the sun came out, and i had thoughts in my head, so i took the pup to the trail by the lake. he wandered while i wrote.

everything around me was full of light & color & life.

blue & yellow wildflowers were nestled near tree trunks and in open meadows.

purple & white lilacs swayed back and forth in the wind.

the water was deep blue in color, the grasses and leaves bright green. the sunlight sparkled on the water while the waves lapped at the shore.

a flock of canadian geese took to flight as atlas drew near.

i don’t know why, but it made me think about money and how sometimes, when you don’t have much, you think that having more would change everything. i realized that, in truth, those tiny moments of joy + beauty would be exactly the same.

no matter what is going on in my life, i want to notice + appreciate them.

oh, you big-hearted person.

i am watching you, and i am awed + humbled by you.

your role is a challenging one.

i see you in the moments when you feel anxious, frustrated, or helpless.

i see you in the moments when you feel lonely, isolated, or depressed.

i see you in the moments when you feel unappreciated, misunderstood, or exhausted.

i see you in the moments when you feel scared, trapped, or tired.

i see you in the moments when you feel angry, resentful, or sad.

of course, there are good days & good moments.

moments of joy, satisfaction, and connection.

moments of delight, wonder, and sweetness.

moments of peace, growth, and appreciation.

moments of laughter, forgiveness, and ease.

and always, always, there is love.

so much love.

it is not my intent to dismiss or diminish the good by honoring + acknowledging your hard.

one does not negate the other.

my intent is simply to honor all of your feelings.

i see you. i hear you. i honor you.

i am here to bear witness to your immense love + patience + courage + resilience + compassion, even when they feel very far away.

for some reason, i was remembering the early days of practicing a new belief – one that said i had worth + value.

one of the ideas i used was that of a baby. of course a baby had worth + value. it seemed inherent. it seemed obvious. it was impossible for me to think of anything that could happen in that baby’s life that would take away their inherent worth + value.

i have a very logical + analytical mind, so it was impossible to deny that the same would also apply to me. my mind could see that it was true, even if i couldn’t feel, didn’t know, the truth of it in my body just yet.

while our bodies + minds may change, i do think we carry all the versions of us that ever were somewhere deep inside, even if it’s only as a long-forgotten memory. i think of how mothers see their babies in their grown-up children; i think of how i see my little puppy in my giant 11 year old atlas; and i wonder how we ever forget that we are still that tiny wondrous perfectly whole + complete human who wants to be – and is worthy of being – loved. especially (even) by our very own self.

may we always + ever come back to this, no matter how many times we forget.

through a series of synchronicities, i found myself telling stories at an adult foster care home on monday evening.

it was a success!

they loved my stories, and were inspired to share some of their own stories (a brave pup who was found frozen in a trap and beat the odds to bring joy to her new family, a brave grandpa who was attacked by a bear while logging and brought home both his load of wood and the bear).

i loved doing it, and felt like an official storyteller.

for the remainder of that evening, my heart was tender.

it always is when i share work that comes from my heart & soul.

but my heart was tender for another reason: i realized that i have not been valuing my stories.

i love my stories, unreasonably & exceedingly.

often, they make me giggle. sometimes, they make me cry. i think they are worth telling.

they aren’t all fantastic, to be sure. some of them are even quite terrible. and since no one thing is right for everyone, i don’t expect everyone to love them.

at the same time, on some level, i have discounted my stories – because it is me that is telling them.

telling stories comes so naturally & effortlessly to me that i think it must be like that for everyone.

but maybe, just maybe, telling stories feels natural & effortless to me because i have spent hours .. years .. decades.. telling them or preparing to tell them.

and even if i didn’t, why does it matter? why do i discount myself, or discount my stories, just because there is ease in the telling.

so here’s to the things that we do with ease.

may they ever-increase our capacity for joy + ease + pleasure.

sometimes i think i am a totally wrong person to tell you about life near the wild, because i am not at home in the wild.

i like my creature comforts and have gone on exactly one backpacking trip. i once spent an interminably long night in a tent absolutely convinced that a raccoon was outside, about to claw its way into the tent and kill atlas, only to discover in the morning that it was a bird. i have no sense of direction; i can be trusted to go exactly the wrong way when following a map; and compasses confuse me. my dad has a degree in forestry and i have a phenomenal memory and yet i can never remember any of his wisdom about plants + trees. i know very little about animals. i am not quiet on my feet in the woods; i can probably be heard for miles. i tried my hand at wildcrafting last fall, gathering clover to make a steeped tea, only to discover that if i had made + drunk it, i probably would have gotten sick because apparently you can’t use wet clover. i do not like to pee in the woods. i have no interest in hunting. i caught one tiny fish in my life and it wriggled so much that it freaked me out and i had to run upstream, dipping the fish in the water every few steps, to find my brother so he could take the poor fish off the hook for me.

and yet, here i am, where the wild things are.

i love it here. i always have.

last week, i watched fox cubs pounce on one another like puppies.
the week before, i heard wolves howling in the early evening.
today, i watched the white tail of a deer as it bounded away from us.

i want to tell you about the wild because it is full of wisdom and full of wonder. when you’re surrounded by traffic & buildings & busyness & noise, sometimes it’s easy to forget this.

but the wild is our ancestral home, and we all have a wildness within us.

when i was inspired with the idea to offer my stories in the form of a story club – a regular delivery of lighthearted + delightful stories – i was thinking about parents.

children – at least the children i know – have their favorite stories.

they read those stories over & over & over.

but sometimes, you just can’t read dr. seuss again, for what feels like the millionth time.

in those moments, you really want a new bedtime story.

but it takes time to go to the library or to the bookstore, and life can get in the way.

i wanted to create a way for stories to fly into your life, no time or effort required, for just those moments.

while my stories are not children’s stories in the usual sense – i do not write them specifically for children – i tell them to the children i know and they are always appropriate for children.

but do you know who else needs a regular delivery of wonder + magic?

we all do.

in a world where we are inundated with stories of fear + negativity, we need even more stories of beauty + wonder + magic.

there is so much goodness in the world, and it is rarely a focus. instead, we hear stories of fear, of doom + gloom, of us vs them.

it’s everywhere.

it’s almost inescapable.

our spirits are nourished by beauty + love + joy + kindness + wonder.

there are examples of this everywhere, but they are rarely delivered to us. sometimes they are easy to find. sometimes it takes time + determination + focus.

in our busy, rushed, chaotic lives, it’s easy to forget that this is important.

meanwhile, examples of the opposite are delivered, basically on a silver platter – causing our bodies to contract, our hearts to close, our minds to fill with anxiety, our hands to hold things tighter.

one of the things i feel strongly about is this: we need to find ways to bring beauty + wonder + magic into our daily lives.

we need to find ways to focus on hope + possibility + gratitude. when we don’t, we suffer.

maybe the story club is one of those ways for you. maybe it isn’t.

but my deepest wish is that you find your own ways: the people + places + things that nourish your spirit, that open your heart, that remind you of all that is good + right + true in the world.

hafiz said, “stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.”

this. yes. exactly.

i can’t remember a time when i wasn’t taking pictures.

to be fair, i only remember snippets of life before third grade, but after that, i remember a camera. it was a thin blue rectangle from fisher price with a splash of yellow, a black shutter button, and an attached flash.

the other day, i asked my mom how old i was when i got my first camera.

she said i was seven.

i am thirty-seven years old, so i have been taking pictures for three decades.

and yet, somewhere on my computer, i have a draft of a story in which i found myself bouncing on my rebounder while crying and repeating over and over again, “but i don’t want to be a photographer!”

when i followed the thread of that cry, this is where it led me.

during all those years i was taking pictures of the world around me, i wasn’t really taking pictures at all.

i was trying to hold onto the vision of the world i wanted to live in – a world of beauty, of possibility, of joy, of radiance, of love, of wonder – in the only way i knew how.

as you know, i grew up here.

after college, i ran away. far away.

i said it was because i was cold, and i wanted to be warm, but that wasn’t really it at all.

i ran away to escape the life i thought i would have if i stayed.

it was a life that didn’t seem like me at all.

what i really wanted, even though i didn’t know it then, was to be happy.

even if i didn’t think it was possible.

even if i didn’t know how.

but i am a seeker.

and sometimes, what you are seeking will find you, even if the journey is long & winding & arduous, and often makes no sense at all.

as i drove east, one of the things i wondered was this: will i be able to be me, in a place where i was never really me at all.

it turns out that returning to the place you ran away from, even after finding yourself, is challenging + illuminating + healing.

and if you are in any part of that journey – in the wanting to run away, in the running away, in the being gone, in the returning – i am sending you so much love.

you cry a lot, she said.
i can’t take your tears seriously.

did i cry too much? i trusted her, so i wondered if she was right.

but whether or not they were related, the years during which i stifled my tears were followed by the years during which i struggled with what i later realized was chronic depression.

stifling my tears was not an option.

instead, i felt ashamed of them.

so many stories of being too much.

maybe you have your own stories?

i am tired of caring about being too much when, it seems, too much is a cage.

a cage designed to keep us small.
a cage that has somehow become normal and accepted.

we cage ourselves.
we cage each other.

consciously and unconsciously.

i love watching my niece and nephew; they are a beautiful example of too much.

not in the way we think of it: we’re too much and we should be less.

i mean in the way that everything spills out of them in an unrestrained exuberant expression of unapologetic & honest aliveness.

too much feels closer to enough.

i am reminded of something the mad hatter said to alice.

“You used to be much more… “muchier.” You’ve lost your muchness.”

i am writing this in celebration of too much.

here’s to too much.

here’s to liveliness & boldness & joyful abandon & joie de vivre.

here’s to grabbing life with both hands and living with gusto.

here’s to loving too much & laughing too loud & dreaming too big & shining too bright.

here’s to being too much of anything and everything.

a week ago, i had a beautiful moment of clarity, a moment in which everything i do here finally made perfect sense.

the journey to wholeness isn’t always easy & we need places of beauty where we can pause along the way.

places that water our soul.
places that nourish our spirit.
places that reflect the wonder of our own self back to us, in new & different ways.

my intention for this space is that it be one of those places for you, if and when you need it.

everything i do comes from that.

in an unexpected twist, i learned that my web hosting will expire soon & i do not have the money to continue.

for a moment, the thought made me sad. i love this space. it is full of love + care + beauty.

i am proud of the work i’ve done here, and it would be hard to say goodbye.

i was inquiring whether i would lose my years of work in the process when a friend asked whether i was accepting donations to continue.

in thinking about it, i realized something. i planned to tell you about my departure beforehand – because i didn’t want to simply disappear – but not in a way that invited you in.

i think that i should be able to do everything on my own. when i cannot, i don’t want to share. i see my not-knowing, my perceived failure, as a weakness.

the real weakness is that i am unwilling to allow myself to be vulnerable in that way, to ask for or receive help, to let people in.

when i ask for guidance lately, the answer is always: be still and know that all is well.

and so it is.

whatever life may look like on the outside, when i come home to my center, i know that all is well and everything is unfolding as it should.

there is a piece in a book called the holographic universe that i really like.

“In his general theory of relativity Einstein astounded the world when he said that space and time are not separate entities, but are smoothly linked and part of a larger whole he called the space-time continuum. Bohm takes this idea a giant step further. He says that everything in the universe is part of a continuum. Despite the apparent separateness of things at the explicate level, everything is a seamless extension of everything else, and ultimately even the implicate and explicate orders blend into each other.

Take a moment to consider this. Look at your hand. Now look at the light streaming from the lamp beside you. And at the dog resting at your feet. You are not merely made of the same things. You are the same thing. One thing. Unbroken. One enormous something that has extended its uncountable arms and appendages into all the apparent objects, atoms, restless oceans, and twinkling stars in the cosmos.”

one enormous something. yes.

you & me & atlas are each tiny pieces of the whole.

i don’t have to be here, in this place, to water your soul, to be connected.

in a way that i cannot describe or explain – but that i know deep down in my bones – we really are all one.

with that said, i would love to keep this garden in bloom & i could use your help.

here are three specific ways you can help. if you want to, of course! (i’m hoping you do.)

• pass my story club page along to anyone you know who appreciates stories of wonder + whimsy.
• share my etsy shoppe with someone who needs cards, or postcards, or creative + unique gift ideas.
• send prayers, well wishes, and love.

in case you’d like to make a donation toward my web hosting fees, here’s a handy dandy way to do so. (it’s $260 for two more years.)

your presence means the world to me.

i am so glad you are here.

i was walking with the pup this morning when my foot slipped on the ice. down i fell, plop, splat, thud, onto my back on the snow-and-ice-covered road.

as i picked myself up and brushed myself off, there was a brief instant when i was no longer the me who identifies with her physical body. instead, i was the me who encompasses that me. i watched my body brush itself off, and i felt this incredible wave of love rush through me.

the thought that ran through my mind was this: why should my stumbles be any less worthy of love?

i thought of my little nephew learning to walk and how very much i love him. not because he stumbles. not in spite of his stumbles. i love him because he’s lars and he wouldn’t be the same without all of his moments.

i thought of atlas and how i don’t tell him that he’s a bad dog. i say, “i am furious at you.” i say, “i don’t like what you’re doing.” i say, “i don’t like you very much right now.” but i tell him, and i hope he knows, that i also love him. not because of those moments. not in spite of those moments. i love him – more than the sun and the moon and all the fish in the sea – because he’s atlas and he is who he is because of all of his moments.

i’ve been practicing self-love for years now.

sometimes i wonder how i got here, and whether i have learned something that can be of service to others, because the place i came from was so full of loathing and the place i am in is so full of love.

but i don’t know how i got here. i can’t pinpoint one practice or one book or one insight.

all i can see is that it was a collection of moments.

moments when i behaved with love and kindness: toward myself, toward another; moments when i didn’t.

moments when i liked the reasons i behaved with love and kindness; moments when i didn’t.

moments when i could forgive myself for the reasons i didn’t behave with love and kindness; moments when i couldn’t.

moments when i made different (more aligned) choices; moments when i didn’t.

after each moment, whether i realized it or not, i picked myself up, dusted myself off, and moved into the next moment.

i did that today.

i’ll do it again tomorrow.

and i do know that i wouldn’t be the same me without every single one of my moments.

{This post is part of the Unencumbered Sharing Circle, a gathering of honest first-hand stories about self-loathing, self-love, and the journey between the two. Read more stories, and share your own, right here.}