What do you love that you’ve stepped away from?

I love to write.

Crafting stories is a deep soul passion I’ve had since I was a young child which makes me come alive in beautiful and unique ways quite unlike anything else. And yet, as you might have noticed, I haven’t written publicly aside from a few short social posts in over half a year.

That’s by design; an intentional choice to step away for a season and focus on another project which has eaten up most of my free time during the lockdown. …

It’s election day here in the United States.

There’s something in the air this morning. A potent cocktail filled with the anticipation of years of waiting, a secret blend of optimism, and more than a dash of dread. This mixture has been everywhere for months now, seeping into every conversation, news feed, and inner monologue across the nation, and it’s all coming to a head today.

I don’t know if that air will be sucked out of the room by the night’s end or if it will linger with us for a little while longer, but I know it keeps…

There’s a driving engine. A big part of why we do so many of the day-to-day activities we end up choosing. We go to work, spend time with family, invest, exercise, etc., in part because we want our lives to be better today than they were yesterday. We want tomorrow to be better than whatever we are experiencing right now.

Often this comes out of a place of suffering discomfort or malcontent. We are hurting, lacking the comfort we desire, or there is a part of us that for whatever reason can’t stand a part of life being the way…

If you are anything like me, 2020 has left you with some extra time you didn’t have before.

Right now I don’t have to commute to work, which is a huge relief in itself, and I don’t have a tenth of the social commitments I did this time last year. Excuse me while I mourn the loss of Fall house parties and the death of my Halloween couple’s costume. It was supposed to be a taco and hot sauce; I’ll let you guess which one I was going as.

While the chaos of the year has certainly brought more of…

One of the surprising things about getting older has been noticing how many people abide by a more strict set of rules than when they were young.

Have you noticed this as well? Maybe in your own story?

I think this surprises me a little because growing up, for most of us, was full of moments where we did whatever we deemed best. There really weren’t that many rules, and when there were those rules often could be bent or broken in favor of desires of the heart.

When I was ten years old my parents let me adventure anywhere…

One of the startling aspects of jazz music is how much it can change your view of the world if you let it.

I didn’t enjoy jazz when I was younger, mainly because the sounds of brass didn’t have the same pleasant ring to my ears as the strings or the woodwind instruments. Also because a lot of jazz music compels you to get up and move your feet to the groove, and if there’s one thing I’ll always be bad at it’s dancing.

But after a few years of listening to it with more regularity, it grew on me…

We are almost six months into this pandemic.

I think for a lot of people the defining theme since this all began has been survival; figuring out how to navigate the new challenges and realities COVID-19 has brought into our lives.

Job loss. Learning to work from home. Figuring out how to pay the bills. Dreams for the year dashed on the rocks. Kids going stir crazy away from school. Only seeing loved ones through a tiny screen. Isolation. Loneliness. Depression. All the madness with politics, society, and the economy.

Sometimes you just have to put your head down and…

Perhaps you’ve heard this before:

If it doesn’t work for everyone, it doesn’t work for anyone.

It’s this idea that if a system, design, or a way of life doesn’t work for some individuals of a group then it doesn’t work for all the people involved. That if it doesn’t serve each person equitably then it is broken, at least in part, and there is room for improvement.

Now, think about your life and our collective shared experiences together. What ways of life work well for you? What designs of society and culture are functioning as intended and serve all…