UPDATE: Seattle

UPDATE: SEATTLE 

Sometimes, things just click. Tonight was one of those good runs. Maybe it was the cross training that gave me some added lower strength that I’ve been missing for that past few months.

Tonight as I ran, it felt good. It wasn't a burden, my legs just wanted to go. Pounding the pavement. As I launched myself through the dark Seattle night, I realized this was home. While it’d been over a year since I had ran like this, in this type of setting, in this place, all those night runs of the past had become a part of me. Whether on the Eastside or East Lake. Night runs are a part of my life. That darkness, I told people I was moving East to avoid, was actually my home and had become something much more familiar than anything I was experiencing on a week to week basis.

As I continue to live on the go, its clear that Seattle is still the place I’m tied to. It’s home base in a different form. I’m grateful for all of the marvelous experiences that I’ve been able to have. While I enjoy the beautiful sights, they are fleeting. It’s the interactions with people. The moments where you feel alive and truly, deeply connected to others that matter most. Reflecting on my journey to and from Alaska, the highlights were the quiet moments alone spent in reflection, or those renewing interactions where you see a stranger transform into a companion and friend. While I love travel for a variety of reasons, for its effects and byproducts. What I love most, and the reason I travel – whether known or discovered, is the people that I meet along the way.

The highlights of my week so far, have been connecting with people and establishing those ties of community again. The friends who played tennis with or joined me for a cookie. The co-workers and friendly strangers at coffee shops. The people make the days notable and worthwhile. 

A few weeks ago I made an important reflection. For a while, the mantra "A wild patience has carried me this far." While that's true, I've felt a shift recently, and found that this felt short from describing the periods of "bouncing around" or spontaneous travel that has come to define my 20's. And so after some thought and with help from a copywriter in LA, I wrote a second line. 

A Wild patience has carried me this Far 

And a Patient Wildness has brought me where I've come to be 

Here's to both the wild patience that leads us to our goals and the patient wildness that moves us to the adventures we truly desire.