Sage started kindergarten on Monday. Over the past months, I have ridden the waves of emotion that come with a big life change like this. Shedding random tears while reading a supply list or an administrative email, feeling joy at meeting and running into new school friends in the neighborhood, and ultimately facing the gut-wrenching reality that we can never really slow down time as I gave her my final hug and watched her carry her giant backpack into school for the first time.

I sometimes think I was more meant for motherhood than anything and other times think that I will crumble under the burden and weight of emotion that I must carry in this role, I recognize that burden could be far greater as I am experiencing motherhood under some of the more privileged circumstances among mothers of our world. And still, it all feels like too much.

I am beyond proud. I am grateful for the three whole weeks I had with both kids before school started, and the extra weekdays with them over the past year. I am excited for new beginnings. And I am sad for the special days we won’t get back. There’s a quote I discovered during another season of change in my life that remains among my favorites: The wisest are those who are annoyed by the passing of time. I simultaneously despise how time slips away and appreciate the truth that it’s all fleeting and we ought to make the most of it. Sage and I made the most of it last week.

Given the reality of our country and world, striking the right balance of letting go and holding on tight feels precarious. It can be easy to spiral about the future and worst case scenarios. But I will continue aiming my perspective toward gratitude, and I will do my best to believe that the future is bright.

Hugs to everyone who’s doing a little hold on & let go dance with the start of a new year.

Yesterday we moved back into our sweet little messy home, after nearly two months of work + delays following an electrical fire outside our house. We’ve each called eight different beds temporarily ours during this endeavor. I’m also now three days away from the end of my spring quarter, which has been overshadowed almost entirely by the uncertainty, shifting timelines, and management of this whole mess.

Sometimes I believe my brain needs disruptions for me to feel more alive. To create perspective for what matters, spark gratitude for the incredible community and support we have. I’ve been asking for help a lot which is not something I’m typically good at. In the scheme of life and the world, this is insignificant. But I’m still very tired, and it has felt like a lot in the moment. I have struggled to show up as the best version of myself in any of my roles.

For a while now, I’ve been fixated on this idea of needing a bigger house. I thought we were bursting at the seams. I don’t really feel that way anymore. We are actually incredibly lucky. The kids and I walked to the coffee shop when we got back, and it made me happy to think about how there are so many friends we could run into there. I am just so grateful to be grounded and in our neighborhood again. We actually have plenty and I’m considering what it might be link to just be glad for that instead of wanting more.

Sage and I made it to the mother mountan twice this year. Somehow, I hadn’t been in the park since 2020! The first day, in June, was one of my favorite days of parenting ever. I was on sabbatical and considered going alone to do something more epic like climb to Camp Muir. Instead, I pulled her out of school and we journeyed to Paradise together. I think we hiked a total of only 1.75 miles over the course of some four hours. But the trek from paradise is hella steep for a four year old and, on snow, my girl was a trooper. Being there with her, hearing her exclaim “wow” under her breath once when she spotted a new view, the drama of shooing a marmot away from our lunch spot, spying pretty little mountain quail, witnessing her enthusiasm glissading on repeat and digging snow forts at the end… it was all quite special. I always feel something almost spiritual when I’m in that place and it’s hard to describe the amount of hoy that it brought me to see her revel in it, too.

Parenting is tedious in a lot of circumstances. Especially taking one or both kids skiing or hiking. It’s like extra-type 2 fun. Always worth it to me, but tedious nonetheless. And somehow, on this day, even though it was a lot of work, it didn’t feel tedious in the least. My struggles-to-slow-down self was more content to go 100% at her pace and truly be present. Ii felt the way I imagine I will feel when I get to spend a rare and sacred day with one of my teenage or adult children. So when I think back on all the days of my year, this is one I know I’ll always remember. I hope she will, too, even if only the part where we shared ice cream together on the way home.

The second day was my first time there in the fall, with our dear friend and hiking bud. We went further and I carried Sage most of the way. It was more on par for tedium. But she did some snow scrambling, saw a family of bears, and made it to over 7,000 feet. On both trips, she asked if we were going to the top. So then I started to tell her bedtime stories of future us going back every year, hiking a little further, and one day summiting together. Guess I’m not so chill after all.

Fall is well underway and I am very happy about it. But summer fly by so fast, I didn’t even take the time to fully appreciate that August marked five years of Josh and I living in Seattle. Which is momentous because our original plan when we moved here was to stay for “3-5 years”. We told our friends and family (and ourselves) that this would be our west coast adventure. Be the longer we’ve stayed, the more we’ve made a home here and the more impossible it has felt that we could leave.

Last weekend, we got to see lots of our East Coast loves and felt the usual pull to live closer to them. But returning to Seattle also felt like coming home. We can’t know what the next five years will bring. And, frankly, it’s scary to think about given the apocalypse we already seem to be living in. So I”m going to keep doing my best to be present, live and love life where we are, and stop wasting my energy pining over the fact that we’ve split our hearts in two and spread them across thousands of miles.

I never posted these pictures from our magical end to summer weekend in Doe Bay. The main reasons it feels impossible we could ever leave: places like these and people like these.

It’s strange to think back on the weekend before the 2016 election. How naive we were to what was coming. How my optimism about the future of our country would sink for the next 2+ years. The alternating feelings that would ensue almost daily - appalled, sad, scared, angry, and numb to the constant barrage of news of hateful acts of violence; blatant racism and misogyny; policies attempting to further oppression, division, and exploitation; and incomprehensible falsehoods and fear mongering. I struggle to understand how we can be so polarized. How people can see the world - and our responsibility as human beings sharing communities, cities, a country, and this planet - so drastically differently.

I started to feel more hopeful this weekend than I have in a long time. Maybe it was Senator Patty Murray’s inspiring words at a canvas event in Auburn, WA on Saturday. Maybe it was the young daughter of the man who opened the first door we knocked on, waving and smiling at us, like the whole world and her furutre was as bright and sparkly as the outfit she was wearing. Maybe it was the coverage I watched of the NYC marathon, an event uniting tens of thousands of people from around the world in one of my favorite cities. Maybe it’s the knowledge that my right to vote, our collective right to vote, and our acting on that right, could create real change tomorrow. Something more to hope for in the midst of hate and division.

What makes you hopeful? What do you desire for yourself, for your children, for your community, and for your country? Go vote for the people who you believe will work for that. This is it. Your chance. our chance. Vote for change!

My parents just arrived back in Maryland after their return cross-country drive home from Seattle. It’s kind of hard to believe they were just here, many states and many miles from where they are now. And the number of days and hours that it took to get between the two.

A pandemic is never something I even considered when choosing to move across the country from everything we knew, or when deciding to have a baby 3,500 miles away from most of her family. Time feels shorter than ever. Distance feels further than ever. But we still have connection and love. And now we have the memories from three weeks of in-person togetherness with our 6 month old and her grandparents, during a period of exciting milestones.

There is a spirit about my parents that I’ve always admired. The spirit that had them driving across the country in a pandemic, sleeping in a tent in their 60s/70s, peeing in a coffee can to avoid Covid exposure in public restrooms, joining Zoom happy hours from the road, and visiting with childhood friends of each of theirs along the way. I hope that spirit carries through generations in to the feisty little explorer who they came to see. I hope, like my mom wished for me as I left DC for Seattle, she grows up to have strong roots and wings. If she does, I know where she’ll have gotten them.