out to the desert.

we spent the first two days of our california road trip in joshua tree. i boarded a sunrise flight in the mountains of utah, christopher scooped me up in san diego an hour later, and we hit the open road, scanning the radio and volleying dreams of all the places we want to see together.

i had never before set my eyes and feet upon a desert, and there was just so much i couldn't know. i simply couldn't know how the grit of the earth would feel between my fingers, couldn't anticipate the way the mountains would tumble into the sand. i had hoped we'd see animals, but i didn't expect how my heart would thump as a coyote slinked by. i couldn't dream of joshua trees, their coexistence of whimsy and majesty, arms reaching for heaven. even now, two weeks later, i dig for better words for the way it looks for the sun to rise and set over a flat horizon, washing the earth in lavender and blush and faintest gold.

we stayed in an airstream (where else?) and took every meal at the only open joint in town (crossroads cafe, delicious) and ambled around the park laying eyes on jackrabbits and scrubby cacti and a landscape that conjures another planet entirely. for two whole days, we were content to simply watch the sun move across the sky. 

a little wind.

i keep thinking about those words spilled by steinbeck --

change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

+++

our treehouse is ours for only a short while more, and i am nostalgic for these treehouse days, even as i live them still.

we are giddy for new days, new ships. even so, it's hard to close a chapter you are still happy inside.

august pause.

oh, sweet august. summer is fading and autumn's not yet born and i've written this before but i feel it still: i love all that august is. that almost -- that in between -- like the word you want to say, caught on the top of your tongue.

we're coming off a bustling july and we're staring down a wild september & beyond, so we've set this month aside, christened it for slowing down, for more of anything that fills our cup.

more slow mornings
more time in the kitchen
more lit candles
more evening soaks in fig oil
more letters written
more louis armstrong
more conversations with neighbors
more sunflowers
more walks to the coffeeshop around the corner
more walks for gelato in the setting sun
more walks, hands held tight
more walks

all the big trees.

work carried christopher to san diego last week and i practiced a bit of self-care and planned my own way west, first to the mountains of utah, then to california for a dose of desert and coast.

first things first was salt lake city. amanda flew in from palo alto with baby leo and we spent days exploring angie's new homestead, dazzled by leo's serene spirit and benjamin and nora as toddlers and angie's six month bloomed belly and the nearness of the natural world.

it's good to lay your eyes on mountains smothered in wildflowers. it's good to stretch your legs -- your body -- with alpine hikes. it's good to fill your lungs with bright air spiced with pine woods and wildflowers and the curl of smoke from a faraway chimney. it's good to take walks in the woods with wee ones, to take pause and notice every flower, bird, squirrel. it's good to pluck your fingers through a trickling brook and delight in something so small -- so big -- as water, and where it comes from. it's good to spend time together as women, to have the sorts of life-giving conversations that have been had between women across all of time.

how these days ministered to my soul.