Thursday, December 26, 2013

December 25

The lights around the tree used to move between colors - casting bough shadows on the ceiling. Tonight they glow a steady, constant, icey white.
After a day of wrapping paper, homemade treats, and what makes a house a home... I lay down under a perfectly clear night sky.
And feel less alone.
Light in the darkness.
This year I flew across the country and spent Christmas as an only child. As a consolation, my parents offered to do whatever I wanted to do all day long. Too heartbroken to leave the house or see anyone, I quietly rested in an echo chamber of Christmases past. Still, soaking up this strange new thing.
The theme of my December has been believing in Christmas miracles. Hoping and praying that magic  could come true.
I'm not really sure what magic is, other than having a tiny place in a constantly spinning universe. A way to see the stars and have cold night air sting the airway.
I know that others see things differently. They keep their blinds closed, locked into a den of their own definition of the universe.
I watch light.
My chest aches.
After candle-lit Silent Night, I opened Christmas Eve pajamas. And burst into lonesome tears. For the first time, I left nothing by the fireplace for Santa. No birthday cake for Jesus. Morning came, ready or not, and Christmas without them came and went.

Tonight my dreams are dormant. My place is less than whole in each world. My heart is heavy. The world spins on. The stars sparkle. The tree glows.

Some moments are unrecoverable. Since September, that reality is palpable. With heavy eyes, I release today to the past.


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The Snow Glow

The dryer hums. The night sky glows pink in street lights. Steady snowfall quiets the night.
It has been frigid here nearly two weeks.

Things Montana winter teaches me:
What scarves are for.
How to coax a car to work below single digit temperatures.
When it's too cold for dogs to play outside.
How quickly digits can be frost bitten.
When I need "arctic" rated footwear.
The diamond sparkle of frost on a mountainside.
How a lake ices over.
That sometimes it is too cold to snow.
To rest.

I've been doing laundry all evening, in the cozy comfort of my little house. By Friday my plants, bedding, and toiletries will be packed and shuffled into storage. The Road.
Motion.
Wonder. Move. Breathe.
My thru hiking mantra repeats itself again- this time, with many lingering questions marks and many great hopes.
Arabian Dance, and other Nutcracker songs. Soon I will introduce a best friend to one of my favorite Christmas festivities - Nutcracker ballet. I think of the magic of the dance, the music, these moments. I tell her we'll decorate a Christmas tree this weekend.
Home.
The journey to find it deepening at each bend in the river.
I will help her build a new home, as I step away from mine into the unknown. She will welcome me into her home as we both navigate new chapters.
As we pack, unpack, each going through these rapids... snow keeps falling.
Shhhhhh. Shhhhhhhhh.
Breathing. Sighing. Exhaling.
The panic, anxiety, fear.
Shhhhhhhhh.
Under a blanket of clouds nestled into a Rocky Mountain Valley, all is well with our souls. We are warm, loved, and fed. We have enough. Though we dream. Because we believe in the unbelievable... six impossible things before breakfast.
I tell her everything will get better. I tell her for both of us. As the Nutcracker lures and snow settles us, we both begin to nestle into that.
Some holiday, I will decorate a tree in my home. I will have people I love sit around a table, surrounded by walls I decorated, feasting. The unanswered questions won't feel SO big. Wonder, move, breathe, won't include a storage unit and a dog kennel.
We will be home. Our cups will overflow.
In the mean time, my heart rests in the lovely glow of a snowy night. And heart-pulling piano notes.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Molding

I'm in my Grandmother's house in West Virginia. A small town on the cumberland river, once hopping with railroad and coal. But my whole life it is a quiet once-was town. That I never hear enough stories of, and can never understand as much as I would like to. Four hours drive, through winding mountain roads to get there. And each year I start the drive from spacious valleys of southern Appalachia wondering... do I know where to turn?

Instinctually, I do.

As a wanderer, I take comfort and pride in sensing how to get places. Four hours. So many drives to this tiny, mountain town that grew my parents and their families.

It's November. The air is damp and cold. The house is warm. Hot with cooking. Cozy in a way that only a Grandmother's house can be. I score the end bedroom, with the floor vent over the kitchen. Smells. Conversations. I don't miss a thing. Crawling in bed I peek through a barely pulled curtain... snow. I sleep.

 Each year, for the past 6, Thanksgiving dinner grows to include more and more sides. Sure, these "non-meat" items have been cooked with meat... it's my Grandma for land's sake! But they aren't "meat". A small attempt, what feels like a huge gesture to keep me eating delicious things on my favorite holiday. Aunts sneak me birthday cards. Geronimo steals homemade bread off the kitchen table. The McDonalds talk. And talk. And Talk.

My Grandma cooks, cleans, cuts into all of the pies lining the piano top, countertops, and most other surface space around the 4 story duplex. She's cooked every persons' favorite pie. Homemade meringue. She bakes multiples of chocolate, cherry, whatever she thinks people will want to take home. She takes extra pie crust and bakes pinwheels. Sometimes there is homemade "hard tac". Always there is a box of Russell Stover's chocolates.

Grandma's bedroom is painted a minty green. She has gauzy, sheer curtains; in the day light the whole room... glows. Her nightstand has a very large study bible, and lots of devotionals. And a pen. And notes. And glasses. In the night she will get up to use the bathroom... I always hope I don't run into her, she probably won't have the door shut.

I used to stay with different relatives. Aunts, cousins, different grandparents. But the more I understood who I am... the more I wanted to stay here. With Grandma. Someone who welcomes me any time I can make it to her world. Someone who supports me in love no matter what crazy idea I have- college in Montana? She'll send me a card every holiday. She'll cross the country, using a walker in airports, to see me graduate a Grizzly... three times. She was bored, sure, but she was there.

To know, understand, and love someone despite their quirks is one of life's greatest miracles. And for ME to feel that way... at home and loved... I only wanted to sleep there.

The morning after the feast - we wake early. This year my sister and I setting alarm clocks, seeing Grandma in the kitchen, rather than being shook awake by matriarchs in the family. We dress, she drives, and we're at Chik fil a. Like so many other Fridays after Thanksgiving the past two decades. Sarah and I scrounge the doorbusters and sale racks. Grandma sits on the bench. She isn't barging into the dressing room to test our 12 year old bra size, but still offers opinions on fashions she finds... "drab". She is tired. This year is different. But she watches us, and is happy.

 We share our treasures over pizza lunch. And we go back to her home. I heat up egg noodles she's made extra of, so I can gorge myself on a favorite thanksgiving side. When we eventually leave her town, I tell her how much I love her. She tells me the same. And we hug. Finally I thank her so much for all the food. For everything "You didn't even eat any turkey!" she scolds me. "Shame on you."

 ...

 A year later is different. There is no small town teeming with stories of family childhood. There is no Chik fil a. The pies come from a box. My mom presents a beautiful table of food in my childhood hometown... vegetables, bread, meat, and I eat fish at this point, so she even makes fish.

 A small collective of immediate family sit down, all I feel is tears.

 ...

 It has taken over five years to figure out how to navigate my favorite holiday without my favorite person. I have hiked over 2,000 miles with our November birthstone, and slept hundreds of nights with the quilt her mother made... final gifts she left to me.

...

 The first November after her death, I returned to her house. After a season in the market it had sold, was closing soon. I packed my car, and Geronimo, and stumbled through each instinctual turn of the drive, 4 hours.

We opened the door to a dark house. Furniture, gone. People, elsewhere. Refrigerator, empty. I poured my four-legged child a bowl of food. I set up my backpacking bed in the middle of the floor. On the carpet. In the middle room. Where so many of us sat around a Thanksgiving table, together, for so many years.

With morning light, I walked. Ran my hands of the molding of the doorways. The carvings in the stair banister. The steepness of 4 flights of stairs no lady with crumbling vertebrae should have walked. The glow of a mint green walls. A very quiet walk. Anything but empty.

...

To know true love, is to overflow. It is a feeling not from this confusing broken world we reside in. It is safety, understanding, honesty, dreaming, nurturing. Love- remains.

 Others have left this world. Others have entered it. Others have moved, married, separated. Families and the people in them are but one constant - dynamic.

 ...

Seven years after that snowy Thanksgiving trip, I am a world away. I dine with the extended family of my Montana travels. There are teenagers, babies, siblings, dogs, food. I am NOT in Keyser, West Virginia.

Quietly, that feeling surfaces.

A warm home. A heart that knows, understands and supports me through the years. A full belly. A heartfelt goodbye hug.                 Love.

 I drive across my Montana hometown, eventually settling into a mattress on the floor of a basement bedroom. Geronimo puts his weight against me, paws the wall with dream running, and snores. I look at the molding around the windows and door frames; realizing, it's all still there.

The woman. The haven. The smells. That love now lives in me, because of her. Even if it is a memory, it is one embedded into my being.

 I miss my Grandmother. There are so many times I need the grounded roots she brought to my life. Tears come, memories flood faster, but ultimately I know... she gave me everything I needed for as long as she possibly could. She grew in me a legacy of love.

 And I am forever Thankful.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Friday, September 6, 2013

Friday, August 30, 2013

Growth and Comfort Zones

I'm packing up what I've called home the past 8 months. It's exciting and bittersweet. I can hardly navigate around the camper enough to sort and pack and I keep trying to tell myself... you only moved here with what fit in your car... a camper really doesn't hold that much.
And it doesn't.
So it isn't a big deal.
And I'm just moving down the hill, to town, and I want to do that, again, not a big deal.
But I guess... more than anything the bittersweet twinge is for the principle of it.
The principle of a life in motion. Of never quite having a home. Of always packing and sorting and carrying these things that augment my life... alone.
Geronimo lays by the recycling that will soon include all the glass jars I've used as tupperware. I listen to a guitar playlist, that I never burnt to a CD, take a sip of Alaska Summer, and keep packing.
I've done this long enough to know... the only way out is through.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Speachless

      I hand picked all the songs for our Lucky Duck walk through Glacier.
     90 miles. Clueless. Well, not totally, but pretty close.
     All the logistics and plans I thought I had understood somewhat dissolved in front of me. These trips have a mind of their own. I work too much leading up to the trip, and sleep in a little too long the day of. Our agenda is put off track and there's a boat ride to compensate.
    24 hours into the journey I realize... this is unlike nearly everything I thought I knew. The stories, songs, sayings, tasty mental tidbits to push a heart through hardships in the backcountry... they belong in a different landscape.
     This landscape is new... it has its own songs. New songs. And I wrestle with keeping an open heart and the strength to let the past live sweetly in memory without forcing it into this present. I'm somewhere between a thru hiker and an employed full timer on work vacation. My hiking partner is new, and wrestles in her own way.
     I tell her about the songs. She understands. And after a long climb to the first high country alpine saddle, there we are. On the Continental Divide of the Rockies, the Backbone of the World.      Speachless. Wind. Sun. Cloud shadows on jagged peaks. We look at each other, jaws dropped, lock eyes, and grin.
     From our new perch we can see alpine lakes, more mountains than we can count, and more glaciation than we understand. Waterfalls. Rock. Wildflowers.
     Each day is more. More. More. Each day is new. High alpine lush meadows, high alpine burns, dust, thimbleberry jungles, ice caves, megafauna, miles to hurt, miles to wonder, but more than anything - that wordless, eye-locked grin.
     Sometimes, I open the songs, and handpick that moment. Eventually, I let fate do it. And this new adventure, a wordless grinning journey, finds its own soundtrack.


Monday, August 12, 2013

Town Day

Bluegrass.
Approaching hour 3 at the laundromat... I bit the bullet and turn on my bluegrass. All this for a clean fluffy warm sleeping bag?! I wanted to be on the river right now.
Luckily, my river buddy is flexible... and I'm alllllllmost out of here.
Preparing for long backpacking trips creates a myriad of life or death world changing problems to discover : Where can I get a million tennis balls to fluff up my bag? How likely is it someone will try to snatch my precious stinky expensive hiker clothes if I leave them unattended in the washer? dryer? Will using an alcohol stove really pose a serious fire hazard in Glacier National Park? Will I be screwed in a snow traverse.
I text my long distance hiking guru. When MOTH meets self propelled travel... things may be sticky, but I'm not too feminine, hurt, or prideful to reach out to that sexy ex that advised and consoled me through thousands of miles. He's full of it. But he's full of good stuff too.
And Outdoor Trails. I call them too. They know me, and they know what's up, and I know the gear they stock. I live in Montana and I call Troutville, Virginia for last minute gear shopping. Typical. Now, if the guru could drive that to Montana.... oh wait... that's so 2008.
It's amusing me the growth and constant speed bumps I continue to have in becoming the backpacker I dream of being. It helps to get a little help from the friends.
Glacier. The northern 100 miles of the Continental Divide Trail. With a girl friend. There are so many firsts and monumental details to this trip, I can't even begin to process. But that part processes itself, so long as I know how to go about our backcountry permitting process, line our transportation out right,  drink enough water, eat enough calories, ensure Geronimo's happy while I'm gone and show back up to work 10 ish days after leaving.
The anxiety I've been feeling for all my life changes in August is turning into excitement as God shows me once again, he won't put anything in my life I can't deal with.
Three weeks : Vacation to walk across Glacier. Move out of the camper into a HOUSE. Finish some interpretive panels? Marry off Michelle and Nico. Hopefully dance - a lot.
I think my sleeping bag is ready!
Check ya later.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Ready for August, and everything after.


My guidebook on "A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" tells me to take artist dates. Just myself and the childlike artist ego that dwells somewhere inside me. Last night - a twilight swim and a movie. Tonight - Home Depot and a long drive.
The date was a chaser for bridesmaid research... what exactly separates the colors teal, sea foam, and mint? I think we decided the answer is merely the depth of the water in Lake McDonald, so that issue is resolved, for the evening.
Anyhow... Home Depot. Officially I was looking for potting soil. Errin and Nicole gifted me an Easter Lily when my grandfather passed away on Good Friday. Normally I'm not too swift with botany... but this one has stayed alive enough to sprout at least four new bulbs from the parent plant! Nope I have no idea what that means. Nope I have no idea if I can actually re pot and grow all these new individual plants... but I'm hopeful and excited to try!
Scoping out potting soil had me wandering around the plant section. So I deviated to decorative pots, plants, etc. Daydreaming about succulents, and Dacia's bout sophomore year with the treasures we found in the Bitterroot Flower Shop. Daydreaming about hydrangeas, and the plant my parents gifted from Virginia after being accepted to the photojournalism professional program. The mums I end up killing every fall. The lily I once had but disintegrated.
I hug my chosen potting soil. The store pulls my heartstrings.
I peer into a warehouse of "home". Do I even want to look more? I'm thinking I probably shouldn't, and I remember my date. Okay, sure, inner artist... we'll look at home stuff.
Cautiously, I magnetize to the paint section. sea glass... which swatch has sea glass? The DIY inspiration guides are no use in bridesmaid questions... so I leave that query, and let my eyes wander. Color. Tones. Muted. Saturated. Pure. Neutrals. Yellows. Greens. Blues. Purples. Whoa boy. I love that paint section.
Now, if IIIIIII had walls to paint, which color would I want where?
I stop. No, can't. Shouldn't. I take one last look-over... marinating in color, and walk away.
To get to my next favorite department... I have to walk through a few others. Carpeting. Flooring. Rugs. Tile. Ouuuu. I like tile.
My fingers brush over texture. Glass. Ceramic. Plastic. Stone. This one is lovely... where would this one fit...
Tile?! C'mon now, let's don't be silly.
Ah. Here we are. Lighting.
I look up, around. Down the aisle. Close to me. Into the next aisle. I walk slowly. The strange, beautiful, and holy moley I'd like to meet the person who'd like to put that in their home. Why is that collection called "The River Collection"? What would a ceiling or a room look like having illumination bounced from that fixture.
I think of houses I've known. Houses I have yet to meet. Houses I dream of. Different rooms. Different light. Different times of day. I imagine dinners around a table. Children with bed time stories. Sorting through the paperwork of bills. A porch.
The cashiers begin to watch me. I'm not talking... out loud anyway. They probably see something processing in me. And it doesn't bother me too much... because they don't know.
They can't know that I won't actually purchase any of these things. That to ask them about price, installment, warranty, sample swatches is a reality so far from my day-to-day life it's almost laughable. They don't need to know that.
I'm ushered to the check out, and trade $3.97 for what I feel, is a whole lot of soil. "Sure hope this works" I think.
The sky is turning grey, blue, green like a stormy sea. I feel our summer days shortening. Already. Knowing I have been making the most of these northern late-night dusks I take the long way home.
Rain.
Lured and ready. This coarse thirsty land salivates at stormy clouds. I can taste it processing through the water cycle. I pray it comes soon.
Colors of this place. Colors and ever shifting light. Coarse, crisp. My wings that strengthen in Montana do so under a harsher premise than the saturated softness of my roots. But tonight the two come closer together. "Please rain" something whispers. My heart? That inner artist? A Montanan nervous for fire season? A homesick Appalachian?
Nearly dark, I dodge a toad in the road. Love those amphibians.
Just about the time I return to my camper home, and spoon into the hand picked raspberries from this weekend, Geronimo returns to the door.
Tip tap. Slowly. Tip tip tap.
Wind picks up and slams our door shut. I close the roof vent. Tip. tip. It wants to... but it won't... quite... yet.
C'mon. Please rain.
Something in me peacefully calms. I believe. Believe it will rain.
Sleepy, the lilies will find a new pot tomorrow. I push my dreams of creation and home back to a quiet place.
It does rain. And I pray my artist has a palette, someday.

Friday, July 26, 2013

43-93

Desert dust and mud exfoliate some wounded part of me. And I traverse. A landscape I want to know me. Hearts. I think about hearts. The vastness of a desert, the expansiveness of Montana. It unfolds. Unfolds and winds me through, churns me in. Rolls me through high sandy sage brush hills. Slides me onto the divide. Pours me through rocky peaks. Rests me in that ancient glacial lake bed. And pulls, north, north, to the water. Saturating in a purple golden sunset. Clouds and light and water. A day. A journey. A feeling I cannot understand nor desire to run from.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

To service

"Parkie" my friend taunts from Moab. "You're hooked, you're gonna be a parkie for life." My friend, who works trail crew and masonry for the National Park Service out of Moab Utah, we've known each other through many life seasons.
Meeting in the early days of college working at a small summer camp, we got it. Something about the outdoors that feels like home, that our heart connects to... a feeling large enough to overpower all our young adult decisions.
To leave home, friends and family to pursue more untamed wildernesses. We fell in love with the Rockies individually, both in our young twenties. His stint in Utah has been more consistent than my attempts to work and stay in western Montana... but he's a great coach and confidant.
After a wintry, week-long drive, Montana ushered me home with driving winds and sideways sleeting snow. Followed by a few days of orientation, temperature maxing out at a balmy 15 degrees? Maybe. But I call my friend after the first day at my placement site, and tell him about the hour long regional parks staff meeting. The charming personalities, the industry jargon, the projects I'll be working on alongside them... I feel so grateful and excited, all he can do is taunt me. He taunts me knowing I finally feel fulfilled in this new position.
"Do you know what AmeriCorps means?" My fellow Montana State Parks AmeriCorps Member always asks during a field trip introduction. Usually... they don't.
"AmeriCorps is about service, people who serve through AmeriCorps go into places that need help, and help them out," she says. To gaping mouths and sparkling eyes. They're listening. "Lone Pine State Park needed help with their education and school programs, so I'm here to help out, and Rebekah here, she can tell you how she helps out."
I tell them about my research, graphic design, publications, about my projects. They're listening, but starting to get bored.
So I tell them how excited I am to hang out with them for the morning. To explore the water cycle or the forest with them. We spend hours together. Sometimes they're just excited to not be in school... but usually... they return to school with new ideas. New words. New skills. New confidence. And I return to my research, publications, volunteer recruitment, community outreach. I keep chipping away at lofty goals and time-consuming partnerships. I juggle building capacity at my park while helping with daily tasks of interpretation, connecting with visitors, and maintaining park land.
"Did you bring cookies?" the volunteers ask. "Uhhhh, no," I say thinking... I just really wish I had coffee. "Courtney, brought us cookies," they respond.
Hmmm. So it's 7am, we're about to drive an hour to ride a boat 15 minutes to celebrate National Trails Day by installing water bars in Wild Horse Island State Park. These five volunteers all worked with a Montana State Parks AmeriCorps Member last year improving park land... apparently with home-baked cookies. So I try to shake it off and enjoy the weather, scenery, and camaraderie.
After a morning of trail work, lunch under a ponderosa pine, and an interpretive hike peppered with blooming bitteroot, heralded by meadowlarks, they concede... "well, to tell you the truth the cookies were really just crumbs". Uh huh. "And we had such a great day with you!" Uh huh. But I know the cookies were fantastic. AND they had a great day with me. I know these volunteers are hooked in their own way.
Serving an AmeriCorps term with Montana State Parks is a surprising adventure. I push myself and continue to be stretched professionally and personally. It is a life and job that keeps me on my toes. I teach parkies how to edit, design, and use publication skills. They teach me about weird tools like the McLeod, Pulaksi, and Picmatic. We challenge each other. We support each other.
Nearly half-way through my term of service I pull away from my host site for 3 days training and team building with the rest of these service-minded, not-quite-parkies. Montana State Parks AmeriCorps. My winter start companions, we're tired and getting seasoned like a fine cast iron skillet. But there's new folks too... bright, shiny, excited.
I wonder what they tell their friends and family back home as they sort through their day. All our personalities, backgrounds, and projects vary so much... its hard to tell.
The daylight drains from an almost-summer day in Montana. Water turns pink, the landscape glows, the air cools, and I see it in each of us. That feeling large enough to connect our hearts to a service and landscape much bigger than we could imagine. We get it. This Montana, parkie, service thing... changes lives.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Woods Bay

cherry blossoms, wind in my mane, and it's like I'm riding a bike with no hands. weathered friendships, microbrews, as a warm spring evening thunders across the lake... this evening was a fairytale.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Under Cover

Most nights I sleep under a heavy patchwork, polyester quilt. I couple it with sheets and a down blanket, inside a duvet. I sleep in a camper - beside a window. My bed is a nest fit for a raptor - with breathtaking views of the city below, and serene trees and hillsides all around. Nellie Shoebe, Dolores McDonald's mother, made the quilt. I don't know when, or where these pieces used to be. All I know is her daughter, my grandmother, wanted me to have it. Dolores McDonald left two earthly treasures specifically for me - a November birthstone ring (OUR birthstone) and this quilt. I think about her every night as I tuck myself into a hope of warmth. I wonder and sometimes dream about what she was thinking when she scribbled down that I should have this family history. The day I went to her house -after her death, and my aunt handed the queen size quilt to me, I was baffled. And to be honest, still am. My grandmother was no perfect woman, and I think we loved each other amidst the imperfections in both of us. My grandfather (maternal) was no more perfect than my grandmother (paternal). Both stubborn, independent, opinionated, spiritual and outspoken... After moving to Montana he gave his fly rod and reel. They are the only gear I fish with. As I lay me down to sleep... I think about them. Their persevering life stories. Their generous love for me. Sleep hasn't come easy for awhile. Between dying domestic rabbits, after hour visitors, new classes, important meetings, saying goodbye to my Grandfather, losing access to my car, losing propane in my home... I just started to think... sheesh. I am ready for a change of season. Exhaustion, but little sleep. I crawl into my nest; finding some earthly comfort in two people who believed in my heart. And I tuck myself under the quilt. My mind swims with their gifts to me. The time spent together, the meals shared, the hugs, smiles, and laughter. And I miss them so much. But they're still here, wrapped in and around me.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

18 miles. Lotta smiles

Faces red and tight. Ancient cedars, snow whirlwinds. Dreams of Glacier sun.

Friday, April 12, 2013

those and these

I had gotten into- Slide guitars and lip-made trumpet sounds. I had gotten into- Walking through fields and forests. With a micro brew flight... With a grey ghost hunting... I had gotten into- Sunday home-cooking with a stranger in a bow tie. I had gotten into- Road trips and foster homes. Old town, old scene. And now, It's all ripped open. Staring us in the face. Sooooooo. What to get into?

Saturday, January 26, 2013

This is it.

I have been back in the Northern Rockies for nearly two weeks. For the first time in years I feel a purpose, a place, and I find myself exhaling in a deep sense of relief, joy, and contentment. Life is simple and connected to the brilliant landscape in which I reside. And at times, so many trials and restlessness of the past three years seems to have shed off like an old snake skin somewhere around Michigan. My new work has me developing, designing, and installing signage in Montana's State Parks to help visitors connect to this land. I feel nothing short of Thankful. Geronimo is chilly, but often double coats, and we run across frozen lakes, smiling. The community scene is slowly picking up steam, as I try to take hard lessons learned and make good choices for my heart and happiness. So far the images are just snapshots, but as home manifests itself, I hope to get back to intentional art and photography soon. Stay tuned for updates =) love, B&G