I spent most of the day cleaning my house. Not the ordinary kind of cleaning where you wipe down the counters, run the vacuum, and feel satisfied because everything smells faintly like lemon. I was purging. I opened drawers I […]
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I have carried a trauma bag for years. It goes with me on adventures because I’ve learned that the wilderness rarely asks permission before something goes wrong. Rivers change. Rocks move. People fall. Bones break. Kayaks flip. Weather turns. A […]
The Lesson Hidden in the Pack Today was one of those days that felt like it had been hiding a lesson in its pack the whole time. I took Ben, Ella, and Ben’s friend Tyler hiking just outside of Harpers […]
There’s something both sobering and seductive about unfolding a trail map before a climb. At first glance, all you see are lines. Contour marks.Elevation gains.Switchbacks.Distance.Warnings. Sometimes, those lines alone are enough to make you question whether the journey is worth […]
Healing, I’ve learned, isn’t a finish line you cross; it’s a trail that never really ends.It winds, it doubles back, it disappears in fog, and just when you think you’ve reached the top, the clouds shift and you see another […]
Freedom With Boundaries Shortly after the first wave of COVID-19, something unexpected happened in the wide-open spaces of America. The National Park Service began closing gates, not because the wilderness was unsafe, but because it had become too crowded. With […]
Reading the Sky of the Soul Every morning, I give my students a writing prompt. An invitation to explore the thoughts in their heads and the emotions in their hearts. These journals are private, theirs alone, a place where honesty […]
The Rope Between Us If you’ve ever stood at the base of a rock wall with a rope in your hands, you know the weight of responsibility. The climber ties in, checks the knots, and calls down the words that […]
The Canyon Isn’t Silent Grief is a canyon. Wide, but not quiet. Every sound, every memory, every doubt ricochets off the walls and returns in a different form. What starts as a whisper of sadness can come back as a […]
The Search for Something Sacred When I was in high school, I was a Boy Scout. One summer at camp, a few friends and I decided we were going to do something bold. Something that felt half adventurous and half […]
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About Me
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