Hi, everyone! Feeling my way back to the blog. It’s funny how there are moments (years) in life when I feel completely underwater with everything I have to do. And others (moments) when I feel like I have reserves of energy and I get more done than I thought possible. These shifts in life are some of the most startling, lovely, exasperating experiences.

I’m currently sitting in lovely!

I took the first vacation I have ever taken during the school year a couple weeks ago. I went “back East”, as we say on the west coast, for a writing workshop that I extended into an honestly wonderful, life-changing 10 day vacation with my husband, my dear friend, and, mostly, with me.

I say life-changing because something happened on this vacation that changed me in a profound way. I’m sure it was the workshop, where I honestly felt like a writer for the very first time. I’ve always written. Since I was five. Seriously! But I have never given myself permission to call myself a writer or devote the time to really have a writing practice. But somewhere in the woods of Massachusetts, I found a piece of myself that lives and breaths writing, and I freed her. I’m also sure it was the wandering we did after the workshop, where we had a schedule, but truly felt like a band of wanderers setting out to explore. We stayed in charming Inns and Airbnbs, explored agreeable villages and towns that were older than my brain really can classify, toured the Alcott’s house, Thoreau’s cabin, experienced Salem on Halloween, and walked the beaches of Cape Cod. The spirit of the wanderer and the writer had me in a misty, dream-like state for the entire time.

I also emphasize that I vacationed with myself, because I truly spent the time in that beautiful, not-quite-this-world place I go when I write. It feels like stepping through the veil, but rather than everything being murky or unreal, everything is a bit crisper, a bit more sensual, a bit more still. It reset my internal rhythm in a way that I was able to bring home, at least for good chunks of my continuing present.

So stay tuned. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with this blog. I’m reading some great things, thinking a lot, writing, and just being. I’ll keep you informed.