Week 1 - New Beginnings

Today marks the first week since moving up north to my family’s cabin with my partner Avery and her puppy Josie. My parents moved up here from our house in Eau Claire during the first few months of the pandemic in 2020 - that was also subsequently the last time I found myself up here for a long period of time, waiting out the first few months of Wisconsin’s statewide lockdown. 

Do you ever stop and think about how you end up exactly where you are? 

A year after I was born, in the spring of 1990, my dad at age 29, would become enamored with building a cabin up in the Chequamegon National Forest. There, on a bit of land his Grandpa had owned along the south western shoreline of East Twin Lake, a lake who’s geology was formed when glaciers began melting away from North America, 19,000 years ago, in a spot that he and his brothers fondly referred to as, “the Meadow” would he and my mom build the foundation for what would become a home and sanctuary to my family and countless others throughout the years of my life. 

A place that I would come to feel integrally connected to. From the early years of my life, learning to explore, to imagine, to fish and to build a fire, to appreciate nature on nature’s terms, to later becoming a spiritual refuge in my adult life. A space that no matter where I’d go, has stuck with me - from a light rustling of the wind through the trees, to the beams of sun from every sunrise. 

To say how grateful I am to be back here would be an understatement. The gratitude I have in my heart for what my parents have built, a safe haven to return to, to recharge and recalibrate my intention so I can best use to my energy for good. 

Whenever I stop to consider how my life has brought me back to this little corner of the Universe, I know it's always been to reconvene with nature, to find what's truly important and to reconnect with what's real inside myself.

I am really excited to explore the depths of where life goes from here. Bringing Avery & Josie together with my parents at this phase of all of our lives feels remarkably right.. to even have the privilege to consider this move is reason enough to see it through. To begin again with renewed intention and purpose, just as every new day brings new daylight, new potential, new beginnings. 

I could feel it all as I ramped into my run this morning.. a few creaky steps turned into an effortless and methodical one foot in-front of the other. This feeling has become so natural over the thousands of miles I’ve run in my lifetime. Each one never more than THIS step I am taking now.

In this space, I can control my breathing, my heart rate, the trajectory and output of my body. Even my digestion, if I focus enough.

Focus. Running has always been a practice in focus. Not on any one function or feature, but as a whole, the collective as it unfolds in real time. In allowing my own instincts to take over and do what comes most naturally. 

The silent stillness of a new day filled me with a deep sense of contentment. The warm sunlight pierced through the trees as the crisp morning air cooled me down. The balance you find in nature can’t be forged or faked. But it’s always there if we are only present enough to be with it. 

To be with and harmonize with nature. Exploring my purpose in being here at this phase of my life is what this journey into the north woods is all about. From an intrinsic level, to that of the interpersonal relationships with my partner and parents, to the greater connections that find their way to words in your head, dear reader. I am thrilled to explore this next step and to utilize the life giving space that the cabin provides to allow what’s meant to be, to be.

So here now is to new beginnings and the pure potentiality that comes with them.