Hi Loves, I'm writing this note to you from Chiang Mai, Thailand. If you're wondering why I'm here, that's an excellent question. 🙂 I've been away from home for six weeks now, and I have four more to go. I used to travel like this often in my twenties and thirties, and I could probably write a book about those artist-traveling-on-a-shoestring days; it would make for some pretty great tales. But this trip feels different. It wasn't prompted by my adventure-seeking ways, although while motorbiking on a barely-there road across an island in Indonesia, I did think to myself: Girl, ya still got it! Adventurous spirit intact, the truth is this trip was prompted by loss. Pearl Dog and my dad, who left this Eartly realm six months and three years ago, respectively, were... my tethers. And I was theirs. For a decade, I never left home for more than a few weeks because of them, and that felt right. We have chapters of caregiving, and chapters of freedom, and there is sweetness in both. This year, I easily could have stayed home in the gray Pacific Northwest winter, mistaking every white fluffy blanket out of the corner of my eye for Pearl, but it all just felt too sad, too lonely. So when my friend said she could use some help with her yoga retreat in Bali, I quickly volunteered, and when my other friend said she was renting a house in Thailand for a month afterwards, I claimed the second bedroom. Currently, I'm in between these two friend-filled adventures, so I've been on my own for a couple of weeks. Talk about freedom... | 
