summer 2018

Perhaps one of the best things about marriage is the second family into which, for better or for worse, you’re grafted. I really lucked out with mine. With open arms and wide smiles have I been welcomed into this charming Texan family and its heartwarming traditions. To know this family is to know the Frio River—either through stories or, if you’re lucky, experience. On these banks are over forty years of family history, strong and gnarled like the roots of the cypress trees standing guard over the clear, cool river. 

The schedule of each day at the Frio is that there is no schedule. Time is irrelevant—what does a clock matter when there is sleeping and eating and swimming and beer drinking and reminiscing to be done? When the sun starts to dip low in the west, the light is filtered golden and soft through the trees. Looking at old family photos from the Frio, that light has not changed in thirty years. In the sunset of our last night, our aunt Gwen leaned back with a satisfied sigh and said this—and here she swept her arm in an arc around us—has always been her idea of heaven. There have been some unwelcome changes through the years at the Frio, but Gwen is right; when I first arrived at the river, newly engaged and full of wonder, I knew I’d arrived at a sacred place.

Lately I’ve been haunted by our parents’ and grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ shoeboxes of film photos. Even when the slippery memories are physically tangled and unsorted, they’re still so tangibly there, glossy photos that can be held and angled towards the light and waved around. In the days leading up to the Frio this year, my sister-in-law pulled out box after box of yesteryear’s river memories, and those prints inspired me to document this.

How are you? How is your heart? What stopped you in your tracks today? How did it feel when you stepped outside this morning into the crisp air? Does the call of a mourning dove split your tender heart open? 

When do you think spring will arrive? What home improvements have you been doing? How are you carving a soft space in which to land? Your neighbors—what are they up to? Do they walk their cat in a stroller made for a child? 

How is your brain, that squishy old trickster? How are your dogs and their floppy ears? What are you making, growing, dreaming? How was the last sunset you watched? 

How long has it been since you stood by the ocean? Does standing on the edge of that great watery unknown make your heart pound faster? Do you feel breathless by all that is yet to be discovered?

The author pretending that enough cozy clothing will alleviate existential dread

It’s impossible to be a good writer without being honest, and I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t tell you that I’m in the throes of a quarter-life crisis. It might be one of the best things to ever happen to me. 

When you try to race through life, there is inevitably a crash.

That is to say, this crisis has been a long time coming. I outgrow my skin faster than I can shed it. Growing up, birthdays were validating; each blown-out candle inched me closer to the age I felt inside. I graduated high school at 17 with two semesters of college already under my belt. By the ripe old age of 20, I had already published a book, lived and worked in Kenya, started dating the boy I’d had a crush on since I was 16, worked for a food magazine, attended one college then transferred to another, worked off and on as a photographer, spent a short-lived summer working at an insurance agency, traveled Eastern Africa alone working as a documentary photographer, got engaged to said boy, un-enrolled from college, planned a wedding, moved to Colorado, and got married.

I assumed I knew just about everything I needed to know, and racing through life kept me from thinking too much.

Reader, as you may have guessed, therein lie the fledgling beginnings of the crisis. Anytime life inevitably slowed down, I was deeply uncomfortable. I didn’t know who I was outside of the busy-ness, but I wasn’t ready to admit that to myself or anyone else yet; staying occupied was easier.

Last year I finally graduated with a degree in graphic design. After the rush of school, I was incredibly lucky to work at a design agency for awhile and, afterwards, score a sweet contract gig. Life became calmer. I was proud of myself, but it still felt like something was missing. Was this really it?

It’s almost been a year since my graduation and I still feel aimless. Maybe it’s because I’m tired of racing. Maybe it’s the culmination of a lifetime focusing on arbitrary benchmarks. Maybe it’s because, for six years, education was always something I could rely on. Maybe it’s because of the dumpster fire that is the world. Maybe it’s because I’m learning the downside of a degree chosen solely for its marketability. Maybe it’s because I’m an enneagram one and am paralyzed by the high standards I set for myself (still working on that one). Maybe it’s because despite all the schools and odd jobs and random life experiences, I still don’t know as much as I feel I “should.”

There is so much I don’t know—the crux of every crisis.

I don’t know if I can generate an income doing what I love. I don’t know if I’m on the right path. I don’t know where we’re going to be living two months from now (oh yeah, we’re moving). I don’t know the next time my family will be fully together (oh yeah, my parents are moving to Germany). I don’t know if I’m actually good at anything. I don’t know if I am capable of creating the life I want to live. I don’t know how to live life without racing through it.

At the beginning of the year, Jacob and I implemented a weekly relationship check in. Every Friday afternoon while taking a walk or having a drink, we share our roses (things we appreciated about the other person), thorns (points of contention or things that need work), and buds (what we’re looking forward to). Yeah, it’s cheesy—but it’s been a game-changer for our relationship. Anyway, I was shocked when one of Jacob’s roses last week was my existential crisis. “They’re not fun in the moment,” he explained, “but they always help us get to where we want to go.” It was perhaps the kindest thing anyone could say to me. 

He’s right, though.

Would we have existential crises if we didn’t care so much, if we didn’t desire to better ourselves, our lives, and the lives of others?

My quarter-life crisis is forcing me to take a good, hard, honest look at myself. It’s compelling me to slow down. It’s destroying barriers I’d obliviously built. It’s demanding me to process emotions I’d shoved deep. It’s dislodging mental clutter to reveal new ways of being. It’s propagating an inquisitiveness I haven’t felt in years. I couldn’t figure out why the stillness kept following me. Now I realize it’s a cue that I inner work to do.

So does it really matter if we don’t know what we’re doing? As Brittany Chaffee eloquently put it, “although the lack of awareness keeps us anxious, ‘not knowing’ keeps us curious.”

Here’s what I do know: I know that there’s something out there for me. I know that I’m meant to create. I know that I’m not interested in settling for mediocrity. I know I value the relationships in my life more than anything. I know that I have a strong sense of self and a strong sense of vision that’s meant to be shared. I know that I’m capable of figuring out what I’m supposed to go. I know that I am willing to stay curious.

If you are also in the throes of not knowing, take heart. It’s only natural to chase after external milestones instead of doing the deep, invisible inner work. But we must not allow ourselves to be crippled by where we “should” be. Taking stock of the unknown helps us remember what we do know. Stillness reveals what we truly value. Not knowing what’s next makes us more open-minded. 

There is nowhere we should be but right here.

(inspired by this post and this post)

images from summer 2019

In the summer, the mornings and evenings are so wildly beautiful and fleeting they cause me pain. I feel it’s my duty to absorb every inch of this ephemeral world, but I can only do so much—there are too many blooming things and dappled shadows and I am small and tired; how could I possibly do justice to it all?

I’m filled with so much nostalgia I have a hard time seeing straight. I feel deeply for my restless, fledgling teenaged self, for the summer days I used to perceive to be so mind-numbingly dull, for my sisters that now navigate through the same world. Seven and nine years younger than me, they have been my muses for over a decade.

I am fiercely protective of them. When I see their bodies stretching sharper and taller I ache like I do during summer’s gloaming. A gift to watch them become more sophisticated by the day, but isn’t there some way to protect them from the turmoil of growing pains?

All this heartache, and I am not even a mother.