Now I’m twenty-four in Amsterdam with a new list of anxieties. I missed both of my train connections last week. I haven’t slept in days. I want to go home, and I miss the old version of myself who could sleep on the floor and wake up the next morning in love with the world.

There’s a risk in returning to a place that is sacred to you. Nostalgia travel, I call it. You return in hopes that that magical state of mind you were in will come back to you in the snap of a finger. But, more often than not, the bubble bursts. The spell is broken. The rose colored glasses slide down your nose and you see a place for what it is: beautiful, special, miraculous even, but also—normal.

When I was twenty-one and in London, my friends and I went out to a karaoke bar where we met a Scotsman who was, in his deep state of intoxication, absolutely enthralled by our American-ness, asking us if we’d personally met Dolly Parton (fly high) and requesting country songs on the jukebox with the enthusiasm of a child who’d just been granted permission to eat dessert. We were laughing along in our innocent state of naivety, high on the newness of meeting someone from another culture for the first time. Here Is A Scotsman And He Sounds So Very Scottish. It’s easy at that age to reduce someone like that. Now I’d be more likely to smell the stale beer on his lips, see the texts from his girlfriend begging him to please, let me know where you are.

So when an older, wiser version of myself came back to Amsterdam, I didn’t like her so much. She was anxious about everything. She rode a bike with a helmet and dismounted for crosswalks. “You know, if someone does that, you know they’re not Dutch,” said a student from Rotterdam in my hostel. If I am unafraid of anything, it is how I’m perceived. I ride my bike with gym shorts on under my dress. (Maybe I like some parts of my current self better.)

Many people explain aging using the analogy of a toilet paper roll: it starts unraveling slowly and then all at once, time and tissue landing on a heap on your bathroom floor before you’ve had a chance to process it. I imagine it the other way around: when you’re young, all of your life is spread out openly and loosely, and then with time, it narrows. You lose some slack. I spiral in on myself like a yoyo as it rises.

My second visit to Amsterdam was as a weekend trip while working as a volunteer on a rural Dutch farm. I would be working there for all of July, and a trip to the city was a much needed escape. Amsterdam didn’t hold the same allure that it once did, and I found myself amazed at how my younger self had navigated it so bravely and brazenly. I’d seen more now. I knew all of the things that could go wrong.

But I still held onto that naïve belief that everyone I’d meet on the farm and on my travels would be a wise sage with years of stories behind their eyes—that we’d have some life-altering connection and they’d become my own personal Yoda. The truth was less appealing: I struggled with connection. I did not hit it off with everyone. The people on the farm, like myself, were normal. But after a month of shared meals, shared experiences, and the occasional forced conversation, a sense of kinship emerged between us. Each of these persons, who was very different from myself, grew to appreciate the others’ company; it reminded me that we can find ways to connect with just about anyone if we try to.

Not every travel experience or connection needs to be life changing. People and places can certainly be magical, but everything is, to an extent, also normal, and traveling as an adult allows you to appreciate this truth. The grass isn’t greener anywhere else.

While it may be less romantic, I’m glad that aging has taught me to see things for what they are and still appreciate them. My twenty-four year-old self might be less fun and less likely to save twenty dollars on a 5 a.m. flight, but she is a little more wise and a lot more confident. She’s certainly less likely to get a head injury on a bike.

Sometime in the last year I felt the pendulum swing from my life being primarily centered in reality to online. The other day I started my car, reached for my aux cord, realized it broke, and for a second, I sat there helpless, like a kid lost in the grocery store.

Today I feel more dumb, more afraid, and less focused than I did even two years ago. Amidst AI and our increasing reliance on smartphones, every day I’m fighting the urge to be a robot, and it’s got me thinking, what makes us human? Or at least, what makes us feel more human?

In a recent vlogbrothers video, John Green talked about the Instagramification of our lives—how 3D human experience has increasingly shrunk down to 2D experiences on screens. In 1964, seeing images of Jackie Kennedy grieving her husband’s death was horrific and overwhelming. Now we see upsetting images all the time, and as we know, the more we are exposed to grief or to joy, the more our emotional response flattens, and then this 2D experience becomes the norm. We’re growing so accustomed to this distance between ourselves and others, that encountering something real is scary.

***

I went to New York City for the first time this past December, a city where the distance between people is literally stripped away. As I was leaving La Cabra café in Brooklyn, I could hear footsteps quickly following me out the door. I turned around to see a young man with Blundstone boots and a blue flannel smiling big at me. “Are you from around here?”

“No,” I said, expecting that to turn him away, but he smiled even wider and said, “Me neither!” He told me about how he’d seen me at the previous coffee shop I went to that morning, and how he was also traveling to New York for the first time. “Can I walk with you?”

Gavin, let’s call him, seemed nice, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Thus began my day in New York City with a total stranger. We took the L train into Manhattan and talked about our favorite books, what sports we played in high school, and how we’d both been converted Cat Lovers. Gavin had previously been in the military and was now working as a flight dispatcher. He told me about his suspicious love for Charles Dickens’ works (I mean, whose favorite book is Great Expectations?), and I trolled him for being a millennial and not knowing who the Lumineers were. It felt like a movie: just getting to know someone in an organic, unexpected way.

One of my goals for this trip was to interview people on the street, asking everyone the same question I’d been asking myself: What makes you feel most human? Gavin accompanied me on my quest, and the two of us spent one of my favorite afternoons in recent memory roaming around Central Park, scheming up a plan of attack before approaching each interviewee. Oh, he’s got a dog, he’ll be nice, and Hm, she’s walking fast with a briefcase—she won’t want to talk to us. There was something thrilling in the discomfort, in the rush of fear I felt before approaching each person.

“I’d be scared to talk to strangers like this,” Gavin told me as we turned a corner near Turtle Pond. I scoffed. “You talked to me.” “I’ve been in the army, Elisabeth,” he said, “and that was the scariest thing I’ve ever done.”

The courage it took for Gavin to approach me was the same courage it took for me to interview strangers. In both cases we had to reach outside of ourselves for connection and trust that it would be worth it. And it was. That day reminded me that the world can still be magical.

Gavin dropped me off at a Starbucks on Madison Avenue later that afternoon. We didn’t exchange contact information, but I invited him to a jazz night in Brooklyn if he didn’t have anything going on. He said he might swing by.

I arrived at Ornithology jazz club a few hours later in my best dress and grabbed a seat at the bar. I kept eyeing the door, hoping that Gavin would walk in, but he never did. The woman next to me looked about my age, and I wanted to strike up a conversation, but I didn’t want to bother her.

Eventually I dropped my phone underneath her stool—now I had to bother her. “I love your outfit,” she told me as I reclaimed my phone. “Are you from around here?” “No,” I said, grateful to have been asked the question for the second time that day. We got to chatting and I learned about how she moved to Brooklyn from Texas, how she loves music and writing songs and how we almost attended the same university. I was reminded once again that most people want human connection as much as I do, but it is difficult to make that first move.

When Gavin answered my question outside the MET, shortly before we parted, he said this: “For me it’s just… I love being around people. I think everything now is designed to separate us, to make us feel more alone, but if you can get in a subway, get in anything that packs people together, you are going to feel more [...] alive and with those people.”

I think anything that helps us get out of our own bubble—whether it’s talking to a stranger, taking the subway, going for a walk—is a good first step toward feeling more human.

I know I’ve been using the world “human” a lot, and I still don’t fully know what that means or how to embody some pure sense of the word, but I do think it hinges on our ability to connect with and have empathy for others. To live 3D lives. John Green said, “We’re human because we believe in each other’s humanness. In that sense, being human is both something that we are and something that we must always aspire to be.”

So here’s to aspiring.

(listen to the interviews below!)

When I moved back to the United States last summer, my mind was set on returning to England, but after a string of failed job applications and visa problems, I decided to stay put in Nashville. I lived in a 1920s bungalow with my best friend in a walkable neighborhood, only a ten minute drive from my job (which I genuinely looked forward to going to.) On Mondays I hosted a movie night at our local theater, on Tuesdays I wrote with my folk band, and on any given day I could be found writing or socializing at Humphrey Street Coffee. At the age of twenty-three I had the kind of community I imagine most people don’t find until middle age, if that. I loved my life, and I didn’t want to leave it.

In the early days of January I scribbled “bold” in all caps onto a piece of stock paper and pinned it to my wall. It’s the year of the horse. It’s the year for change. The word kept resurfacing in my mind, and I felt a friction between loving the life I had and knowing there was more out there. Living in Nashville was comfortable enough that I could stay there forever, but I wanted to honor the version of myself who came back home from her study abroad in the UK and promised herself she would see more of the world, even if it was scary. That felt bold.

Shortly before Valentine’s Day I attended the Porch’s annual Heartbreak Happy Hour, hosted by , and I was reminded of Lane’s Substack post on living lease-free. I had previously never considered leaseless living as an option. There were only three: rent a place, buy a home, or live with your parents. I talked to her afterward about her lifestyle—living out of a suitcase, traveling, and working remotely—and she recommended I try the same. My best friend looked over at me and said, “I can see you doing that.” Suddenly, a fourth option appeared.

I began my plan of attack, sketching out a rough itinerary for each month of the next year: stay with family in June, volunteer in July, backpack in August, sublease in September, apply for a residency in October. I started applying for remote jobs, fellowships, and volunteer opportunities with guaranteed housing. My life past December 2026 is a nebulous black hole, but the not-knowing is exciting.

I’m reminded of the Mary Oliver poem, “If I Wanted A Boat,” which says this:

There will be room in my life for steering, but not now. (Says the girl with budget spreadsheets and extremely detailed itineraries). I like to know some things, of course, but leaving room for mystery is something I want to prioritize in my journey toward boldness. One thing I do know is that my community in Nashville will still be here when I return—that’s not changing.

“You’ll find it someday,” one of them said reassuringly, a phrase I’ve been hearing more often. You’ll find it someday, because if you don’t, then you’ll really have to worry.

I doubled down. “But what if I don’t?”

This Valentine’s Day was the first in recent memory that I didn’t spend being sad. I saw a couple kiss under a streetlight in NYC and smiled. I saw chocolates and roses line the entrance of Trader Joe’s and indulged. I’m not missing anyone, and I’m not worried about the looming threat of not finding someone. This change in my perspective is not unique; I recently came across the phrase “decentering men,” a term reflective of the many heterosexual women who are choosing not to pursue relationships. Friends are moving to follow friends, couples are sharing homes with their friends, the article “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” is trending on social media. People are realizing that romantic love may be taking up too much space on the relationship-priority pie-chart.

There’s a scene in It’s a Wonderful Life where George Bailey visits a version of Bedford Falls where he had never been born, and it’s downright ugly: the family-owned shops have become nightclubs and casinos, his friend is imprisoned, his brother is dead, and—worst of all—Mary is unmarried. (And a librarian!) I’m glad I can watch that scene today and chuckle, but there are still other ways that a woman’s worth is tied to her relationship status. Countless interviewers ask actress Emma Watson, age 35, the question, “Why aren’t you married?” In a 2025 interview she responded, “I’m just glad I’m not divorced,” and continued to say:

“We’re being pressured and forced into this thing that, like… I believe is a kind of miracle. I might never be worthy of it. I hope it happens to me, but like, I don’t feel entitled to it. Like, it will either be part of my purpose here and my destiny or it won’t.”

I spent the day after the pizzeria walking around my neighborhood, shuffling on the dusting of snow that covered the sidewalk. I stopped in a café to order a hot americano and read a few chapters of my book. When my stomach began to rumble, I picked up some sushi and ate it on a park bench. Every decision I made that afternoon was on a whim, without consideration for anyone else’s needs. I practically waltzed back home, listening to Joni Mitchell in my headphones and wrapping my scarf tightly around my neck. The little pocket of freedom I found myself in wasn’t lonely—it was romantic.

Oh, The Romance Of It All!

Let me describe one of my best friends: he’s a folk singer-songwriter, he travels across the country playing small shows, he can frequently be found talking to strangers, and he’ll randomly be performing at a folk festival or hiking through the Appalachian mountains on a given Tuesday. He has a wonderful partner, but he spends plenty of time with friends. He identifies fossils and bird calls, will stop to smell any flower he passes. My roommate and I often remark, “he lives such a romantic life,” and I think what we mean is, he sucks the marrow out of life: he appreciates things, lives intentionally and adventurously.

When researching definitions of romance, I came across this one that I quite liked: “a quality or feeling of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life.” Sometime in my last year of singleness I realized that my hurry to fill the romantic void in my life was utterly unromantic: I was seeing the potential in people and situations rather than seeing them at face value. I was searching for a face on the dance floor instead of dancing.

Coincidentally, when I stopped dating, I found it again: the mystery and excitement of everyday life. I started spending more time with friends. I took myself out for coffee. I’d go to the art museum on discount days and inspect the texture of Monet’s brush strokes. I planned fancy dinners and monthly movie nights with loved ones. I read more books, I traveled, I laughed more. Life was suddenly more romantic than it had ever been, and it made me think—I can still live a romantic life without a romantic partner.

Reframing

Earlier this year I went on a monastic retreat and read a book of essays on monastic life, one of which offered a perspective on monastic sexuality. The author reframed sexuality to include all sensations, not just physical touch.

“I think it’s important to cultivate those [...] qualities that nurture sexuality but are not themselves directly sexual in the usual sense. The beauty and sensuality of song, dress, architecture, art, décor, gardens, grounds, vistas, literature, ritual, and other things is of vast importance to a celibate community.”

Living a romantic life comes down to appreciating the beauty of the everyday and utilizing our five senses as much as we can: being moved by a piece of art, slowing down to savor a meal, carefully curating an outfit. There’s data that proves taking it slowly in romantic relationships is healthy, and I wonder if it’s a similar recipe for a romantic life: living slowly, noticing the beauty around us.

That night in the pizzeria I let the tiramisu settle on my tongue, the taste of cream and coffee lingering as a live guitarist’s soulful notes carried across the room. My glass of Cabernet flushed my cheeks and let my laughter flow a little more freely. A candle on the table flickered in my friends’ eyes, accentuating their beauty. I adored them. I adored all of it. And sure, I want romantic love—the kind you see in Before Sunrise or The Fault in Our Stars—someday, but right now, I’ve been shown love in so many different shapes, and all I can do is celebrate its abundance. It all comes back to perspective—sucking the marrow out of life. And if I end up a spinster librarian like Mary Bailey, I’ll still find reasons to dance.

If I see another engagement post, I’ll throw my phone against the wall.

I’m getting to the age when birthdays are less a source of excitement and more of a heart-palpitating reminder of how fast time flies. I turn twenty-two in a month, and I know that is still very young, but the thought of being the same age as Taylor Swift when she released “Red” makes my chest cave in. The end of college is a time when it is painstakingly clear that a life can look very different from one person to the next. Some twenty-two-year-olds are getting married, others are starting six-figure salary jobs or going on tour, and some, like me, are baristas for twelve dollars an hour with a freshly acquired degree in Songwriting (a Bachelors of Science, I might add). So when I, two months after breaking up with my boyfriend and one month away from graduating college, saw that my high school best friend was getting married, I felt tragically behind in life. I had no romantic prospects, no job lined up, and no clue what I’d be doing for the next five years.

I’m obsessed with averages. I’ve always compared myself to the norm, whatever that is. What’s the average age to get married? Twenty-eight. Hurry up, you’ve got six years, including dating. What’s the average time it takes to say I love you? Three months. I’m overly eager. Average time it takes to get over a breakup? Three months, and I’ve always exceeded that average.

My first breakup knocked the wind from my sails, sucked the hope from my stomach and made me think that happiness would never again be attainable. The problem with my first boyfriend was that he too was obsessed with averages, but he always wanted to beat them. He told me he loved me two weeks into dating, to which I asked, Are you sure? and failed to reciprocate the words of endearment. He wanted to get married right out of college, and I didn’t know what I wanted to eat for breakfast that morning. I was always lagging behind him, or so I felt. I remember one time we were eating ice cream after an orchestra concert when he said, “I wanna live my life very seriously. Like, just be super intentional.” I didn’t know how to respond, so I just murmured “Mmhm” in agreement, but I felt convicted—was I living my life seriously enough?

Flash forward two years and another broken heart and the question still remained. It was a particularly gloomy day after my latest breakup, a bottom-of-the-bell-curve type day after things get worse but before they get better. I unlocked the door to my home with the weight of routine, threw my bag on the floor and grabbed my headphones to walk back out. I desired to listen to sad songs and play on the swing set: my resolution to, or perhaps encouragement of, this feeling. My roommate, Lydia, stopped me on my way out.

“Where are you going?”

“Off to the park,” I exhaled. “I just feel sad and need to get out.”

She looked up at me with an expression that said she was feeling the same way.

“Can I join?”

So the two of us walked to the park down our street and collapsed on the swings like children. She was in a new relationship, and I had just gotten out of mine, but we both felt the same breed of uncertainty. Lydia was deciding where she wanted to go to grad school and I was in the thick of preparing an application for a program that, if I were to be accepted, would send me to England for a year to teach creative writing to children.

I laughed hysterically, “It all feels so random. Two months ago I had never heard of this town in England and now I’m planning a theoretical life there. I wonder if I’m making the right choice.”

“I don’t think there is a right choice,” she said thoughtfully. “Life is so open right now. I feel like there’s a lot of different versions of our lives where we’re happy.”

Sometimes I think about all the strange and wonderful lives I could live if I were a little less serious. I could be a park ranger, throwing myself into the soil and memorizing the call of a blue jay or the shape of an oak leaf; I could live in a monastery, devote myself to God, rise at the strike of bells and practice a life that is centered completely outside myself. I could narrate audiobooks, DoorDash on a bike, work on a farm and still, somehow, be happy even if I’m unmarried at twenty-eight.

There are so many lives worth living. I think, often, of the lives I could’ve lived in past relationships, if only they’d lasted. God, I think about it so much it makes me sick. I think about us waking up in the same home years from now, the kettle boiling and a cat purring and someone to tell everything to. I think about my life in England, being free from all I know, starting something entirely on my own. I think about staying in Nashville and living with my best friends, pursuing music and writing.

There are so many lives worth living. But I think I’m living the right one—or, at least, I’ll choose to believe that.

I’m here to hear my friend in Nashville play drums at the Roundhouse Theater, a relatively large venue in Camden town, but I decided to make a weekend out of it, a decision I only regret in part: lack of planning left me with an abundance of time alone, and I’ve found myself returning to the same places I went last year, the year before, but this time without the people that made it special. The city feels hollow when I’m here as a tourist, visiting the same sights like a ghost haunting the home I grew up in. I’ve known three Londons, and this is the loneliest. It’s not worse, just objective.

But today I am in a new part of town, making a new memory: my friend from Nashville, Mik, is leading a writing workshop at the Vagina Museum, and I decided to join. Today’s theme was on transitions and the gray areas in life, a theme that seemed ever relevant as I sat there with a body in England but a mind in the United States.

Periods of my life are getting harder to define. I’ve always loved categorizing time by some overarching theme or moral lesson, but as I’ve grown, these periods are less distinguishable. The more experiences you have, the less each new one is earth-shattering and definitive; things tend to take on more nuance as I age, and this frustrates my brain that likes to attach meaning and language to everything, that likes to see a clear cause and effect.

On the theme of transition, one person at the workshop brought up their experience as a non-binary person, whose life was constant transition, and so poignantly said, “I think life is about getting comfortable with change—transcending the transition.”

Transitions are hard for me, and I think a reason why it’s been so difficult to define the last year and a half of my life is because it’s all felt like one big change to the next; I can’t point to a time when the arch of my life dramatically shifted. I’m still in the transition—I haven’t found the words to summarize this era, because I’m still in it. And maybe that’s what marks the end of a transition: when you’ve found the words for what you were feeling. When you’ve drawn a dotted line in your life separating before from after, pretending that the two aren’t walking side by side on the same street, hands tied.

As a recent college graduate, I’ve been thinking a lot about time. During my final term at university, I read T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, two texts that center around our modern perception of time and offer new ways of looking at it. The protagonist of Slaughterhouse Five encounters an alien species called the Tralfamadorians who view time as nonlinear. One of the aliens explains:

“All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.”

This challenged my view of time; not only is it impossible to arrange your life into perfectly coherent chapters, but it’s not the most productive way of viewing time. There isn’t a clear cut “before” or “after”; rather, every memory interacts with the present.

Coming to London, I felt plagued by the before. Even in a new country with a new job, I still mulled over the same problems I had in the States. I find new ways to revive old loves; I hoard the dust of last year’s heartaches and draw lines in it when I’m lonely. I am still in the before.

It’s hard to reflect on your past and look to the future while still feeling present, and it’s something I’m trying to get better at. Transcending the transition, for me, means embracing the undefinable and welcoming change. It’s accepting that moments and memories live forever but not letting them take over our present. It’s living on uneven ground, walking through constant change, but knowing that somehow, I’ll fare forward.

— Wendell Berry
“How To Be A Poet”

I took the backroads to the abbey, winding past red barns and silos, the last sliver of pink fleeing the Eastern Kentucky sky. Every now and then I’d glance over at the bare oaks and frozen ponds and remember what I love about America: the open road, the endless cornfields, the sunsets that stretch for miles and remind me just how big this country is and how empty it can feel. Here was the emptiest: January-dried wildflowers, crumbled up warehouses, abandoned saloons and schoolhouses. No one out at this time, save the occasional glow of headlights.

I took the first right off of Monks Road, right outside New Haven, and approached Gethsemani Abbey at dusk, its white walls stretching up to heaven and a faint glow emanating from the stained glass. Above the entrance gate sat a large stone inscription reading “GOD ALONE.” I pulled open the double doors with all the gentleness I could summon, fearful that a creak might violate the “Silence Only Beyond This Point” sign in the courtyard.

An old monk in a sagging beanie checked me in, handed me a daily schedule, and directed me toward the conference room where Father Carlos would tell me and the twenty-nine other retreatants how to make the most of the five days before us. Father Carlos was a short, round man from the Philippines with rosy cheeks and rectangular glasses that sat low on his nose. As he opened his mouth, I felt it: increased heartbeat, dizziness, heat leaving my cheeks. I was having a panic attack.

“This retreat is not meant for you” — breathe in, one, two, three four — “to DO anything” — out, one, two, three, four — “or to be productive” — close your eyes, focus, focus, focus — “It is time for God to direct you as he pleases.” Calm down drink water sit up you’re fine. “Let God lead you where you least expect.”

And here it was: bare skin on a welcome rug in the middle of nowhere, Kentucky, while a woman named Janie took my blood pressure and a ninety-nine year-old monk watched wide-eyed from the corner. I waited in the lobby for my heart to slow, for the room to come back into focus and the heat to flood back into my cheeks. That night I went to bed at 8 p.m., my body heavy as a brick, wondering if God would let anything else unexpected happen.

I booked a monastic retreat for the same reason anyone else would: to escape the hustle-bustle of city life and spend uninterrupted time devoted to reading, writing, and thinking. I’d arrived in New Haven with a backlog of books to read and essays to get caught up on. Call it divine intervention or pure coincidence, but I was forced to pivot.

From the little I made out from Father Carlos’ speech that night, one thing stood out: this retreat is not meant to be productive. This is time for God to use as he pleases. The last thing I wanted to do after experiencing my first panic attack was read a book on medieval Britain or write an essay about my failed romantic encounters, so I took Father Carlos’ advice: I let God, the wind—whatever you want to call it—lead me.

Here’s what a day of divinely-inspired duty looks like:

• 7 a.m. — Eat breakfast (Quaker Oats or Wonder Bread with peanut butter).

• 7:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. — Outside time. Wait for next meal.

• 12 p.m. — Lunch (Chicken caesar salad and chocolate pudding if I’m lucky).

• 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. — Read. Go outside again. Wait for next meal.

• 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. — Watch the sunset.

• 6 p.m. — Dinner.

• 7 p.m. — Attend Compline.

• 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. — Read in the library.

• 10 p.m. — Retire to my quarters (literally).

My routine reminded me that I’d nearly forgotten how to do nothing, how to let my mind wander instead of forcing it down a pre-paved path. As I explored the abbey grounds and halls, I had the freedom to linger on little details: the cross necklace dangling on a tree branch, notes scribbled in the corner of a borrowed book, a photo of someone’s daughter in a shrine.

I think often of the line in Wendell Berry’s poem, “How To Be A Poet,” that goes, “There are no unsacred places; / there are only sacred places / and desecrated places.” As a person of faith, I try my best to find echoes of the divine in our world. In a culture where religious dogma can be so convoluted and destructive, I think about how the Magi possessed one great spiritual truth—follow the star and it will lead to Christ—and let that one truth govern their lives.1

Maybe then the best path to worship is the simplest: if we were made to love and be loved, then let me love the laughter of my neighbor, let me dwell on the beauty of a blackbird’s wing and the miracle of life by which the ice clings to a tree, let me savor the brine and fat in this chicken caesar salad and sing praise to it.

I flipped open a book in the library of writings from Thomas Merton, one of the earliest and most prolific members of the abbey, and stumbled upon this paragraph of Merton admiring a sunrise:

Many, no doubt, are vaguely aware that it is dawn: but they are protected from the solemnity of it by the neutralizing worship of their own society, their own world, in which the sun no longer rises and sets.

By neutralizing what is sacred, we risk “dulling the soul’s capacity for awe, ” as Matthew Kelley puts it.2 I bring this up because I have neutralized much of my world for the past year. I watch a great movie then forget about it. I shrug off the sunrise. I hurry for the check. Little reminds me of God.

Every evening at five o’clock I’d climb to the top of St. Edmund’s Hill and watch the sun set. The first night, the sky was dark grey until 5:45, any remaining light hidden behind clouds. I began making my way back when something magical happened: a blanket of bright pink fell across the sky, touching every corner, consuming my entire line of vision. For as far as I could see was only trees, fields, and sky, the same view someone hundreds of years ago would’ve been awarded. It was so vibrant, set behind a statue of a cross where, at its feet, lay dozens of mementos and pictures from people who had left this Earth. I got down on my knees and nearly cried. I felt it again, for the first time in a long time. Awe.

The next day I woke up at 7 a.m. for breakfast. Quaker Oats and decaf coffee and the sound of chewing. As I read yet another book from the library, I thought to myself, how do I sustain this? How do I carry the monastic values of reverence and careful attention outside the abbey?

I think Wendell Berry has the answer:

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.

Connection with something larger than myself requires carving out a daily space for stillness. Sometimes doing “nothing” is the best antidote: not having a plan but letting life unfold before you with spontaneity and surprise. Forgetting the to-do list for a few minutes and taking a walk. It’s in these moments of wandering and sustained attention that I feel most in touch with nature, with myself, with God.

Maybe the path to being a better poet looks a lot like the path to being a better human: making space for silence, exercising patience, seeing everything as sacred or desecrated. With that perspective, everything I do matters, and every sunset is the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen.

No day is as depressing to me as New Year’s Eve. Take Halloweekend’s social pressures, January’s seasonal blues, and last year’s list of abandoned goals and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a spiral. And I’m not alone; according to The Telegraph, approximately a sixth of the British population considers New Year’s Eve the “most depressing day of the year.” It makes sense: after the holiday-heavy November and December, our social batteries can quickly wane. Pair that with the reflective nature of the day and the pressure to go out, and it’s easy to see why we’re hard on ourselves. If I don’t have huge accomplishments to look back on, dear friends to toast, or a pretty face to kiss, I’m doing it wrong. But for the past few New Years Eves I have had accomplishments to celebrate, friends to toast, and a loved one to kiss, and yet I’ve been miserable.

As I reflect on this past year, one that was monotonous and tinged with loss, I end it with no big plans, no boyfriend, and a short list of achievements, but I’m happy as a clam. Hell, I’m even ready to raise a glass. The difference? I’m not latching onto anything.

If I’ve got something good in my hands, I’ll fight tooth and nail before I loosen my grip. Put more plainly, I’m scared of letting go—of people, of memories, of cities—not because of the value they add to my life, but because of the security I’d be without, left leaning on one leg with my arms flailing. But this year I’m the most untethered I’ve ever been. With no partner, job contract, or commitments keeping me in Nashville, I’m the freest I’ve ever felt. Yes, fewer obligations and greater freedom are usually synonymous, but I don’t think that’s the reason I’ve arrived to this day unfettered. I think it’s because I’m holding onto the good in my life loosely, ready for the new year to give or take as it pleases.

This revelation came upon me as I listened to an episode of The Anthropocene Reviewed about the song Auld Lang Syne. I’ve listened to this episode every year since it came out, but I never paid close attention to the lyrics of the 18th century Scottish anthem it dissects until yesterday. The opening lines literally translate to, “Should old friends and times be forgotten?” as the speaker reflects fondly on the past without romanticizing it. The fourth verse translates to “We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine, but seas between us broad have roared since Auld Lang Syne.” John Green’s response to this line is poignant:

“I’ll never speak again to many of the people who loved me into this moment, just as you will never speak to many of the people who loved you into your now. And so we raise a glass to them—and hope that perhaps somewhere, they are raising a glass to us.”

This perspective does not mourn loss but memorializes it. It recognizes that seas between us and loved ones broaden, and instead of frantically paddling to meet them, we can gaze at the waters that stretch between us with gratitude. When there’s good in my life, I tend to cling to it because I’m scared I won’t experience something that good ever again. But in reality, what’s meant to stay with us will find a way to, and even temporary goodness is goodness that we can look back on and appreciate.

After graduating college in 2024 and moving abroad, 2025 has felt like the children’s counting rhyme where characters are whittled down until it’s just me and the few friends who have stuck with me. I’m not clinging onto them, because I’m not scared they’ll leave—it’s the kind of love that can breathe. And to those who have passed, well, I can raise a glass tonight.

The other day I started my car, reached for my aux cord, and realized it broke. I panicked a little like a kid lost in the grocery store—what was I going to listen to on my twenty-minute commute? Where before silence had soothed me, now it was plain unnerving, and it made me think that maybe there’s an essential part of myself I’ve lost to technology.

Shortly after this revelation in my Ford Fusion, I re-watched Wes Anderson’s 2009 hit Fantastic Mr. Fox wherein Mr. Fox attempts to rekindle his wild, animalistic side that he feels he’s lost in domesticity. I saw myself in Mr. Fox’s plight to balance these two parts of himself as I navigate being a human in what feels like an increasingly robotic world, and it encouraged me to reconnect with the analog—the things I can touch and smell and feel—and disconnect (pun intended) from screens, if even a little.

The Root

If you haven’t seen it, Fantastic Mr. Fox film follows a family of foxes and three notorious farmers who begin to notice that Mr. Fox, our fearless protagonist, has been stealing from them. Something Mr. Fox says again and again, the reasoning behind his thievery, is that he’s a wild animal, a Vulpes vulpes. He’s following his instincts. This made me pause. What are my natural instincts? As I spend an increasing amount of time online, what practices or habits have I put aside?

Little about my life feels “natural.” I spend most of my days inside, staring at screens. If there’s a nanosecond of stillness, I reach for my phone. I don’t need to give you a statistic about our shortening attention spans, because if you’re someone with an internet connection, you feel it.

I hear John Green talk a lot about the value of our attention—how it’s our greatest resource in a world where most of what we do is pay attention and respond attentively or not. In an interview for Ted Talk, John says, “What you do with your attention is in the end what you do with your life,” and I think what separates the last five to ten years from previous decades is that paying less careful attention to the world around us has become the easier and more popular option.

Careful, sustained attention is our greatest weapon against numbness, but it means making a hundred daily choices: choosing to think or meditate instead of always listening to something, choosing not to doomscroll while watching a movie, choosing to be bored sometimes. Doing a better job of staying curious and making these difficult choices is what I believe will keep us all from becoming robots.

Reconnecting

Mr. Fox returned to his bandit life to feel more alive, and I’m not saying we should start stealing geese and squab from farmers, but I do think we should notice the activities that make us feel more human and try to do more of those.

Every time I’ve asked my friends or myself the question, What makes you feel most human? the answer is often something tactile: tending to plants in a garden, walking in the park and observing the lives of others, taking a warm shower, attending a yoga class. These slow, meditative exercises give us time to step away from the constant noise of work and life and to just think. Beyond that, they get us out of our own heads.

When we’re scrolling TikTok or Instagram, we’re inhabiting our own singular world, and the times I feel most in touch with reality are the moments when I’m out of my head and fully engaged with the present.

We all know that we should use screens less. Touch grass. Phone bad. It’s obvious at this point, but I do find it helpful to be reminded of all the other things I could be doing instead of staring at my phone.

Redirecting

Attentiveness is a skill, and I’m not as good at it as I used to be. Sometimes it feels like I’ve forgotten how to focus my mind at all, but these days it just takes more redirecting—applying force where there used to be none. Putting your phone in another room for a few hours. Eating breakfast without entertainment.

By the end of the film Mr. Fox realizes he’s neglected his wife and son, and he redirects his attention back onto his family, the deepest source of his identity. The short answer to the question of “how to be more human” is this: surround yourself with people you love and hang out with them. And dance a little. Nothing will make you feel more homosapien.

My freshman year of college was the first time I lived outside of Indiana. The great majority of my first eighteen years on earth was confined to Indianapolis city limits, a small but sprawling city of flat roads, endless cornfields, and Midwestern politeness. It was all I knew beyond occasional weekend family visits and school field trips to Chicago. Nashville was different—warmer, busier, and home to a far worse interstate system.

At the start of virtually every class, I had to face my worst nightmare: icebreakers. Name, hometown, major, fun fact (what constitutes a fun fact, I still do not know). “Elisabeth, Indianapolis, Songwriting, and… er… I’m vegetarian?” I exchanged smiles with the other Indiana residents, and we talked after class about what high schools we attended and which parks our families took us to on vacations. In the newness of Tennessee, I felt a small sense of comfort to know there were others who shared a slice of my upbringing.

The longer I spent outside of Indiana, the better I became accustomed to explaining it to people, something I never had to do before. Indiana was a given, it was an unspoken pillar of life, but upon leaving it, I had to think: what is Indianapolis like? What makes it special?

It turns out that most people don’t know much about Indiana, so I reluctantly took on the job as Indiana spokesperson. Oh, Indianapolis? You’re not familiar? Well, it’s the 17th largest city in the U.S. but has the 2nd most amount of monuments behind Washington DC, and it’s the home of the world’s largest children’s museum and sliced bread and—so on and so forth. My eyes lit up describing my city and its understated nature, its beautiful parks and bike lanes, world-class museum of art and low-cost of living.

In 2024 I moved to England, and people really don’t know about Indiana there. I buzzed with excitement as I zoomed up on a map of the States and pointed to the boot outline of Indiana, regaling my housemates with tales of pumpkin patches and apple orchards and how the trees in autumn really are more vibrant than the pictures make out. The last five years I’ve spent outside of Indiana have proven the cliché to be true: you bring a part of where you’re from to every place you go, and the more places I go, the more special—even rare—Indiana becomes. It’s something unique to me, something I can share with others.

The more I travel, the more I feel like an athlete at the Olympics, waving my country’s flag: I’m proud to represent Indiana. Not because it’s a better place to live than anywhere else, but because it’s made me the person I’ve become. I can relate to Leslie Knope’s love of Pawnee in Parks and Recreation:

“Look, I’m not crazy. I know Pawnee isn’t Paris or London or Chicago, but it’s a great place to live and work. [...] And yes, every town claims its diner’s waffles are the best in the world, but somewhere, in some town, there really are the best waffles in the world. [...] Somewhere those waffles exist. Why can’t it be here?”

There might be a place where the air is more crisp, where the autumn leaves are a deeper red, where there’s a better Covered Bridge Festival or sweeter sugar cream pie.

But why can’t that place be Indiana?

You move to a new country to coach a sport you’ve barely played. A lot of people call you a wanker. You make it to the end of the season just to find that your boss and closest friend only hired you to watch you fail. She’s been lying to you this whole time, and now she apologizes. Do you:

1. Storm out of the room.

2. Say “It’s okay” but hold onto a little resentment.

3. Gradually distance yourself from her until she’s just a memory.

4. Fully, completely forgive her.

If I’m honest, I probably would’ve done option 3. Or at least give her the cold shoulder for a week before getting around to forgiving. But when this scenario happens to Ted Lasso, he forgives swiftly and fully and, like a goldfish, forgets it even happened.

If you don’t know, Ted Lasso is an Apple TV series about an American football coach who is hired to manage a British soccer team. Where Ted lacks in experience, he makes up for in optimism, homemade biscuits, and an endless supply of dad jokes. Like many others, this show has gripped me (albeit late) and provided me with a blissful escape from reality. The characters are loveable, the writing is superb, and it is as hilarious as it is gut-wrenching.

Ted himself is a stark contrast to today’s Western culture: he is wholesome, aggressively un-cynical, and radically hopeful. He forgives quickly and fully, and this surprised me as a viewer, as I’m not accustomed to seeing genuine, grace-dependent forgiveness portrayed on television. It’s not rare to see kindness on screen, but the more difficult to portray emotional processes, like forgiveness and redemption, are often overlooked. They require self-sacrificial work that is not always glamorous, and is in many ways countercultural.

Forgiveness was a huge talking point growing up in the church; it’s a cornerstone of Christianity to forgive as Christ forgave us, but I don’t hear it discussed much in secular circles, let alone portrayed on television. The way Ted Lasso showcases grace in several of its core relationships got me thinking about the importance of forgiveness, how it has been undervalued, and why I think it is a virtue for everyone, including non-religious communities, to embrace.

*Warning: Season 1-3 spoilers to come.*

Forgiveness Today

I’ll give you some more context: a pivotal scene occurs in the penultimate episode of Season 1 when Rebecca, the club owner of AFC Richmond, confesses and apologizes to Ted that she only hired him to see the club fail and to bring retribution to her ex-husband, the former club owner. Ted pauses, stands up, and immediately replies, “I forgive you,” to which Rebecca responds, “What–why?”

Ted’s response came as a shock to me too. In 2025, forgiveness is often seen as weak. You’re supposed to stand up for yourself and seek justice. If someone does you wrong, you cut them out of your life for your own self-betterment. As part of the larger “cancel culture,” the belief that one’s past mistakes can and should be held against them is widely accepted, and forgiveness can almost feel like passivity. Social media rewards angry, generalized takes over nuanced, balanced discussions, and it can feel good—even righteous—to participate in that collective anger, which makes forgiving and moving on especially difficult.

In the Vox article titled “Everyone wants forgiveness, but no one is being forgiven” by Aja Romano, internet researcher Alice Marwick found that when groups of people on social media believed their moral code had been violated, they felt so justified in their harassment of their targets that they refused to acknowledge it as harassment. “When you think of somebody as being immoral, that shuts down the ability to have a conversation.” We’re quick to assume the worst of others, and offering grace is, in essence, asking you to assume good, which can be a big ask in today’s fragmented discourse.

So it’s no wonder Rebecca reacted the way she did.

Second Chances

“I hope that either all of us or none of us are judged by the actions we take in our weakest moments, but rather for the strength we show if and when we’re given a second chance.” — Ted Lasso

One of my favorite aspects of the Christian faith is its emphasis on forgiveness. In his essay, “On Forgiveness” from The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis writes that “to be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” Forgiving frees the one granting it and provides a second chance for the one seeking it, and I love the way Ted Lasso portrays this from a secular perspective, showing that the practice of extending grace is not bound to religion.

In the penultimate episode of Season 3, titled “Mom City,” Roy Kent asks the Diamond Dogs if people can change. Nate, a deeply flawed character who turned his back on AFC Richmond and everyone in it, replies, “I think people can change. They can. Sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better.” A lyric that I live by is “If it weren’t for second chances we’d all be alone” from Gregory Alan Isakov’s song “Second Chances,” and it rings true in my life and in Ted Lasso. Nate was given a second chance by Richmond, thus given the opportunity to change and to grow. And he did! We all have room to be better versions of ourselves, but none of us are perfect, and that’s where grace comes in.

What I loved most about Nate’s redemption arc was that Beard was the final one to forgive him. We learn in Season 3 that Beard was at an all-time low after college when Ted took him in and gave him a second chance, so when confronting Nate, Beard says, “And then I stole from my friend. Who forgave me. And gave me a job. And a life. So to honor that, I forgive you. I offer you a job. The life part’s up to you.” We forgive others because it’s what we’d want done in return, and this is especially powerful for those of us who’ve been granted a second chance.

No Apologies

“Well, you know my philosophy when it comes to cats, babies and apologies, Coach. You gotta let ‘em come to you.” — Ted Lasso

How do you forgive when you don’t get an apology? Oftentimes we’re not fortunate enough to receive one. We can either choose to be mad because of it, bottling up anger and resentment for fuel, or we can forgive to help ourselves move on. Jamie Tartt didn’t get an apology from his father, a cruel and abusive man who would ridicule Jamie for not making the winning goal. When pleasing him is no longer a motivating force, Ted suggests that Jamie try forgiving his father. “I ain’t giving him that,” Jamie fires back, to which Ted replies, “You ain’t giving him anything. When you choose to do that, you’re giving that to yourself.”

After hearing that, Jamie goes on to score the winning goal that would put AFC Richmond in the Champions League, and we see him reconcile with his father in the finale. Forgiveness is freeing; it allows one to move forward and to let go of resentment. Like Rebecca learns from her relationship with her ex-husband, vengeance is a fuel that does not burn clean, and it’s better to let go than to remain bitter. The ever-wise Ola Obisanya said it best: “If you really want to piss off the people who did this… forgive them. Big whoop. Don’t fight back. Fight forward.”

However easy Ted Lasso might make it look, forgiveness is hard, and, as was the case with Beard, sometimes there’s a great deal of emotional work that needs to happen before it is even considered. But I’m so grateful for the moments I was granted forgiveness when I didn’t deserve it, and I want to be someone who extends that kind of grace to others. So here’s to relinquishing bitterness, here’s to saying “I forgive you” more than “It’s okay,” and here’s to not judging others by the things they do at their lowest. Here’s to being more like Ted.

Two months later, sitting on a plane departing Denver, the flight attendant’s voice sounds like safety as she instructs passengers not to wait in line for the bathroom. I imagine a British voice warning not to queue for the toilet. It sounds unfamiliar, like a past version of myself, or a recollection of what I ate for breakfast last week. After pledging to myself that I’d be back in England in four months, I’m staying in America for the foreseeable future, and the worst part is I’m not even mad about it. American life has taken the shape of my life once again like my mouth does the words to a song I haven’t heard in years. My life in England fades like the memory of someone I once loved—the intricacy of their eye color, my front door, the freckles on their hand, the street I crossed every day to take the bus.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how quickly our brains adjust to new environments and leave behind the former. In many ways this is a comfort; hard things will inevitably happen, but time will work its magic and what felt big will one day seem small. But I also wonder what sensations or memories—good or bad—will be lost to time. What will I look back on and remember, or find worthwhile? What will be lost completely?

In Kaveh Akbar’s novel Martyr!, he writes that, “Nazim Hikmet said twentieth-century grief lasted at most a year. It dwindled like that. Maybe twenty-first-century grief had gotten down to a fraction of that fraction, just a few hours before it was supplanted by necessity.” I can attest that some of the hardest periods of my life are times I think little of now, or if I do, it’s with little emotional effort. The heartbreaks I swore I’d never recover from are far behind me. “Out of sight, out of mind” rings true. Don’t get me wrong—I’m beyond relieved to not be hung up on my first boyfriend—but I hope the part of me that forgets the bad stuff holds onto the good a little longer.

Before I landed in Philadelphia that day in May, I was rushing down the stairs of the London Underground to catch my train that would lead me to Paddington Station where I’d board another train to the airport. It was all so normal to me: the station, the running down the left side of the escalator, the rush of it all. I was Elisabeth In England, and she was happy with her life and the prospect of living in England permanently. I hope that version of me, however distant, will continue to be rekindled over the years through songs, meals, smells and photographs.

I’m happy now, in a different, non-competitive way. If anything, our incredible adaptivity as humans is proof to myself that my desires can change with new experiences and environments. It’s also a reminder of how many different versions of happy exist within me. I’m happy choosing to spend this next step of my life in America, and I’m sure I would’ve been equally content choosing to do so in England, or anywhere else. Wherever it is I’ll end up, I’ll try to hold nostalgia and newness in the same hand, but still, I’ll avoid the Philadelphia International Airport at all costs.

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“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”

– 1 Peter 4:10

June 21, 2023

I liked that Laufey’s house was blue. No other house on the street was anything other than some variation of white, concrete, or charcoal, so it was easy to recognize on bike rides home those cloudless evenings in June when the sun never set. Nearly two years later I would turn onto Laxatunga and squint in a concentrated state of recollection as all the homes became one under a drape of December snow. As I approached, a single patch of teal revealed itself above a window under icicle shutters: this was the one.

The back porch bled onto grass and gravel, confined by a wire fence forming a perfect rectangle around the home’s perimeter. As summer settled in in Iceland—maybe reaching fourteen degrees celsius if we were lucky—the girls and I would lay down a picnic blanket and soak in the warmth the sun seldom offered, Esja’s outline staggering behind us. Even after three weeks of being there, that was the one view that still left my jaw hanging. On one of those sunny afternoons, with the mountains behind us, the grass the shade of a candied green apple and the sky a radiant blue, I lifted my camera to take Laufey’s portrait and held my breath as my finger rested on the shutter.

The week before was not so kind: it was of the below-ten-degrees, foggy-from-five-steps-away and dew-on-the-windowsill variety, so I threw a raincoat over my Lopapeysa and pulled my beanie down over my ears to bike into town for a hot cup of coffee. My extensive research on Iceland’s best coffee shops led me to Reykjavík Roasters, where I finished writing and uploading a blog post recapping my first week in Iceland. Upon my return, I felt a lump on the middle of my back, right on my spine. I looked in the mirror, and there it was: a perfect sphere of a rash, my pores open wide like little suction cups, sweat glistening around its perimeter like a halo. It was a poisonous spider bite. Surely. Or the mark of an alien probe. Or a hornet sting. Immediately my pulse quickened and I felt dizzy—this was it. I was going to die in Iceland. Despite knowing Laufey for one week, I sought her limited medical advice for fear that I might be sent to the hospital. “Well you don’t have to worry about poisonous spiders,” Laufey said, “because Iceland doesn’t have any of those. Or any poisonous bugs.” I relaxed a little.

She inspected my rash and facetimed her friend, a nurse, to assuage my fears. The real cause of (near) death was my laptop in my backpack, which repeatedly beat against my spine for twenty miles—but Laufey took me seriously at every step.

Laufey is a school counselor; she helps kids talk through their issues and listens as they relay what’s on their minds. “I’m still learning to take my own advice,” she laughed as she dabbed my alien bite with ointment and a wet towel. “I’m terrified of speaking in front of adults, but children, I don’t mind… I learn a lot from them.” I thought it admirable that at forty-one she’s still learning and growing, and in many of the same areas I am. Despite her twenty years on me, I saw much of myself in her.

Everything inside me softened, like butter on hot bread, as the cold from the towel numbed my skin, and I let out slow, steady exhales. Breathe. Breathe.

It’s so boring, breathing.

I counted my breaths as I counted my steps, counted the ways in which I’d fallen short. It was June 20th. I’d been here three weeks now and had done nothing of significance. Or at least that’s what I told myself on the days between big plans, the days I spent rotting on my phone or calling my boyfriend, wishing I was somewhere else and someone else. Everyone was home in Tennessee, without me, enjoying the heat and one another and the summer, the only summer I’d be twenty-one and here I was, in Iceland, for no real reason other than a dream at age twelve. As the excitement wore off, I spent more time alone in my room comparing myself to friends back home. I’d fallen out of my habits, and the beauty around me began to blur. Everything had lost its interest: running, writing, socializing, living.

I trudged along the path in our neighborhood that led to a horse farm, close to the foot of Esja and alongside a river that eventually emptied into the Atlantic. It was time to take Ellý, my host family’s black labrador, on a walk, and she obediently complied with my slow stride, not once straying from my left knee. When I reached the dead end—the lookout to the stable, the horses, the river, the lupines—I stopped before turning around. I felt like a windup toy before it starts moving. Like all potential energy and no kinetic. Like everything inside me for the last three weeks, all the loneliness and self-criticism, had been bubbling up. And then it broke. I dropped down to the dirt and sobbed.

At once Ellý attacked me with attention, running circles around me and nuzzling her nose on my shoulder. Dogs understand simplicity well. My sadness was simple, and her love was too.

Click. I lowered my camera, Laufey assumed her natural position, and the two of us took a seat on the picnic blanket. “I read your blog,” Laufey said. My face turned hot. I had written about my first impressions of Iceland and the family as honestly as I could, and I hoped none of it sounded ungrateful. “I really liked it,” she assured me. “It’s a freedom to be able to articulate your emotions so clearly. It is not a gift I have.” She smiled and squinted toward the outline of Reykjavík. “I read some of your other posts too—I really like your writing. I see you blooming into a renowned writer.” My insides settled. All it takes is one person caring to make weeks of self-loathing and comparison subside, if only for a moment. I gave Laufey the rundown of my feelings: how my art wasn’t as good as my friends’, how I wasn’t pursuing anything seriously enough, how no one liked my writing. How I didn’t really know what I was doing with my life. In response, Laufey told me about all the lives she lived before landing as a school counselor in Mosfellsbær: she was a student in Finland, a bookstore barista in Reykjavík, an expat in New Jersey. Her college thesis was on U-turn careers, on people who started and left wildly varying jobs, much like Laufey herself had done. Hearing this was a comfort—it’s never too late to find what you love, and what you love can change.

We sat there for a while longer, breathing in the heat and each others’ stories, discussing our parents and our relationship struggles. Laufey is closer to my parents’ age than to mine, but I didn’t feel any separation talking to her; it was like talking to a friend, and I thought little of the years between us. For most of my life I’d looked at “real” adults as different, or “finished,” but I saw in Laufey a continuous growth and exploration; in her story, there wasn’t a moment when she figured out her life or herself; rather, those identities are continuously expanding.

“I see my parents as normal people who make mistakes, and I want my girls to see me that way too.” I was glad that she felt comfortable opening up to me. If my gift is in expression, I think Laufey’s is in openness and listening well.

Hearing Laufey’s stories took my mind off myself, which was exactly what I’d needed. Thinking about your own performance as a human being on this planet is exhausting. Later that afternoon I took Ylfa, the youngest, to the playground (or, “rollo”) to swing. I half-expected she’d throw a temper tantrum in Icelandic, which rendered me completely useless, but she was giggling like I’d never seen before as I ran underdogs beneath her, shouting “WOOO!” The sky was so damn blue and she was so damn happy and I didn’t care for a second about anything else.

Ellý's circles around my body were growing faster and more frantic by the second. “Okay, okay,” I laughed weakly as I wiped the tears off my cheek and held her face between my hands, dropping a wet kiss on her forehead.

I lifted my gaze toward Esja, toward the softening of the sky to a hazy pink and the rushing of the river over rocks. It was that kind of in-your-face majesty that you couldn’t ignore, the kind of beauty that words only go a fraction of describing. The lupines were in full bloom, like beds of lavender enlarged a few sizes, and the wind whispered gently, God’s slow exhales in my ears, saying, “How silly is it to be sad on a day like this.”

We were going to Hveragerði, a small town right outside of Selfoss in the South of Iceland. Laufey’s childhood friend Lovísa, a nationally acclaimed singer-songwriter, was away in Denmark, and the girls and I would keep the house company. My only time in Iceland thus far had been spent in cities–in the aisles of Krónan picking up skyr and cream cheese (rjómaostur), walking the girls to the playground (rolla), picking through old records at 12 Tónar downtown–so not only was I given the chance to see more of the country, but with a week of leisure ahead of us, I was prepared to deepen my relationships with the three girls: Anna, Àlfheiður, and Ylfa.

Anna, the eldest, is a wise soul for the ripe age of ten. She beat me at chess and rivals even my proficiency in the English language. She is gentle but bold in little ways: she longs to chop off all her hair at thirteen, holds an orange belt in Karate, and knows when she can or can’t handle a scary movie. Àlfheiður has the fairest skin and roundest brown eyes, so wide they’re about to burst. Adventurous and strong willed, she’ll choose the trail with the most loose rocks and steep edges, giving me a heart attack, although I would’ve done the same. She loves as forcefully as she protests–she told me “I love you” on the second day I was here but slammed her door behind me the very next. Ylfa is a fiery spirit with a heart like a firecracker, shaking her butt in the ice cream parlor when she’s got the camera’s attention. She’s easy to lose patience with but takes little patience to love.

I was sweating just thinking about if the kids liked me or not, but Laufey’s words assuaged my fears early on. “I see that you’re good with kids,” she said. “The girls already really like you.”

I heaved a sigh of relief as the bricks on my back tumbled off. If that’s true, whatever else happens is less important.

“The worst thing you can do with Ylfa,” she said with wide eyes and a heavy heart, “is to give up. She gets terribly impatient, but she’s just scared of someone assuming my role… she’s out of routine.”

I thought back to the times I witnessed Ylfa screaming at her mother, slamming her bedroom door and giving her a look of utmost disgust. I was stunned by Laufey’s empathy and how short I was of it in comparison.

“You just have to be patient with her,” she smiled with a sadness in her eyes. I smiled back.

“I will.”

I hope I’m as good of a mother one day.

On the drive south to Hveragerði, I was exposed to a new side of Iceland: staggering mountains rich with mineral deposits, geothermal energy rising in thick steam, hot springs bubbling along the cliffs. Lovísa’s house was a few minutes outside of the town, and it exceeded the idyllic countryside cottage I had imagined. I was met with an emerald green sofa framed by boxes of old records, lamps from the 70s, and the largest collection of potted plants I’d ever seen. Light poured in from the dining room windows, illuminating the open kitchen with its wooden tables and wax candle sticks.

Upon setting down our bags and wishing Lovísa farewell, the five of us wrapped ourselves in Lopapeysa and wool hats as we explored the backyard. Although Mosso was quiet and natural compared to where I’m from, this was the countryside: lupines and grass stretching as far as the eye can see, endless blue skies, no trace of civilization except for a few scattered homes and a church steeple. We roamed through the tall grass behind the house, which led to a hilltop where a giant cross was marked. The ascent was lined with lupines and loose gravel, and Ellý and Ronja leapt from foothold to foothold as the sun shone down magnificently after days of slumber. I paused to admire how perfect of a moment this was: my found family for the month all lined ahead of me, parading joyously through the overgrown grass, picking wildflowers to preserve in ice cubes and book pages. I pulled out my film camera and stole a few shots–my attempt to immortalize this moment.

Back in the warmth of the dining room, I made Laufey and myself a charcuterie board–my American specialty–with an assortment of camembert, brie, and pepper gouda from the Super Krónan in Hveragerði. Lovísa had offered us her last bottle of red wine before she left, and now Laufey eyed it ardently. “It’s a girls night!” She laughed and pulled out two wine glasses from the cupboard. As we munched on crackers and squeezed honey onto our plates (another one of my culinary contributions) I noticed Lauefy’s phone light up with notifications from her husband, Bjössi, who was away at sea for the month as a fisherman.

“How did the two of you meet?” I asked, having not recalled the story.

Laufey furrowed her eyebrows and readjusted herself in her chair. “You see, I never thought I’d end up with an Icelandic man. They were too serious; I thought I’d be with an American man,” she rolled her eyes. “I was so vulnerable to boys when I was young. I was just so stupid, so easy to give in. But I was never sure about the other boys. I was never truly in love. But when I met Bjössi, I just knew.” They had only been dating for months when she knew she wanted to marry him. That felt unreal to me.

“One day you’ll feel that sure—I know it.” She smiled, then turned her gaze to the corner of the table where a pile of board games were stacked upon each other. “Skip-bo?”

We continued our red wine conversations, poking fun at our exes and stopping in between serious questions to recount our cards. Maybe it was the wine or the evening’s end creeping up on me, but I felt myself growing increasingly comfortable around her. Iceland was starting to feel more like home.

The next morning I decided to take my long-awaited trip to the South Coast to visit Vík, the small coastal town that had first attracted me to the country. From the moment I googled Iceland as a wide-eyed sixth grader in math class, I dreamt of seeing the red steeple, jagged rocks, and black sand beaches of Vík, and now it was only a two hour drive away in Laufey’s white Honda Civic. I had never before so plainly seen my dreams come to life as I listened to the Iceland Road Trip playlist I made back in 2016 and passed the lush green plains and mountain ranges. I swerved the car every so often, squealing as I turned my shoulder to see the most spectacular view of my lifetime. Passing a waterfall (Seljalandsfoss), a glacier (Sólheimajökull), and a burrow of puffins along the way, I arrived at Skool Beans cafe in Vík, where I enjoyed a cocoa-dusted cappuccino and read Mary Oliver’s Devotions. I’d investigated this cafe closely from Google Maps images years ago, and to be sitting there, casually drinking a coffee and eavesdropping on the Americans next to me, was the most surreal experience of my life. It is always different than I expect, but in a good way. The more I travel, the more I see the act as a series of beautifully-shattered expectations.

the photographed view

something about it is different
than i imagined.
the houses are angular, obstructed
by cars and telephone wires
and duplicates of my expectations.
there are kids playing football
behind the steeple,
behind the scene
of my admiration.
if i had not known
of its beauty before, i wonder
if then, it’d be impossible
to be underwhelmed.

I returned to Hveragerði shortly before dinnertime and creaked open the door to the warmth of something waiting for me: Fur Elise sounding from Laufey on the piano, Ellý greeting me with a ferocious attack of licks and circles around my leg, Anna reading a book on the sofa, and Àlfheiður watching cartoons as Ylfa chased Ronja down the hardwood floors in a tutu.

“How was it?” they all asked excitedly.

“Perfect,” I smiled, grateful to be ending the day with them.

Here was the real heart of Iceland.

Alone In the Airport

An airport is a lonely place without friends.

This knowledge takes its weight upon me:

life is worthless without the ones you love.

I feel this suddenly

and entirely.

I thought about my goodbye to my parents: I wished it was longer, I wished I was not so damn stoic. I’m not someone who is easily moved to tears, but I fought the water welling up in my eyes. Gathering all the courage within me, I arrived at my gate just in time, filing into the plane with a hundred strangers bound to the same city. Why am I here? I asked myself. I wanted to, so I did. It is that simple and that unbelievable.

My first view of Iceland was from the bus to the city center. Scattered black rocks and rich moss looked like the surface of another planet. How is this place habitable? I put on Marigold by Pinegrove and read welcome texts from friends, instantly feeling more comfortable. Laufey, my host mother, was waiting for me as I stepped off the bus. A wave of warmth came over me: I was no longer alone. Laufey’s got thick black hair and rich brown eyes with a sparkle in them that earns my trust. She spoke in a light tone and offered help so willingly, driving me around Reykjavik to extend her country’s invitation, pointing at places she used to visit in her twenties. The drive to Mosfellsbær, the small city where Laufey lived, took about thirty minutes. Mosfellsbær is met by Esja, a staggering mountain over 900 meters (nearly 3000 feet) tall. All my awe for the landscape seemed to be haltered by the shock that I was here, after all those years of dreaming about Iceland. It was unreal–beauty too big for a context.

We pulled into the neighborhood, a modern collection of angular houses with jet black and white plaster and a clean, minimal look. Laufey’s was an exception with its turquoise shutters and wooden door, inviting my curiosity. The home was modern without losing its warmth; a vast collection of records sat under the TV table with a Beatles box set and a Bob Dylan illustration framed above. The two dogs, Ellý and Ronja, skidded their way across the hard wood to greet me. I was introduced to the three girls, Anna, Àlfheiður, and Ylfa, and loaded my things into the small bedroom that would be mine for the month. This was real.

The cold winds, rugged cliff sides and stretching plains aided in the loneliness that struck me early in my stay. This country, despite my years of wanting to visit, seemed inhospitable and cold in every sense. The gray skies hung over the clouds and stretched long into the night. I couldn’t sleep, I had little time to think, and I desperately wanted to see my friends again. After several days of nannying, I felt stuck. I could not sit down and write songs–I had to take Anna to the playground. I could not read a book or promote my latest single–I had to watch the Icelandic Ugly Dolls. Who am I when I can’t be productive? I was quickly forced to rewire my desires: I had over-romanticized this trip and thought about it selfishly. My first priority needed to be serving Laufey and the girls–if I gave them a good summer, then I’d have accomplished everything I needed to. I looked down at my travel journal and saw a quote from Paul Theroux: “Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” Humbled, I decided to focus on being present with the family. Productivity has its time, but now is the time to listen and observe.

Living a normal suburban life in a country as grand and vast as Iceland felt contradictory, but it is a gift to see a place in a slow, intimate way. On Saturday I went to the annual Color Run and was struck by how normal it all was, how I could’ve done this same thing in Indianapolis or Nashville and little would have been different. We are all quite similar despite our systems.

As the week went on, I felt more comfortable around the family and began to settle into this new life, fully aware of how separate it was from my life back home. My days are mundane despite the circumstances: most are spent making coffee, buying groceries, and taking the girls to the playground. It’s the little things that bring me the most life. Smiling when I read the girls’ conversations through body language and mannerisms–some things are universal. Going to the park and learning that “swing” is “rolla” in Icelandic and counting to ten as I push Ylfa toward the sky. Einn. Here we go! Tveir. A little higher! Þrír. Woo!! Trying harðfiskur, air-dried cod, even when it was the last snack I wanted. Introducing the family to peanut butter and jelly.

Coming home to a family each night was grounding. After a long and lonely hike up the mountain Esja, I was greeted with a hot homemade pizza and a table full of smiling faces. I have lots to be thankful for.

My time apart from the family was equally valuable. The days I spent alone in Reykjavik, camera strapped around my chest and a fearlessness inside me, allowed me to feel most myself. Being free to explore, to wander and to wonder, lights a fire in my soul and reminds me that this is the environment I thrive in. I felt a similar draw toward music during this time. It is good to know that these things lie at the core of who I am and manifest themselves even more strongly when little in my life is consistent.

Lunch at Hallgrímskirkja

all of this is borrowed:

my jacket, my bike, this life.

my time and interpretation

are all i have without co-ownership.

the man on the bench next to me

is sketching, likely the obvious

view behind but i’d like to imagine

i am in it, and he’s tracing my curves,

dotting the lines around my dimples,

capturing my displacement

in such a scene.

As I approached Fríkirkjan on Saturday night I saw the faint outline of two young adults with backpacks: the au-pairs I was meeting up with for dinner. Their names were Noah and Laura, from Spain and Italy, and I quickly learned that they had opposite dispositions: Noah was bubbly and lighthearted while Laura fired away with heavy questions and a serious stare. As we began walking, Laura mentioned she was vegan, to which my heart faltered a bit; I was looking forward to a traditional Icelandic meal. As we checked out touristy restaurants and ethnic cuisine, I grew frustrated; this was not the night out I wanted, but like so much this week, I had to be patient and sacrifice my own desires. We chose the food hall, and I paid 3800 ISK for a fish dinner, which equals out to around 30 USD, a typical price for a dinner out in Iceland. Over our eclectic meals of fish, sushi, and a vegan burger, we exchanged stories, sharing what brought each of us to Iceland. I recalled my fascination with the country after seeing The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and Noah shared the song that brought them to Iceland. “So, you came to Iceland because of a movie and a song?” Laura asked somewhat dismissively. Her initial air of self-righteousness annoyed me, but I soon realized she was fighting the same battles as I was, just with different armor. We’re all insecure from different angles.

After dinner we walked around the pier by Harpa and talked about the value of being open to many options and the difficulty of choosing one path, something each of us struggled with. Noah expressed their discontent with their lack of clarity in life, to which Laura responded, “Give yourself time to figure things out.” “I’ve been here almost a year, and I still haven’t figured anything out,” Noah cried. I could’ve cried, too. Despite our vastly different upbringings, we were all in the same spot: unsure of where life was leading us and traveling to gain a better sense.

We ended the night by stopping into a café-bar called Rúblan bókakaffi to grab a drink, and to my delight, a cover band was performing to an active crowd of dancers and listeners. I took my Viking IPA to a table downstairs and the three of us shared laughs over board games and stories. The lyrics to “Dancing Queen” were belted out from above while I received my first Taboo word: Indiana. Home is always trailing close behind me.

At the Bar in Reykjavík

i survey the strangers:

everyone here is so free

not thinking about the week’s work

or whatever’s expected of them.

i think of the word elastic:

a trail of kinetic energy,

headlights on the highway,

drinks lifted in the air

to cross the dance floor.

i don’t need to join–

i’m just as happy watching,

involved in my own quiet movement

of wandering eyes and thoughts,

tracing smiles through the crowd,

following elbows bending

and elongating, shoulders

shifting from side to side,

broken english belting out

“dancing queen” and springsteen

records lining the shelves.

funny how home follows me around.

I met Kevin, we’ll call him, late the night before when I arrived at my hostel. We exchanged pleasantries at the communal sink; I learned that he was from Indonesia, he learned that I was American, and we both discovered that neither of us had plans the next day, so I experienced the floating city in all its splendor alongside a total stranger.

There’s a quick intimacy that comes with those you meet on solo travels; after being so tied to self-reliance, you can, for a brief moment, share in the responsibilities and joys that come with witnessing a place for the first time. You can go to the toilet without lugging all your belongings into the stall. You can sit down at a candlelit dinner without needing to bring a book. You can express your deepest darkest secrets sitting dehydrated in a Venetian art gallery. It’s like Before Sunrise without the romance.

So I, without fear, spilled my guts to Kevin (beyond my shampoo thievery). Over an overpriced espresso in San Marco I filled him in on my year in England—my joys and heartbreaks, my hopes and fears, my attempts at reconciliation. I found it easy to trust him, because it was not a trust I intended to sustain nor was it one I depended on. There was no fear of him backstabbing or mishandling my emotions.

The year I’d spent in England up until that point was a huge exercise in trust. As a recent expat, my friends were few, and those I did have, I relied heavily on. When I encountered betrayal or had my feelings hurt, it hit harder because I’d invested so much of myself so quickly. But I want to give as much as I can to loved ones and to new experiences, even when giving more can hurt. Maybe it's the romantic in me, but I think it’s special to think of all the people who share a piece of my soul, even if they don’t hold it like the holy thing it is. How well anyone holds a part of me is outside my control, so all I really can do is trust.

I told Kevin of my proclivity toward opening up quickly, toward giving second chances and bending over backwards to restore peace. He was quick to share his mind. “Look at love like it’s a glass,” he said airily, like some ancient proverbial sage. “When it breaks, you throw it away and get a new one.” I imagined myself, crunched down on the kitchen tile, light and liquid on a shattered vase, my hands blood-stained as I piece the shards together like my grandpa’s jigsaw puzzle. When do glue and good wishes suffice? “Promise me,” he said, “that you’ll only give 90% of yourself next time. Save that last 10% for yourself.”

Kevin’s advice certainly has its place; self-preservation and “guarding your heart,” however trite the phrase, are important to maintaining well-being. Not everyone is trustworthy, and there are times when, despite how much I want to hold onto a relationship or a memory, it’s in my best interest to let go. I’m still learning where the line is, when the glass can be repaired. As much as I want to give everyone a second chance, it’s not always the wisest option.

However, I do believe that the other 10% is valuable: whether it’s the last step of vulnerability with a friend, the final push to move to a new city, sacrificing your time to help someone you love—giving extra is allowing yourself to feel in fullness. It’s trusting that you have something to gain from a new experience or relationship; we’re all still trying to make better informed decisions, and new experiences help us in that process.

I think often of the scene in Sing Street when Raphina tells Conor, “You can never do anything halfway!” referring to a rock-and-roll music video, but I think, with a few grains of salt, it can be applied to life more generally. I want to be someone who gives her all when it matters. I want to be someone who trusts more than she doubts—who, as Rilke said, lets “everything happen to you: beauty and terror.”

One of the deepest acts of intimacy is allowing yourself to trust another, and the moments I feel most human are when others afford me this honor. Truthfully, I was chuffed that Kevin shared so much of his soul with me. If I ever see him again, I’ll thank him and divulge that sometimes, I steal conditioner too.

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