Happy 13th Re-Birthday to Me!

Happy 13th Re-Birthday to Me! 

Thirteen years ago today I started living intentionally. I stopped spending my time doing the things I should do and started spending my time doing the things I wanted to do. For twelve of those years, I was a home-less nomad. For the last year, I've been living in my new home in Bellingham.

Time is what I value the most. The twelve years I spent roaming about felt like six entire lifetimes. And yet, the last year I've spent rooted in my new home seems to have passed so quickly. How, I've wondered, can I slow down time? My curiosity with this question has enabled me to better understand the illusion of time. I'll keep that explanation for another post. What I'll say now is that I've learned that time is slowed by expanding the depth and breadth of experiences. 

During my nomadic years, this depth and breadth was readily apparent. Every year I spent 100+ nights sleeping in different places. Every year I traveled thousands of miles by bike and lived for months at a time in other countries. Now though, I spend most of my nights sleeping in my own bed, and I've spent most of the last year exploring within a 100-mile radius around my home. The depth and breadth of my experiences in the last year seems to be relatively shallow'n'narrow. But this is where perspective and grace (and perhaps maturity, too) come into play. The external experiences I've had— the traveling, the novelty-seeking, and the such — are easy ways to slow down time. The real challenge is finding breadth and depth in the seemingly mundane life that I have chosen to now live. 

It's all about presence. And it's one of the hardest and most rewarding things I've ever done. Presence doesn't always advertise itself with flashing neon arrows. Sometimes it makes itself known in the subtle joys of a beam of sunshine breaking through the canopy of the trees or in the lickety-split dance between two hummingbirds as they approach the feeder. 

And with that in mind, here are my highlights from the past year:

• I folded 1,000 cranes. I started the project in early 2024 when I was still a nomad. I gave myself 365 days to fold the cranes. I told myself that by the time I was done, I would have myself a home with a wall on which I could display the cranes. Sure enough, that intention came to fruition. The cranes now hang on the wall of my living room.

  

  I spent hours upon hours folding 1,000 cranes, which now hang on my living room wall.

• I sold my van. It served as the perfect mobile home for the final four years of my nomadic chapter. But once I bought my grounded-home, I was ready to let the van go. A nearby couple bought the van, and it brings me great joy to follow their adventures in my beloved Shell.
• I made my new home exactly the way I want it to be. I have a place to be creative, a place to do my yoga, a place to meditate, and a place to sit in a rocking chair and read or watch the wildlife in the backyard.
• I somehow managed to get Glen Van Peski, The Godfather of Ultralight Backpacking, to come to my home and attend my book club to discuss his Take Less. Do More. (What a treat. Thank you, Glen!)
• I took a 13-week "Rekindling Your Creative Passion" class with the Awareness Institute. The class instilled in me the importance of regularly exercising my creative muscles.

  

  Being creative by making art.

• I converted the lower level of my home to an independent living space for my Mom. This project involved five months of dust, noise, and chaos. Suffice it to say that I was (really) glad when the project was done.
• I flew to Chicago and drove my Mom and her car half way across the country so she could move into her place. My Mom loves her new home. I've been impressed by how adventurous she's been and how quickly she's found her place in her new community. It's great having her live with me. It's fun to work on yard projects, go for walks, and attend community events together.

  

  Mom works in the yard with me and is my hiking buddy, too.

• I received amazing handmade gifts from two of my friends. Kelly, who I've known for thirty years, knitted a hat for me that was inspired by the North Cascades. Pat, who I met on my trip to Tanzania last year, made me an amazing quilt for my new home. Wow, ladies, I feel so loved!

  

  My hat from Kelly and my quilt from Pat.

• I visited the Peter James Gallery and found the art I want to stare at when I'm on my deathbed. The photograph is a gigantic 5-panel spread of Iceberg Lake, which sits at the base of Mt Baker. Peter's metal prints do an amazing job of bringing nature indoors. I can't imagine a more beautiful last image.

Mt Baker Behind Iceberg Lake.
(Photo: Peter James Gallery)

• I got to watch my first Ski to Sea, famous as being America's original team relay race. I was the personal photographer for my friend, Mike, who did the canoe leg of the race. Mike's team, Boomer's Drive-In Legends, placed an impressive 2nd for the Veteran's Division and 10th overall.

  

  Mike running to the start of his canoe leg at Ski to Sea.

• I took a three-day workshop and learned how to make stained glass. While the other students in the class made traditional pieces, I made my own design using antique mouth-blown glass. Twas much more fitting for my scrappy and frugal personality. :)

  

  Giving antique scrap glass a new life. (11" x 14") 

• I dedicated a two-week housesit as an "Art Retreat" during which I focused on creating lots of new art in between lots of kitty snuggles. (Thank you, Pam, for having an amazing home that always activates my right brain.)

The start of a chakra project.

A collage highlighting a quote that directly speaks to this chapter of my life.

• I went on a fun overnight paddling trip on Baker Lake with Mike. I was in my packraft, and Mike was on a paddleboard.

  

  A paddling overnight at Baker Lake.

• My brothers and nephew visited for a week. We hiked at Mt Baker, paddleboarded on Lake Padden, and biked Bellingham's trails. I thought it was pretty great when my nephew asked my brother, "Dad, why can't our town be as cool as Sarah's town?" :)
• I did one (yes, just one!) overnight bike trip to Whidbey Island with my dear friend, Kate.
• My Mom and I took a road trip to the Olympic Peninsula. This was my Mom's first trip to the Olympics. We visited Hurricane Ridge (where we enjoyed the views the day before the season's first snowfall), Rialto Beach (where we watched the waves for hours), Crescent Lake (where we walked to Devil's Punchbowl), and Port Townsend (where we did the tourist circuit).

  

  Mom at Rialto Beach.

• I started volunteering at the Pickford Film Center. (I am sooo impressed by how appreciative the Pickford is of its volunteers. They make us feel like saints!) I watched a bunch of films, including a handful of Doctober documentaries. My favorites were Runa Simi and Jimmy & The Demons. 
• I designed two new trips for Discovery Bicycle Tours: Florida Coast-to-Coast and San Juan Islands & Olympic National Park.
• I enjoyed the companionship of ten kitties (Hozomeen & Willow, Frida & Emme, Asher & Annie, Winston & Arlo, Grayson, and Lilah) for 56 days of housesitting. 

  

  Hozomeen and Grayson, both handsome Maine Coons with incredibly fun personalities.

• I spent HOURS watching the hummingbirds come to my feeders. I absolutely love those little creatures.

  

  Hummingbirds at my feeder.

• I enjoyed watching the herd of deer that frequent my yard.

  

  On the left, Momma and baby deer are curious about the kitty, Lilah, who I boarded for a week this summer. On the right, four deer lounge in my backyard on a summery afternoon.

• I fell in love with the music of Jacob Collier. A Rock Somewhere, which Jacob sings with Aurora, absolutely humbles me every time I give it a listen.
• I hiked hundreds of miles on the trails in my community, including a couple of 20ish-mile day hikes.

  

  This beautiful view of Mt Baker is a short hike from my front door.

• I fell in love with thimbleberries. I know notice them everywhere.
• I fell in love with the awe I experience at the site of komorebi (filtered light through the trees —aka "godlight").

  

  Godlight at Rockport State Park.

• I spent hours in both seated meditation and yard meditation (landscaping, weeding, mowing, and raking). 
• I met many new friends and deepened my relationship with my old friends (though not that kind of "old" — though I guess some of them are).

I'm continuing to housesit, as I greatly enjoy loving on kitties and switching up my environment every now and then. For the most part, I've been housesitting one(+/-) week a month. My days of working for bike companies are in the past. I am, however, excited to be starting up my own bike endeavor. More on that in next year's re-birthday post!

I recently watched the movie Perfect Days. It's about a man named Hirayama who is a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Despite the assumptions some may make about Hirayama's profession, he is a happy man who finds great beauty in the world. In the final scene, Hirayama is driving along the highway, listening to Nina Simone's Feeling Good. "It's a new dawn, it's a new day," Nina sings. "It's a new life for me, ooh, and I'm feeling good." Meanwhile, the camera is fixed on Hirayama's face. His expression runs through a gamut of feelings — joy, despair, acceptance, fear, hope, doubt, shame, fragility, tenderness, courage, gratefulness. The scene really resonated with me. It's such a beautiful expression of the human experience and brings to mind one of my favorite quotes:

Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful. ~L.R. Knost

Hallelujah to that! I'm so incredibly grateful for my re-birthdays and for the opportunity to more deeply experience the full gamut of my breathtakingly beautiful life. I'm loving the opportunity to exhale during the ordinary. 

Living intentionally has given me a level of perpetual contentment I never could have imagined. Simplicity has brought with it a richness that money cannot afford. Cheers to another lap around the sun!