how do we deal with the clean up? of relationships pivoting, of moving homes, of seasons extending?

visits, weddings, sunsets. days of packing and unpacking, cleaning and making another mess. buying a boat home with my life human. a whale spotting from alki point. birthdays, including my own. parades, the sweet taste of summer finally bursting through. connection and loss. healthy wonderings and questioning, terrifying doubt. falling asleep to the gentle rocking of my old friend, the sea.

these last few months have been full and chaotic, and i am now settling into this wonderful, new lifestyle of waking up on the water to the cries of seagulls and being able to host my favorite people with veggie kabobs and cold brews. some of these photos hurt to look at, some make my heart glow. and some are somewhere in between, but they are all good. and they're pretty honest, which is all i can sort of hope for in my work. (although, the countless hours spent in these months fixing up and renovating the boat are not seen, they are sort of assumed for me once people start appearing in boat photos)

and last week I looked at my reflection in our thin, horizontal window of the main cabin and I felt myself surface from a wave of uncertainty with relief and gratitude. salt water of my childhood surrounding my new home, memories of submergence a reminder and a grounding, swirling, tumbling return. when you dive beneath a wave for the first time, it feels like you're drowning. but time and time again you surface and gasp and wipe the salt from your eyelashes and the sun casts gold upon the translucent tension that we are thrust beneath, or perhaps we sometimes choose this turbulence. but we return, and there is hope, and what once felt like drowning slowly becomes familiar, you don't grow gills but you do cultivate trust and hope, even if we can still underestimate the size of the wave.

I don't remember being born, but I remember being loved. and I remember surfacing. I've been reminding myself that everyone is always trying to do their best. here we are, once again, where we always are in our feeble humanness, where we can always come home to, where once we have known love, can simply Be.

to the people in my life: i love you, i love you, i love you. thank you, thank you, thank you.