no time like the present.

i'm realizing the importance of living for the now.
NOWNESS.
not that you should avoid devoting your attention to those radio advertisements for 401k programs,
but there is so much value in the moment you're living as you're reading this.
i guess there is just a lot of value in the simple presence of someone
and it's increasingly rare in my life that i am able to feel this.

i feel bombarded by passive activities because nearly everything in this world has become easier
and to resist participation in these games is an art form.

so,
i'm resolving to be present in all my many shapes and forms.
i'm making a commitment to show my face in the homes of others more often
and to use my fingers to dial a phone number instead of texting.
i'm going to try to be present in everything i do:
work, school, homework, walking bruno, laying in bed next to my husband....
you name it.

most of all,
i want to be more of a presence in the world.
i want my feet to have walked many places, old and new,
and to know every twist and turn of the city i live in.
i want to leave a ghostly trail of myself through my explorations.

i want a relationship with the world,
one where she loves me back for taking the time to get to know her personally.
life doesn't pass you by,
you do it to yourself.

i have a feeling that this melancholic version of myself will fade away into the background as i find the freedom that is wholehearted living, exactly where i am meant to live and exactly when i'm supposed to.
the world is begging me to immerse myself in the depths of what she has to offer.

and even just speaking about it makes me feel....
i don't know....

free.

xo.

the city always sounds like it's celebrating.

via

“...the solitude was intoxicating. On my first night there I lay on my back on the sticky carpet for hours, in the murky orange pool of city glow coming through the window, smelling heady curry spices spiraling across the corridor and listening to two guys outside yelling at each other in Russian and someone practicing stormy flamboyant violin somewhere, and slowly realizing that there was not a single person in the world who could see me or ask me what I was doing or tell me to do anything else, and I felt as if at any moment the bedsit might detach itself from the buildings like a luminous soap bubble and drift off into the night, bobbing gently above the rooftops and the river and the stars.” ― Tana French, In the Woods

i love salt lake city.
my sister hannah is renting a little house with a little garden
in the marmalade district
for the summer
so i'm pretending i live here, too.

the city...
oh, the city!

being here makes me feel like a fog has lifted.
like my soul was cleaned off and i can breathe again
or like i'm BACK
you know?

i belong in a city
in a little house with a little garden.
the suburbs swallow me.
this is where i need to be.

i need to be riding bikes and walking everywhere.
i need to be having small conversations with strangers passing by
and i need to fall asleep to the sounds of traffic and the neighbor's loud music.

i told adam we could consider it a medical expense
since my mental health greatly improves whenever i'm in a city
and on a bike
buying flowers from a street vendor,
donating my last dollar to vagrants,
and smelling factory smoke on one block and vietnamese food on the next.

and like...
if adam had a respiratory issue and we needed to live somewhere with cleaner air,
we totally would, right?
right.
it's a sound argument.

this place,
this little house with its little garden
and its little charms
and this little city...
how can i ever, ever leave it?

why would i ever head back into the fog???
(unless it's in portland or seattle of course... citylife!!!)

xo.

becoming a radiant maverick.

i spent the day in salt lake city perusing antique shops
and saw some old boots with the word MAVERICK printed on the bottom.
i immediately remembered a short time i spent at a friend's ranch when i was younger...
a maverick was an animal that hadn't been branded, that nobody really "owned".
an independent creature.

and i realized
that i felt like a motherless calf,
like a free creature.
independent.
and i knew that independence requires courage.


in one of the greatest ted talks ever given,
brene brown defines courage as:

"to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart."

and that idea has been troubling me.
i mean,
it's absolutely brilliant
and i feel like i am telling the story of who i am with my whole heart,
with all of the contents of my soul and spirit...
but if i might just add to that definition with:

"to tell the whole story of who you are with your whole heart."

and i had to be honest with myself and say
i most certainly was not doing that.

so i have been taking time to reconcile all the bits and parts of me
and uncaging all the little singing birds underneath my ribs
and just letting them fly free with the rest.

i've spent so long trying to reconcile my whole story with the outside world
that i have caged parts of myself in the process.

it has taken Ultimate Life Lows to realize i should have been reconciling what was already there
and ignoring the things that were not.

but now,
i'm prepared. i'm ready.

suddenly,
the world is ... there. right in front of me.
and it's like it has been saying, "oh... hello. i've been waiting for you."

i have never, ever felt more free.
ever.

xo.