ourselves busy with daily things, letting the idea fade away until the next time we see each other or talk. And sometimes "next time" means a really, really long time. So thank you Katie. Not just for your kind words but for actually making an idea into a project. I can't tell you how stoked I am to do this with you.


A large coyote sauntered through my parking lot this morning. The cat and I both got a pretty good look from the window as I set my coffee down on the desk to write. He is the biggest one I've seen since they moved into the woods next to me. I opened my front door to get a better look and there was a gift from my friend/neighbor on the stoop. She wrote a really nice card about my journey the past year (she's got this earthy vibe I covet) and included a candle in the shape of an owl. A few years ago I decided the owl must be my 'animal'. Now I am not so sure, maybe it's supposed to be a coyote. Marcie would know. (Hers is the turtle.) She can remember events in her life where things happened right after she saw a turtle. Maybe I just like the story so much that I WANT an animal, I am not really sure. Either way, I'd like to expect a shift in life today and will remember the image of the large coyote or the candle owl. (Ok, do things made out of wax and shaped like animals really count? I really don't know.) Birthdays are fresh starts, good days to think about the changes that can be made while I am busy gripping the handlebars (now a little rusty because I've been gripping tightly for many, many years). There is peace, though, as well. Today I am simply going to focus on getting ready for another 365 day ride around the sun.


I wonder if I can have two animals. Is that selfish?


.

To my sister, in celebration of her existence in the Universe.

My sister.

The happiest of birthdays to the woman who inspires me like no other. To the woman who says yes to the world regardless of how many times it has said no to her. To the woman who turned me on to pears and blue cheese. To the woman who never stops craving adventures. To the woman who embraces tears, but laughter even more. To the woman who knows what it is to sweat and to move stiff muscles. To the woman who has never passed up an opportunity for a wet-nosed kiss or a furry headbutt from any animal. To the woman who has seen Utah sunrises and will see New Mexico ones as well. To the woman who, like me, has felt The Dread, and fought it. To the woman with whom I've climbed over mountains and through gorges, and will continue to. To the woman who loves her father and shows him in words and in languages that will never know speech. To the woman with whom I've shared fish tacos and margaritas as the sun sets. To the woman who has not forgotten the magic of handwritten letters. To the woman who makes me feel special by spelling my name differently. To the woman who loves skeletons, and a sharp wit. To the woman who deserves more than the world could hold in its oceans, plains, or deserts. To the woman whose loyalty is more fierce than any I know. To the woman whose heart breaks for those in pain and sorrow. To the woman who gives with both hands and embraces with wide arms. To the woman who I would gladly go to the end of the Universe for, and who is my partner in putting myself out into it, open and ready.

I love you dearly. Lets start reminding each other every week. 

"Nothing is worth more than this day."

-Goethe