summer.

 

The days have been hot. In fact, as I write this, I'm camped out in front of our portable air conditioner and it's still not enough. Our apartment isn't perched in the best spot to take on days such as these and the forecast says we're looking at temperatures in the 100s over the next week. Whew.

I've written about six or seven posts here; they're sitting in a draft folder and not a single one of them has felt ready for publishing. The last several months have been about coming back to myself, about finding new ways to settle into my skin and feel content there.

We've done a lot this summer: a trip to Sauvie Island for berry picking, a trip to Mt. Hood to see Umbrella Falls, a trip to Salmon River to go swimming, a trip to Florida, walks around the neighborhood, family dinners, Peninsula Park with the roses fully in bloom, a trip to Smith Rock State Park, and tons of relaxing and resting in between.

Summer has been so, so good to me, and we're still squeezing in a few more fun trips to cap it all off. I have used this blog for so many different purposes, and it's changed and shifted more times than I can count. Sometimes I've been really sad when I've written here. Sometimes I've been confused or scared or anxious or happy. Sometimes I've documented every square inch of my life and sometimes I've let long stretches pass with nothing.

I'd like to try and share more pictures here, to write things down, to remember. I'd also like to spend more time in my kitchen and read more books. And I'd like to spend more time taking Woody on nice long walks. These are small goals that will make my happy, full life feel happier and fuller. I've waited to feel this way, I've worked hard to get here. Time to bask in it.

(Photos 1 & 2: strawberry picking at Sauvie Island; Photos 3 & 4: Umbrella Falls trail; Photos 5-9: Old Salmon River)

*Also, I have no earthly clue why the vertical images are so pixelated, but after nearly an hour of troubleshooting, I give up! :)

a working definition of success.

 

 The other night Jeffrey and I were talking and he said something about how I'm always overworking myself, and for one second my brain computed that as a COMPLIMENT. The intent of his message was for me to slow down, but for a fraction of a moment I was proud that someone I love thought I was overworked. I feel like the amount of time one spends working is a common measure of success. Like, if you don't have time for leisurely, pleasant things then you're probably really successful. But why?

Running myself ragged doesn't make me a better or more dynamic or kinder human being. In fact, I'm pretty sure it does the exact opposite. I'd like for success to be measured in the number of times I laugh in a day. In how many times Woody wags his tail. In a home glowing with candles. In warmth and breeze and freckles on my shoulders. In flowers and walks with my nieces and in mundane trips to Target with people I love. In pie shared with friends. In phone calls home. In making cookies on a Friday night.

When I was teaching and I wanted to leave work on time, I remember sneaking out (sneaking! out!) of the building because I was so worried that my colleagues would see me and silently judge me for not staying beyond my contractual obligation (just to be clear, this had everything to do with my own insecurities and nothing to do with my actual colleagues). When I left teaching it was partially because the overworked part of my brain was falling apart into three million pieces and I could no longer stand the thought of my tired, broken body bending down to collect them.

I've done the work to get to a place where overworking myself is no longer a priority and I've determined where I want to expend my energy. But there's still a piece of me that feels guilty for taking the lunch break or for walking out the door when my work day is technically done and others still sit at their computers.

But I'll tell you one thing: on Saturday, as we walked down to the waterfront to see the cherry blossoms in bloom and talked about our plans to enjoy falafel in a tiny, bustling restaurant, my heart was full and I felt nothing but happiness and gratitude and love and maybe even a little bit of success.

when it all stands still.

The longer days have been a gift. It is such a happy thing to be able to walk outside at 4:30 in the afternoon and not be met with total darkness. And the sun here has been a welcome change. Now I just ache for the warmer days. It’ll be such a relief when I no longer have to wear layer after layer just to feel remotely comfortable, or sink into a bathtub to try and take the chill away.

But I must admit that when I actively choose to have a positive attitude, it’s amazing how quickly the small things add up into big things, and my entire perspective can shift. A moment to acknowledge a bloom forcing its way through the packed earth. The sun streaming through the window. An unexpected latte from Jeffrey. Late night TV marathons and Thai food. A new plant for the house. Sitting here and giving myself the time to write about precisely nothing. It all feels so good.

Sometimes it feels good to have nothing of real note to write about. Sometimes it's enough just to talk about a shift in the weather and to share some pictures from a spontaneous trip to the coast. Sometimes it feels right that my only dream for the foreseeable future is to have a tan of some kind.

To be at peace is a special kind of feeling. To close my eyes and feel that my insides are still. That I am completely whole as I am right now. And even when I change tomorrow, I will still be whole. I had forgotten that the stillness can feel so incredibly good. My brain hardly ever allows for it, but this reprieve; I will soak it all in.

thoughts for a sunday.

It's 11:37 AM on a Sunday. It's 40º outside, but I've forced our window open and I'm parked in front of the (nearly) unbearable chill. Because it's the beginning of March and for most of my life that's been open window weather. Woody's snout has made its way to the stream of cold air and he has fully leaned into it, eyes closed, fur blowing. There's a cupcake next to me and now he's hopped up (still in the perfect position to get the breeze) on the couch, dutifully ignoring said cupcake (because cupcakes aren't for dogs and he somehow knows it?).

I called my mom from this morning's walk and our hour-long conversation felt like 15 minutes (as it often does). And even though I'd like nothing more than for us to be in the same city again, we've gotten pretty good at the long distance thing, and I'm a little bit proud of that because I didn't always think I'd get there.

The dishes are washed and the bed is made and the apartment is tidy. And I'm here. On this couch. Writing about practically nothing because sometimes that feels good.

For the first time in a long time, I actually feel my age. It's weird to be 27 and to think about what I thought my life would be like by the time I got here. It probably involved children. It probably involved a career that made my heart sing. It probably involved many things I don't have. And coming to terms with that can be a little strange. The more adult I become, the more I realize that I know almost nothing about actually being an adult. And the more I realize that that's probably what it means to be an adult. We're all just mostly walking through the dark, looking for the light switch, and only finding it about 50% of the time (if we're lucky).

I just read this article about a woman who has cancer and is hoping her (phenomenal-sounding) husband will find love again after she's gone. It's a sad article, but it's also pretty dang beautiful. Why is it that we shy away from writing beautiful things about our partners? I can't tell you the number of times I've written something lovely and truthful about Jeffrey and then hit delete. Better not gush, I tell myself. No one wants to hear about that, I tell myself. But, why not? Jeffrey is a truly delightful person. And he chose to marry me. Me! From now on, I'm just gonna go ahead and hit publish when I feel compelled. Love is worth celebrating. And real, lasting love? It's rare and it's precious. It deserves to be memorialized (along with all the times I've written about the sad things while I wallowed in the depths of my own despair).

Sometimes I'd like to turn the worrying part of my brain off. It is so exhausting. Why is it that I can know that worrying serves me no purpose, and I just do it anyway? How many times have I worried and nothing has ever come from it (the answer is almost every time.)? How many worry stones have been made completely smooth by my mind? I recently started going to a Pilates class once a week. My instructor is also an energy healer. Energy work is something I've never really given much thought to, but she and I were talking about it anyway and she was like, "I feel like you're carrying some burdens for other people, and the problem is that they decided to set them down long ago, but you're still holding onto them." And it was like she smacked me in the face with my own truth because if that isn't just exactly who I am. But why am I doing it?

The truth is that for all the times I feel like I'm falling apart, there's a time where I feel like I've just grasped a moment of clarity, and I'm so aware of it. I want to imprint it in my mind so that I never forget the true fortune I feel when the door bursts wide open and for one single moment, I glimpse something so sharply and so clearly it can almost take my breath away. I can feel myself growing and changing and it makes me feel like I'm doing the work that needs to be done. There was a time in my life where I believed that progress was meant to be linear. And I can't tell you how thankful I am to now know that that just is not even a little bit true. My progress isn't linear in any sense of the word and isn't that the whole point? The twists and turns? That's where the beauty is. The real, painful, heartbreaking, heart-mending, full, whole beauty.

weekenders.

 

This weekend Jeffrey and I stayed a night at the Sou'wester. It was so much fun and even the drive was pleasant. It felt really nice just to know we were heading somewhere to relax. Jeffrey brought all the supplies we needed to make our favorite spaghetti for dinner. We walked around the neighborhood in the freezing cold. We drove(!) down onto the beach to watch the sunset. We read books for hours. We watched Amélie. We talked about lots of different things, serious and lighthearted and everything in between. It was the most restorative, lovely, relaxing little trip.

We had to cut our trip a little short due to a snowstorm that was heading toward Portland, so we packed up a little early and drove back to the city. At home, we lit candles and made curry and watched Superstore and today we made pancakes and cookies and spent the entire day in our pajamas. It was the perfect weekend and I'm so glad for that.

2017.

It's a cold day here in Portland. That's what I'm told; I haven't actually gone outside yet. The bed has been made, a fresh cup of tea is steaming on the coffee table, and my favorite candle is lit. Our tree is still up and we are very seriously contemplating the idea of leaving our Christmas lights up year round. Elliott Smith is coming through the speakers and the heater just clicked on.

In 2016, I got more comfortable with change. I learned to make decisions with my well being at the forefront of my mind. I started complimenting strangers. I made a real effort to cook more. I took my vitamins. I made a small difference in the lives of 24 students. I decided to leave my teaching career (after finishing out the school year). I read about pinning down my desires. I tried growing out my hair (still working on this one). I cared a little bit less about adult acne. I spent time watching my nieces grow and flourish. I took my dog for walks around our new neighborhood. I got more involved in politics. I tuned into the news more. I decided to be vocal about the things that matter to me. I went to the chiropractor and got acupuncture, and said goodbye to my chronic neck pain (which I never thought would disappear). I went to physical therapy. I spoke to my doctor about my anxiety. I took mental health seriously and made it a priority in my own life. I ate a lot of pie. I bought more goods from companies who make and produce in the USA. I donated to lots of causes (more than I ever have in the past). I went to Point Reyes, San Francisco, the Redwoods, Cave Springs, Florida, Mt. Hood, and the Oregon coast.

In 2017, I have a few small resolutions that I hope to carry through the year. For the most part, they're rooted in seeking joy and empowerment by lifting up others and staying engaged in our nation's politics.

It was incredibly helpful and uplifting for me to write down a big list of what I did and learned in 2016. It's so easy to be hard on oneself and feel like not enough was accomplished or crossed off the bucket list, but I'm proud of the work I did to better myself and help others in some small way.

Here's to a 2017 that's filled with love and light! Thank you, as always, for continuing to read and engage in this space. I am grateful to you. xo

when the colors change.

 

The other morning I was driving to work. It was overcast, as it usually is this time of year in Portland. I drive through the heart of the city on my commute and am met with many, many shades of gray. This song was playing. I had just enough time to swing by a drive-thru and get a cup of coffee. The best part of my commute is that I can see the southwest hills in a sweeping landscape as I cross over the Ross Island Bridge. Jeffrey is constantly telling me to look at the hills, to take it all in.

It was the sort of morning where I was just feeling thankful for so many things. It was a welcome feeling after what has been many, many mornings of feeling pretty lost, confused, and uncertain about many, many things. But on this particular morning, I could recognize the beauty and fullness of my life so clearly and so perfectly that I almost could've cried.

As I crossed over the bridge and wondered — audibly — at my great fortune, I noticed (reallllllly noticed) the southwest hills. It would have been impossible to miss them. The trees were bursting with autumnal colors. The gray Portland sky was the perfect backdrop for really capturing and amplifying the bright, vivid colors of the leaves. And I couldn't believe it.

I thought of all the times Jeffrey has told me to look at the hills, to take them in, to immerse myself in the beauty of the city where we live and I have been stubborn. I haven't done it. I've pretended not to care or not to be in awe of it or to find more beauty and joy elsewhere. And it's because I've stiff armed Portland for so long. Moving here brought all my insecurities right to the surface and I was forced to acknowledge them and challenge my best self to do the work of walking through the dark parts to get to where the light is.

There are still so many moments when I feel lost or question my purpose or wonder what I'm doing in this rainy city or feel thoroughly confused and uncertain and foggy, but those moments make way for the moments when I see everything clearly and can glimpse the light and recognize the sheer beauty that is the life I'm building. And a life needs the dark and the light. The confusion and the clarity. That's what makes it whole and rich and vibrant and beautiful.

sundays.

In an effort to document more of my daily life, here's a new series all about Sundays. I'll never forget a conversation I had with a colleague of mine where we basically trashed Sundays (sorry, Sunday). If you are someone who has a Monday through Friday work week, you can probably relate to the Sunday blues, which for me would typically begin at around 4 PM. The thought of an impending work week and what that encompasses, was often enough to send me into an anxious tailspin.

It wasn't until recently that I really came around to appreciating Sundays. We typically like to try and do something a little more ambitious on Saturdays, so Sundays became the low key, relaxed, cozier day of the week. And at exactly the same time on a recent Sunday afternoon, Jeffrey and I both remarked on what a perfect day we were having.

So thanks, Sunday (and sorry for taking awhile to warm up to you). xo

reclaiming this space.

I'm sitting in our studio apartment next to a sleepy dog, box fan shoved into an open window, 6 o'clock and no sign that the sun will go down anytime soon. It's a peaceful scene. I've been working on my intentional breathing, which sounds absolutely bizarre and over-the-top pretentious, but is actually incredibly helpful. My physical therapist described my intentional breathing practice like this: first, check in with all corners of your body (especially the achy ones); try and send your breath to those achy places; inhale deeeeeeply through the nose, and then produce an audible, strong exhale through the mouth. Repeat that as many times as you can muster. For me, that's about 10 times and then I'm bored.

I've tried to write this very blog post so many times. What do you write in a little white box that hasn't been touched in months? How do you unpack what that silence has meant while still keeping the personal parts of that silence to yourself? Well, for one thing, you just start writing and see what comes of it.

In many ways, I haven't known what to do with this space. There was a time when I wanted nothing more than for this little blog to take off and become a career. I posted the beautiful pictures, wrote very few words, and talked about pleasant, unremarkable things. This is what I saw other successful bloggers doing. They all said you couldn't have a "career blog" without pictures. Every post needed pictures. Readers would stop reading if the content wasn't saturated with pictures. Dutifully, I took my camera everywhere -- took close up pictures of random things, blurring out the background. It was fun, until it wasn't.

Truth is, I'm a writer. It's the written word that's always interested me. That's where I feel compelled creatively. That's the part I want to push into and explore. I recently listened to Amy Poehler's book and there were about one million pieces that stuck with me (Side Note: I think every woman should read/hear her chapter about your inner demon. That was completely illuminating to me. Not illuminating because I haven't dealt with an inner demon, but illuminating because I've never had anyone quite so accurately put words to that particular struggle.), but one thing I really latched onto was a part where she spoke about how fortunate she is that her career and passion overlap seamlessly and how that isn't the case for everyone. That potential overlap is a great joy and a stroke of luck, but it isn't always a given. You can love and enjoy and even be passionate about your career, and still your deep, deep creative passion can lay elsewhere. And for me that passion is writing. It's the one thing I've always come back to over and over again. It's the way I can best express myself and share the innermost workings of my brain.

So I'm gonna write. And if no one else reads it, then it will be for me.

I put a lot of pressure on myself for things to be just so. I've got a lot of thoughts and feelings about how my life should look, and if it doesn't look just like that just when I think it should, then I am immediately going into a tailspin. An exhausting way to live, I think. And it's not like I can just will myself to walk away from that way of thinking on a random Tuesday evening, but I can be intentional about trying to really just be happy (and sometimes unhappy [that's okay, too!]) in the way my life looks right now.

What does that mean currently? Well, it means my husband is on the floor trying to clean out our portable air conditioning. It means I'm worrying about our dog and his separation anxiety, which has recently manifested itself as a loud, excessive bark-howl hybrid that disrupts our neighbors. It means I'm thinking about the giant share of CSA veggies we just got and how we'll manage to put ANOTHER summer squash to good use. It also means that I don't have to share every! single! thing! about my life in this space. Ha! What a revelation.

It means that I'm reclaiming this space, and it might look a lot like a rambling essay (such as this one) without much of a common thread because at the end of the day, if I use this space to flex my creative passion then I am using this space for good. And it will be a bright, warm, happy space simply because it's housing thoughts that I felt were worth sharing at some moment in my life. Love, love, love. Be back soon. (Thanks for reading. Mean it. Xoxoxoxo.)

the year of fun.

Jeffrey and I moved to Portland in the dead of summer. I remember standing in my parents' front yard, saying goodbye to my in-laws and my mom (my dad took the cross country trip with us, bless him) in the sweltering Florida heat. I've never minded the heat, although my husband would say otherwise. He says that I've complained about it countless times, and perhaps I have, so I guess you could say that I've generally never minded the heat. When we moved to Portland, the heat was oppressive and there was no escaping it. Our house doesn't have air. I remember laying in bed with little more than a sheet, cursing the fact that I couldn't sleep with the weight of a comforter. The temperature on our thermostat (which we have for heat only), rose up and up and up, and I couldn't believe how hot is was.

2015 was a challenging year for me. Dealing with the difficulty and hardship that comes with a move across the country was unexpected and knocked the wind out of me for several months. There's also the challenge of taking on a new job and trying to fit in with a new place and new people. There's the longing for the school I left behind, the familiarity of the people and the location of simple things like the copy machine. Change isn't bad, it's just different. I lost the physical closeness of friends and family and found it overwhelmingly hard to make new bonds and form new relationships.

I spent a lot of time dwelling in that lost and sad place. It was a cycle of wake up, feel sorry for myself, go to work, feel sorry for myself, repeat. It was a cycle I didn't enjoy, but from which I couldn't break away. It was suffocating and terrible. As someone who has experienced little loss in her life, I was shocked by how deeply I grieved a loss of place.

Eventually, it wasn't hot anymore. In fact, it became unbelievably cold. Both Jeffrey and I remarked over the fact that we didn't experience many "open window" days here. It was really, really hot and then it was really, really cold. The sun started going down at 4 in the afternoon. At first, I found myself in a mess of emotions. Blue ones. About two weeks into the dark and cold winter, the fog in my mind lifted. I have no idea why or how. I'd like to believe that it was because I willed it away. It's probably much more likely that something else (something like divine intervention) shooed it into oblivion. Either way, I was grateful.

All this to say that my word for 2016 is fun. Jeffrey and I explored Portland for our honeymoon almost three years ago. We were enamored by its richness and fullness — the city felt alive and bursting with energy. I remember feeling so much love for this city, even though I had hardly spent any time here. In the midst of moving and dealing with big emotions, I forgot to enjoy this city again. I forgot to love it the way I had when we visited here, newlyweds with stars in our eyes. We're still newlyweds and we still have stars in our eyes. I want to squeeze the joy out of this place, experience my life instead of watching it pass me by. There is a time to be sad, but there is also a time to take back happiness, to feel proud of myself for making leaps and embracing change and reveling in the fact that I can do hard things. So here's to 2016, my year of fun!

(Taking back the fun in my life may or may not include documenting some of that here. Thanks for my small but devoted readership, who continues to visit this space, even when postings are sporadic and wordy and not filled with pictures. You are appreciated! xo)

video: portland honeymoon 2013.

Song: I Always Knew by The Vaccines

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