Author * Inspirational Speaker * Writer
Last week, I received a phone call that brought tears to my eyes.
Last summer I took a road-trip west and vowed to make it epic – just by more intentionally immersing myself in the experience. After my first stop in Wallace, Idaho, and a particularly rewarding stop-and-smell-the-roses moment in Coeur d’Alene, I knew I was on to something. So, I made my first day in Vancouver Washington…
It’s been FOREVER since I wrote about my trip west last summer (I have good reasons – you can even read about some of them. But I can’t tell you about the biggest one. Not yet. I promise I will though.) and it occurred to me it might come off a bit ridiculous to write…
I like to think of myself as, um, durable? You know, rugged, kind of… in a ‘put-your-head-down-and-get-through-it’ sort of way. But as I recover from one of my more difficult physical challenges I feel compelled to tell you that my perception of myself was somewhat shaken. Or, more accurately, rocked to the core. Last month…
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks in my world… this time of year in the Black Hills of South Dakota often is… especially for a motorcycle lover. I got to do several book signings throughout the event, met some incredible people, made some new contacts… all in all it was great. And there were…
I love to travel. LOVE. I really love to travel alone. And it seems that at least 70% of the time when I do, I head west. Often, I think, because I feel a sense of safety and connected-ness in the mountains. So when I received an invitation to attend a friend’s wedding in Oregon,…
It’s been a wild few weeks here in my little corner of the world. Well, more like a wild month. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s been a pretty wild year. Of course, I know I’m not the only person harboring that sentiment, but, since I can only really tell my story… I…
Not long ago, I had the chance to visit Phoenix, Arizona for the premier of a movie directed by a documentary film maker whose acquaintance I’d recently made. It was a great trip, overall, it really was. I had the chance to actually hang out with a friend of a friend of mine, with whom…
There are a lot of things I love about hiking with my pup, Rumi. The way her tail gets a kink in the end when she’s really, really excited, for example. The way her tongue falls out of the side of her mouth when she’s really tired. The way she runs and wags her tail…
I stink. No, like I actually stink. A lot. It seems that no matter how much I scrub, shave, or employ my hippy-style deodorant, I always smell just a little bit like garlic and onion. Which is especially weird because I don’t eat many onions. I do eat a lot of garlic though. I know…
Years and years ago, after I’d made a particularly silly mistake… while driving… and talking on my cell phone…the driver I’d inadvertently cut off (because I didn’t see him, of course) followed me up the street screaming out his window until I pulled over and he could properly shame me on the side of the…
I’ve never taken criticism very well. It’s something I want to work on because I know that constructive criticism can be valuable. Not easy to hear, perhaps, but valuable. General criticism, on the other hand, is never valuable. Assuming we have any real understanding of others lives and how they should be lived is, in…
Create. Messily. Badly. Just create and set your god-self free.
Weird stuff happens to me. I mean, weird stuff happens to everyone of course but I get the sense that I have particularly weird luck. And, I do a LOT of weird things, knowingly (we’ll get into those in subsequent posts.) According to the Secret Code of Birthdays, my mother’s inability to exert perfect control…
Last year about this time I took a little road trip. Just me and my dog, wandering around the Northwest Coast, looking for… well, I’m still not really sure what I was looking for, but something in me said I’d find it in the Redwoods or the ocean. So we headed west. I learned a…
I got older this weekend. I mean, of course I did – I get older every day – but this weekend the calendar marked the occasion. This fact by itself doesn’t bother me. In fact, for a couple of months now I’ve considered myself as old as the calendar just made me – and said…
A little while ago I came to the realization that I need to get out more. That’s one of the things about working as a writer / marketer / event planner… I end up spending a lot of time alone. And because I like to be alone, I spend a good bit of my personal…
I do it a lot. A LOT. I don’t really want to be doing it. It fully contradicts my entire belief system in terms of the way we treat each other. It sounds both demeaning and pretentious as it comes out of my mouth. I cringe and bristle and scold myself even as the words…
It had been about a year or so, I suppose, of attending classes at my favorite yoga studio in town with some regularity; usually the same three or four classes on the same three or four days. It was inevitable then, really… despite my desire to remain somewhat anonymous, keep my focus on myself, and…
I hiked like a hobbit on Sunday. Barefoot. There wasn’t really any one reason why… I’d heard many times about the benefits of direct contact with the earth, it was hot, my socks were itching me… it happened about 200 feet in or so, I guess. I stopped for a drink of water and noticed…
Every so often you get the chance to do something ordinary that becomes something more. Something extraordinary. The weekend just past was one such occasion. The something extraordinary was the first ever trip with my younger sister. Just she and I. No partners, no parents… she even bravely left behind both of her magical little…
“Church” today was incredible. As my loyal readers and dear friends know, I “get to God” differently than the term ‘Church’ would imply. I think of God differently than the term God would imply too, but it makes sense to people so I use it anyway. I won’t get in to what I think or…
Delicious, easy, vegan cream of mushroom soup!
The sun must be rising, somewhere behind me. The tops of the trees outside my window are blushing ever deeper shades of pink. Their stark, winter bare branches provide a perfect canvas on which to reflect the colors of dawn. Losing myself in them brings a quiet joy to my heart. Or maybe the joy…
It’s been a rough year. Not so much for me, personally, but more for the place I hold in the world. This time last year I was sure 2016 was truly going to be a good year. I really believed my world was turning a corner to a more loving, more patient, more kind corner…
For the last most-of-a-decade I’ve followed the news closely. MY news, of course – the one that aligns (generally) with my particular set of ideals, but news all the same. (Yes, NEWS. Fact checked, largely straight forward and truthful, calm, both-sides-of-the-issue-represented NEWS. If you aren’t already aware, not all news is that way.) I liked…
Earlier this summer I took a lovely little trip, by myself, to wherever I happened to decide to go on any given day. I had a long term goal of landing somewhere on the Northwest Coast – Oregon-ish – but no real schedule and no commitments. I wanted to follow my heart. I needed to…
It’s the kind of freedom that makes it OK to sleep in your car, eat at nice restaurants in otherwise-unacceptably-casual clothes, and take pictures of EVERYTHING.
I overheard a conversation the other day that saddened my heart more than I can say. An attractive, apparently healthy and intelligent young man was lamenting to his friend the elusiveness of “happy”. To illustrate his point he mentioned he worked in a dead-end, entry level job, rented a home that wasn’t his, had no…
Years and years ago a friend of mine asked me to go with her for a hike. After work. Way out of town. To watch the moon rise. Sounds great right? I didn’t want to go. I had things to do at home, I wanted to get my dogs out for a hike much closer…
It’s been a weird winter here. Extraordinarily long. Our first (HUGE) snowfall came in the first week of October. And It’s snowing today. Big, fat, beautiful flakes that I’m trying really hard to enjoy, instead of wishing them away. We’ve also had a lot of random occurrences of “Spring”. Even in February when snow and…
“Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won’t come again…” ~Bob Dylan. I don’t know why but those lyrics have been in my mind and heart of late. I’m sure as we get to spend some more time together you’ll understand that I have a kind…
Breakups suck. Possibly more than anything else sucks, breakups S.U.C.K. There are a lot of reasons, of course, but there a few that make leaving someone you – at least at one time – loved, suck so much more. First of all, it’s a choice. It isn’t one of those ‘rise above adversity’ things. It…