oh, my dear.
you are carrying such a heavy burden.

you don’t have to go it alone.
you weren’t meant to go it alone.

none of us were meant for that.

we need each other
in so many ways.

it is safe to let people in,
to ask for help,
to receive support and comfort and nourishment.

it makes you more, not less.

there is great generosity in receiving as well as giving,
and vulnerability is a sign of strength, not of weakness.

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

{there is still a day or two to sign up for hope floats. if your heart is whispering yes, i would be honored to have you along, and you will be in good company.}

“In order to see birds it is necessary to become part of the silence.”

– Robert Lynd

{there are still a few days left to sign up for hope floats. if your heart is whispering yes, i will be honored to have you along, and you will be in good company.}

what if you were a well, filled by an underground spring. only instead of water, the spring was the source of any quality you can imagine.

what quality would you like to be filled with today?

if you like, you can close your eyes, rest your feet firmly on the ground, and imagine that quality rising up from the earth, entering through your feet, and slowly filling your entire body.

can you feel it?

{if you enjoy this, you might enjoy hope floats. you can sign up today to receive a daily dose of nourishment every day in october.}

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”

– John Lubbock

{if you enjoy this, you might enjoy hope floats. you can sign up today to receive a daily dose of nourishment every day in october.}

{consider this a preview of hope floats. you can sign up today and daily emails will begin in october.}

yesterday, the enormity of the change i just made and the speed at which i made it sunk in. i feel wordless, and slightly off-center, and am having trouble connecting to my intuition.

so, i am going to be quiet for a while, as i turn to the things that always bring me back home: time in the woods and by the water, playtime with my camera, meditation, writing in my journal, naps with my beloved pup, and the simple pleasures of good conversation, good books, and good food. (particularly pie. there is a blueberry pie and a strawberry pie in the frig and i could not be happier.)

because i want to reconnect with my deep sense of hope & possibility & wonder, i am going to do a version of hope floats every day on the blog through the end of september. if it calls to you, you can sign up through the end of september.

there will be no time to miss atlas, as he will continue to share photos and stories on his facebook page.

today, i leave you with this thought:

allowing yourself to be vulnerable enough to receive, whether it be support or love or generosity, can be a powerful and beautiful opportunity for inner growth.

may you know that you are supported and held.

people, atlas here.

we went on a new walk! we walked down the road a little ways and i found a trail around some water.

i ran up and down the trail and then i ran up and down some hills and then i went in the water to get a drink and then i smelled all the smells.

and then we went on the walk again in the afternoon and helen came. i like helen.

i would just like to say that people are weird. elizabeth and helen did not run up and down the trails and up and down the hills and they did not go in the water and smell all the smells. they had their cameras.

cameras. pfffffffft.

clearly dogs are much smarter than people.

oh! i saw a fox on the way home!

it was the best day ever.

(also, i have a farm! with deer and bears and rabbits! and then i have another farm! with coyote and porcupines! every dog should have a farm. they are the best thing ever.)

by the way, i am sharing lots of stories and photos about my daily adventures on my facebook page. you should come visit.

i drove through coeur d’alene in the early morning. the lake was perfectly still and a glassy black, in a way that made the water look solid instead of liquid, like you could walk on it.

i don’t know why i didn’t take any pictures of idaho and western montana. they were both gorgeous. the hills and mountains were clustered thickly with evergreens that cascaded down to the water and there was often a crystal clear river on one side of me.

that second day, there was a lot of driving.

i stopped for gas in montana and found an interesting coffee concoction with strawberry and almond.

i stopped again at a rest stop in montana and found a way to get to the water so i could take a few pictures, though i was a little sorry i did so when atlas walked happily into the river and splashed about and then i had to put a wet dog in the car with me. that was also the rest stop where a man was walking his bengal cat on a leash back and forth in front of our car, and atlas was trying desperately to convince me to let him out so he could say hello.

montana is a very long state.

to break up my drive, i stopped in bozeman, since it has always been on my short list of places i think i could live.

unfortunately, the day was hotter than i anticipated, even though it was late in the day, and atlas looked miserable while walking and couldn’t stay in the car, so we wandered the main street for a short while and then continued on again.

it worked out well, since another storm had been following us, and it caught up to us a short while down the road, in livingston. i stopped at a tiny rest stop to wait out the rain, and entertained myself by taking pictures.

we drove until it was dark, and then stopped at a rest stop to sleep for a few hours.

i got out a treat for atlas and peanut butter and crackers for me. atlas likes to eat his treats on the grass, and i was afraid to let his leash go, so i found a picnic bench by the road where there was a patch of grass right next to it.

i was sitting on the bench when my eye was caught by a two foot long snake that was wriggling its way toward me on the asphalt. it was very close. poor atlas did not get to finish his treat that night. we both went in the car immediately.

i used to be deathly afraid of snakes, and i cured it, but i am still not entirely comfortable around them when i am not sure whether they are poisonous or not. i will confess that my sleep that night was not entirely restful. i could not help wondering whether snakes could crawl up the side of a car and through an open window and that is not really the sort of thought that helps one fall asleep.

we left oregon last thursday morning.

after making one last run to the storage unit, i began to put everything else into the car. (when i saw the piles on my living room floor, i was worried i had over-estimated my car’s capacity, but everything fit nicely, with the exception of atlas’s giant dog crate.)

usually, when i am making multiple trips back and forth, atlas wanders back and forth with me, or else he explores the bushes behind the apartment. this time, he walked out with me, then he stood like a statue next to the car, his eyes fixed upon me. many many trips later, he still hadn’t moved.

part-way through, i brought all my pillows and blankets out to the car to make a comfy bed for atlas. i arranged everything nicely, then i asked him to get in and test it for me, so i could see if it needed any adjustments. he jumped up onto his bed and then he refused to get out. his face clearly said, “i am not leaving this car. you might forget me.” it was pretty cute. he never did get out. instead, he enjoyed his bed while i finished packing.

when i left, i was exhausted and excited and had pickle juice on my feet.

there must have been a jar of pickle juice in the garbage with a lid that was ajar because when i carried the last bag of garbage to the trash bin, pickle juice began to drip onto my toes and then the bag broke and everything spilled onto the ground. i had already locked the apartment for the last time, so i improvised and cleaned my sandals and feet with a jug of water and a towel that i pulled back out of the trash bin.

that first day, there was a lot of driving, and the drive was uneventful.

we stopped at multnomah falls so i could say a proper photographic goodbye to my beloved portland/oregon.

we stopped again at a rest stop in eastern oregon, where i found some lovely weeds along a fence line and atlas found a snake draped on a fence post.

we stopped again in cornell, washington, to meet a bloggy friend for dinner. we took subs to a park and ate them there, a few wasps as our companions, so atlas could lie on the grass and eat a treat.

after dinner, we raced a storm all the way to spokane.

the sky was black behind us, thunder crashed overhead, and lightning split the sky in front of us.

my general plan for the trip was to either camp for the night or stop at a rest stop for a few hours of sleep.

we couldn’t camp that first night because there were flash flood warnings in effect. i stopped at a rest stop near coeur d’alene to sleep for a bit, but the storm caught up with us and the rain was so heavy that i couldn’t leave the windows open. atlas kept panting, so i got back on the road, thinking i’d drive to the next rest stop and see if we left the storm behind.

it was raining so hard that i didn’t feel safe driving, so i took the very next exit.

guess what we found there?

the first thing we found was a hotel that allowed dogs. not only that, when i went inside, there was a picture of a weimaraner next to their desk. when i told the clerk that i had a weimaraner in the car, she introduced me to dodger, their guest services manager, who just so happened to be a weimaraner. (that’s him in the bandana.)

finding dodger on that rainy night felt like the loveliest example of serendipitous magic, and i went to bed happily.