Hold On

“Actually the best gift you could have given her was a lifetime of adventure….” 

Lewis Carroll

 

It started as a pin. One picture torn from a magazine. A silver vintage trailer. Pinned to my bulletin board of dreams and devotions.

It started as stories. Theirs and mine. Stories of the hard and the hilarious and of walking towards freedom. Stories of not going alone. Stories of safe spaces, theirs and mine and ours together.

It started as a quest. Over fields and on back roads. During road trips and family vacations and drives through the neighborhood. Treks to flea markets and garage sales and even that long dirt road down a Kentucky hollow. An expedition in search of silver for sale.

It started as talismans. An ornament and greeting cards, a wine bottle and coffee mug. Sightings along highways and texts with pictures and even a fortune cookie or two.

Eight years. Four deals gone sour. Two denied grant applications. Shape-shifting of the vision. And hundreds of questions, including the one that asked, when is it time for a dream to die?

But this is a dream that didn’t die. It’s a dream that smoldered on the back burner, through three moves and part-time gigs and the birth of another baby.

It started as a picture from a magazine. 

And now she is real. Mine. A 1966 Airstream Land Yacht. Twenty-seven feet of silver getting decked out with new brakes and fresh paint, twinkle lights and rugs and a percolating coffee pot. There will be a party soon, with a band (bluegrass!) and soup (burgoo!) and even more twinkle lights.   She will be a shelter for dreamers and doers. An oasis of wanderlust. She has so many circles she wants to hold.

There is more to her back story—there always is—but what I want you to know now is sometimes you just have to hold on. Through the questions. Through their doubts. Through the waiting and asking and forcing and forgetting and searching.

Hold on. It’s just around the corner.

If you are holding on for your own dream, come explore with me in Wanderlust. I’ll be sharing some of the ways I turned a magazine picture into a real-life double-axle-get-the-truck thing. By following the clues.  We’ll go on some adventures.  The course starts March 8th.  You can sign up here.

Wanderlust

Are you ready to get lost?

Say yes to Wanderlust.

I found it in the most unlikely of places.

It was August. Portland. It was a weekend of writing and the Ace Hotel and whimsical fish and Pinot rose. It was an expedition of words and magic and unexpected messages.

When my plane got delayed for the morning, my friend and I decided to do some exploring to savor these last few stolen hours. In coffee shops and bookstores and juice bars. Giggling and spilling secrets as we walked.

We meandered through another gift shop, with air plants in hand, when we found two books; she took one and I took the other. Mine, a ledger from a St. Louis insurance company. It’s gray cover weathered from spills and ink.

 

 

And what I found inside the ledger were secret instructions. A letter clipped to page 18, typed 57 years ago. Words of gratitude and truth. Words to follow if I dared: We make our own life as we go along.

We make our own life as we go along.

I’ve held this book and these words close for two years. Words found in the most unlikely of places in a most unlikely way.

And now they are words for you, too.

 

“Not until we are lost do we begin to [find] ourselves.” Henry David Thoreau 

What it is: This is an online course delivered to your email inbox. Each week you will receive four emails from me filled with prompts for exploring, interviews with pioneer spirits, and peeks into my own adventures of getting lost. We will have a private Facebook page (optional to join) to gather and share our adventures and our questions. You will be encouraged to go at your own pace and I’ll be available for gentle coaching and support. 

Why Wanderlust? To me, wanderlust is all about desire. Desire for new adventures and uncharted territory. Whispers and secret messages. What if we let ourselves get lost in the exploring? What if we opened to searching with new eyes, in new places, through unexpected ways? What might we find?

Your story as we know it starts here. And, by the end of the Wanderlust course, I want you to have the clues and messages that point towards your next path. Our destination? You and your next dream. 

When: March 8 – April 4

What you need: Internet connection to access your email and video links 

Who this is for: This course is for you if you are ready to get lost. This course is for you if you are stuck in the same place and can’t seem to find your way forward. This course is for you if you need nudges to get going and if you long for a safe circle to walk beside as you explore. This course is for you if you are struck by wanderlust. 

Still have questions?  Send me an email!  I’d love to connect.

 It’s $39 for 4 weeks.  Sign up here:  

27 Letters More

I have been writing letters all week.  Letters of grit and loss and letters of longing.  It has opened me and emptied me and left me feeling tender and in awe.

As Outlaw Letters comes to a close, I have so many more letters to write.  Maybe you do too.

So here’s a list of 27 letters you might want need to write.

1. A letter to your heart (or your feet or your hands)
2. A letter to the ancestor you never met
3. A letter to the smell of summer
4. A letter to the character in the book you adore
5. A letter to the competition
6. A letter to your fourth grade teacher (or 5th or 9th)
7. A letter to your muse
8. A letter to the place that has a piece of your heart
9. A letter that doesn’t want to be written
10. A letter that answers a letter you received
11. A valentine to your love
12. A letter to the work you left
13. A letter to your favorite song
14. A letter to the one who named you
15. A letter to a scar
16. A letter to 2025
17. A letter to someone you crush on
18. A letter to a friend you found–or who found you
19. A letter to the one who cracked you wide open
20. A letter to the one who taught you to write
21. A letter to the one who taught you to roar
22. A letter to your sixteen year old self
23. A letter to the one who taught you to listen
24. A letter to the one who taught you to care
25. A letter to the one who taught you to make out
26. A letter to betrayal
27. A letter to your next iteration

So, go write.  I will too.

Boots, Always Boots

 

It was the middle of a work trip.  I was in the middle of a hotel room.

And in the middle of the deck, I pulled this card.  The boots card.

It beckoned, ‘boot up.  Embody your muse.  Wear the bangles.  Dress to your heart’s desire.’

I hesitated.  Did I dare?  Did I dare to show up fully me in the middle of a conference room in the middle of a sea of professionals?

Did I dare?

My spirit guide said, ‘fuckyeah.‘

I pulled on the jeans, the ones I used all my stash to buy, the ones that feel like butter on my legs.  I pulled on the boots, the ones that go just above my knees, all shiny and bold.  I pulled on the bracelets and dabbed the essential oil and rubbed the curl cream in my hair.

Fuckyeah.  Let’s do this.

If you want a set of your own Provisions cards, you can order them here.

An Unfinished Letter to Myself at 16

But she did look back, and I love her for that because it was so human.

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

Sweetheart,

You, my love, are in for a wild adventure.

What you don’t know now is that the road will not be easy.

That linear path everyone thinks you’ll take when they vote you most likely to succeed from the Class of 1993? It takes a tailspin into the woods.  

That friend who showed up at your door in seventh grade? He will die in a car crash when you are 20 and it will rock your world so hard that you will get lost in whiskey shots and late nights. But those will also be the days you find your way back to the page and fall in love with philosophy class and listen to Ani Difranco and Liz Phair on repeat. You will be finding your spirit’s pulse. And it will drive you on.

Speaking of drives? You will drive across the country twice and nearly get lost in mountains and campfires and open skies.

You will let yourself study what you love and trust that it will get you someplace. Most days, you will be right. The things you thought were important—the law degree, the move to the big city, the bank—aren’t.

You come to know how hard you mom worked each day; and you love her even more now than you did then. Your Dad, too. Your sister still has your back, even though she is miles away today instead of across the room.

Not too long from now you will befriend food. Donuts and French fries, even. Then meatloaf and artichokes and soup that takes all of Sunday to simmer on the stove. You learn to listen to your body, to know what it wants, and to honor that. You learn to savor.

All those feelings? Oh sweetheart. They are you and they are beautiful. They make you the most tender of story catchers. What feels like too much now becomes your greatest strength.

He will never, ever come back. Know this. Let it go, burn the letters, and know that he taught you how to love.   And that, in itself, is enough.

You’ll have regrets—not going to New York with them on New Year’s, for one—but not loving him or having them.

You will find a love so gentle and true that it still amazes you. You will write your vows and have two beautiful, soul-stretching kids. You will have a son who is as sensitive as you and can look straight into your heart. You will have a daughter whose joy reminds you that life is for the living.

You will give birth at home and the midwife won’t make it in time. This will teach you that you have a warrior woman inside that you had never accessed. Listen to her more.

You will sit with women who have bruises and scars and stories so gruesome to tell, that some days you will want to get in your car and drive far away. But you don’t. You take those stories and let them shape you. They soak in your bones and swim through your blood. You learn that you are them and they are you and we are all in this life together.

You have forgotten how to dance. And how to run. And maybe even draw. And you still don’t have a tattoo.  But you’ve learned to say fuck yeah and to wear cowboy boots and how to say the hard things.

There will be moments. And days that make you ache. But you are a moment hunter and have lifetimes of fierce inside you. Don’t be deterred.

There is so much more to say but for now know that what you are living will serve you soon. Nothing is ever wasted. Trust me on this. And go easy.

With so much love,

Me

 

Let’s Free the Words

 

What are the letters that you need to write?

What are the words that you are ready to shed? 

He wrote a letter in October 1945.  Just a few days after he returned from the War.  Finally home to his “two babies,” my Grandma and aunt.  This was a letter to his best buddy still overseas.  A six page letter found in an attic in Ohio long after both had passed on.  A letter tucked away and saved.

 

 

My Grandpa was a mechanic.  A Methodist.  A Hoosier.  A father and husband.  He was not a letter writer.  And I think that’s the magic in these six pages.  After all the horrors of war and the agony of being abroad, after all the unforgettable stories that passed between them, this is a letter about living.  It was the letter that needed to be written.

What are the letters that you need to write?  What are the words that you are ready to shed?  Let’s free the words.

 

What it is:  This is a free course by email, a love missile from me to you.  Sign up and I’ll send you a letter writing prompt each day of the course.  Five prompts.  Five letters.

Why Outlaw Letters?  Because these will be no ordinary letters.  They will be the letters you didn’t know you still carry, the ones that want to escape.  Wild and reckless and surly drunk on freedom.

You get to write as much or as little as you want.  You can keep these letters tucked inside your journal, scribbled on a napkin in your satchel, or posted on your blog.  You can keep these letters close to your heart–or mailed across the country to the person who needs to read them most.

When:  January 26-30th

What you need:  Your favorite writing supplies

Who this is for:  This free course is for you if you have words that want to be written.  Words you are ready to lay down.  Stories that need to spill.  This course is for you if you are curious about the letters inside of you.

Sign up here.   

You will receive your first email on January 25th, on the eve of Outlaw Letters!

the Skillet Card

It was a morning I just couldn’t shake the funk.  I was restless and unmoored.

Turning to the deck, I pulled this card.  The one that reads, flip the pancakes, make the stew, use the cloth napkins.  This is the card that invites savoring and slowing and steeping in the sensual.  This is the card that asks, what does your body crave?

I didn’t want this card.  I didn’t want to slow or cook or savor.  But I let it in.  The words of this card became a balm for my day.

I filled my Nalgene bottle with cranberry water and drank until my thirst was gone.  I spread the thick creamy comforter over my legs and cuddled on the couch.  I dabbed rose oil on my wrists and lit my soy candle.  I read more of the Soul of Money.  I let the chili bubble on the stove and ate a piece of chocolate cake that Grandma made.  I listened to their voices down the hall.  I stepped outside to take a quick photo of the sunset.  I soaked it all in.

And when evening fell, the words that came uninvited, but certainly inspired from all this medicine, were this:  sacred expansion.

And so it is.  Sacred expansion.  Movement forward.  Wisdom brewing.  In the steeping and the slowing and the savoring.

If you are interested in more and want a deck of your own, you can order right here.

fresh cravings

I’m thinking of wishes today and desire and magical things.  Here is the latest round-up of my fresh cravings.

1. I want a hand-mapping from Isabel.  A constellation of my true lines and thru-lines and lines that have yet to unfold.
2. I want this print from Alex Franzen to hang in my Airstream trailer.
3. I want to brunch here with soul sisters in March.  I want to make it to Malibu and drive down the coast to Big Sur and soak in hot springs.  Just because we only live once.
4. I am so ready for this course with Pixie to begin.  And speaking of wishes and wanderlust, her retreats in Oregon look rather divine, as well!
5. I have been eyeing this cozy sweater.  Scouting it out.  I think it would be fly with my new black suede leggings.
6. I want to make this list with my love on New Year’s Eve.  Then drink some Prosecco along with a few oysters.  And call it a year!

What about you?  What are you craving and wishing and scouting and loving?

Solstice, A Birth Story

Solstice and lunar eclipse, she came with so much energy she was unstoppable.

Walking alone, just me and her, for most of the day, through the side streets. Stopping for breath and hugging a tree. Panting under the twinkle lights of the tree, on all fours. Shedding my clothes. Calling him to finally come home. The snow started. And I heard the doula say to him, call the midwife, we’ll have a baby soon, as she moved me to the pallet on the floor.

Dark and light were one and the same. I laid on my side remembering to pant trying so hard to hold her in until the midwife came. When I was scared and lost she said, your body knows what to do. Trust yourself. I breathed some more. And for a few moments everything stopped. Laying on my side, I looked up to the top of the window. Facing west. Out at the fading sunlight. Breathing and panting. Hearing her words. Knowing there was no turning back. Knowing I had everything within me to do this. Knowing I had to. Knowing I would move through this fire, that this fire was moving through me. Knowing, with absolute certainty, that there was no other way. And with one more growl, she was here. On my belly all slick and warm.

They said she cried something fierce but all I remember is the stillness, the end, the landing. All I remember is her warmth and her certainty and that I was just a conduit. A bundle of light. She was so ready to come.

Her Table

What I remember most about her kitchen isn’t the smell of the cigarettes smoldering in the orange plastic tray on the counter. It isn’t the roast simmering in the oven or how I would slink to the cabinet for butter crackers when she wasn’t looking. What I remember most isn’t how my aunt would stand with the hair dye in hand, setting her hair in pink spongy rollers. I don’t remember what the card game was that we played or all the words to “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” that she sang to the littlest ones as they rested on her lap. What I remember most isn’t the bitter taste of the coffee she would pour into the china cup he brought her back from the war and how she’d fill it mostly with cream for me to drink.

What I remember in my bones is the tangle of these women, not always easy and not always soft. But always with love.  A tangle of words filled with small town gossip and the latest from Aunt Bev’s letter and the question of what to sell at the church bazaar. Her table. An everyday altar of love, crowded with these women. Best friends and daughters. Sisters. Coffee and cigarettes. A tangle of the living.