On a quiet street in a suburban community south of Washington DC, sits an unassuming two-story house with a small front porch and a yard in shades of green. It matches the other homes on the street, and only stands out to me because it’s where I spent my formative years. “They don’t make houses like this anymore,” my dad would say, referring to the sturdy, solid brick structure. And he’s right.

From the time I was ten until I left for college, this house held a family of six. My parents, my twin brother, my two younger sisters, and me, along with the occasional pet or two thrown into the mix.

Something I've been thinking about lately, something I rarely considered when I was younger, is what happens to a place after you leave it.

We tend to experience our lives as though they're self-contained stories, each chapter neatly beginning and ending around us. But that's not how life works. We enter stories already in progress. We leave them before they're over.

After I packed up my bedroom and went away to college, I thought my chapter as a main character in this house had ended. In many ways, it had. But my parents kept living here for another twenty-plus years. They took on new hobbies, replaced appliances, paid bills, bought things, tucked away keepsakes, filled closets, and quietly became older versions of themselves without me there to witness. Their story kept unfolding, page after page, even after I’d walked out of the frame.

Maybe that’s true of every place we’ve ever loved. We imagine our departure as an ending, when more often it’s only an exit. The story keeps moving. New memories settle into the walls. More life accumulates. We are not erased from the narrative, but we are no longer holding the pen.

I don’t know much about my parents’ lives once they truly became empty nesters. They weren’t the kind of parents who would visit often, ask to see where I lived, or insist on taking me to dinner. Our lives drifted into parallel lines, not intersecting in the same ways I saw with some of my close friends.

Looking back now, I don’t know whether they ever found a new version of themselves after raising four children. Did they embrace the freedom of a quieter house and the extra time, or did they simply endure it?

What I do know is that every time I came home, for a holiday meal or a dinner, the house would start to feel a little more crowded. The countertops held more mail. The corners gathered more boxes of what felt like random supplies, like cases of mason jars and Costco-sized bags of dry goods. Closets filled. Cabinets overflowed. It happened so gradually that I don’t remember any of us really talking about it as any kind of focal point. It was just... more.

Looking back, especially now as we’re downsizing the family home to put it on the market, I wonder if the accumulation was filling a space that parenting once occupied. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe this is simply what happens when a life continues in one place long enough. We keep bringing things home, and rarely stop to ask what they’re replacing.

It wasn’t until my parents’ health began to decline that I understood just how much they had accumulated.

I felt it physically. I bumped into things that hadn’t been there when I was growing up, when the layout of the house lived in our bodies as muscle memory. Every hallway felt narrower, and every surface top required me to make room for myself to be.

The basement was perhaps the biggest surprise. As teenagers, my siblings and I would disappear downstairs to watch MTV, learn dance routines from music videos, and laugh until someone yelled that dinner was ready. Now it felt less like a basement and more like a warehouse. Industrial shelving stretched across the walls, stacked with bottled water, canned goods, paper products, bulk condiments, and enough dry goods to outlast any emergency. The pandemic only accelerated what had early on seemed like innocent behavior.

Looking back, I realize my parents weren’t just collecting things. They were trying to prepare for every imaginable future.

But there was one future they never saw coming. What happens when they can no longer carry the boxes? When the basement stairs become impossible? When someone else has to decide what all of this means, what stays and what goes?

As I’ve emptied filing cabinets, I’ve found folders labeled in my father’s careful handwriting: Important. Do Not Disregard. Insurance policies, tax returns from two decades ago, owner’s manuals for old appliances. Every document carefully sorted and preserved. It strikes me now that he left meticulous instructions for everything. And yet the burden of making sense of it all was left to us. Or in many cases, left to me.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” is something I’ve found myself saying aloud in empty rooms as I sort through decades of her life.

One afternoon, it was her lesson plans from years spent teaching art to elementary school students, pages she had written and saved, now headed into black trash bags, never to be seen again. I apologized because I was making decisions she never got to make herself. With her mobility challenges, even if she were still living here, she couldn’t climb the stairs to this room. But she isn’t these things, and at the same time, I know she wishes she could be the one to make these decisions.

Or maybe that’s not true. Maybe none of us are particularly good at letting go. Given enough time, almost anything can convince us it deserves one more season, one more shelf, one more chance to be useful.

At our first yard sale, a little girl, who happened to share my mother’s name, wrapped her arms around a stuffed animal that had once belonged to my mom. And with a smile that only comes from the delight of making a new friend, she did not let go. It’s likely that animal had been a gift from one of mom’s students decades ago. Watching that little girl carry it away, I felt something I hadn’t expected.

Our things aren’t meant to stay with us forever. In many ways, they’re meant to keep going.

Just as we move through one another’s stories, perhaps our belongings do too. A favorite mug becomes someone else’s morning ritual. A dining room table hosts conversations we’ll never hear. A stuffed animal begins another childhood. There was something deeply comforting in realizing that letting go isn’t always an ending. Sometimes it’s simply sending something into its next chapter.

Before you congratulate me for making progress, I should probably tell you the truth: This is the most overwhelming thing I’ve ever done.

I’ve spent hours collecting quotes from junk haulers, calling donation companies, and chatting with clean-out services, convinced there had to be a right answer. Surely there was a checklist that would make dismantling a lifetime feel orderly. And in the universal sense, there isn’t. Everyone has a different spin on it.

There are only decisions. Thousands of them. Keep. Donate. Recycle. Trash. Save for my sisters. Ask my mom. Not today. Maybe tomorrow.

And somewhere inside all of those decisions is the quieter grief of realizing that while I was busy building a life I loved, growing my business, traveling, making new friends, finding community, my parents were growing older. The house was filling. The story was changing without me noticing.

I didn’t see this plot twist coming. Some days, I still feel angry about that.

But standing in the middle of a house that feels too full to empty has taught me something about overwhelm. I can’t clean out a house, but I can clean out a closet. I can’t solve the whole story. I can only turn the next page.

So that’s what I do. One impossible decision at a time.

Because eventually, whether we’re ready or not, everything must go.

We leave homes. We leave roles. We leave behind the things we once believed we’d keep forever.

We are not erased. The story keeps unfolding.

I’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been down. Where hope serves as my Achilles heel and my saving grace. What brings me to my knees is also what propels me forward. Where I dare to talk to strangers because in them I see… everyone. When our eyes meet, there is something in you that recognizes something in me, and hasn’t that always been what we’ve needed? A reminder that we are not alone, that we are the stuff of dust and also of stars.

In my dreams, my Dad still lives in our family home, where he and my Mom raised my siblings and me, from about the age of ten into adulthood. Where my parents retired into hobbies like screenprinting and woodworking. And where, unexpectedly, in the wee hours of a cold March night, after having just returned from Costco that morning, he took his last breath lying on the sofa in the living room, my mom by his side. My mom’s greatest grief, next to losing the love of her life, was that she was there for that last breath, and she could not save him.

In my dreams, Dad is usually in the kitchen, his favorite place to sit, and we adult-children would joke that he liked to watch the grass grow. His gaze was always fixed on something just outside the window; the grass, or the outdoor cat they fed, whom we would later adopt as a companion for Mom. Or maybe he was watching that damn unwelcome groundhog digging holes in the yard again. But I think just beyond his line of sight, he was deep in his thoughts. He found a way to escape reality without going anywhere at all. And I am my father’s daughter, which is simply to say, “same.”

Time
must be
folding
into itself,
because
you are here
and not here.

In the dreams, just beyond that same window, the sky is ablaze in a fiery sunset of oranges and reds and beams of light. It’s like something I’d see off some tropical shoreline thousands of miles away, and like nothing I ever saw on our neighborhood street. And so it serves as the perfect distraction from all the little details that don’t make sense in the house in my dream, like the larger-than-life furniture or the misplaced rug in the dining room.

There were several years, in my twenties, when I thought I might never return to that house, a castaway of my own accord. For just as four brick walls can hold the love of a family, they can also hold pain and heartache. They definitely hold the angst of my rebellious teenage years, of me in one of many seasons of becoming. They also hold everything you wouldn’t see in a highlights reel. Just beneath the surface, a foundation of cracks, fractures of light and fire; all of us broken, and loving anyway.

Thousands of hours of therapy later, I abandoned my own boundaries but not myself, to return to the family home in the later years, caregiving for my parents after major surgeries and health scares. But this time, I had language and understanding, and could see this home through wiser eyes. Because life is complicated, and even the best laid rules for how we protect ourselves don’t stack up to all that’s thrown in our paths. We love, we have anger and frustration, we don’t see eye to eye, we fall down, and sometimes we give up… and then ultimately we lose, we lose, we lose.

Have you ever thought about how our size in this world changes our perception?

Let me explain. One afternoon, my brother took his son back to our first family home, on the northeast side of Washington, DC. A little neighborhood of rowhome-lined streets and the faint sounds of children with bikes and skateboards who had to be home before the streetlights came on.

“This is where I came from,” he told his son, lineage and legacy. Walk where we walked as kids when our worlds were so big and so small. See as we saw.

The new owner was kind enough to let him walk around the backside of the house, through the gate, and into the grassy backyard. He sent me photos, and I found myself dumbfounded, zooming in to make sure I was seeing things right. I couldn’t believe the photo of the supposed big hill that we all used to roll, bike, and run down. In the mind of my youth, this hill was massive. But in reality, it looked like barely much of anything. My relationship to this hill comes wholly from when I was smaller, and some mix of my size and youthful imagination is what made me perceive that hill to be larger than life and something magnificent.

Now my Dad was a tall man. But in the same way as I saw that hill, my early memories of my Dad were that he towered over me and was someone to be feared.

And he contributed to that persona in many ways, often ruling with a deep voice, and was the one responsible for doling out punishments for lessons learned the hard way. And yet decades later, when I was in my thirties and making my own way into the world, the first time I saw him walking with a cane, I was baffled. Maybe size had distorted memory once again. Maybe the towering man I feared had never been quite as large as I remembered. Was he really just three kids in a trenchcoat, trying his best to pass for a grown-up just like the rest of us?

Fathers with tough personas and impermeable walls were once children too, just trying to survive, just trying to make it out, just trying to make something of themselves. I will make you proud, I imagine he must have said somewhere along the way, in an era before childhood trauma was language people used out loud.

And then, years later, I said it too. Leaving for college. Building a career.

I will make you proud.

Trying, in my own imperfect way, to live by the examples I was given, while quietly untangling the parts that no longer fit. Because this, I think, is the quiet work of becoming: realizing that adulthood is not the absence of childhood, but an ongoing conversation with it. We are grown, yes, but also still carrying around younger versions of ourselves… hopeful, bruised, afraid, trying our best to fill old holes with new meaning.

And in this way, we inherit melodies before we understand the words. We carry both love and fear, compassion and hurt, memory and revision. We become old enough to see our parents not as towering figures, but as human beings, making do with what they had. We may not always see it, but we are also doing the same.

And sometimes, in dreams, we find them again. Sitting by the window. Still looking out at something in the distance.

Did you know, becoming a paid subscriber adds you to my secret snail mail list? That’s right, I want to be intentional about how I bring more words into your life, and an extra alert in your inbox isn’t it. So slow down with me, with handwritten notes instead. Let’s see where this journey takes us.

I want to take my body and use it as a shield to protect her. My mother, her body so small and curved, seeking comfort in between the sheets of her bed at night. She hugs her pillow, her mind drifting over a repetitive list of aches and ailments and things that just don’t seem right.

She’s having trouble accepting the new normal of her being. Smaller now, unsure of this unfamiliar figure she sees in the mirror. But this is the same body that holds her, so I want to shield it from the world and her disapproving thoughts.

“Don’t talk about my Mom that way,” I want to say. If only my arms could wrap around her and become a living fortress; roots digging in, vines weaving tight, light pulsing through it all, like in Guardians of the Galaxy, where protection becomes something almost sacred. I am Groot.

Meet me at the crossroads of having to make big decisions, of being torn, or holding on and letting go. Of not always wanting to see the reality in front of me. That we are all bound by time and the illusion of time.

That what we have together is not infinite, a mashing of moments and experiences and deep feelings, and then we are gone. That when we look back we see the passing of time, but we never feel it in our present. We’re missing life’s greatest mystery, and it’s right in front of us. The spectacular and ordinary now.

It’s the late-night Scrabble game with Mom, when I should probably be winding down for bed. And she’s not the kind who will take a hint when it’s time to leave. She’s sitting patiently at the dining table, eating the last of the snacks, long after I’ve cleared everything away and dimmed the lights. But I know this game is good for her memory, and that maybe playing with me makes her feel less alone.

It’s the lying beside her, in the same bed she once shared with my dad, patiently while she tries to get her words out. And I can’t solve a damn thing, but I can listen. Listening intently, like when I was little and being next to her at night for a bedtime story was the best place in the world to be.

I recently decided she should have fresh flowers in her home at all times. She likes the pops of color. All the more reason for our full presence in these seemingly small but big moments, ever fleeting, and then gone. We all deserve, in the midst of the storm, to stop and smell the flowers. Our clothes soaking wet from the downpour that life throws at us, but look, there are flowers—commanding our attention, drinking the rainwater, beckoning a pause.

Where is my mother going? Her body shrinking into itself. I think she is scared of all the things she cannot control. So am I.

Maybe this is the scenario I was conditioned for, raised to anticipate need so that I could be useful and therefore also be loved.

My awareness deeply attuned to her presence. How is her breathing? Was that a cough? Do I sound like a concerned parent, or a concerned daughter? Ha! You decide.

Doctor, she’s worried about her weight again. Is this all in her head? Should I be worried too? Or are we both experiencing turbulence in our rather feeble attempts at accepting the new normal? Her aging, which we all speak of wanting to do gracefully (cue any line from a Mary Oliver poem), and yet I see already this road will not be easy. And there’s no way out. Should we all be so lucky as to walk this path... then we all march on alright, already.

“Tell me what to do,” I say to the nurse on the other end of the line.

In these moments, I feel most like a very young version of myself. Seeking answers. Seeking security. Holding on to what little I have with a tight grip. Unsure of all this unknown. Don’t let go. Don’t let me go.

What I wouldn’t give for some certainty in where we go from here. We throw all our money and resources in some dramatic rebuke of what naturally comes for us all. No matter what I do and how much I give, yes, it is enough in the grand scheme of things, but it will never be enough to stop time. Even now, we are slipping away.

“You are doing a great job,” the nurse replies. She listens to the light jokes I crack as my way of coping, and is patient while I thumb through my binder of Mom-notes. Did I miss anything?

To be
human
To be human
Oh beautiful human
Oh beautifully human

So, will you meet me at the crossroads of not knowing how this will go? Of having a mix of both confidence and utter dread? Of wearing rose colored glasses that I’m sometimes too frightened to take off? Will you join my Mom and me in a game of Scrabble, and not keep score?

Did you know, becoming a paid subscriber adds you to my secret snail mail list? That’s right, I want to be intentional about how I bring more words into your life, and an extra alert in your inbox isn’t it. So slow down with me, with handwritten notes instead. Let’s see where this journey takes us.

I’m trying something new. Three moments, loosely connected… maybe. Maybe not. This phrase has been following me around: Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. So this is me not waiting for everything to click before I begin. I write because I love it, and because something in me insists on it, even when the throughline isn’t obvious.

Plans have never been especially reliable anyway. So here we are: an essay in three acts, an experiment in noticing what happens when I place these pieces side by side.

Act One - Folding Over

And on your next exhale, let your shoulders fall, with your arms resting at your side. Inhale, raise your arms up over your head, and feel the tingling in your muscles as your body stretches. Hold here and let your arms continue to reach. Breathe in and out as your fingers stretch. Reach for the ceiling, reach for the stars, reach for literally anything you can hold onto that will give you even a glimmer of hope. Exhale and let your arms fall naturally back to your side.

Okay, let us begin.

Lately, I’ve felt a noticeable tightness in my body. Usually in my arms or in my calves. A need to flex and release. I feel antsy when I’m seated, when I’m standing, when I’m walking about my life. Here I am reaching for the nearest door frame, using my weight as resistance to sink deeper into myself. I want to hold the stretch for as long as it takes to feel a release and a relief. But both are temporary.

I think it’s because these days my head has been bowed. And no, not in prayer, unless you count my body curling into itself to peer deeply into my laptop or phone as some new age form of spiritual awakening. Crouching tiger, hidden dragon, my warrior spirit no match for the lure of the warm glow of the screen. In this way, we might all be but moths to a flame.

And just as I look at some yoga poses, with my eyebrow raised and a puzzled expression, mumbling under my breath, “You want me to put my leg where? I don’t think my body can move that way”... I see me hunched over my computer for work and also think “our bodies weren’t meant to move this way.”

Act Two - Come Back to Me

A whisper on the edge of a breeze

A pebble skipping across the water

A wish thrown into the fountain

Come back to me

Walking along the harbor, bathed by the sunlight, glistening against the deep blue. There is a family also strolling the promenade; a handful of adults and 6 children. The kids are running up to the water with such excitement that their parents have to call out to them to slow down. My adult mind, naturally, starts running through every possible risk scenario that could unfold here… tripping, slipping, straight into the harbor. Meanwhile, the kids are entirely unbothered. They see ducks, and that’s enough. They just want to get closer.

“Look! It’s the ocean!” one of them exclaimed. Aww, little one, I wish. Giggles and shrieks, nothing mattering but the moment they were in.

“Stay behind the bench!” Dad called out. They all kneel on the weathered wooden bench, their backs towards the adults, their eyes transfixed on the water, still completely in awe of the sight before them.

I grew up in a city, blocks of rowhomes and stoop stories, and neighborhood kids taking our bikes and skateboards up and down the street. Neighbors looked out for each other. We had to be home when the street light came on, or else there would be trouble. The first time I remember seeing the ocean, I was much older, with my cousin and her family for a weekend away. We had gone to the beach to celebrate my tenth birthday. I hope I stared out into that vastness with the same awe and wonder. What I wouldn’t give to see something in my world with new eyes again. To be that excited about anything.

How lucky those kids are, to think our harbor an ocean, full of possibility.

Act Three - To Be in Bloom

We’re in the in between when it comes to seasons, frigid cold mornings and warm sunny afternoons. No matter what jacket you bring, it’s always the wrong one.

Right outside my building, there is a tree that blooms earlier than the others around it. I caught my friend one morning, crouched low in an admirable squat, snapping photos of the fallen pink blossoms on the pavement. From her low vantage point, her camera takes in a sea of falling petals.

From where I was standing, if I squinted my eyes while watching the way the falling little flowers catch the light, I might think it was snowing. Now this is a startling thought to an outsider, but I bet someone experiencing the city in between seasons wouldn’t blink twice. They would shrug and still take in the beauty, and marvel at the mix of perceived snow and sunshine.

Soon our city will be covered in blooms, and we won’t be able to tell the trees apart. We’ll simply behold how they somehow make the everyday more beautiful. I’ve also been back to the little neighborhood garden where I volunteer, and all the bulbs we tucked deep under a blanket of soil and mulch before winter are starting to sprout. They will be right on time.

But the tree that’s blooming early, how bold. You saw the nonsense feud between winter and spring and said, enough with this. My time is now. Maybe you understood something I’m still learning: that the conditions are rarely perfect. That waiting doesn’t guarantee anything. And that sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is bloom anyway.

“Take a deep breath.”

If this year had a repeated line, it would be this. Because January 2026 came in hot, a whirlwind of so many things that I cannot hold. Or maybe, I should say it came in cold, given the single-digit temperatures that have taken up residence in our city. Lingering, overstaying its welcome like that one friend who won’t take the hint to leave, even after the table has been cleared and the wine bottles empty.

“Take a deep breath,” I say, lacing up my boots and wrapping my scarf around my neck twice over, remembering fragments of some long forgotten wisdom about the neck as a threshold. Keep it warm, and the rest of you follows. The snow is piled high on street corners, taller than the cars in some places, and losing its glistening glow to the city grime. I’m bundled up like some Arctic explorer, Nanook of the North, traversing rugged and icy terrain to get a cup of coffee.

Because the milk frothing skills of my favorite barista far outweigh my own. Because I am fortunate to work from home, but I know this wild secret about humans.

Which is that we need to be around other humans, even if we are not engaging with them. Even if we are just watching each other from our quiet table with our headphones on. We need each other.

The next time you’re at a cafe, take notice of where other people sit as they start to fill the room. Because I’ve seen it consistently that people sit down at tables that are near tables where others are already seated. Now, even I will avoid the noisy table of friends swapping stories. But a normal day at a cafe, ambient chatter and some background melody… Count me in.

“Take a deep breath,” before skimming the surface of the hard news that rolls in like thunder with each week. “Ground yourself,” planting my feet firmly on the floor, naming five things in the room to come back to the home that has always been my heart. “You are here.” I can’t get a good sense of where we are collectively as a people, our greatest awakening or our greatest downfall.

I know the algorithm feeds me stories based on what I’ve clicked on, interspersed with ads for the latest fad diet, workout routine, or a pair of jeans I absolutely must buy. And somewhere in there, if I’m lucky, I’ll see photos of my friends’ kids, or a vacation someone took, or a birthday celebration. But those moments are often fleeting, and I’m sometimes not sure what good can come from swimming in polluted water. Do we survive, or do we all come out blinking a third eye (and not the enlightened one), like Blinky, that fish in that one episode of The Simpsons?

“Take a deep breath,” as I log into my work laptop, knowing that it’s impossible to isolate the chaos of our world; to not have it be the wild undercurrent of everything.

I see it in the “move fast and break things” mentality that rears its head around the corners of cubicle walls, video meeting screens, and looming due dates. And so I must ask, who or what are we breaking? Because if it’s the human spirit… Count me out.

“Take a deep breath,” I say, because I know that breathing can be a quiet superpower. Because we know that the earth beneath us is quaking, touch our fingers to the ground and feel the rumble. We know what it feels like to be tossed in a violent sea. So if we see what it takes to split the world in two and catch what worms are eating at the rind, then maybe we can also hold space for each other. Creating small pockets of grace—small, ordinary mercies that appear just when the weight of it all starts to feel like too much. Grace, like the space between night and day, nuance and duality, darkness and light. Grace, like the grain of salt you take with the stories you’re seeing, and the deep knowing that we must come to on our own.

Here’s what I know…

This evening, I walked into one of my favorite restaurants and a very crowded bar scene. The bartenders know me here, and todos hablan español. I know a few choice phrases, and I say them with delight. My Spanglish, they humor me.

But tonight the bar is lively. Hospital scrubs and fleece everywhere, the unmistakable uniform of people coming straight from long shifts into happy hour. It’s a sea of what I know my country to be, which means a little bit of everything when it comes to culture and origins, and yet all still sipping margaritas. I slide into an opening at the bar, not the least bit phased by having to stand. I’ve already rationalized to myself, you sit on video calls all day, this is fine.

But just a few minutes into my courtship with my cocktail, the man in scrubs sitting next to me takes notice and offers up his seat. At first, I politely protest. But then I catch myself, intent on receiving acts of kindness as much as I give them.

We have a brief exchange of words about how great the tacos are here, definitely a crowd pleaser. The moment is beautiful but fleeting. And just like that, it’s over as he turns back to continue his camaraderie with his friends. He’s standing in scrubs, and I don’t know his name or how long his day has been. I’m back to sipping my drink and scribbling musings on a cocktail napkin.

Oh…

I can breathe here.

We’re a few days into the new year, and I can hear the harsh winds raking against my windows in such dramatic fashion that you would’ve thought a debt was owed. Yes, we hear you wind. You don’t have to be so loud. The sky is streaked in fifty shades of gray, with faint hints of blue peeking through, like maybe if you squint your eyes and make a wish, you might see the promise of a brighter tomorrow.

New years are made for wishing.

Outside, a shaggy dog sits eagerly, wagging his tail, his attention, hopes, and dreams on the flaky, buttery pastry his owner has in her hands. Everyone is bundled up in puffy coats, wearing beanies that range from “Santa Claus is coming to town,” to “this is my pop of color, and I might take a cute photo later.”

I’m tucked inside my neighborhood café, just watching the magical and also the very ordinary way life goes on.

As if on some loop, the timing unknown, there go the runners rounding the promenade (gosh, it’s too cold for that), followed by the dog walkers with their cheery pups happy to be outside. And then there are the ducks landing into the inlet of water between the piers, followed by the seagulls gliding off with great purpose to some grand adventure (probably just to the next pier over).

Can I tell you, I didn’t make any resolutions this year?

I’m still licking my wounds, wrapping my body with care, retreating into a deep slumber. Embodying the spirit of some distant polar bear who sees the change in seasons and knows it is time to rest. I’m nervous that this retreat into self is against the rules. Let’s go! Let’s do all of the things! Let’s continue to push, even when we are tired. Let’s never truly know when enough is enough. Even with this light background chatter, I think I will be okay.

On New Year’s Day, I was scouring the internet in search of what might be open. I knew that otherwise, my Mom would not have left her apartment for the week. She may never be the one who will call and say, “Hey, let’s go out!” But I know she’s always in a better mood when she's spoken to someone or has been out in the world for a bit.

So I found a jazz brunch for her, and I called a car so we could ride there in style. It’s my holiday too, and I wasn’t in the mood to navigate city parking and her wheelchair on such a cold morning. Only door-to-door service when the temperature drops below a certain degree.

I mentioned to the host that we were here for the live music, and he gave us a premium table right in front of the jazz duo.

Smiling and taking in the heat from the restaurant, I think to myself, this will do. In our small talk, Mom recalls in exquisite detail something about her caretaker that bothered her. And I’m a little baffled by her selective memory of things, things that in my book are minor annoyances at best, or simply the cost of living. I interrupt her and ask, “Hey, what did you love about this past year?”

“Everything,” she gestures.
“No, be specific,” I prodded.
And she said she couldn’t remember.

So I started naming all the things, like seeing one of her favorite jazz musicians, Gerald Albright, live in concert at a neighborhood bar lounge. Oh, and there was the birthday brunch, where she thought it was just going to be the two of us. Then she opened the door to the restaurant to find family members and her friends from her old neighborhood, all there to celebrate her. She laughs when I recall getting the family together for the 4th of July fireworks in the park overlooking the harbor. After the sunset and right before the show, the timed sprinklers went off over the lawn, sending all of us jumping and running off the grass. The kids stayed, full of giggles and delight; they couldn’t understand what our fuss was about.

Her eyes lit up as we walked together down memory lane.

And I challenged her to shift her focus, or at least to be mindful of what she gives weight to. There we were, on New Year’s Day, serenaded by lovely jazz music, dining on biscuits and eggs that we did not have cook ourselves. It seemed like the perfect moment to just be content with being alive. That’s all we have on this floating ball in the middle of space, a series of moments, most of them fleeting, destination unknown.

She admits that she sometimes has trouble remembering. Me too, if I’m being honest. Later that evening, when I’m back at home, I use my phone to make a 5-minute slideshow video, stringing together photo highlights of all her adventures from the past year, big and small, timed to some preselected instrumental music.

“Here you go, Mom,” I text, “to help you remember.” This helped me remember, too. No matter what minor annoyances she gets hung up on, she had a great year. And me, I feel like I’ve been flailing while having my Mom as my next-door neighbor. And yet the slideshow is proof of all the ways things went right.

So, “can we climb this mountain? I don’t know. Higher now than ever before.” (lyrics from the song “When You Were Young,” by The Killers). “I know we can make it if we take it slow…”

Yes, a slow start to my new year.

A warm sweater and a cup of coffee at the neighborhood café. There’s a cute little Yorkie pup wearing a puffy vest, and in true fashion, I can’t remember a thing about the owner. The ducks on the promenade are now jumping from the pier back into the harbor, their wings fluttering with the short drop. I thought ducks flew south for the winter. A family of three is sitting at a round table inside the café, enjoying coffee and pastries. Their toddler is climbing up onto the window ledge, her face and hands pressed to the glass for a better view.

Another year, yes. But also another day.

I entered my 40’s the way I assume a lot of us do, thinking we have a pretty good handle on life. After forty years on this planet, we start to notice the patterns, we have a playbook, we kind of know what to expect. And to be honest, it might make better sense if going forward, I simply treat that feeling of certainty as an early indicator that paradigms are about to shift and I soon won’t know left from right.

The year is winding down now. I can feel the hum of energy like some turbulent undercurrent just below the calm waters of our harbor. Some shapeshifting spiral as we go barreling towards 2026, a whirlwind of packed calendars and a general sense of uncertainty about the world at large. This is also the time of year when I become a little quieter and reflective, my mind running through numbers and the scenarios that unfolded, the souvenirs and debris in my wake. Cue the lyrics of that song from the Broadway musical Rent, “How do you measure a year?” Here are some themes coming to the surface.

Put Away Your Camera, Jess

What a tough pill to swallow given the fleeting experiences of life and the desire to capture time as if it’s not already slipping through our fingers with each day, with each breath. What can we hold onto?

You’ll likely always catch me in the little garden where I volunteer, up close on some peculiar bloom, snapping photos of its subtle changes from one season to the next. There is a certain wander to witnessing transition. Nature shows us, with seemingly minimal effort, the beauty of letting go, the luster of change. A sea of green, and then suddenly one leaf turns a golden hue. A tree aflame in our city park with fiery foliage in red and orange. Sign me up. I’m stopping in awe, and likely snapping a photo to admire later (or never see again).

But now, when I’m with my friends in everyday occurrences, I’m opting to be more intentionally present, to witness life first with my own eyes, instead of the screen lens that can sometimes separate us from each other. This is a decision that requires practice and comes with internal conflict. I want to capture the moment. I know memory is fleeting, and many of our days here will be forgotten. But I also enjoy just being in the moment, without thinking about how I might frame it. Is there a time and place for each option? I don’t know. I do know that I want to live more fully inside my life, and not always be the one capturing it for a later view.

Come As You Are, Jess

“There is always room for you at our table.” This phrase is part of the Have A Nice Day Project I run, a quarterly social gathering where people write positive messages on blank coffee sleeves that we then donate to locally owned cafés in Baltimore. It’s a project I hope to keep going for as long as I can. It’s also where I hold space regularly for people to show up as they are. Introverted, or lively and social; sitting happily by yourself or eager to make a couple of new friends; just getting off of work and still in your business attire, or just getting out of yoga class and looking to wind down. It’s a bittersweet intersection of ordinary, everyday life in varying degrees that I have grown to love.

You see, I grew up in an environment that has made me particularly (and in many times unnecessarily) hard on myself. And the more I navigate this landscape of life, the more I give grace and empathy to others, I want to make sure the same also comes back to me. There is a certain beauty to just being able to show up as we are. It’s a luxury, right? There aren’t too many spaces outside our homes where we can do such a thing. I want to bring my full self to the table more. I think that’s part of where my magic is.

Return to Yourself, Jess

Maybe this is the natural rhythm of a body that is preparing for winter, but I have felt a call to slow down just a little, to not so quickly fill all the empty spaces on my calendar (which are already few and precious).

And there are so many delightful experiences and people to fill my days with this time of year. But just this season alone, with back-to-back adventures, has led to me falling under the weather twice, a scenario that has never happened to me before with such rapid succession. Forever in love with movement and being out in the world, sitting still while being in recovery sometimes feels foreign to me. I want to be in motion. And yet, with the gray skies and frosty mornings, my body is trying to tell me something… to maybe put in way more than I’ve been taking out lately. I’m listening.

In this slowing down, in the pause between breathing in and breathing out, I’m returning to myself. Yes, we are dancing and enjoying merriment, and also seemingly forever navigating uncertainty and trying to hold it all together. And what I’m also holding to be true is a deep desire to rekindle the relationship with the woman I’m becoming. And that’s the person I want to be a friend to, in the same beautiful ways I care for others and my community. I’m returning home.

Where Things Fell Apart and Came Together

The thing about my experience of my world is that some things are always changing, and some things never do. The tricky part is that we don’t always know what’s permanent and what’s temporary until we’re already in the thick of it. But this year taught me that even in the disorientation (the undone plans, the sudden responsibilities, the days when I didn’t recognize my own reflection), there is a steadiness waiting underneath. Presence became an anchor. Grace became a compass. And slowing down is becoming the unexpected doorway back to myself.

I didn’t master anything this year, not really. But I showed up. I kept learning. I kept listening. I kept choosing the next thing that felt like right, even when it was small or quiet or invisible to everyone but me. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe being a “master of none” simply means staying open to the world as it shifts, holding yourself gently as you do your best to shift with it, and trusting that the coming year will offer its own lessons — ready or not.

One evening after work, I decided to take my mom out into the neighborhood for dinner. We started the journey down to the local café that she likes.

Which means I was navigating her wheelchair over city terrain that was never meant for these kinds of wheels. Tree roots are making grand gestures through jagged sidewalk pavement blocks. History is caught in between the cracks of stone-lined streets and metal streetcar tracks from a hundred years ago. I don't really notice these things or give them a second thought when it’s just me walking. This is part of the charm of the neighborhood, right? But being wheelchair bound means to feel everything. There’s no such thing as a smooth ride.

Within a block of the café, I see a big running group go by. They are in unison, all smiles and full of energy, as they collectively stride down the other side of the street. They are cheery and chatting with each other, and I’m no different from a lamp post or a bench they are passing by. But seeing them all together pulled on my heart because that used to be me. Did you know I used to run?

This felt like a scene from the 1998 film Sliding Doors, when the main character (Gwyneth Paltrow), a London ad executive, is fired from her job and rushes out to catch a train. As she rushes out, two scenarios unfold. In one, she gets on the train and comes home to find her boyfriend in bed with another woman. In the second, she misses the train and arrives after the woman has left.

And from this divide in time, two completely different lives unfold.

Before my dad passed (March 2024), and before I was metaphorically hit over the head and pulled into the world of caretaking for my Mom, I was very active in the Baltimore running community. It started as a post-pandemic hobby, once the city opened back up again. I was eager to take my fitness offline and back out into the world. We can rave on about how Zoom connects the far ends of the world together, but for me, still, nothing beats being in physical community with one another. Through Charm City Run and with the encouragement of a friend, I was successfully leading a group of women training for the Baltimore Women's Classic 5K race. This was at the peak of my running journey. Forever a jokester, I prided myself on making running a little more fun, and would often have my crew laughing as we rounded city streets. But today, that feels like a lifetime ago.

Occasionally, I still lace up my shoes to make sure I've still got it, testing myself on whether I can still run a mile or two. But for now, it seems that gone are the days of having a consistent running ritual that put me in regular community with others. That's not to say that I won't return. I really want to.

It's worth noting that I have yet to achieve consistency in my schedule, which has prevented me from returning to this ritual. It's to say that people often advise "don't forget to take care of yourself," innocently enough, without fully acknowledging that as a caretaker, I now must do more with less. And the thing I seem to never have enough of: time, and if not time, then energy.

So that evening after work, taking my mom to the café, it felt like a version of me was in that running group.

I saw their delight and energy, and my heart ached for not being part of the experience. If I close my eyes, my mind can easily trace the run routes through the neighborhood. Are they heading down on the promenade to do some miles around the harbor, or are they getting some hills in with the steady incline up to Patterson Park? Is this how a new parent might feel, pushing a stroller while their friends are heading off to happy hour? It just hits different.

Mom, from her vantage point, missed my moment of longing. Her eyes fixed only on the uneven terrain ahead, while mine lingered on the runners disappearing down the block. Two versions of me, diverging and alive in the same city. I gripped the handles of her chair a little tighter, and we rolled forward together into the warm evening light.

I thought we were just passing through. Then I looked over and saw my mom, lost in the music…

It was a balmy, blue sky Sunday afternoon in Baltimore. In search of shade after having brunch in the neighborhood, I rolled mom to the courtyard at The Pendry hotel. The stone streets that run through the historic harbor neighborhood of Fells Point (Baltimore) are over 150 years old and charming in the way you might think your steps are also tracing the paths of sailors from a century prior, or the steps of the poet Edgar Allan Poe as he stumbled in and out of bars in the 1800s.

But they are also brutal to cross in a wheelchair (Baltimore, please fix this). So I told mom to hold on tight as we braved the bumpy ride to cross the street. I tried to go slow and steady, against the pattern of the stones. It makes the ride only marginally better.

Truthfully, I just wanted her to be out of her home for just a little bit longer. She loves her alone time, but I've seen firsthand what prolonged isolation can do to her. Suddenly her mind wanders and her thoughts race, rarely to a good place. Since coming to this realization, I've tried to thoughtfully balance her schedule with outings in the city and visits from my friends (until we cultivate her community here).

Baltimore is known for its charm and hidden gems in plain sight.

The courtyard at The Pendry is a quiet lounge situated on a pier, canopied with plants and trees, and flanked on both sides by hotel rooms. Perfect for relaxing with a book and a glass of your fancy, perfect for escaping the hustle and bustle of the day, perfect for baby boomers with sensitive ears.

We took a beat here, enjoying the serenity of birds chirping and the view of thriving plants. For me, this is a mission complete.

Then, as we were on our way out, we happened to pass by the hotel lounge where a young musician was playing smooth jazz. We were serenaded by his saxophone, which weaved soothing notes into the air; a melodic storm was brewing. I thought we were just passing through to get back outside and continue our journey home. But I looked over and to my surprise, mom's head was bobbing, and her foot was tapping. There was a smile on her face. She was fully in the moment.

I don't think she saw my stare, but I knew right then that we'd stop and stay for a while.

I can't remember the last time something held mom’s attention like that, where she could immediately lose herself in the music.

It reminded me of a night a couple of weeks ago, when I found salsa music and dancing on a pier, glowing with string lights over on the other side of the harbor. Because in that moment, I was like, what is this beautiful thing, this simple delight, that I have stumbled upon? It offered me freedom and a chance to escape the weight of my days. It beckoned me to leave all my worries on the pavement and cross the threshold. And I immediately wanted more. Maybe we are all searching for freedom, or maybe we don't even know we're searching, but when we find it, it feels all the more sweeter to dive in.

Do you have this memory of your parents? You were little and perhaps you were peering from behind a doorway or through the rails of the stairs. And your parents were having a stolen, intimate moment of dancing. Likely to a song on the radio or a crackling record player.

They are smiling, laughing, and looking into each other's eyes. And as much as I'm sure this must've happened at some point, somewhere in my parents’ origin story, it is also a very popular nostalgic trope that you'll find in many Hollywood movies. So how sure can I be, really? I do know that it's moments like this, real or imagined, that reveal to us the humanity of our parents. It lifts the veil just a bit and invites us to watch quietly without interrupting. We’re witnessing something sacred.

No matter what I did or did not see, in the later years of my parents’ relationship, the dancing was gone. Except for a school play or a concert when my sisters played in the band, I have no memory of my mom ever being in an audience to enjoy live music. But she must have done this, right? Because we all do. Today, my mom's enjoyment of music comes solely from YouTube jazz compilations she plays with her phone. She skips over anything that has lyrics or a voice, preferring just the sound of the instruments.

So to see her unbothered as she swayed to the live melody in the lounge was a sweet sight.

The music ended all too soon. I made a note to myself to bring her back early, one future Sunday to come, so that she could enjoy a full set. Still, the rhythm stayed with her, and with me. My mom out in the world, simply being, is a whole symphony.

From the edge of the pier on the harbor, I slowly stretch my arms out to feel the breeze and take a deep breath. What a brillant reminder that I can slow down here.

The crisp air is such a welcome change after weeks of heat, humidity, and thunderstorms. The breeze is cool and comforting and serving subtle hints of autumn. Just a taste, like if I close my eyes, I can feel the dry leaves crunching beneath my feet, in oranges and yellows and browns. And my tastebuds can almost catch that hint of pumpkin spice that tends to make its way into every dish and drink. But I know this wind and temporary drop in temperature are a big tease, to say the least. It's actually because I know that I feel more inclined to enjoy the gift of the present. August is upon us. There are more hot days to come.

So I asked my mom's physical therapist to give it to me straight, no chaser.

We've been doing physical and occupational therapy (PT/OT) with him for two months now, with a focus on mobility and balance, and this is after close to a year of both in-home and outpatient PT/OT following her stroke. A year is both a short and a long time, depending on what you're measuring. Since my mom's stroke, I've watched her go from bedridden to wheelchair to supported steps with a walker or cane.

The goal marker we've been trying to hit is independence, or as close to it as we can get. I want to give her back everything she's lost, but even she has noticed that the gains we made early in her journey are starting to slow.

I think we’ve hit a plateau, and her PT agrees. He attributes it to a mix of her heart condition and inactivity at home. He’s not wrong. She doesn’t really do the exercises unless someone’s right there beside her. I’ve seen it myself: when she tries to move without warming up, her legs resist. They’re stiff and uncooperative, but she doesn’t see the connection between movement and momentum the way I do. To her, it just feels like her body is betraying her. And I get it. She’s frustrated. I’m frustrated too. I wish this were easier.

And then, he said something that I'm still sitting with, a slow burn to how casually he released an elephant into the room.

He said, "I am not confident that she will be fully independent based on her current deficits." In plain speak, this means she will always need supervision when attempting to walk on her own. How do you tell your mom she likely won't walk again? Do you tell her?

Every stroke is different. You read stories of people who made full recoveries, even after multiple strokes. And you, without question, think that’ll be us. We’ll get back to 100%.

It’s natural to hold on to the most hopeful version of the story, to believe in the best-case outcome. But when progress slows or falls short, reality forces a reckoning. The story we were holding on to ends. I believe these are the moments that shape us, not because things went according to plan, but because we learn to shift the goalpost without giving up the game.

I've been in a contemplative mood lately. I find myself looking back, wishing for a different chapter. But we don’t get to rewrite the beginning. We only get to choose how we carry on.

The road ahead is uneven, rocky in places, yes, but not without its stretches of calm. We all know this. We all have traversed uneven pavement (hello, Baltimore city potholes), and we all have enjoyed a winding road with the windows down, crickets chirping in the distance. So we steady ourselves for the bumps, and we savor the breeze when it finds us, unexpected and sweet.

So I got up to the counter to pay for my Mom's prescription, and realized I didn't have my wallet. But I distinctly remembered leaving my car with it. Here's the story of what happened…

We are in the dog days of summer in Baltimore. It’s the kind of hot and humid weather where if you go outside for anything, you’re sweating. My friends often joke about how we don’t have enough clothes for the daily wardrobe changes.

On this hot afternoon, I was running errands between work and home.

It was still feeling like the midday sun was upon us. And I was overdressed, deceived by a morning breeze just a few hours earlier.

It seems like every other week, I’m picking up a prescription for my Mom. It’s on my list to eventually make this a delivery thing, but my to-do list is quite long.

I parked towards the back of the parking lot (gotta get a few extra steps in!), gathered my purse, and darted inside the grocery store.

The air conditioner was a welcome reprieve as I weaved through aisles to get to the back where the pharmacy was. After waiting a few minutes in line, it was finally my turn to pick up her meds.

So I got up to the counter to pay for my Mom’s prescription, and realized I didn’t have my wallet. But I remembered leaving my car with it.

Without trying to be visibly panicked, I patted down all my pockets and ran my hands through my purse in search of its familiar shape. And I found... nothing.

Feeling the eyes of those in line behind me, I casually said to the pharmacist, “Oh, I must’ve left my wallet in my car.” Then I paid with my phone and left.

Because that’s the only thing I could think of... that when I gathered my purse, the wallet must have slipped out. So I returned to my car.

And I searched my driver's side, feeling in between all the strange crevices around and under the seat. Nothing.

Slowly, my panic set in. My wallet had everything in it, my ID, my bank cards, and even some good ol’ fashion dollar bills. The thought of canceling and replacing things was daunting.

I rounded the car to my passenger side, because I usually place my purse on that seat. The same deep search ensues, and I came up empty-handed, now with tunnel vision. My wallet was gone.

“Excuse me,” said a voice from behind, “I think I know what you’re looking for...”

I look up, and a man is smiling at me, with his arm outstretched, and my familiar wallet in his hand.

“Oh man!” I exclaimed, a huge wave of relief washing over me. “You just saved me.”

“Yeah, I saw it on the ground when I parked next to your car,” gesturing to the giant monster truck next to my tiny sedan.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I said, and I wanted to say so much more. I wanted him to know how much he saved me that day.

I wanted him to know there’s no way I could’ve carried a lost wallet on top of everything else on my shoulders. That a lost wallet would’ve broken me in that moment.

I didn’t catch his name or his reason for being in the right place at the right time, only that he figured the wallet belonged to whoever drove the small sedan, and so he decided to wait for me to return to my car.

These are the chance encounters that, for me, embody all the ways we’re beautifully human and forever tied to each other.

Has anything similar ever happened to you? Let me know in the comments.

There was a light rain when we left the bar, tucked on one of the side alley streets of old town Lisbon, Portugal. It was late evening, and I was feeling a little protective because I thought my friend had maybe one drink too many.

Now, I'm not the person who will say out loud, "You've had too much to drink, let me walk you home." It was more like "tell me your favorite thing about Lisbon so far," and with each question and answer, we are taking steps; we are making steady progress towards getting to the little flat she was renting for her stay.

And when she asked, I outright denied the reason I was walking with her; I promised that I was walking the same way anyway (I wasn't). It was no bother to me, even if it did put me a half mile out of my way to my own little flat further up the hill. When her suspicions subsided, we settled into a relaxed rhythm. We're just taking a casual walk in the rain, and I also knew that I was walking her home.

The first month after my mom's stroke was a whirlwind of hospital stays and overnights at the rehab facility and a slew of tests. So many tests that I no longer knew what we were testing for.

But I remember my mom being nervous about this one MRI in particular.

And I understood, because hospitals are so sterile with their rows of fluorescent lights and salmon-colored walls (or beige, or light teal). We fill our homes with creature comforts, but the barren rooms of hospitals provide the biggest reality check of our lives. They’re a reminder of both how strong and how fragile we are. They’re a testimonial to how quickly things change, the impermanence of it all, the reality that no matter what we do or how we live, our bodies can betray us in a thousand different unexpected ways.

Suffering from speech aphasia, a language disorder from her stroke that hinders her ability to communicate, Mom didn't express her concern about the MRI in so many words, but her eyes told me. So when it was time to go down to the lower level where the machines were, I asked if I could go down too. And they let me "drive" her hospital bed, to which I playfully exclaimed while maneuvering through the hallways, "Make way for the Queen! Make way for the Queen!"

While we waited in the prep room, I queued up Kenny G and other familiar smooth jazz tracks on my phone; just a little something to ease the tension. Music has a way of softening a space, of offering something steady when everything else feels uncertain. A familiar melody can carry you through, if you let it. And when you're facing a health challenge, whether it's yours or someone you love's, sometimes it's the smallest comforts that matter most. The known voices, the songs, the faces. They're what help us get to the other side.

So I asked myself: wasn’t that, too, a way of walking my mother home? And if that’s true, then aren’t we all, in our own ways, walking each other home?

Every time we choose to stay present, when we sit beside someone, offer our time, our steadiness, our quiet care, not for recognition, but simply because the moment calls for it. These small, tender acts… they are the walk. They’re how we show up for each other, again and again, until we each reach the end of our road.

Michelle Obama, while speaking with NPR's Rachel Martin on the "Wild Card" podcast, opened up about her mother's final moments. She noted that her mom was realizing that she was coming to the end. And she leaned over to Michelle and said, "Wow, this went fast." Michelle continued, “I held her hand and said, ‘What are you talking about?’ And she said, ‘Life.’ She said, ‘This went fast.’”

I think that realization becomes clearer the further we go: we have hearts, and because they beat, we live. But some days, lost in our overflowing inboxes and crowded calendars, we forget what a gift it is to simply be. We have lungs, and because they breathe, we’re here. To notice that breath is to remember: this day won’t come again. Not every moment needs to be extraordinary. Often, it’s the quiet, ordinary ones that stay with us. So may we keep showing up, for ourselves, for each other, and for all the ways we are bound together. Here's to the journey. The long walk home.

There are three sounds that immediately bring my nervous system back to a state of calm…

First, any spa playlist. The slow tempos, soft tones, and gentle repetition are incredibly intentional. All of them signal safety to the nervous system. The calming effect of this music slowly empties the thoughts and anxieties from my mind. All the "what ifs" and "what needs to get done" roll out of my ears and disappear into thin air. If you walk into my space, and it suddenly feels like you've walked into a spa, that's a signal that there's a lot going on. I'm intentionally taking care of myself by slowing my brain, reducing sensory input, and cueing my body to simmer down.

Second, the sound of wind chimes. Their echo reminds me that wind can brush up against our skin unexpectedly, or playfully have its way with our hair. It always feels delightful. And wind can make itself known with sound, whether it's through rustling tree branches, making the tall grass sway, or gently creating a melody through the chimes on a front porch. I always forget the wind chime is there, so simple and unassuming. I forget until the wind reminds me. This sound transports me to the part of a lazy day when the sun is getting low. And maybe there's a rocking chair, and a good book, and the breeze.

And third, the sound of the rain. There's something about the pitter-patter of raindrops against a window seal that creates a calming rhythm. And that rhythm has an effect that beckons me to stop what I'm doing and take note. It reminds me of watching the rain fall as a child on the back porch of the house, with my three siblings and a blanket shared between us. We didn't understand the value of slowing down then, and yet still, there was a certain beauty to the rain. Nowadays, if there's a light rain at bedtime, I know I'm going to get a good night's rest.

Coincidentally, the sound of rain is what keeps my mom awake at night. Yes, you read that right. Up until this moment, I thought rain put everyone at ease. I was wrong.

Nothing will alert you quicker to the stark differences between city living and the suburbs than moving a highly sensitive Baby Boomer from one setting to the other.

They'll tell you all about the noises you either automatically drown out or have accepted as the normal rhythm of city living. I have to laugh because up until a month ago, I thought I lived in the quietest building in the neighborhood. Was I wrong?

In the same vein of not being prepared, there's a special level of patience that accompanies taking care of another person with opinions. Oh, you have boundaries? They will have to be reset, again and again. Oh, you have a routine? Not anymore. You will have to redraw the lines. I understand the longing for familiarity when big changes are occurring, and that change is rarely easy, especially when outside influences are at play. So everything here is said with grace and in light jest. And I promise you, the same robins chirping back at the family home can also be found in the serenity of our building’s courtyard here in the city.

I wish I could tell you I entered this chapter with grace. That I was the dutiful daughter, pausing her life with humility, finding creative workarounds to care for her mother.

That it was always a blessing. That everyone clapped. But let the record show: I went kicking and screaming, grieving the freedom I had so carefully carved out for myself. Because I know what I’m putting on hold. I know the beauty of the life I built, and I’m not afraid to say it’s worth fighting for.

And still, let the record also reflect, that I showed up. I’ve rallied my community around my mom. Friends now drop off meals, host game nights, and even do workouts with a woman they barely know. But they know me.

Caretaking drops you into a parallel existence.

I scroll through updates from friends, like their photos, send the occasional text; but often it feels like we’re on opposite sides of a pane of glass. Close, but distant. Present, but not quite. I can feel my energy being directed elsewhere. I hope that the right friendships can sustain the muddled distance of this strange in-between.

Still, I’m learning to adjust to the rhythm of this new chapter. To honor what’s changed without losing sight of myself. I find small ways to return to calm, not by reinventing it, but by revisiting the sounds that have always grounded me. The soft echo of a spa playlist. The gentle clinking of wind chimes in the breeze. And yes, the steady hush of rain against the window.

Even now, especially now, those sounds remind me that a part of me is still there, still whole, still listening.

Sometimes after an afternoon storm, I can look at the clouds and tell that there will be a stunning sunset later.

It’s something in the air, maybe. I’ll catch glimmers of it from my window, how those previously ominous clouds would start to disperse, clearing way for a cinematic performance. Instinctively, I know to head up to the rooftop terrace for a better view. There’s always a quiet after a storm, and it’s something sacred to behold. On the terrace, it’s a secret between me and the breeze and the birds fluttering against the changing sky.

I’m not a deeply religious person. My church can be found at the bottom of a coffee cup in the local cafe, where the barista greets me as “hey cousin,” because we both have freckled faces.

It can also be found in the soil of the little neighborhood garden where I volunteer, where the mourning doves nest and the bees buzz drunkenly from the sweetest nectar. But there’s no way I can deny my upbringing, so those who know, will understand me when I say on the tail end of every storm, I can’t help but to hum the lyrics of the gospel song “the storm is passing over.”

I’m a graphic designer by trade, and one of the projects I’m working on is branding a neighborhood in Baltimore.

It’s a small neighborhood on the east side of the city, called Ellwood Park, with a mix of homeowners who have been there for a generation or two, and new neighbors moving in. True of many cities, the vibe of a neighborhood can change from block to block. There’s no exception here, and Ellwood Park has string lights running over its sidewalks to help bridge the divide. There’s also a new addition of planters, overflowing with fresh flowers. Bold magentas, purples, and yellow hues against a sea of sturdy brick row home-lined streets.

Before I design, I always do my research, which for local projects includes getting on the ground and talking with people. Hey, what comes to mind when I ask “What’s your hope for the future of your neighborhood?” Our fast-paced world, where we always want more and nothing seems to measure up or ever be enough, will trip you up here. As a millennial, I seek to love where I live. And yet, I found myself having to change up the language in my research questions; because to love where you live is not on everyone’s top-five list.

In chatting with the legacy residents of Ellwood Park, I found neighbors who were full of soul, sass, and character. And the common theme among all my conversations wasn’t a desire for new modern buildings or fancy restaurants.

“They don’t make homes like this anymore,” one resident pointed out as her hand touched the solid brick of her house. And she’s right, not much is built to last these days. These are the kind of soulful women I want to be like when I’m older, the kind that sit on their front porch with iced tea, listening to the rain and whispering, “we needed this.”

Sidebar, there is a fun meme about this very thing, being of a certain age, when you really start to appreciate the rain. I share this with a few friends who are ready now to become this caricature. Let’s go.

The common thread among the elders I spoke to was to grow and protect the community that was already there. We’re talking the everyday essentials that many of us take for granted, like speed bumps on the streets where the children play, and ample lighting on the corners at night. Ideas were floated about organizing a neighborhood cleanup and improving the park's lighting. This list seems like the basics for any neighborhood anywhere, and yet there is a disparity for Ellwood Park, and I don’t know why.

What I do know is that when it comes to creating a visual to represent Ellwood Park, it’s not about transforming a neighborhood into something new. It’s about tending to what’s already here.

Community is the garden of life. Always has been. So let the storms pass over. I already know what comes after.

The people. The porches. The pride. The steady hum of city blocks that are still holding on. The rain always comes, sometimes gentle, sometimes not. But Ellwood Park is the kind of place where roots sink deep, and flowers find a way to grow through the cracks in the concrete. You don’t rebuild that kind of beauty. You protect it.

I wanted so much to have a plan and a theme for The Work + The Wonder. In my mind, I saw myself having a set time each week when I wrote and it would all come together in some beautiful poetic way, and birds would be chirping outside my window, and little woodland creatures would want to clean my home.

And each time I sat down to write, very few words made it on the page. No parting clouds and rays of the sun warming my face. No little birds chirping harmoniously outside my window. No woodland creatures cleaning my home.

And I really needed those woodland creatures...

So here's what we have instead. We have the realization that even this dream of having something go completely according to plan is also my desire to have some control over situations that cannot be wrangled. There's a viral video of someone trying to get kittens to stand in a straight line and every time they think they've got it, two or more of them are off doing other things. Writing is something like that. I can't force the kittens into a straight line. But on some ordinary Thursday with the rain clouds clearing and the coffee hot, I'll look up and find the kittens in a straight line. And then, I write.

You are catching me at what I can only call a catalyst event in my life. This is when some unexpected thing that I've been unable to wrangle to my own will has happened, or is happening, and I'm doing my best to ride the waves and make some magic of the pieces that remain.

This past weekend, I moved my Mom to Baltimore to be closer to me. How much closer, you ask? You did ask that, right? She is my next-door neighbor.

My mom, a retired elementary art school teacher, was living a quiet suburban retired life until about a year ago when all of our worlds turned upside down. Her husband of 40+ years (my dad), passed away suddenly in the wee hours of the morning on their living room sofa. True to form, his last outing on this planet was to Costco. And then just two months later, my mom suffered a stroke that would greatly impact her mobility and ability to live on her own.

You know what's wild? How the world did not stop for either of these things.

It's absolutely maddening how the world and the lives and comings and goings of everyone barely skipped a beat. If you haven't experienced this yet, you will. It is part of the human condition. Something will explode that you didn't even have on your radar; you will be in the midst of your own catalyst event, and people will still be ordering their regular coffee, going to yoga class, and taking very important business meetings. Meanwhile, you'll be on the floor.

After a year of living a double life and taking care of two households (barely), I made the decision to move my mom closer to Baltimore. Folks, I have never had dominion over another human life. I've got plenty of houseplants that I keep alive, but I'm still dumbfounded that I've been trusted to navigate the gaping holes of our healthcare system, all while making decisions for the well-being of another person.

All I know for sure is that isolation is no way to heal a human spirit or a human body. I don't care how much we love our spaces and our rooms full of stuff. We need each other.

We do. Not always in a deep conversation kind of way. We need each other in a friendly hello kind of way, in a "hey love, how you doin?" kind of way, in an "I see you" kind of way. And my Mom didn't have that in her suburban home, where she was mostly by herself and with caretakers who were nice but also draining a hole in our finances. But I have that, here in my neighborhood and in my city.

There's a moment in the animated Disney Pixar movie, Finding Nemo, when Dory (the forgetful regal blue tang fish that stole the show) and Marlin (her orange clown fish friend) are in clear blue water. And they have stopped in their tracks because they are looking directly ahead into murky water. It's like they are swimming along, enjoying the journey, and then they stop to adjust their eyes to what lies ahead. The water is cloudy. You can't see through it.

"We going in there?" Dory asks, her eyes wide and still on the watery abyss before them.

This is a pivotal moment in Finding Nemo. This scene highlights Dory's eagerness and Marlin's hesitations as they are about to enter a space in their journey where the stakes are higher. Dory's question, "We going in there?", is a direct response to the daunting prospect of entering the murky waters and facing the unknown. This scene is significant because it foreshadows the challenges and dangers that Marlin and Dory will face in their quest to find Nemo.

That's how this moment feels for me. The path is muddled, which feels foreign because I am usually sure of many things. Nonetheless, I know there's no going back, just like there's no going back to the innocence of my youth or a time when my dad was still with us. Don't remind me of all the tricks time can play, how someone can be both here and also not here, depending on the day.

And so here I am, moving forward, one step at a time, into the unknown. The path is not clear, but I’m taking the next step anyway.

Sometimes when I’m flying, I’ve noticed there are two layers of clouds we go through as we descend to touch ground at our destination. Has this ever happened to you?

Recently on a flight, I thought my seat was rather unlucky because I couldn’t see the sunrise unfolding on the other side of the plane. Watching this scene from above the clouds is one of my favorite things. I strained in my seat to no satisfaction. In turning my attention to my window view, there was a sliver of the moon at dawn, 16,000 feet above the world. There, the moon rested against the warm hues slowly permeating what was once the night sky, over a rolling sea of soft clouds in muted blues.

That sea was the first layer of clouds we descended through. For a moment, we were suspended between the two layers. As we continued to descend, the moon struggled to make her presence known. The colors started to fade from my view.

Once we dropped below the second layer of clouds, I almost forgot. I forgot there was a moon being illuminated by the collateral beauty of the sunrise that felt a world away.

And then we landed, on a day so overcast and foggy, that I didn’t realize we were close to the ground until we touched it. And on this very gray day in a bustling city, no one knew about the beautiful symphony unfolding above two sets of clouds, just a few thousand miles above sea level. Everyone is continuing on with their lives, trusting only what is right in front of them.

I think this moment struck me because I’ve been through some cloudy days, and honestly, it looks like there are more storms on the horizon. But somewhere, a few layers up, there is still the sun and the moon and the most vivid colors in the sky. And that felt like a beautiful reminder to trust what I cannot always see.

Reference: The title, “Clouds in My Coffee,” is a lyric from the song “You’re So Vain,” by Carly Simon.