Dun dun dun…….

I put my head under water in the swimming pool.

I donned goggles and became a mermaid, floating underwater, twirling and hand- standing to my joyful delight.

It was a freedom that I haven’t felt in decades.

And why? Why have I not gallivanted at the pool, swimming freely up and down and all around?

A few reasons.

One, I got contacts when I was 12. The eye doctor said “when you can keep your room clean, you can get contacts”. I was MOTIVATED, I kept my room clean, I got contacts.

Once you have contacts you find out quickly that you want to keep water away from them at all costs. They slide out of your eye or become uncomfortable far too easily. Meddling with contacts is not fun the way they slip and slide all over.

And no way was I going to the pool without them, I couldn’t see more than 3 feet in front of me, everything was a big blur, how I had functioned before knowing I needed contacts is beside the point. But definitely a no-go at the pool.

And so I became a little annoying about not being splashed at the pool and leaned into the sun-worshipper side of myself instead, spending most of my time NEXT to the pool, not actually in it.

Two, I started to care about my hair and the time I would have to put into my hair if it got wet. UGH. A hair wash day sometimes takes it out of me. Especially now living in humidity, the washing of hair includes adding oils and straight-irons and devoting time to brushing, you know the drill.

It’s a sweaty, long process that is worth it in the end, but the idea of putting my head under water on a non-hair washing day is beyond hard. (And as I write this I realize how annoying that sounds, but you girls get me.)

Three, skin issues. I spent so much of my teens and twenties tempering my skin from non-stop breakouts and the horror magazines throw at you about NOT putting anything on your skin scared me enough that I figured chlorine wasn’t good for it. I’m not even sure if that’s true. I’m also afraid of sunburn and my baby blue eyes are sensitive to the sunshine without sunglasses.

But now, as an almost forty-year-old, all of those things have been solved.

I got LASIK at 28 so no more contacts (one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!), I just don’t care as much about my hair now (but also because I don’t go into a daily job where I need to look more put-together), and my skin seems to be much more consistent having found what works and having more mature skin. Woohoo, aging has a lot of benefits.

Oh and turns out, when you’re underwater your eyes don’t hurt from the sun so you’re not squinting.

So those problems being vanished, last weekend I decided to take the plunge, literally.

And literally it felt like all the years fell away from me as a went under and when I came up panting for air because I haven’t really held my breath in awhile, I felt like ten-year-old me.

What delight.

And what delight my girls had. “Mama is in the pool, UNDERWATER, hand-Standing!”, they kept yelling to each other.

It was like when I started riding my bike to work a few years back, I had this unbridled sense of freedom. Pure joy.

It was so.much.fun.

Seriously though.

I couldn’t stop. I was coming up for air gasping and immediately going right back down to the bottom of the pool. I was like a baby beluga in the deep blue sea (you know the tune), swimming so wild and swimming so free (I’m humming in my head right now, I hope you are too).

A new level of motherhood unlocked for me. I was suddenly the mom who plays in the pool. What? Not a role I would have seen for myself. But contact free is the way to be!

It’s one of those things I had just gotten used to and because I was so used to not getting my hair wet or going underwater at the pool it just hadn’t crossed my mind to do it.

What made the shift for me? A few things: the girls constantly asking me to join them in play of course, but I think the biggest. Nick said something a few weeks back that was something like “you never know when the last time you will experience something is”.

Did I really want to have the last time that I did a handstand underwater be when I was in my early teens?

I think that line of thinking jolted me and made me realize that sure my stint with contacts kept me away from water for awhile, but that was a blip in my life, I haven’t had contacts for a decade now. And so, things could change again.

And I made that shift happen.

I had a thought and I immediately acted upon the thought.

Oh, that’s another reason for the shift. I also read an article about motivation (I’m always trying to figure out how to motivate my student(s).) The article said something to the extent that people who are most successful act on their ideas immediately.

They think, they do. There is no wait-around-and-see time.

So combined, those ideas sparked a fuse in me to jump on in.

The switch up was good for me

.I needed to take that plunge. I just didn’t know it until after I was submerged.

I thought, I did, I enjoyed.

Immensely.

And I will do it again.

And again.

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And yet, each age I get to doesn’t seem to match how I feel inside.

I’m eternally a teenager. I don’t think I’m alone in this phenomenon.

I have the fierce, undeterred optimism that teenagers often have.

Often, people call this naivety, but I don’t agree with that. It’s more of an unbridled freedom in looking toward the future, the wind in my hair, a smile on my lips.

Which can often be hard when the world buoys against me, trying to pull me under the waves of jadedness and discontent.

Optimism is hard to hang on to. It’s slippery and elusive sometimes. But it can be honed and anchored in the teenage years.

High School Amy, behold the angst and determination of teenage-dom.

When you are a teenager, the world feels so big and so full of possibility. There is so much dreaming and so much trust that the future will bring you exactly what you want.

Every decision you make feels so important and so lasting. Who you are at that point in your life is the you that you spend your 30s trying to find again.

I think the draw to youthfulness is the “dreamer” aspect of it. All of your potential just sits there, without the expectation or the actual work needed yet. The teenager just gets to bask in POTENTIAL.

There are a few teenage characters I could describe who demonstrated potential to me in books and movies, but one stands out in my mind, highlighted in pink.

Legally Blonde was my “comfort” movie in high school. My junior year of high school was a rough one for me; I got some strange sickness where my body decided not to create white blood cells, and I spent what felt like an eternity (most of the school year) in and out of school. I felt so weak that often my mom would have to brush my hair after a shower because that one action had sucked all of my energy.

(Side note: there was no definitive illness. After months, I started to gain my strength back and feel better. But it did create in me a fear of getting sick that I’ve only now finally warded off.)

I felt so hopeless and felt my teenage dreams falter and begin to shatter. I remember wailing to my mom: “I will nevvvvveer get to go to college. I won’t have any energy ever. I can’t leave home.”

Now, as a parent, I realize how hard this must have been for my mom, but she remained calm and steady. My rock in the storm. Thanks, Mom!

When I felt lower than low then (which was often), I would put on Legally Blonde and slowly break the surface again. The Elle Woods character inspired me to rejoin the world and shine my light again. Elle is such a vibrant character who inspired me to revive myself and get on with it. She made me trust that I would become me again. And be bubbly and fun again. She was the inspiration I needed.

If you don’t know the movie or the character, Elle Woods is a character who sort of floats along in the world she is expected to live in. When suddenly she doesn’t get her way, she is shaken and made to find herself and stand up for what she believes in. Along the way, she realizes that determination and positive thinking are the keys to success, as well as self-reliance and self-confidence.

Even my brother-in-law (then he was just my sister’s boyfriend) brought home the life-size cardboard cutout of Elle Woods from Hollywood Video because he knew I idolized her so much.

I even did high school debate (and won state!) because of her.

So, when the new prequel to Legally Blonde, Elle, came out on Prime, I knew I had to watch. Watching the series as an adult re-sparked that sense in me, immediately reinvigorating my sense of self and purpose. I felt the same sort of revival that I did as a teen.

I loved watching a high school series again. High schoolers are so full of purpose and feel like they can change the world. And this series didn’t disappoint. The problems were very “high school,” and the way Elle solves them was also very juvenile, and yet, it was refreshing to watch. A bright-eyed, un-jaded character that you can fall in love with and root for is exactly the type of character I needed again.

And Elle’s positivity reminds me of my own. I often feel like the positivity that I have gets trampled on and can annoy people. It’s nice to see a main character not get diverted by people trying to discourage her from being hopeful. Elle Woods is my kindred spirit. She reminds me to shine my light proudly.

AND I’ll get to share her with my girls.

As my girls become teenagers, they will find their own way, share their own positivity, and try (in their own ways) to change the world. And I will get to play their sidekick. And I will get to be their sounding board. And I will get to root them on.

What a joy it will be to witness my teenagers’ engagement with the world. To witness their black-and-white thinking (and dabbling in gray) and their excitement to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

It will reinvigorate my excitement about life. I will get to see the world in new ways. They will teach me the modern ways of doing things and challenge my ways of thinking. And I’m thrilled. I cannot wait.

Teenage-hood feels like an activation time period.

Activate.

Take Flight.

As I’ve grown, I’ve learned so much. I’ve reinvented myself time and time again. And I find my teenage self again. Over and over.

Amy Ash.

Isn’t she cute, and fun? And fiery?

Forever finding that light.

What, like it’s hard? — Elle Woods in Legally Blonde

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I’m at a horse stable.

It’s idyllic.

To say the least.

And my 10 year old is currently in the barn, grooming a horse named Freddie.

She is glowing. Actually lit up from within.

How can I explain this feeling.

Bliss.

For a child who has spent most of her life anxious, this is bliss.

It’s an interesting thing to see your child live a dream you’ve had in the back of your mind since you were young. I grew up around ranches and went horseback riding at camp each summer. I grew up in the west, the famous backdrop of Cowboy movies, feeling free and feral. I always dreamed of riding bareback, my hair blowing in the wind, as I laughed in a way that showed loyalty to the soul.

This dream was never really a reality. I could probably have asked my parents for horse lessons; I could have worked in a stable. I had access to them, but, I just never did. It was one of those faraway dreams, in the back of your mind, that don’t really come to fruition, they’re just sort of there.

Until we took our girls to ride for their first time and that dream came rushing to the forefront. But not for me. For them. And specifically for the ten year old because it feels like it’s her time.

Pride. Bliss.

Those are the words I can use to describe the feeling. Perhaps I held this dream in the back of my mind as a future-knowing. I am a dreamer, a knower. Maybe this is that time.

This is new, however. I won’t get ahead of myself. But this animal-love, this animal-calling. It’s always been there for me. For her. For her, deeper.

A dream within a dream.

Maybe it’s a pull towards nature, so important for our human souls. But especially for the souls of us deep-feelers. And to be with animals who fully accept us for who we are. We don’t perform for them, we symbiotically love with them. We just are, as we embrace each other in affection.

Like the cat purring at my side, it feels like an invitation to fully love and we’ve only just met. But an animal taking a liking to you, what a feeling!

I recently watched a Turkish documentary about the city cats that live in Istanbul called “Kedi” (highly recommend) and one of the people interviewed said something to the extent of “a cat choosing you feels like something divine choosing you”. I felt that, not just with cats, but when any animal chooses you it does feel symbolic.

There is a depth of feeling there that is unable to be replicated. Not even when another human chooses you.

It must be the underlying love for one another that cannot be spoken, except through touch, with animals that feels so holy.

And yes, it does feel reverent, if you pause and take it in.

What luck to love and be loved by animal.

And so, I watch her fill the water bucket at the stable, lead the horse with an ease, and trot- sitting confidently, in the spot where I can see she belongs.

Racing towards her dreams. In her time. In her place.

And it’s bliss.

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Encapsulating rain

Give a glow that feels

Radiant

From another time

Another place

Where summer rules

Endlessly

A land of rainbows

Shining in unexpected places

Reminding me

That summer exists

Always

It’s those moments that you already know

Are memories

The ache within

Knowing

The beauty of today is already gone

It’s tender

Sadness akin to

a punch in the gut

Takes over

Eyes welling

It’s too much beauty

How are we to take it

Summer

Golden moments

On a horse

Trotting

Wild and free

Singing in all the moments

Splashing water in the pool

Cannonballs,

Laughter,

Bikes,

Slapping mosquitos

Laughing as the thunder rolls in

Bedtimes not as rigid

Feels more like life

Ride the wave

Go with the flow

Go the direction to horse is going

Sleep in

Sweat

And enjoy the freedom within the framework

It doesn’t last

It never does

But it comes again

If we’re lucky

And if we notice

Watch

Watching your child create something

An idea come to life

Is the greatest joy

The light from Within

Glows

In all the spaces

They exist because

They create

And it stands in their place

As a representation of something

That lives inside of them

Always to exist

In a material world

From an ethereal place

Dreamed into being

When they are gone

It remains

A moment

Frozen

Alight

Tending for a garden

Shows us that

You never know which seed will thrive

Which seed will hide

Which seed will die

Which needs the sun,

Which needs the rain

Which needs to be tended to

Or left alone

Each in their own time

Without your guidance

Hands on

Hands off

Until the perfect moment

To add to a meal

For the crunch

The texture

The taste

That demonstrates

Its exact moment of need

Of want

It’s interesting

When life reminds you

You are happy anywhere you are

I haven’t looked at the moon lately

It gets dark too late

Which is an excuse

Because I’m up late

Moon

The pull to you is strong

But only in winter

Too much light in summer

Already

My relationship with rain is complicated

My head feels the rain

The clouds hide the light

I’m a sun goddess

Sun worshipper

Rain makes me

Moody

But sometimes refreshed

Like the cleanse my soul

Needs

But doesn’t really think it wants

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We’ve been saying this to each other for the past month, we are most definitely a house a dreamers and do-ers. I’ll let you decide who is who in our bunch.

But, it’s a perfect combination of vision and planning. Some magic has come alive through that vision of life; we are where we are today because we are dreamers.

We recently got back from a month-long (!) vacation to Arizona. There is something magic about Arizona, the sky is big, the backgrounds are vibrant, and the pull to nature is strong.

Here are a few things that captivated me this month:

1. The Grand Canyon

I’ve always like the funny memes that say something like “You can’t please everyone, even The Grand Canyon gets bad reviews” like: “Just a bunch of rocks”, “just a big hole in the ground”, etc. Walking up to The Grand Canyon always feels holy; the colors combined with the heat swirl before your eyes, creating a mirage-like impression and you’re left saying “WOW” which is an understatement and something I can’t help repeating over and over. It was so fun to see the girls experience this for the first time as they both stood speechless and in awe, reverence even. This does not often happen to them so it was a moment that I cherished. What an incredible landscape that I’ve gotten to share with so many people in my life. I spent my summers in Arizona so went a few times as a kid. I went to college in Flagstaff at Northern Arizona University and went multiple times with groups of good friends. I’ve been with relatives, taken international friends, and now with my created family. What an incredible experience. I love when the natural beauty of the world reminds you how small you are and how small any problems you may be experience are. I love when you are reminded that you are a part of something bigger and more beautiful than you can ever imagine. I get a rush, what a high. It’s captivating.

2. Ponderosa Pines

One of the joys of the Ponderosa Forests of Arizona is not just looking at the incredible beauty of these trees but in putting your nose right into their bark and taking a big huff; they smell like vanilla and butterscotch. I was pretty tickled when I didn’t even have the chance to tell the girls this before Tegan stuck her nose in deep as she was hugging the tree and yelled “MOM, this smells SO good!”. What a proud mama I was in that moment. I love how much the girls embrace and adore the natural world around them. That summer smell feels like coming home to me.

3. Monsoons

Monsoons are summer afternoon thunderstorms that roll through pretty intensely in Arizona starting in July. Our trip coincided with the start of monsoon season and it did not disappoint. Now, I have a love/hate relationship with monsoons because they are absolutely beautiful, the clouds create incredible colors and patterns and they cool off the day by something 20-30 degrees which is wild. BUT, their intensity is scary. I’ve had two specific encounters that shook me and still shake me today; we were hiking and a storm came out of absolutely nowhere and a tree got struck right in front of our eyes, not even 20 yards away—loudest sound I’ve heard in my life, shook every part of me. You better believe I bolted to the car. AND in college at NAU kids were playing football on a field right outside my window right before a storm was rolling in, I happened to turn at the exact moment that a kid got struck by lightning right there before my eyes. Absolutely terrifying to see. (He did survive surprisingly, but he was paralyzed from the neck down). Those two experiences have made me a bit of a baby during monsoons but I’m trying to rationalize that since I’ve seen those two things, I can’t possibly have another experience like that just pure probability right? But it doesn’t mean I don’t shiver and have to breathe deeply. I try to take in the beauty rather than the fear, going along for the ride. But, wow, monsoons are a trip. Nature is incredible.

4. Horseback Riding

The girls got to go on their first official horseback ride at Porter Mountain Stables in Pinetop, AZ and they are now officially horse-girls. They LOVED it. And were naturals. Our horses: Hope, Cedar, Warrior, and Lark gave us a great ride: we went through water, trotted, and even ran uphill. The girls took it all in stride and were thrilled by the dopamine hits of it all. They are hooked and yes, we are researching stables in the area. There is definitely something about being up on a horse, I think it taps into our American spirit of pioneering and being one with nature. There feels like such freedom when you’re trotting along with the big blue sky above you. What joy.

5. Books/Movies/TV Shows

   Separate from nature is the imaginative world which also captivated us this trip. The new Little House on the Prairie show came out when we were in Flagstaff; we watched an episode each afternoon as our downtime and it was such fun to watch in the Forest landscape of our VRBO. Just like I did as a kid, the girls embraced Laura and after watching would go out into the yard in their long dresses and braids with the slingshot we bought at the farmers market and play pioneers. Like the teacher I am, I enjoyed watching the girls play and create these worlds. The new show was a softer version of things of course, but the heartfelt and encouraging messages are just what we need in today’s world.

   I also watched a movie from Nick’s recommendation (he watched it on the plane to AZ and I watched it on the way back), it was called Rental Family, a movie created by a Japanese Director about a company that “rents” out people to act specific parts in people’s lives. For example, rent out a dad to get into a private school or rent out a journalist to make your elderly father feel important again, etc. It was one of the most touching and moving films I have seen in a while, focusing on the human element of connection and what moves us, what is and what isn’t important. And maybe it was the intimacy of watching with headphones on a plane with a small screen and nowhere else to be, but, it felt reverent and I teared up multiple times with intense emotion at just how hard being human can be sometimes, and also how beautiful. That is the perfect kind of movie for me.

   Then, my parents had been watching Leave It to Beaver and had us join in on the nightly watching and boy was it fun. I love how short (20 minutes) an episode is and how wholesome. I love the neatness of a Beaver having a problem and the parents having the ability to solve that problem, with humor and love. I also loved how slow moving and how simple the lines and storylines were. The girls were captivated and we’ve carried on the tradition of watching an episode a night now that we are home. Fun. Often, shows are timeless and watching something in black and white and much more slow-moving has been refreshing from the high color, brightness, fast moving tv shows of today.

All in all, it was a month of slowing down and living in the moment, encompassed by nature and moving with with the weather. It was the reset we all needed to embrace the coming school year with its own excitement and routines.

We’re re-inspired and recharged, going from dreaming under an Arizona sky to relishing in the South Carolina island breezes.

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Wide open spaces, room to make her big mistakes... The Chicks had it right.

I’m instantly propelled back to that sweet, innocent, wide-eyed dreamer of a girl.

Now, as we weave through the mountains surrounding Flagstaff, I can feel those same vibrations coming from my girls in the backseat. The West offers an expansiveness and a magic of space that the East just can’t compete with. Maybe it’s the horizon. Maybe it’s the dry air. Maybe it’s simply the permission to breathe a little deeper.

There’s something about the West that invites dreaming.

The people have always felt different to me, too. Open, adventurous, deeply connected to the outdoors. Maybe I’m romanticizing it, but I’ve never minded being guilty of that. The places we love deserve a little romance.

It’s been a joy to watch my girls come alive here—hiking beneath towering Ponderosa pines, climbing boulders without hesitation, collecting pinecones and feathers as treasures. Watching them fall in love with a landscape that shaped me feels sacred.

Arizona has always been woven into my story. I spent summers splitting time between Tucson and Pinetop, spending countless hours outside exploring the desert and forests, both teeming with life in their own distinct ways. Those long summer days formed me before I ever realized places could do such a thing.

When it was time to leave home, I knew I wanted to attend Northern Arizona University and continue the legacy of Ashes at NAU, where both of my parents had studied before me. The campus, tucked among the mountains, felt exactly right. Through NAU’s Western Undergraduate Exchange Program, I had the opportunity to study abroad in France.

That’s where I met Nick.

After France, Nick moved to Flagstaff while I finished school, eventually working at the university himself. Before long, this mountain town belonged to both of us.

We spent the first five years of our marriage there. We adopted our first pet, Radar. We bought our first home. We planted a garden, built friendships, and learned what it meant to make a life together. Flagstaff witnessed so many of our firsts.

When work eventually called us east, we embraced the adventure. Charleston has become home in beautiful and unexpected ways, and I’m grateful for the life we’ve built there. But Flagstaff never stopped feeling like home too.

Some places simply live within you.

Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about what it means to pass beloved places down to your children; actual landscapes: mountains, forests, favorite hiking trails.

The cabin in Pinetop. The smell of sun-warmed pine needles. The way afternoon thunderstorms roll across the mountains in July.

These places are becoming part of my daughters’ stories now, just as they became part of mine.

I know I’m a romantic, but there is something deeply satisfying about watching your children fall in love with a place that has captured your own heart. The memories begin growing again, becoming a part of the next generation (the next chapter as I like to say).

The place remains the same, but the memories become wonderfully different. They become more vibrant, more modern.

Every time we come back, I feel the familiar pull to stay just a little longer. Who knows? Maybe one day life will bring us here again.

But even if it doesn’t, I’m beginning to realize that perhaps returning isn’t always about moving back. Sometimes it’s enough to revisit the places that remind you who you’ve always been.

Arizona does that for me.

It strips away all the noise of adulthood and, for a little while, introduces me again to that wide-eyed girl staring out the car window, believing the world was impossibly big and unimaginably full of promise. (I still believe!)

The sweetest part is realizing she’s no longer riding alone. Now my girls are beside her, looking out their own windows, making memories in the very places where I first dreamed.

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It struck me afterward that maybe getting older isn’t always about becoming someone new. Sometimes it’s about returning to the person you’ve always been.

We finally finished all the shows we’d been saving to watch together, and in one episode of Four Seasons, one of the characters says to another, “I get to be my playful 19-year-old self when I’m with you.” She goes on to explain that she spends so much of her life playing all these other roles—wife, mother, coworker—that the only time she really feels like her younger self is when she’s with the friend who has known her since she was nineteen.

It made me think about how lucky I am to have married my best friend at twenty-two. We met when we were twenty, and I still feel very much like that fun-loving, adventurous girl. I think it’s because when I picture Nick and me, I still see us at that age, running around France together, completely carefree. We still find fun almost anywhere we go. We still laugh at the same things. We still choose adventure whenever we can.

And maybe it’s because we have that snapshot of each other. I wonder if that’s how I’ll always see Nick—and maybe even how I’ll always see myself. Young and carefree is the root of us. It’s where we started, and we’ve carried that version of ourselves forward. Maybe there’s something really special about knowing your spouse when you’re both still growing up and then getting to grow together.

That feeling of returning to myself has been showing up in other places lately, too.

I remember my mom always telling me when I was a teenager that fashion trends always come back around. I’d show up wearing something and she’d laugh and say, “I used to have something just like that!”

Now here I am, the adult, and all the things I wanted to wear in high school are back again: denim skirts, anklets, hair accessories, tube tops... all of it. It’s so much fun reliving these trends (and this time with my own money to spend, ha!).

But maybe the best part isn’t the clothes. It’s the freedom.

I’m embracing it all and not giving a second thought to whether I’m “too old” for any of it. Who decided that anyway? I feel good. I like it. That’s reason enough.

I’ve noticed that same feeling while watching my little girls slowly turn into young women. More specifically, my ten-year-old.

She’s been stealing my shoes, my clothes, my accessories, my lip gloss. She’s doing yoga and dancing with me. Laying out in the sun beside me. Making little commentaries that sound suspiciously like mine.

It’s been this really sweet shift in our relationship. Less caretaker and more companion.

Sure, every once in a while I feel that little twinge of sadness. The one that whispers, You’re becoming less needed.

But then I remind myself—that was always the goal.

The goal wasn’t to have daughters who needed me forever. The goal was to raise daughters who would slowly become themselves.

I have to catch myself from making this season about me or my changing identity and instead make it about her blooming into her own person. We get to become a little more independent and a little less intertwined.

What a beautiful stage in the garden I’m tending.

And then there’s another female in my life: Zazzle, our cat.

While the girls were away at camp, she completely orbited me. She was velcroed to my side, following me from room to room. I think she felt safer when the girls (and their neighborhood friends) weren’t constantly holding her, dressing her up, picking her up, and putting her back down again.

It reminded me of when the girls were babies. Every night after I put them to bed, Radar, our chihuahua, would immediately find my lap and snuggle right into it. He knew it was finally his turn.

I loved that ritual then, and having Zazzle do something so similar felt magical and strangely nostalgic.

She sat with me while I read. Followed me into the kitchen while I cooked. Curled up beside me while I did yoga.

It was bliss.

I think we healed each other a little that week.

There’s something so deeply comforting about an animal choosing to be near you. Two beings who can’t speak the same language somehow offering one another love anyway.

What a gift.

And those are the things turning me on lately.

Beautiful moments.

Beautiful observations.

Beautiful reminders that time isn’t always taking something away.

Sometimes it’s giving something back.

Lately, it feels like time has been handing me little pieces of myself again. The young woman who still laughs with her husband. The teenager who still gets excited about a denim skirt. The mother who gets to cheer as her daughter becomes her own person. The quiet afternoons with a cat asleep in my lap.

Time passing is a beautiful thing.

I’m trying to see it not as sand slipping through my fingertips, but as the Northern Lights—always there, waiting for the right perspective to notice their beauty.

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I am used to this routine, it happens every Friday at noon. We live right on a city park and have a beautiful view of an open field surrounded by gorgeous 25-year-old live oaks.

On this day, I was drawn into the dance of the masculine sports culture and sat, entrapped, watching the beginning of the play.

I was drawn into observing the beauty of humans interacting. It was almost like I’d been dropped from somewhere out there, onto earth, to observe how humans connect and take notes to report back.

I often have these out-of-body experiences. I have a very active imagination. Always have, but my adult brain has begun to see things differently. And observe things that I normally would pay no mind to.

A few men were dropped off by wives or girlfriends, some arrived together, most separately and some by bike. They dropped their things and wandered into small groups to chat and catch up, then drifted into stretching and warming up with the ball, and finally into full on play. It was a seamless transition. One that looked choreographed and rehearsed. It was like watching the introduction to a play when all the characters get introduced in their specific setting; placing the viewer into the time and space continuum with these particular players. Like the viewer is now the omniscient narrator, knowing all that is happening, living along with these characters.

Something that struck me as I watched all of this transitioning: the calm that was exuded. There was no nervous energy, no anticipation, no rushing.

There was camaraderie and acceptance: welcoming and friendly. A sense of ease and competency.

Then, when play actually started, the vibe was the same. It was a game not of competition, but of strategy, of fun, of brotherhood at it’s definition.

Watching sports, especially men’s sports, can often feel tense and stressful.

Not at this play. It was calm, fully engaging, and so fun to watch.

There is a wide array of men from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and age groups that come to play. They are all of different skill levels, but seemingly, none of that matters. They are all there to enjoy, blow off steam, exercise and have fun.

At least that’s what it looks like from the outside.

It struck me as a beautiful representation of positive masculinity and of humanity.

And you know I love to romanticize things. This felt like the observation I needed to make of humans, I’ve felt so little faith in humans in the last few years in our current political and cultural state. I needed this little peek into the corners of quiet human life.

One of the men had brought his sons who couldn’t have been older than 4 and 6; they kicked the ball next to the men and I couldn’t help but be proud that those boys look at the men playing and think: “this is what men do”. I loved it. (Not me, wiping my tears).

Of course I’m romanticizing from the outside, a mere observer, making up my own narrative about the men and what was happening on the field. However, vibes are real and the vibrations coming from the field were as represented above: calm, fulfilling, positive.

Watching them in my own moment of peace made me feel proud for them, taking time to play a sport they love, showing up, committing, and creating an accepting environment. That’s the humanity we talk about when we speak of the importance of connecting and spending time in each other’s presence.

We can find moments of beauty all around us, if we but pause and notice. I gave myself permission to indulge, observe, and collect the vibrations of life. They will have no idea of the effect they had on me, and, the beauty in that is two-fold two. We never know who is observing our joy and it’s a reminder to live fully, connect fully, and be fully.

What luck to be reminded.

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The older I get, the more I think patriotism is represented on front porches, at block parties, in classrooms, and in neighborhoods. It is in ordinary people quietly deciding what kind of country they want to build and maintain, regardless of who happens to be leading it at the moment.

Imagine how the British saw us on the day of our birth. I think few thought this nation would last, let alone prosper.

But with a shitload of stubbornness, determination, and a fighting spirit, we have survived.

And here we are, once again, in the midst of political turmoil, with many of us feeling like we’ve lost sight of the original purpose of the United States. Depending on who you ask, it can feel like we’ve drifted far from the ideals we were founded on.

It’s easy to feel like we’re taking giant steps backward after so much progress.

But historically speaking, we’ve muddled through a lot of questionable morality and purpose over the last 250 years. We’ve fought wars with ourselves, argued over who deserved freedom, expanded rights, restricted rights, stumbled forward, and occasionally taken steps back. None of it has been neat. Democracy rarely is.

Believe me, I taught Social Studies for a decade.

Half of us are always feeling unrepresented. That’s part of the tension of governing millions of people with millions of different ideas. But it doesn’t make me feel less American.

It makes me want to swing the pendulum back toward the America I grew up believing in—a place that makes room for people to pursue the lives they imagine for themselves. Not because we’ve perfected freedom, but because we keep arguing over what freedom should look like. That has never been a perfect art.

It’s messy.

The pendulum always swings back and forth. Sometimes we want bigger government. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we want states to have more authority. Sometimes we don’t.

Working with people is messy, and expecting history to move in one steady upward line is like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand every time life becomes inconvenient.

The whole idea of America is that leaders come and go. No kings. Term limits exist because we knew we’d eventually elect leaders we disagreed with.

And it’s hard to wait when you believe it’s time for a new chapter.

But at the core of it all, I still believe America will find its way.

Loving your country doesn’t mean pretending it’s perfect. If anything, I think it means believing it’s worth continuing to improve.

We do have a strong desire for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Even though we’re struggling to agree on what those ideas should look like today, I am still proud to be an American.

I’ve always loved a symbol and a reason to celebrate. As a kid we had Fourth of July block parties, and I ran around with the neighbor kids throwing Pop-Its at each other’s feet, painting our faces red, white, and blue, and decorating our bikes with streamers.

We’d eat hot dogs until we were full, drink entirely too much Kool-Aid, and wait for the fireworks long after the sun disappeared. I always covered my ears when they started and usually ended up overwhelmed by the crowds and the noise, but I loved looking around and seeing an entire neighborhood gathered outside together. It felt like America in the smallest, most tangible way.

I love the feeling of joining with fellow Americans and celebrating what makes us great as communities. As people. In our neighborhoods.

If you zero in on the small communities and then pull way out in perspective, America is thriving. It’s the messy middle where things get hard.

And for all of our problems—and no country is without them—we have a lot of really cool things going for us.

Specific to my own life, I can homeschool my daughters because our country allows families to make different educational choices. I can sit on my front porch and build a writing career. Nick and I have had the freedom to move across the country, creating a life that fits who we are instead of feeling locked into one path. Those aren’t opportunities everyone in the world gets to take for granted.

We also get to experience an incredible amount of diversity without ever leaving our own country. Alaska doesn’t feel like South Carolina. Idaho doesn’t feel like New York City. Even within one nation there are countless landscapes, traditions, and cultures.

Nick and I are from very different parts of the country—me from Idaho and him from South Carolina. The cultures we were raised in were incredibly different, but they shared the same underlying American-ness. When we studied abroad, it was funny trying to explain that yes, we were both American, but we grew up worlds apart. It was a little like trying to explain the difference between someone from London and someone from Istanbul to our European friends.

I love that about this country.

I also love the overarching American spirit. There’s an excitement for life here. Americans know how to celebrate. We know how to dream big, reinvent ourselves, start over, cheer loudly, and believe something good might be around the corner. Sometimes that confidence is obnoxious. Sometimes it’s exactly what keeps us moving forward.

It’s brave to continue striving to be good humans and to build good lives in the middle of political maelstroms. It’s brave to stay hopeful when negativity feels easier.

Maybe that’s what patriotism has become for me.

Not blind loyalty.

Not pretending everything is fine.

Just the quiet decision to keep building a life, a family, and a community worth believing in.

Happy 250th, America.

I’m ready to see what comes next.

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Nostalgia of a carefree attitude, freedom, desire to engage in hobbies rather than work.

A slowing of time and a playful sense of self. The wide obis of time spanning in front of you with nothing to fill it with.

Time.

I think I landed on it now.

People never feel like they have enough time. But what I’ve discovered in growing up is that what we all dreamed about as kids (being able to do anything we wanted at the time we wanted to do it) is so quickly lost on adults. We are uber-productive, always trying to get everything done in order to look perfect but then when we are complimented on achieving perfection we say “oh no, this is all an illusion, I’m a mess!” As if we weren’t striving all this time for that perfection compliment.

How exhausting.

So, I think this 90s Summer nostalgia is all about going to back to being that cutie kid we all were that had spans of time in front of us and we didn’t have expectations to fulfill. We had time to just be. To wonder, to be bored, to create, to be whimsical.

And we were complimented for it.

I spent hours reading (compliment!), making animal keychains out of tiny, neon beads (compliment!), designing chalk towns for my Polly Pockets to play in (compliment!), randomly making brownies (compliment!), jumping on the trampoline (compliment!), and sleeping in (compliment!).

I felt good in my skin and I felt creative and seen, in a way that I’ve never really felt as an adult. As a child you get complimented for filling your time with creative hobbies and for using your imagination.

No one compliments me now in that same way. If I do any of those things people often say “Oh, I don’t have time for that!” As if it is frivolous and selfish. Or like they are making a judgement about how I’ve spent my time.

90s summers were gloriously inefficient, solely there for the recharge from the work we’d put in all year long.

And I’ve been lucky, my career as a teacher allowed for me to never stop having a “90s summer”. I’ve never had to work in the summer (again, I realize the luck and I’m eternally grateful) and I’ve always used it as a time to explore and be creative- never losing my desire to bake and make crafts. I have been “inefficient”, but always feeling the most “me” in the summer, untethered from schedules and time restraints. It takes a few weeks to get into the groove of “letting go” and “going with the flow”. But summer has always been a time for me to find myself again.

And my kids have always had the 90s summer vibe too. I never fill up their schedules, I factor in a lot of downtime, I lay out crafts for them to approach as they want. I take them to the library and we do mostly all outdoor time. They don’t have ipads or phones and they only watch tv in the evening (or when it’s too hot). And I’m grateful to have had the ability to maintain this type of childhood for them.

I even get to take them to spend time at my family’s cabin in Pinetop, Arizona that I spent summers at as a kid. My mom would take my sister and me for about a month every summer and we would pass the time (without air conditioning) reading (Archie comics!), hiking, and sitting on the porch. It was there that my imagination ran wild; I was Harriet the Spy, Mary-Kate and Ashley, and Christopher Robin in Winnie-the -Pooh. I was Laura Ingall and Betsy and Tacy, playing in the big woods. I made potions from mud and pinecones, I collected feathers, I talked to myself and swung in the hammock.

I think this is the type of 90s summer people are talking about. It’s not about a certain time-period, it’s more about being human and living the dolce vita, free to be.

Uninhibited by time restraints and never having to be anywhere at any certain time.

Again, I realize the luck that I have that I can pass this down to my girls AND also still enjoy these moments of unencumbered time.

But.

It’s also NOT luck. (As my grandmother liked to remind me.) It’s been a specifically designed life plan that Nick (my husband) and I set out to create.

And here we are reaping the benefits. We wanted a life where were could spend time together and a life where we were in control of our own time.

It’s the proverbial iceberg that everyone talks about, everyone only sees the success, not all the hard work and behind-the-scenes hours of toil and striving. I could do a whole post about the 15 years of work Nick and I did to get to where we are today, 90s-summering away. And maybe I will.

But until then, I will put my face to the sun and enjoy the bounty of the summer we’ve created, 90s-style. I’ll channel that kid on the porch in Arizona—the one who believed an afternoon was an eternity and that a pine cone could become anything.

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I didn’t know it wasn’t normal to have a dad who complimented you, helped you with math homework, and played Bingo with you on Wednesday nights.

I didn’t know it wasn’t normal to have a dad who took you to college orientation, visited you in France, and supported your individual, independent decisions.

I didn’t know that not all dads welcome a son-in-law with open arms, play with the grandkids on the floor, or devote months of energy, time, and money to visiting their daughters when they live far away.

Not once have I questioned whether my dad loved me or was proud of me.

I didn’t know that wasn’t normal.

I know it now.

I didn’t know it wasn’t normal to have a husband who makes a point of being home, who has hard conversations, and who continues to grow and improve.

I didn’t know some dads don’t do bedtime, support their wives’ hobbies, or protect their wives’ peace.

My girls have a dad who climbs trees with them, dives into their interests, and shows up for all their events.

He cooks for them, invests in their art supplies, jumps on the trampoline, and brings fun treats home.

He arranges life so homeschooling and travel can happen, makes holidays magical, and snuggles during movies.

He is calm and steady, always doing the next right thing, playing the long game, and still being fully present in the moment.

He builds and nurtures relationships with me, the girls, our friends, and our neighbors, and he coaxes the best out of all of us every day.

He is the calm.

He is the steady.

Just like my dad has always been for me.

That’s not always normal.

I know that now.

Happy Father’s Day.

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I’m in the practice of slowing myself down.

Intentionally.

You can imagine how this is going.

It turns out I’m much more of an Energizer Bunny than I ever realized. Apparently, I do everything fast—like a sweet chipmunk stuffing its cheeks with the bounty of summer, preparing for a long winter, as if there isn’t a second to spare for actually enjoying the bounty itself.

I move through life at a pace that feels normal to me until I challenge myself to do things with more intention. Coincidentally, intention also seems to mean doing things with more love. An interesting side note that I suspect deserves its own blog.

It’s a bit of a gut punch to realize that doing things quickly isn’t always loving—or even effective. Not for myself, and not for the people I’m doing things for.

Here are a few ordinary examples:

• Petting the cat: When I slow down, she leans in and lingers. When I’m rushing, she is ready to flee.

• Putting on lotion after a shower: Slowed down, it feels nurturing and soothing. Rushed, it feels like scrubbing a stubborn pot just to cross a task off the list.

• Helping the girls clean up Barbies: When I intentionally put things away one at a time, taking a deep breath and sharing some banter, they’re much more likely to help. When I become a drill sergeant, they’re much more likely to resist.

This is a lesson I’ve learned before.

In fact, I’ve written more than one blog about slowing down.

And yet, here I am again.

Ready to practice.

Again.

There’s something both frustrating and beautiful about returning to the same lesson. I say that with equal parts sarcasm and gratitude.

Because if I keep coming back to it, that probably means:

• I still need to learn it. Hello again, Universe.

• It’s a lesson worth learning.

• I’m ready to embrace slowing down as an option.

• I’ve seen the benefits enough times to keep returning.

After all, this is my life.

I don’t want to live it in fast-forward mode. I want to be here now.

As cliché as that sounds.

One of my favorite practices lately has been lying on a yoga block between my shoulder blades for four minutes at a time throughout the day. There’s no strict schedule. It simply reminds me to stop, take a beat, and reconnect with myself. It opens my chest and throat and brings me back to this intention of slowing down.

I can always find four minutes.

The other day, as I opened the timer app I use (Insight Timer, usually accompanied by birdsong or a crackling fire), this quote appeared:

“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

—Zen Proverb

Tell me the Universe isn’t practically waving a giant flag in front of my face.

It feels as though divine guidance is gently shaking me by the shoulders—while simultaneously softening them—saying:

This is it. This is all there is. Take it in. Do it softly. Ride the wave with ease. Those tense shoulders, that tight jaw, that aching neck—they can relax now.

I want to move through life with softness. With slowness. With intention.

Life will happen either way.

So slow would be the standout choice.

And as I wrote that, my heart skipped a beat and sped up—as if to say:

You can do it.

In a whisper.

But not so softly that I couldn’t hear it.

Keep reminding me, Universe. Keep reminding me.

And by the way, they always say children learn by example, and I can attest to that. My practice of slowing down is affecting the girls, too. Tegan has stretched out on my yoga blocks in the same pose after watching me. Rory has started checking how fast her heart is beating and taking a moment to slow it down. I hope I can help model a gentler pace of life—one they can carry into adulthood and remember whenever they need it.

As a bonus this week, Tegan would like to share her new Animal Facts Blog. She researched, hand-wrote, typed, illustrated, photographed, and uploaded the whole thing herself. It was truly a labor of love, and I’m proud to share it.

Here’s to slowing down, reading, and writing.

With love.

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Tegan’s Animal Facts:

All about sea turtles! The shell of an adult sea turtle is around 4-5 feet long.It takes up to 30 years for a sea turtle to become an adult! Sea turtles fed by humans lose their fear of people and boats. The largest sea turtle ever discovered weighed around 2,020 pounds with a length of 9.8 feet.

I’ve always been drawn to animals and seem to intuitively notice their patterns and behaviors. Lately, I’ve found myself captivated by the rhythms of the wildlife that shares our neighborhood.

Living in Charleston, South Carolina, means being surrounded by lush landscapes and abundant life. Our neighborhood is teeming with creatures both large and small, and each day seems to offer a new glimpse into their world.

It delights me that every house appears to have its own resident lizard family. Zazzles, our cat, certainly follows their daily soap operas through the front windows each morning. As I write this, a bright green lizard has crept across the porch and settled near my feet, soaking up the glorious sunshine.

One of our favorite experiences this spring was watching a pair of cardinals build a nest in the bamboo just outside our living room window. The mama cardinal carefully gathered materials while the papa cardinal stood watch nearby. We could see the four tiny eggs nestled inside, and the girls received a gentle lesson in nature’s realities. Two eggs never hatched, and one hatchling fell from the nest and died. Only one survived.

That lone fledgling thrived. We were lucky enough to witness its first flight—a somewhat clumsy nosedive into our garden beds. Meanwhile, the mama and papa cardinal worked together to distract our cat, safely enclosed on the back porch, while their baby stretched its wings and gained confidence.

Nature’s lessons are not always about birth. Sometimes they are about death and the ways life continues through loss.

One afternoon, a squirrel fell from a tree and was struck by a car in front of our house. Rory came inside to tell me, and within twenty minutes we watched three vultures—two of them appearing to be juveniles—descend upon the carcass. In less than an hour, it was gone.

There was a strange beauty in the moment. We witnessed firsthand how nature cares for itself: one life ending and providing nourishment for another. Rory experienced a range of emotions in a very short time, and by the end of the day there was no trace that it had ever happened. It was a powerful reminder of both the fragility and resilience of life, and an unexpected lesson for our homeschooling journey.

On our daily walks, there is always something new to discover. We constantly remind the girls that if you take the time to look, you will always find something you’ve never noticed before. We’ve found wild plum trees, muscadine grapes, nests, feathers, tiny mushrooms, and countless other treasures.

This week alone brought some particularly memorable encounters.

An owl swooped silently over our heads before landing on a nearby branch. It slowly rotated its head and fixed us with a stare so intense it felt like a lightning bolt. I felt a shiver run through my body. For a moment, I understood how a mouse might feel. The bird’s presence was magnetic. Minutes later, a flock of mockingbirds began dive-bombing the owl, loudly attempting to drive it away from their nest.

We regularly spot turtles basking in neighborhood ponds and invent elaborate stories about their lives. More often than not, we envy their ability to spend entire afternoons sitting peacefully in the sun.

We’ve watched squirrels chase one another through the trees and baby woodpeckers learning to drill. The squirrels perform what can only be described as kung fu in our yard, spiraling up and down trunks while hummingbirds dart among the flowers in our fully blooming garden.

We check on a garden spider that seems to rebuild its web every day and keep watch for rabbits hopping through the grass.

At low tide, crabs form a chorus line of waving claws beneath the bridges, and we wonder what their world looks like when the tide returns. We collect snails and ladybugs, and we’ve even given names to the wasps that build nests beneath our eaves.

Just last week, we witnessed a turtle laying eggs, an ibis building a nest, and a great blue heron standing guard along the water’s edge.

Our neighborhood is overflowing with life. The more closely we pay attention, the more we notice the intricate ways every creature—human and animal alike—shares this small island together.

Slowing down, looking closely, and engaging fully with the natural world around me has stirred in me great emotion. I pay attention to the comings and goings of the creatures that share my corner of the world and I feel more connected, more intertwined, and more positive that the world just keeps spinning.

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*All photo credits go to my husband, Nick, he’s got an eye for animal photography and is always ready to capture beauty.

In my early 20s I worked in an upscale restaurant as a server, and there’s nothing quite like the adrenaline of restaurant life. The rush, the pressure, the constant problem-solving, and the emotional whiplash of human behavior compressed into a 7 hour shift. It was exhausting. It was exhilarating. And, it is this job that taught me the most about life.

Later, I became a middle school teacher and was surprised to discover how similar the two jobs really are. Both are built on human connection, emotional regulation, improvisation, and solving problems that arrive every thirty seconds wearing a different face.

Looking back, these are the lessons I carried from restaurant floors and classrooms into the life I’m living now.

Things my old boss said when I worked at Tinderbox Kitchen in Flagstaff, Arizona that have stuck with me:

1. Some people are just out to have a bad time.

   1. 90% of tables were happy-go-lucky, enjoying their time out for dinner. But 10% of the tables bring the dark cloud in with them, they are instantly knit-picky, are looking for some kind of “gotcha” and will not be satisfied, regardless of your level of service. I have been yelled at, scoffed at, left without a tip, and told I “ruined” a middle-aged woman’s birthday. The solace I found when I was wiping tears from my eyes in the back room was my boss reminding me that some people are just out to have a bad time, they get their kicks from negativity, and there is nothing you can do or say to change that. People are who they are and they magnetize that times 1000 when being waited on. Really want to know someone, take them out to eat and watch how they act in a restaurant.

2. People reveal themselves at the table.

   1. Kind people are kind and warm, self-conscience people are undecided and never satisfied, rude people are rude, self-righteous people think they deserve higher service than everyone else, demanding people are demanding, happy people are sweet and attentive, joyful people are calm, anxious people are awkward. You get the idea, and you feel the energy in the first greeting of the table and instantly know which direction the night will go. Sometimes you get a boost and sometimes you get a void from a table. Some you suffer through and some you enjoy; people are who they are.

3. Look with your eyes, not with your mouth.

   1. 9 times out of 10 you will find the thing you are looking for if you just persist. Asking someone else prolongs the task and takes someone else off task, thus getting everyone behind. This is one I loved using in my classroom with students, they would always just stare at me while they processed the idea and then would kind of giggle to themselves once it sunk in. It does work and it keeps everyone on task. This works with husbands and children too.

4. If it can be done in under 1 minute, do it now.

   1. What a valuable life lesson this is and if you can learn it earlier in life I think you save yourself a lot of pain. This hack makes life A LOT easier and things run a lot more smoothly if you think, logically, of how long a task actually takes to complete. More gets done, there is less stress, and it’s not overwhelming. This one I definitely use with the kids and it’s so satisfying to feel like you’re completing an important task so quickly. It can sometimes even turn into a competition, sometimes I see if I can do something before I can even complete a long, deep breath. Turns out most things can be accomplished in under a minute, who knew?

5. Meal time is bonding, never to be missed.

   1. One huge perk of working at Tinderbox was the staff meal we had before service started The food was excellent and the banter with the rest of the staff boosted morale before service started. Food is the great equalizer and there is no other time when people slow down to linger and chat as they do around a dinner table. I grew up eating dinner with my family every night and this has translated to my adult life. At each stage through my life it’s been reinforced; food is a bonding experience, let it be so. Show up for it.

6. It’s not about you.

   1. If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant (or been a teacher!), you know you have to develop thick skin and QUICK because you will get put through the wringer on a daily, sometimes even hourly, basis. As a server, you know that if any complaints come from a table it’s YOU who will get sworn at, cursed at, yelled at in the back and you have to stiffen your spine to go into that kitchen with a sent-back plate. At first I had to fight back tears, but quickly I learned, the cursing wasn’t about me. The return of the plate wasn’t about me. It had everything to do with the pride the chef has and the self righteousness the diner has. I was just the middleman. I quickly learned that the faster I could distance myself from the feeling, the quicker humor could come in and I could laugh it off and move on gracefully and grand-fully- until the next time. Chin up, buttercup.

Things I learned teaching:

1. Kids and parents have very different perspectives.

   1. Kids have an independent life at school and often act very differently than they do at home. I know this to be true with my own child who is hyperactive, silly, and full of candor at home, but is almost mute in public. I was the same way growing up. And as a teacher I often saw the reverse, parents would say their child was silent and compliant at home, while the complete opposite was true in the classroom around a certain set of peers. What parents saw as a problem, kids saw as something to get around or as unimportant. The goals of parents and students are very different and both perspectives get lost until the teacher can interpret for both sides. Apparently there I was, the middleman again, a role I must be good at. The more parents can see their kids as independent from them, the easier things will go for both sides.

2. Kids do what they want, parents have no sway.

   1. This is one thing I learned immediately as a teacher and definitely as a mother. Kids do what they want, when they want, how they want. And truth be told, I knew this as a teenager too. I did my own thing, in my own way. Parents have this idea that they have any kind of control of their kids, there is none. I have never once seen a kid do what their parent wanted in the way their parent wanted it. Why are we all so stuck on this script? A parent is a child’s guide, nothing more. As the Taylor Swift lyric goes: “You’re on your own kid, you always have been”.

3. School is about socializing, not academics.

   1. Some kids are doing the academics as a way to get through school or because they understand how the game works, but, don’t get it twisted, kids do about 15 minutes of actual schoolwork/focused thinking in each subject totaling about 1.5 hours a day of academics. Everything about school is about noticing who is noticing who and finding your way within that. And poor teachers are held to an unattainable standard of getting to deeper thinking when all kids want to do is show off for each other. Which, just for the record, is valuable too, we are social beings after all.

4. Parents have all the say in everything that happens in schools.

   1. Since COVID parents have controlled almost everything that happens in a school and specifically with their own child. Once parents got their foot in the door in the classroom, the demand for individualized education became forefront in their minds. Pre-covid I would argue that parents gave teachers the benefit of the doubt and also understood that kids could not get everything they specifically as an individual needed because there were so many other kids in the room. But after COVID parents realized how easy it is to get a independent plan for their child and then they legalized education and now parents are micromanaging classroom learning without realizing what I’ve mentioned above: the kid wants something different. And that is why teachers are leaving the profession.

5. You cannot help every kid and your job never feels done.

   1. The perks of teaching are a summer break, holiday breaks, and a fresh set of kids every year. The downside is losing track of the kids you’ve made connections with and seen grow. You never get to see their life trajectory and you don’t always get to see their growth and change. There are kids you try to bond with and just can’t, there are kids with home lives that leave them lacking and there is nothing you can do. You’ve taught them every day for 9 months and then you have to let them leave and go off into the world. It’s like empty-nesting over and over, emotionally it can be really hard. That’s why students are always waving at past teachers when they see them, there is a bond there that doesn’t exist in any other form. Teaching is deeply emotional and the hard makes those golden moments all the more sweet.

Both jobs demanded thick skin, quick thinking, and a willingness to be the middleman in somebody else’s problem. In restaurants, it was between diners and chefs. In teaching, between students and parents. In both roles, I learned to read a room, manage emotions, solve problems on the fly, and accept a hard reality: you cannot make everyone happy, you cannot save everyone, and most of the time, it’s not actually about you.

But I also learned something softer. Meals matter. Relationships matter. Showing up matters. Whether around a staff meal before dinner service, a chaotic middle school classroom, or my own dinner table at home, people are hungry for the same thing: to be seen, understood, and connected.

Seeing that kitchen reminded me that some jobs train you for far more than the job description suggests. After restaurants and middle school classrooms, very little feels truly chaotic, difficult people become easier to spot, and most problems look surprisingly manageable. These are life skills that have served me well.

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This year feels different, though. I’m two years out of the classroom now, and for the first time since I was five years old, I don’t know the start date of the next school year. I’m not already bracing for summer to end before it even begins.

For most of my life, time has been structured around countdowns: the next break, the next weekend, the next holiday, the next deep breath. Even rest felt like it had an end-time attached to it.

But this year, something shifted.

Part of it is the rhythm we’ve found as a family — one kid in public school, one homeschooling through a co-op. We’ve spent the year tweaking and adjusting until we finally landed on something that works for us.

And surprisingly, it has completely changed the way I experience time.

I still love summer for all the usual reasons: no alarms, slower mornings, nowhere urgent to be. But homeschooling has quietly reshaped the pace of our days year-round.

We do school in pieces. I leave work on the counter and my daughter moves through it throughout the day. Sometimes she sits and focuses for twenty straight minutes. Sometimes it’s one math problem now, another later.

And somehow, it all gets done.

In between, she climbs trees, hangs upside down, draws, plays with the cat, disappears outside, comes back in hungry, then circles back to her work again.

Watching her has forced me to loosen my grip on what “productive” is supposed to look like.

The movement matters. The creativity matters. The wandering around matters. It all works together. The more freedom she has to move between things, the more focused she becomes when it’s time to concentrate again.

And slowly, without meaning to, I started living that way too.

I’ll do a chore, answer emails, go for a walk with a friend, work on curriculum, sit outside for ten minutes, come back to something later. If I don’t finish something at 10 a.m., maybe I do it at 4 p.m. Turns out the world keeps spinning.

There’s less pressure now. Less forcing life into rigid blocks and timelines.

The strangest part is that I never intended for homeschooling to look like this. I thought I’d recreate school at home: math at 10, reading at 11, structured subjects neatly stacked into a schedule. I would replicate school at home, that was my comfort zone.

Instead, my daughter ended up teaching me something I didn’t know I needed to learn — that time feels a lot fuller when you stop gripping it so tightly.

Not every day needs to build toward escape. Not everything has to run like a ticking clock.

Days can just unfold.

What’s interesting is that I still live in both worlds at once.

One child still moves through the traditional rhythm of school years, calendars, deadlines, countdowns, and summer breaks. And honestly, there’s comfort in that rhythm too. There’s excitement in the last day of school, in packed lunches disappearing for a few months, in the exhale that summer brings.

But alongside that, there’s this other rhythm unfolding in our home now — one that feels slower, softer, and less attached to the clock.

I don’t think one way is necessarily better than the other. I just know I’m less anxious than I used to be.

Somehow, living in both worlds has made me softer with time.

I’m not constantly waiting for relief anymore. I’m not measuring my life by the next break in the schedule.

I still love summer. I probably always will. But I’m learning that life feels a lot bigger when every day doesn’t feel like something to survive until 3 p.m.

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I think I’ve finally found the word for that feeling: detachment.

Detachment usually gets a bad reputation. It sounds heartless, cold, disconnected. But lately I’ve started to think it may actually be what most of us are endlessly searching for.

Since the time of Aristotle — and probably long before — humans have understood that we tend to get in our own way. Our ego, our self-involvement, our endless internal narration often make life harder than it needs to be. We get angry over things that don’t deserve our energy. We sever relationships instead of repairing them. We convince ourselves we are lonely, unseen, unloved.

But the moments when I feel most detached are the moments when I feel most at peace.

Not detached from life — detached from myself at the center of it all.

It’s the difference between living and constantly analyzing that I’m living. Between participating and endlessly internalizing. When I can step outside my own ego, I become more present, more connected, more involved. I stop seeing myself as the entire puzzle and instead recognize I’m simply one piece of it.

I’m reading Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser for book club (shoutout Book Club!), and I paused on a quote attributed to Plato: “Love is desire, and desire is a lack of something.”

There are thousands of interpretations of that sentence, but the one that I came up with is: when we seek, it’s because we feel something missing. And when we stop seeking, it doesn’t necessarily mean love disappears. Maybe it means we become it. We stop grasping and simply exist within it.

Detached. Not searching. Just being. Part of it.

When we seek, we feel we are on the outside.

Of course, this brought me back to motherhood — my favorite lens for interpretation.

When my girls come to me for a hug, a kiss, a snuggle, they’re seeking something. Comfort. Confidence. Reassurance. Energy. And I give it to them. But the beautiful thing is that we both leave fuller. Love expands outward. The self softens. We become one; no longer burdened by our needs. We become part of something larger.

And in those moments, nothing feels lacking.

What a way to live.

So maybe detachment is exactly what I’ve been seeking all along: not distance from life, but distance from ego. A state of being that puts everything back into proportion.

Like staying in my lane while still noticing the world around me. Not racing every car on the highway. Not proving anything. Just setting the cruise control and moving forward with steadiness.

Detached. Free. Present.

And inevitably, I’ll drift back into wanting, striving, overthinking. I always do. But maybe the point isn’t to permanently arrive anywhere. Maybe it’s just learning how to return.

Again and again.

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Laura Ingalls was not just a character to me; for a time, she was me.

As an avid reader, I spent much of my childhood inhabiting the worlds of books. I would become different characters entirely, insisting that my family call me by their names. I dressed like them, spoke like them, and carried their stories with me for weeks. Even now, those childhood alter egos feel like old friends. Laura was one of my favorites. I loved her pioneer spirit, her fierce curiosity, and the way she noticed the beauty in wide-open spaces.

Reading these books now, as an adult and a mother, I find myself paying attention to entirely different things.

What stands out to me most is not Laura’s adventures, but the quiet routines of family life. Laura clearly cherished the rhythms her parents created: the steady cadence of daily chores, meals prepared over the fire, evenings gathered together. Charles and Caroline Ingalls built reliability in a deeply unreliable world. The prairie was unpredictable. Crops failed. Winters were brutal. Illness and hardship were constant companions. Yet Laura and her sisters were largely sheltered from the full weight of those burdens.

Their parents carried the heaviest loads so that childhood could remain intact.

Of course, the girls worked hard. They had responsibilities, and their labor mattered. But even so, they were allowed something that was becoming increasingly valued in that era: a true childhood. They attended school. They played. They dreamed. This was part of a broader cultural shift—one we still fiercely protect today. Children have their whole lives to be grown. Childhood itself is fleeting.

I think about that often as a mother.

I sometimes jokingly refer to my own children as “half-broke horses.” I am reluctant to tame too much of their wildness. I want them dirty, imaginative, sun-kissed, and free. I want them building worlds in the backyard, inventing games, and losing entire afternoons to make-believe. The wildness is not something to be corrected; it is something to be preserved.

One theme that runs through the Little House books, and one I scarcely noticed as a child, is the family’s evening ritual. At the end of the day, after all the work was done, Laura’s Pa would take out his fiddle. He played lively tunes while the family sang together. Laura recalls those moments with such profound contentment that even across the years, her happiness is palpable.

I understand that feeling completely.

My own mother sang to me every night. Two songs, always the same: “Hush Little Baby” and “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad.” In the darkness, with her voice soft and familiar, I felt utterly safe and loved. Those songs became part of me.

I carried them everywhere.

I sang them silently to myself in college. I hummed them while studying abroad in France. I thought of them as a newly married woman, far from home and building a life of my own. They have always brought with them that same warm glow of childhood security.

And now, I sing them to my daughters.

When they nuzzle close and their little bodies relax, I know they feel it too—the comfort, the safety, the gentle signal that the day is done and all is well. There is something wonderful about ending the day in song. It is one of those ancient human rituals that transcends generations.

These are the moments I know they will carry with them forever.

The ordinary magic: the nightly songs, the shared routines, the dependable loveliness of home.

That, perhaps, is what Laura understood so well. The great adventures of childhood are wonderful, but they are anchored by the quiet constancy of family. In a tumultuous world, routine, song, and whimsy become a refuge. They remind us that we are safe, that we are loved, and that we belong.

I did not expect to find this when I began re-reading the Little House books. But that is one of the gifts of returning to beloved stories at different stages of life. They grow alongside us. What once delighted us as children often deepens into wisdom as adults.

Our literary lives and our real lives begin to overlap.

While singing the same songs my mother once sang to me, I can hear Pa’s fiddle playing somewhere in the distance.

“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word...”

“I’ve been workin’ on the railroad, all the live-long day...”

And all at once, Laura’s world and my own feel very close indeed, once again, I play that character in my mind.

And I am content.

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And once again, the oldest saying in the book proves itself true: it really does all pass in the blink of an eye.

I cannot believe I’ve been cuddling, squeezing, laughing with, and singing to this gorgeous, funny girl for ten years.

I hope I get another ten, and another ten, and another ten.

Here’s what ten years of parenting has taught me:

Having a kid who is almost a mirror of you is jolting

The older my oldest gets, the more of myself I see in her. And I don’t mean that in a possessive way, or as if she isn’t wholly her own person. She absolutely is. But the older she gets, the more I notice my mannerisms, my expressions, my quirks reflected back at me.

It becomes so clear that we really are the sum of our parts, that traits run deep in families, that we are connected to those who came before us. We each put our own spin on things, of course, but it is wild to watch your child casually inherit pieces of you.

It is relentless

We hit the ground running the moment she entered this world, and we haven’t stopped since.

There is no “catching your breath,” no neatly arriving at a routine, no finally figuring it all out. There is always something new to learn, something unexpected thrown your way. And just when you think you’ve got it handled, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

It’s like lining up dominos for hours, only to accidentally brush them with your elbow. Watching them fall is beautiful and mesmerizing, but you still clutch your chest a little as it happens. Parenting is spontaneous, chaotic, and deeply humbling. The lack of control never really goes away.

It flies by

Did I mention it’s been a decade since I became a parent?

I still feel like a teenager, and now I almost have a teenager.

One minute you’re swaddling a baby, and the next she’s rolling her eyes when you ask her to unload the dishwasher. I love the growth. I love each age more than the last. But it feels like the second I settle into one season, we’re already moving into the next.

It’s a beautiful blur.

Nothing reminds you of life’s fragility quite like watching your child grow. They are a living, breathing reminder of just how quickly time moves.

Nothing stays the same. Ever.

There is change all the time—monthly, daily, hourly.

Parenting is basically Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. You cycle through every emotion in the span of fifteen minutes and then somehow find the energy to do it all over again.

Your kid is who they are—you don’t shape them

I definitely thought I would have more control over my kids’ personalities.

I do not.

They arrive fully themselves, one hundred percent. The older they get, the more I can look back and realize, “Oh, yes. That was always there.”

There is something incredibly comforting about that.

Hugging them and hearing them laugh are the best things you can possibly feel

What a privilege it is to witness such pure joy.

Children are naturally fascinating. Their delight is contagious. Their laughter is medicine. And there is something almost otherworldly about holding a child you created and feeling them nuzzle back into you.

There is simply no relationship like it.

They give you a run for your money

Can you sense a theme here?

I am always on my toes. There is always something new coming at me. Parenting is many things, but boring has never once been one of them.

They all have their own agenda

The gifts they bring into this world become apparent pretty quickly.

As Mary Alice from Desperate Housewives wisely said, “Children come into the world with their own agendas. Some to brighten our days, some to test our patience, some to give us purpose, some to take care of us. When they arrive, they change everything…”.

They confront you

Children have an uncanny ability to uncover all your rough edges.

Not intentionally, of course, but they have a way of bringing your flaws right to the surface. Anger. Insecurity. Pride. Fear. All of it.

When you’re trying to help shape a tiny human, you quickly realize how much shaping grown humans still need, too. In the best-case scenario, you grow right alongside them.

I’d do it again in a heartbeat

Despite the relentlessness, despite the way time slips through your fingers, despite the mirrors children can be, raising kids feels like the most profoundly human thing I have ever done.

None of the other stuff matters nearly as much.

There is a kind of magic in creating a family with another person. A connection so deep, so raw, so unfiltered, that nothing else really compares. I am endlessly grateful that I get to experience it.

And as I watched my girl blow out ten candles this week, I realized something: parenting is both the slowest and fastest thing I have ever lived. The days can stretch endlessly, but the years? They disappear.

Ten years ago, she made me a mother.

And somehow, in all the ways that matter most, she is still doing exactly that.

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My neck cracks when I turn it. My shoulders pop when I roll them. I’m living within a box of my own creation, like the Tin Man.

I’m functioning in an ungreased body, in search of my heart.

The root of what makes me, me.

And I’ve landed on two things that pull me back from the deep, dark shadows of despair: dance and massage.

There is something so validating about seeing a massage therapist who confirms, “Yes, those shoulders are tight,” and, “Oh yes, let’s work out those glutes because they’re connected to your neck.” Then having those spots rubbed out with a care that feels deeply nourishing.

It’s an hour of slipping just below the surface, like being tucked into a dreamy waterbed, with permission to wander through the mind while the body is completely catered to.

A real rest, at the root of its meaning.

It seems funny to talk about the mind when the focus is the body, but everything is connected—a universe of stars.

I love the way the mind wanders during a massage; my thoughts are always empowering.

I have a recurring vision of being a queen—in my own knowing—in some far-off place long ago, wearing a crown, my long dress flapping around my legs in a soft breeze as I gaze lovingly over a rolling prairie full of wildflowers, my toes in a cool, swirling creek.

The sun shines down on me, and I have a complete knowing of wholeness.

Maybe that’s the feeling I’m chasing when I get a massage.

A sense of self.

Of feeling complete.

Whole.

Peaceful.

Unencumbered.

Those thoughts are so different from my actual dreams, where I seem to be constantly taking care of others, putting out small fires, and continually asking for help and more time.

Dichotomies.

See, getting into the body—and thus the deeper mind—is much more fun. And much more fulfilling.

It’s a priority now.

Dance is the second.

Not rigid dance, but chaotic dance. I’ve been putting on a song and literally just dancing it out at full speed. I shake, I quake, I rotate. I swing my head and transition between the floor and jumping.

It looks absolutely wild.

It feels absolutely insane.

Because it is.

I am wild in that moment.

Free. An animal.

Not tucked into my nice, neat, orderly box. I present that side of me to the world.

This side is just for me.

I even shock myself, which, I suppose, is the point.

If I keep myself guessing, it allows me to sink into a feeling of safety in the chaos—to trust myself instead of controlling myself.

If I touch the muscles in my shoulders before and after dancing, it’s a big difference. First, a rock. Second, malleable.

By letting the mind go, by not caring what I look like, I feel more embodied and energized.

Highly recommend, if you’ve never done it.

But it has to be fully uninhibited.

The girls laugh and laugh when they see me. And then they gyrate too. And it turns into fun.

The body is way more fun than the brain.

New mantra: release, relax, let go.

Release the world, relax the body, let go of expectation.

Have fun.

What else are we doing with our one wild and precious life?

Dance and massage.

Be free.

Be feral.

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It’s strange how quickly the world shrinks when sickness enters the house.

There is nothing like being sick to remind you that nothing in life matters more than health.

As the saying goes, a healthy person wants a thousand things; a sick person only wants one.

How quickly things can change.

We just had a normal bug sweep through the household, but the luxury of being well for so long made this round feel heavier than usual. And when the parents go down, things really start to slip. We’ve all been hanging on these past two weeks, and are finally on the upswing—emerging from the messiness of the ick.

But wow. It really does feel like clawing yourself out of a deep, dark hole.

Now, with my head back above water, it’s like spotting land after thinking you’d been lost at sea forever—after you’d already begun to give in to the melancholy.

All the metaphors come rushing in. It’s almost poetic, this return to life.

When anyone in the family is sick, nothing else matters. Everything else loses its sheen, its pull. It’s a kind of clarity—one that disappears almost as quickly as it arrives.

And now that I’m back, I can already feel that dimness fading, like a memory slipping through my fingertips. There’s even a strange fondness to it, which feels a little ironic to admit. To be in that deep, dark place of caretaking, of curling inward—it’s a worthy cause. It’s when we truly listen, to ourselves and to each other. I can see the beauty in that.

But as the proverb goes, all’s well that ends well.

And we are well.

And I got this poem (and perspective) out of it all:

After the Dark

Soaking in the glistening sun,
I felt myself pulled—
to a small corner of the couch,
held in quiet beams

after the deep, deep dark

I sought it out,
then settled
like a cat curling in—
tail wrapped close,
body softening

sinking into my own warmth,
charging in the light

the opposite of dark:
despair,
impaired

sunlight like a rope,
lifting me
from the bottomless well
I had been climbing

it helps me rise

alive again—
regrowth

I sparkle once more

before: pale, still
after:
back to life

a sunflower to the sun,
out of shadow—
the outside meeting the inside,
like magnets

Back to the rhythm of things, with a deeper appreciation for how fragile it all is.

*The only picture I took this week. Zazz in a box.

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