if there had been a breeze, the sunlight would have flickered. with no breath of wind, it simply gently filters far down below to the forest floor. it was every bit of dark green, imagined and never seen. the moss practically dripping down the trunks and limbs.

i was not looking for stillness, it found me.

i had been travelling all day, bumping over rough dirt roads filled with potholes created by those who came before me.

to stop required presence, it was too easy to simply keep moving.

off to the side i see a small glimmering lake. the forest came right to the very edge of the water, there was only a small shelf of beach before plunging into still and chilly water. but it had been a hot day and the water was refreshing, washing off the dust of the road and the monotony of my mind alone with itself on the road.

the expanse of still reflective water was a relief from the dark forest. the forest, for all its beauty and depth, was a bit foreboding and very very old. the ancient arboreal cedar trees were thousands of years old.

what were *their* stories? they who had seen so much. grew up with their roots in the soil of younger ground. matured as humankind arrived. used sustainably for several hundred years by native peoples before becoming burdened by “modern” transactional/extractional needs and greeds. (when is it too much? not enough?)

nearly this entire island was completely clearcut over the last two hundred years. a handful of smaller groves were left untouched. in the late 1800s, the indigenous used for the first time their “british-crown-given” power to demand the logging stop. use of all their land needed to become more sustainable and more in balance with the circle of life.

how many of the ancients survived to tell these stories?

what stories still remain untold?

arboreal forest, south island, heather lake, vancouver island BC. 072126

for interesting books, check out The Golden Spruce, Big Lonely Doug, and Ancient Ones

this summer has been all about vancouver island because I had missed the west coast last year. it was not planned that way at first. It was going to be a few weeks on vancouver island to explore and visit old friends and then head to denali and prudhoe bay/arctic circle, alaska.

we all know about the vanity war that started (and has yet to end). prices rose dramatically, especially fuel. affordability got worse. scarcity crept in… as well i have a newer client and need a bit more wifi than i have in the past.

the decision to stay on vancouver island has made for an amazing summer… there are worse things in life than summer on an island big enough for different adventures and small enough to have a lot of them over a few months! shades of maui, cape breton and PEI come to mind. that said, here are just a few. more to come along with stories from the road. hugs and as always, TRAVEL WELL!

💜 🐾 🇨🇦

all locations on vancouver island BC:

qualicum beach / incinerator rock, long island / san josef, cape scott / lac heather, interior north island / qualicum skateboard park / surf shop near qualicum falls

And then zoe and james made their editing magic happen to a long fun call. Here is the result:

We are Childfree

Life on the road, with 62-year-old digital nomad Sandy

When Sandy was 21, she stepped into the road and was hit by a car. She learned super young that she could die in surgery, so after 9 major reconstructions and a year in a wheelchair, she promised herself, “ I’m going to live my life the way I want to live my life. I need to make choices that I love…

Listen now

9 days ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · James Glazebrook and Zoë Noble

life leads to so many amazing places, i hope you allow to yourself visit them.

and, travel well!

sandy

ps: enjoy a quick grab of the last 15 months on the road

can i begin to tell you the sense of relief this gives me? yes, they are both chipped. however, it can be challenging to get a chip read. in the interim, they’ve always both had collars with their name and my number.

of late, it has come to my attention that i could get in an accident, be injured and in the hospital, unable to answer my phone. i could be in a coma. i could get picked up by ice for peaceful protesting and my standard poodles could be left to fend for themselves.

this is where my good friends network really shines. i spoke with a couple people who LOVE my guys. and they agreed to take care of them if something were to happen to me. relief flooding through and i’m feeling pretty darn adult that i am taking better care of my best friends and travel companions in the world!

now the heart Reed wears has at least double the love, and the same goes for Louie!

they were pretty dopey by evening and i was more than ready to drive to kanab, utah, easily a favorite place in the southwest. we got in late at night and woke up to a sunny rain-washed day.

i’m set up at one of my favorite unofficial work spaces, the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary Roadhouse & Mercantile! they have helped me greatly in the past with good people, tasty coffee & snacks, wifi and space to get a bit of work done before play time.

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary have for decades long been a cause i donate to. they save thousands of animals every year and their sanctuary tour is a must. you can come here and volunteer to help with dogs, cats, horses and birds. also, especially if traveling with pets, their hotel and separate campground are thoughtful beautiful spaces (as is their gym), a welcome respite from plain hotels and campgrounds.

kanab, utah, is an easy jumping off point to kodachrome state park, zion, bryce, the grand canyon, pipe springs ntl monument and many more. and the “plain old” hiking and town of kanab touring and its locals are welcoming. check it out!

the poods are looking a bit dopey at this point. they slept well last night, ate well this morning and appear to be nearly back to their usual selves. thank goodness!

only a little bit of mom guilt. lots of zippy paw toys from Dog Supplies Outlet in las vegas (GO if you are there, amazing stores and free dog baths!). their fave venison treats and the promised toothpaste!

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, Kanab Utah

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary Roadhouse & Mercantile

Best Friends Campground

Dog Supplies Outlet, Las Vegas, NV (multiple locations, all great!)

btw; this beautiful home is for sale. please reach out with any genuine interest 💜 🐾

here is a png of each of the signs. enjoy :) i hope the no kings/no wars gatherings on sunday are peaceful and filled with all us patriots speaking truth to power!

i discovered i still had access to the 2015 art teleclass on the Gifts of Imperfection! me and my book club girlfriend decided to DIG in and do this program together. we get together every week on wednesday nights for about 2.5 hours. we read the chapter(s) the week before. we take notes and track questions.

and then we pull out our art supplies, books and notes and hash through everything. next week we’ll finally be hitting goal post #1!

I miss you because i have been following you since way before gifts. i have purchased and read and underlined and dogeared every one of your books. i listen to every podcast. watch every video. (i swear i’m not stalking! lol)

yet i no longer feel a personal tug to you, what you are learning, going through, living in... i feel in the past you were perhaps closer to your readers... i could get a sense of shared experience. i listen now and take in the deepness of your work, but i no longer know you.

it’s possible this is by design. most assuredly, with so much of your success i’ve watched over the decades, i’m certain it has impacted you, your family and your privacy. i cannot begin to imagine. and of course today there is worry over being too exposed. i understand.

and still, i miss the Brené i was coming to know a bit, if only through your outward facing materials.

i wonder if i’m alone?

your work is no less legitimate, albeit less personal. i miss that texas real-at-home brené touch. i’d love to know what you think we can do when we have three more years of this administration...

i’d love to have more tools to work with my maga-trumperx3 family members and how to stay connected when i’d rather just walk away...

i’d love to hear you talk about your musings on current times and how we can create community that sustains us through these very hard times…

i’d love to hear your views on minnesota and ICE and how we humans seem to be able to not treat each other very humanely...

i want to hear these things because i know in my bones you have a way of talking, teaching and sharing that can cut through the surface and get to the heart of what is happening right now, and help people.

it’s possible i’m missing other ways you are in community… let me know :)

i sincerely hope you and your family are well, happy, healthy, wholehearted, loving each other and loving life.

i have been self employed for nearly 40 years now and i want to thank you for helping me to see my worth, construct healthy boundaries and be a kinder and more awkward, brave person.

i’m on the marketing side of what you do, lifelong, and i miss seeing and hearing from YOU. maybe your marketing materials are a bit too protective? or the leadership work is just too removed for many albeit professional satisfying... i don’t know, i just know i don’t feel like i’m seeing or hearing from you, i feel like i’m hearing from your business. and that’s simply my personal opinion.

none of this changes my huge fandom or appreciation of your lifelong work. please, take care of yourself,

sandy

so, instead of becoming a fourth generation farmer, i was almost named Leilani, and i grew up in southern california amidst the orange, lemon, lime and olive groves of orange (the city).

i sometimes wonder how different life would be had we remained in wisconsin. i never thought much about farming life when i was young — i was barely old enough to remember much from family reunions. i DO remember that all of our relatives were always trying to feed my sister and I more and more and more because we were those “skinny california kids.” to add salt to the wound of family, there i would be, visiting the Dairy state, and quite allergic to all dairy products. this was practically a sacrilege (this would be the time my older sister would remind me that i was adopted)!

this is the kickapoo river valley

in my here and now (8/14/2014), i am engaged to the wonderful bob who is an amazing chef, now turned chef-instructor (better family hours!). His menus were already well known for their fresh, local food, and now that he teaches at a culinary school, he is immersed in the food to table movement.

I teach entrepreneurship (not cooking!) at the same school, AND I had the pleasure of participating in a “bovine breakdown.” i am a keen protein eater, and it seemed only right that i should learn more about what i was eating, and where my favorites cuts of beef resided. helping in the process of going from half of an animal to hamburgers was, simply, awe-inspiring. I gained even more respect for our farmers and ranchers (and animals) who live day in and out the lives that provide us with quality food.

i’m a big believer in quality (read: no GMO), natural, seasonal food, prepared with heart, love and respect. i believe in enjoying each meal to the fullest, whenever possible (yes, our family eats dinner together almost every night!).

i also believe that you usually get what you pay for (decades of self employment ;. when it comes to the food I’m going to nourish my body with, i love knowing that i’m purchasing from someone i respect, and that they are making a living, too. i cannot think of a single exception when i say *every* farmer, aquaponic person, rancher and grower of food that i have met works harder, and for less money, than anyone i know. and, they seem to receive waaaay more satisfaction with their life choices. check out the excellent blog (link below) to Ham Sweet Farm and their infographic breakdown of how much it costs to raise a healthy meat chicken … it’s illuminating. and it’s a brave statement.

the farmers i’ve met are kind (and brutal at times), taciturn (usually), optimistic (they have to be) realists who live in each day and spend the bulk of their days caretaking the food and animals we eat.

all of that said, I am proud to use this space to promote a few of my favorite farms and farmers. check out their links, like them on facebook, follow their blogs (i don’t know where they find the time to write!), buy their food if possible.

and if you can’t buy their food, get to know your own local farmer and buy theirs!

sandy

ps: do let me know who your favorite food sources are, i’d love to add them to my resource network :)

if you want to be more in the know with issues concerning land, food and farmers/farmworkers, be sure to check out harvest public media: harvestpublicmedia.org and the Modern Farmer: modernfarmer.com

i’m pretty sure i got lucky. i am engaged in doing art and heart with my book friend on the Gifts of Imperfection. i discovered i actually still have access to the first teleclass Brene Brown created with oprah (!), and every week mel and i read the book and watch the videos and art program created back in 2015.

and it is effing ageless.

seriously. if you are looking for your next great read, go to the Gifts of Imperfection and discover again how many things you can work on to be a better human being (!).

on brenebrown.com you can still discover materials around Gifts. there is a survey you can take on wholeheartedness. i took it last night after 11 years. i know that all of my goal posts showed improvements of growth and still i felt spanked. how could i have let go of these goal posts into wholeheartedness? what have i been doing in the intervening years to grow?

tonight mel and i had our first book club meeting on Gifts. we had both read through the Compassion section in advance. we had watched together a few of the art videos that came alongside the original eclass offering.

we shared our notes on the book and turned to our art books, coloring, pens, water colors and creativity. after three sessions, we added another 45 minute session on zoom because we were having so much fun sharing all of it. i would pause the videos and we would share out permissions to be messy, to be powerful and our pledges to be imperfect and still enough. and then, to fill our heart pockets. from art to heart and the other way around.

after our scheduled time i was driven to reach back in time and re-discover.

i found another part of myself again. what a discovery.

i plugged in my hard drive backup and discovered my old BeHereNow blog…. honestly, what revelations. how did i have this knowledge and not remember some of it? is this just life?

so, in its honest entirety i will be adding my blog posts of old and interweaving them with this substack of newer. what i’m finding fascinating is how timeless some of this is…

here is Hello World, August 11, 2014…

welcome to the blog i finally created … i’m glad you found me!

i’ve been collecting articles, stories, graphics and thoughts for awhile now and decided to (try to!) put them all in one place. it’s likely that the major themes you’ll see here will fall under:

FOOD … generally local and fresh, made by me and my family, and running the gamut to articles about gardens, farmers, chefs, cooks,eaters & more

DESIGN … i’ve been a creative — as in a graphic designer and art director — for a looong time. i love typography, illustrator generated art, photography, thought-provoking writing and advertising with authentic marketing.

INSPIRING & MOTIVATING … thoughts, shares, quotes, ideas, musings, people who inspire me and pretty much that which totally resonates for me

AMAZING COOL STUFF … travel to books to blogs to businesses to ways for living a healthy life. aka miscellanea.

I hope you enjoy this space. please know that i welcome refreshing & respectful conversations and comments … let me know what you think!

remember to be here now and come from love!

sandy

if any of this inspires you to revisit your self from another time, i’m super interested to hear. and if it simply inspires, i’m happy.

………. it’s our very own “girlfriends and gifts!”
………. because every choiceful relationship is a gift 🎁

strong ground by brené brown has been dense. fulfilling. startling. challenging.

we started with chapter one back on november 5 of last year (!). many of the chapters are long and filled with meaty concepts so we decided to take our time and not rush the book, its messages or our time together.

every wednesdy we zoom in the early evening for about two and a half hours. we’ve found our groove, the first 40 minutes are usually catching up on each others lives, what the week has brought and wrought, how are our furry and other mammal families, how is work, how are YOU.

then we shift into the chapter (occasionally chapters plural). we both take notes in our own way, i listen to audio and take notes on my laptop. mel reads on kindle and uses the highlights and notes features. what matters is that we each share our highlights.

the highlights inevitably bring sharing about other parts of our lives, from work happenings to relationships, to stories from the past about growing up and being grown. so we talk about those at length, with vulnerability, too.

Four months and one week later, we have crafted — together — a resilient and supportive friendship that is based on deep respect and on the joy in discovering a kindred spirit. it has been such an amazing revelation to find a friend as adults and to choicefully nurture that friendship and grow together.

we met while camping in waskesiu/prince albert national park in saskchatewan. our dogs hit it off, always a plus in the camping world… and then it turns out we all love to cook. camp. read good books. share life experiences. hang in silence. simply be in the world. take walks with our dogs. talk about cool camping gear and podcasts, music and movies (!). me and the poods overnighted with them in their home in saskatoon before leaving for alberta and BC and had fun watching a movie and singing along with the songs. this turned out to be a rare chance encounter that has turned into more through choice, and then through the work (yes) of staying in touch and keeping current in each others lives.

i’m super excited to announce that we completed strong ground and are moving into the gifts of perfection, also by brene brown. i first read Gifts in 2014. brene had one of the very first “teleclasses” ever online and i joined back then with another girlfriend in colorado. Brene combined the class with her book and with art journaling, and doing it online. it was groundbreaking back then, there were stories all over the newer online universe, from vanity fair to the new york times, about the innovation of online courses. the Gifts of Imperfection “e-class” generally contained four videos, about 30-40 minutes total that covered the concepts in the book, and expanded with art, from the heart.

starting this upcoming week, mel and i will each be reading the first chapter of the gifts of imperfection, and next wednesday we’ll have our first call. we’ll catch up on each others lives as per our usual, we’ll watch the videos, and then we’ll make art together online and share progress by showing each other what we have created during our video call. I cannot wait!

as i shared at the start, it truly is our very own “girlfriends and gifts!” because every choiceful relationship is a gift 🎁

the dogs of the girlfriends, louie and reed in the back, and revy up front.

the beach at waskesiu, Prince Albert National Park, saskatchewan, canada

one of our campsite/worksites at the park… we ended up staying nearly three weeks either at the park or surrounding areas. we even shared a campsite for a few days. lake and forest time!

last camp in sask. the weather was just beginning to turn, the aspens turning to gold, and time to move into pre-winter wool and stay dry.

that said, i am so completely delighted to announce the first iteration of our collaboration; ReverseTheAgingProcesses.com

SO. This website for my client went live last night. I went back through our master notes, and our first official meeting was last May, when i was traveling through massachusetts on my way to nova scotia.

history: i had another dear friend who kept telling me intriguing stories of this teacher at her senior center who had members walking ladders on the floor, flowing with rope walking and tossing bean bags, all in the journey of aging with better movement. i attended a couple classes and i was hooked. i hired steve as a personal trainer and he worked assiduously to help me combat ptsd issues around my knees and their nine reconstructive surgeries over 20+ years after a car accident. he came up with absolutely unique ways to help me get into better movement. it’s an ongoing process, trust me.

from the start, i knew his work could be of value beyond the eight senior centers he already taught at. we had a long brunch and steve confided he’d already wanted to reach more people. we decided to create online programs together to reach others beyond boston.

in june and july, i tagged along to one-on-one appointments with his clients from the ages of 60 to 101. i took photos and video. i listened to their stories. i watched his clients improve. i coached steve. we collaborated. we talked about his why.

we resonated, he just turned 70 and I am 62… our bodies change AND we get to continue to work on our best selves and living our best lives. how do we do that?

he has a lot of answers and we created a website that is deep and rich with content, free movement videos and a first course on getting a better good night’s rest. it has been so much fun!

and that takes us to today! i am quite proud of our work together. we have crafted a collaboration where he brings his expertise and i help him put it online with my expertise. he has one course up now, and 17 more courses already written and ready to be produced! it was absolutely a meeting of two people with complementary skills. and the journey is going to continue long past today.

we want to help others realize their best movement and health too.

Pursue what makes you happy and what brings you joy. Help others get their gift into the world. Get your own gift into the world. WE NEED EACH OTHER.

Let’s be there for each other and promote all the goodness. We need this in the face of a current culture that would pursue hatred and chaos instead. Let’s continue to serve.

If you want to watch a bunch of cool videos to help get into simple hourly movement that will get you out of the habit of sitting all day, head over and check out ReverseTheAgingProcesses.com/science-of-health. There is so much solid free content, please enjoy.

If you are 60, or if you know someone who is over 60 and hasn’t quite reached 106 yet (!), please share this site. Hugs.

— much love from sandy and the poodles (who have been patiently waiting to get back on the road again!)

PS: remember, nothing happens overnight… it took us ten months to make this come into the world. please give yourself grace and empathy on the road to change! AND, check it out, thoughts, ideas and critiques happily received.

i have returned to this paradox more frequently during the events of this past week.

because I still always love the why of a thing, i did some research and discovered dovetailing concepts that made sense to me. hope to me feels more emotional and more motivational, more realistic and less pollyanna. hope is something i can feel in my heart, it can warm me in the coldest environments and it provides a grounded place to land when events in the world seem too hard to bear.

choosing hope and crafting hopeful actions can make me feel as if i have some amount of choice even when external options might seem bleak.

this new clarity on the definition of hope reminds me that even when life is uncertain, i can lean into that same uncertainty to find my grounded strength. i can tap into a very real yearning for more humanity and empathy and i can send it to myself and out into the world.

keeping hope nearby, ready to catch and nurture, is something i trust and feel in my bones. it is a wisdom i trust to get me through this week, next year and far into the future.

research sources:

1/ Optimistic means having a hopeful attitude or expecting positive outcomes in the future. It reflects a belief that things will turn out well, often illustrated by the saying that an optimist sees a glass as half full. positive outcomes will occur in the future rather than negative outcomes, for themselves, and also for others they know, the economy, the world in general.
—merriam webster

2/ “Hope is a positive motivational state, an emotion, that is based on an interactively derived sense of successful agency (goal-directed energy), and pathways (planning to meet goals).”
— Professor C. R. Synder, one of the central figures in hope research

3/ To elaborate on these two aspects of hope — agency and pathways — researchers tell us that hopeful people engage in more pathway thinking, where they are able to come up with lots of different ways in which they can successfully reach a chosen goal. Agency thinking is the idea that hopeful people also have greater motivation to use these pathways to initiate and then continue on with the actions that are needed to advance towards those goals.
—Psychology Today

. . . . . . . . . .

030726: words ©2026 sandy bassett

030726: sculpture © cheri isgreen

i am also what some might call unhoused. i don’t like the terminology because it seems to imply accidental as opposed to choice. i love my nomadic life and have worked hard to make it work. i deliberately let go of “stuff” to live more fully.

because i do not have a permanent address, i can no longer register to vote. i have a couple years before i’ll need a new DL somewhere… i have a legal passport. i’m a legal US citizen. i have voted all my life and i feel locked out of my own country.

nomadic life is lovely, but it’s not easy. there are technical and legal difficulties. yet here’s the thing; i know i’m not alone. i don’t know how to begin to get registered to vote again, much less how to advocate for anyone else like me.

now to my fourth amendment rights…

all this is a story i’m telling while i worry, daily, nightly, about being denied my own fourth amendment rights to be secure “in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…’

i do peacefully protest in states as i pass through. will ice crack through my windows, cut my seatbelt and detain me? will they look at my substack posts and decide i am a domestic terrorist? will they come in to my campsite with a heavy knock on my tent or windshield and decide i’m not the kind of american that is acceptable?

and then, what would happen to my beloved best friends louie and reed, my companion standard poodles? fear and intimidation are real. i’ve considered not writing, not protesting, because what would happen to them?

i have been quite happily living this nomadic life for 13 years now. i am privileged in that this is the FIRST year i’ve worried. i’m avoiding utah with their “homeless detention camps.” i keep a constant eye on every state that rules “homeless” people have less rights.

we used to be a country that celebrated freedom. freedom of self, freedom of movement, freedom of speech. for me, this is no longer rhetoric, it is my very lifestyle.

thanks for reading. i guess i’m leaving my story here because i truly no longer know how to respond to the lawlessness of this regime and how it affects the life i love, my life... my life on the road, making a living, meeting new people, working, making new connections, finding new views that catch my breath. even as i connect and engage with communities here on substack.

the rights rump is rampaging over affect us all, sooner or later. for me, it’s right now. i worry every time i see an officer, an unmarked vehicle. sadly, this is our country now. but it is not the country i was raised in.

i refuse to bow. i will find the energy to keep traveling and advocating. LFG.

child of the wind : bruce cockburn

I love the pounding of hooves
I love engines that roar
I love the wild music of waves on the shore
And the spiral perfection of a hawk when it soars
I love my sweet woman down to the core

There’s roads and there’s roads
And they call, can’t you hear it?
Roads of the earth
And roads of the spirit

The best roads of all
Are the ones that aren’t certain
One of those is where you’ll find me
Till they drop the big curtain

Hear the wind moan
In the bright diamond sky
These mountains are waiting
Brown-green and dry

I’m too old for the term
But I’ll use it anyway
I’ll be a child of the wind
Till the end of my days

Little round planet
In a big universe
Sometimes it looks blessed
Sometimes it looks cursed

Depends on what you look at
obviously
But even more it depends
on the way that you see

over the last year, he’d started to arrive with a couple guys who worked out with him, beside him. the club had grown increasingly conservative and even as they dissed him all year long, when he came to work out they wanted to work out beside him. to touch humility, thoughtfulness, intelligence and kindness, even for a few moments. i wonder that they understood that.

occasionally he’d duck into my office for a break, to have a conversation. he could talk wth experience on just about any subject under the sun, and did so with eagerness and that desire for connection we all recognize in each other.

after a few years of this, he remembered my name. the last year i saw him, i was checking in other members. he walked into the front doors, saw me and flashed that amazing grin. he said, “Sandy, it’s great to see you. How are you?” He came behind the desk and gave me the kindest hug. SUCH a class act, and kind man.

i miss his presence in the daily lives of all of us. we had grown accustomed to hearing his even melodious voice explain the travails of the day, accustomed to his amazing family of, at the time, young girls, to his beautiful wife and her intelligence and forthrightness. we had eight years of joy, smiles, laughter, tragedy, challenging times and more. and yet his very humanness and desire to connect and communicate helped to keep us all on a more even keel.

i miss integrity. decency. kindness. intelligence. humility. camaraderie. yes, love.

we must find these values again. we must uplift each other in the pursuit of creating better lives for every. single. american.

we ALL deserve freedom, equality and joy. let’s make it happen. LFG.

dawn in the desert, southern california

louie, reed and i took a break yesterday afternoon and went to the beach with a lifelong gf and her pup lolly. we went to laguna and sat on the sand,

we got lucky to hit low tide and had gay beach and tidepools and miles of sand practically to ourselves. afterwards we had tacos in the community garden and walked downtown while catching the sunset.

this is january in southern california. i’m so lucky!

i will always agree with civil disobedience.

i will never support political violence.

when we play their game, we lose.

we have to continue to be smarter.

my Louie would be one of these. I received Louie from a guide dog school when he was six months old. The ideal age is two months old so that you have the opportune maturing times for potty training, early behavior and socialization. Louie was one of a litter where the school had insufficient puppy raisers at the time and Louie remained at the school.

I was also a first-time puppy raiser who was completely unfamiliar with poodles! and covid locked us down within six months.

Louie was a wicked smart mischievous charmer. He learned quickly and aced his behavior and training classes and AKC certificates. He was monitored and tested and slated for harness training.

At a target store while training in his working vest, a woman lifted her two toddlers down from a cart and set them to chase Louie. we abandoned cart and left. At a grocery store while rounding an aisle, a toddler rushed him arms wide open and toppled onto him. Louie was thoroughly startled. At a zoo training event, a group of grade school children were popping those packing bubbles, and that was Louie’s third out. He started shaking uncontrollably and we left. To this day he fears and avoids small children.

About one month after the last event, i dosed him with flea and tick medication and he had a 6-hour grand mal seizure. His sire and dam breeding lines had to be discontinued and Louie was released from guide school. As his raiser, he was offered to me first. I of course said YES.

There are other happier stories of post-guide dog in training life, thank goodness. A number of schools now have realized the value of these highly trained and bred dogs and have follow-up programs for them and their new person to become therapy dogs. This is an amazing opportunity for the team!

Other post- dogs get adopted into loving homes and simply live their best lives in service to their people.

Louie, Reed and I make a rather lovely pack, impo. We are a tribe of nomads, hiking, driving and camping together. Thank you Louie for being my best “shot gun” (passenger seat) happy traveler, he is such an easy dog. Long live my poodles!

here’s an excerpt, “The holidays provide an apt time to pause and assess where we are.

You have every reason to be worried about what happens after January 20. Many people could be harmed.

Yet I continue to have an abiding faith in the common sense and good-heartedness of most Americans, despite the outcome of the election.

Many traditional Democratic voters did not vote — either because they were upset about the Biden administration’s support for Benjamin Netanyahu or they were unmoved by Kamala Harris. Others chose Trump because their incomes have gone nowhere for years and they thought the system needed to be “shaken up.”

An explanation is not a justification.

There have been times when I doubted America. I think the worst was 1968, with the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and then Bobby Kennedy, the riots and fires that consumed our cities, the horrific Democratic convention in Chicago along with protests and violent police response, the election of the dreadful Nixon, and the escalating carnage of Vietnam.

It seemed to me then that we had utterly lost our moral compass and purpose.

But the Watergate hearings demonstrated to me that we had not lost it. Democrats and Republicans worked together to discover what Nixon had done.

I had much the same feeling about the brilliant work done by the House’s special committee to investigate January 6, 2021, including chair Bennie Thompson and vice chair Liz Cheney.” —Robert Reich

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for me, when i reflect on the biden admin, i try to imagine what it must have been like to inherit all of the mess + covid, work really hard for four years, achieve practically unimaginable things, and then have to hand it back over to the orange stain. how discouraging that must have been for him personally, for his admin. And obviously for all of us.

now that we’ve made it 25% of the way in to the rump regime, i can hear the collective deep sigh. and then the energy taken to pick up the oars and put them into the water yet again. sometimes a new year and a new solstice aren’t all about potential, they’re also about reparation, reform and collecting the energy needed to move forward.

WE the PEOPLE are the POWER. that is the sign i have made for every protest i’ve attended. i still believe in it. i re-read the constitution about every three months to be reminded of our country’s origin, rules and dreams. with winter solstice just past, it’s important to remember our dreams. it’s important to connect with our communities to support everyone with their individual needs. it’s important to reach out a hand to help others and honor our commonalities.

as a full time nomad, i road trip about 33k miles annually across this country and canada. i have the most amazing experiences, meet incredible people and am constantly reminded that we are so similar in our desires for peace and happiness, and the dream to pursue lives of purpose. we really are more alike than not.

for 2026 i affirm my next 30k miles (olympia, alaska, denali, the yukon, the northern provinces, saskatchewan and the canadian rockies). as i navigate those miles i hope to remain curious. open hearted. hopeful. pragmatic. kind. decent.

Whatever your journey, i wish you each the same. and much love and puppy kisses!

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as to my thoughts on current politics, here is my most cogent comment, rooted in reality + hope:

“interestingly, i have more hope now than i did one year ago. don’t get me wrong, this last year has been awful, filled with countless atrocities, injustices, illegalities and cruelties, people have died and been disappeared (which is god-awful!), the list goes on and on. and on.

and yet, he has broke so many things so fast it seems to be making it easier for more of us to see and begin to fight for each other, our country and our democracy.

i believe in the power of us. i believe we must choose humans over machines/ai/tech, and that we can. it is going to be hard. i believe we need to be a big inclusive non-bigoted tent. we need the mamdani’s, the spanburger’s, the jasmine’s. the swalwells, the walz’s, the AOCS, bernies and newsom’s. in different areas of this country, different knowledge sets and skills are needed, even as we are more alike than we are different.

i believe we can find the strength, kindness, intelligence and decency to work together to reform our country and take it back from all those who would set us against each other and are only in it for our money, and power.

i look forward to the hard work, conversations and negotiations that will need to happen in 2026. thank you heather and bob for your constant communication and caring, it helps.”