1.1.18

hello 2018

12.31.17

goodbye 2017

12.30.17

tree hugger

5.24.17

picking nettles

back in washington, living my greenest life.

9.6.15

new home number.....

my mom's new home is so lovely and cozy and beautiful.  My brother has planted a small jungle of flowering plants in the yard, the funky old foundation in the back has been removed and the whole thing looks great.  It was build on the same footprint as the the old house and is a bit surreal, waking up in the guest room and feeling like I'm in the kitchen.

9.5.15

i'm on a mountain!

“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don't worry. It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.” 

~J. Kerouac 

More than one photo today!

9.4.15

i'm in a kayak!

We went kayak whale-watching!  We didn't need any of our rain gear!  We saw like 30 Orca whales!  Mind blown!  What more can be said?  

super tired. impossibly content.

9.3.15

i'm on a ferry!

Without realizing it, three years slipped by since my last trip to Washington.  I had never even seen my moms new post-fire home.  It was high time to pay a visit, plus time for Russ to see where I'd grown up.  His aunt lives on Orcas Island in the San Juans, super near Bellingham, so it all made sense.  In all the years that I lived in Bellingham I could count on one hand the number of times we went out to the islands.  I'm not sure why, they are so beautiful!  In hindsight I didn't adventure nearly enough when I lived in Washington.  In fact most of the adventuring I've done in that area has been after I grew up and lived elsewhere.  While actually living there I was too busy being a ridiculous and angst filled teenager. 
We spared no time getting right into it.  After arriving late on Wednesday and getting the tour of my mom's new place we woke on Thursday, ate breakfast, got some rain gear (strangely we have none) and drove down to Anacortes to catch the ferry to Orcas.  I love the ferry system.  Just the transit from point A to B becomes so much more exciting on a ferry.  Unlike MUNI or other public transit almost no one is upset or on crack on a ferry.  Everyone was taking selfies and standing in the wind on the bow with their coffees, even though it was freezing.   When we arrived we met Aunt Meg and Uncle Joe and immediately set off adventuring.  They took us up Mt. Constitution, the highest point on the island where you can see north to Vancouver and east back to Bellingham.  Were it not cloudy Mt. Baker would have also been visible, but it is Washington so it was cloudy.  We went around the island a bit, picked blackberries, had an awesomely delicious dinner, and after some wine and conversation went to bed in preparation for day 2 of adventuring.  I'm posting more than one photo today.