Friday afternoon I met Scott at Eastfield College for what I thought -according to the early voting app- would be a quick in and out at the polls. It was 5:45 PM. The Primaries for both the Democratic and Republican parties were being held in the same space: one in a large lobby, the other in a small room off of the lobby.

In the large lobby, a line snaked around the perimeter. It was quiet. In library tones, we figured out there were two lines: the shorter for a ballot, the longer for the vote. Most people were on their phones. A child played under the stairwell. It was a quiet, respectful space. While waiting for a ballot I watched a man needing ADA assistance. The poll worker who helped him was amazing. I watched his partner make sure he was okay and then she left us to find the end of the line.

My license expired the day before, but luckily there is four-day (or month? It was hard to get that) grace period. Lucky, after some discussion, I advanced to the next level: the second line.

I walked past the long snake in the room. I walked down a hallway. And then a second hallway. We curled around the back of that hallway into a third area. Scott was second to last: he joined me at the end. No one said a word. Being last in this forever line is only one thing: a privilege.

I watched the woman in front of me scrolling on her phone: very funny videos and memes. I wondered how different her algorithm must be: and how to make my algorithm less like mine and more like hers. We did not speak.

There were four voting machines and a very long ballot. Moving through this line was slow. Slower than the post office. Faster than being on a call wait. My phone was in the car (remember the in and out part?). I ached for engagement.

I read the Eastfield newspaper. On college campuses (and in small towns) I like to read the papers and get a sense of the culture and happenings of a place. I was excited to find a “word find”. Neither of us had a pen.

I looked back at the woman behind us in line: a logo: UT Southwestern Medical Center: connection! We began talking: she works on the administrative side of the dermatology department: “pushing paper” all day, she said. She was happy to be standing. And she was excited it is Friday, “I don’t have to cook.” We shared the humor of knowing how many less crowded polling stations we have passed in the last two weeks of early voting.

The woman in front of me is also in the medical field. I struck up a conversation. She is a mammogram tech. Readers who know, know: this is a hard job. It’s physical, on your feet work. And for your patients, it’s painful. I acknowledged her for this. For her, it had been an especially hard day. A patient had come in for a scan with an open, gaping wound: cancer. She had missed a few appointments and the cancer had grown: a missed scan (which was not possible) was the next thing the computer was telling her to do.

I could tell that this patient had deeply affected my new friend in line. “There’s nothing I could do for her today. Sometimes you just have to tell patients you can’t scan them.”

This story has stayed with me. This is what some humans witness in their days. In my work this week, I had focused on a short but “big” speech I gave at a luncheon for the Downtown Dallas business community earlier in the day on Friday. And while I was doing that - a woman was trying to treat an advanced cancer in a challenging system. Perspective.

Our line moved forward very slowly. The Mammogram Tech went to a bench to sit down. We (of course) agreed to hold her spot “for as long as she needs.”

A veteran from the Vietnam war and his wife slowly walked in, he on a cane, both with masks on, and made their way to the back of the line. I wanted to ask the front half of the line if we could expedite them. But I wondered if I might offend him. I failed to act, and in hindsight, I wish I had. A lesson for next time.

I began helping people navigate the two lines, so they would not have to back track back up from the longer line. I met the poll workers and help them pass out ballots to make the voting move more quickly-a very smart suggestion from the woman behind me.

One woman walked in and told all of us to “vote quickly!”. Also smart.

At seven the doors closed. over 200 people were in line. Not. One. Person. Left. This is the thing that amazed me the most. This duty of voting was coming before all else: dinner, Friday night, going home. Everyone stayed in the line. Together.

I watched the love in this line grow from the back to the front. An ease settled over us: more people held space for others while others sat. Smiles and eye contact happened more easily. A poll worker started rolling out chairs from the other election room for people to sit on. A kindness.

As I approached the first position, now two hours since we arrived, the man I had seen at the beginning, the one who needed ADA assistance, stood lovingly waiting for his wife who had been in the line. “This is love.” I thought. My life, my week’s worries about a speech fell into a very different world view. Suffering is all around me. Real suffering. And real love.

When you are reminded of who humans are in a community, your world shifts. After I voted and walked past a part of the line to exit, I saw the elderly, masked veteran rolling forward on a rolling chair, his hat a signpost for what matters: why we vote.

“Thank you for your service,” I said.

He smiled.

And, after 2 1/2 hours in line, we walked into the night.

Two days ago I turned in a final paper, completing my first three courses as a PhD Student at Southwestern College in Santa Fe. Southwestern College is an amazing place, born of the Waldorf Education System, exploring the research of art in human systems: healing (art therapy), practice and regenerative practices. It was a course on the Phenomenology of Visual Practice and the Call to Serve taught by Dr. Ann Filmyr.

If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a metropolitan area to raise a PhD Student.

You might be asking why, me, a woman of a certain age might have started such a trek. It’s a popular question in my head, too. The answer is easy: nothing else is more urgent. This is a calling.

When something is a calling, all other noises fall away. The heart quickens, the breath shortens, the sight lines of a future appear in a blurry form in the distance. But the form is what pulls us: the possibility of a path we haven’t known before. Perhaps I heard whispers, but they weren’t loud enough. Or other callings were louder.

When I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994, I barreled toward this idea by interviewing at George Washington University in Washington D.C. for a masters program in Art Therapy. I wanted to be an Art Therapist working in hospitals with young people. A job replaced the risk of grad school: the path more traveled. For three years I loved being an art teacher, creating space at Armstrong Elementary School in the Highland Park Schools for young people to discover themselves.

Grad School showed up in the form of the Marcus Fellowship at the University of North Texas: a Museum Education Program with a Certificate in Technology. Four months after graduation, I fell into the position at the Crow Collection of Asian Art as their first Museum Educator.

This museum (our flagship of now two) sits at the base of a skyscraper in the Dallas Arts District of the Central Business District. On the 49 floors above the museum: several thousand human beings showing up to their lives. The museum became a place of refuge: a place for humans to discover themselves as cultural citizens. We offered yoga (2000), mindfulness (2011) and by 2012 established ourselves as the first known wellness museum in the United States. To be in the healing space is a calling.

What am I up to in this one wild and precious life? (Oliver, 1992.) I was asked to create a museum without walls: a museum without walls is permeable, urgent, necessary in our work-life rhythms. Our museum, then and now, had and has to matter. At the footsteps of the human experience we asked to be relevant: in 9/11 with an exhibition of the Bamiyan Buddhas (now destroyed); in the exhibition of Chinese wood sculptors with limited sight, hearing and speaking abilities and hundreds of other curatorial projects. I knew that Asia mattered, I had to work on why Asian Art mattered to the person walking by our corporate shell.

One early tag line was “Body, Mind, Heart and Art”. The calling was always there. And all along, the collection was teaching me it was possible that art couldn’t just offer a mindful experience: experiencing art is a mindful experience.

My PhD program is called “Visionary Practice and Regenerative Leadership”. My work is to synthesize what I know with what I learn and look for the next breakthrough in teaching others how museums matter. I am reimagining the art museum: more meaning, more relevancy. I already know that art and compassion can create healing communities: this program will transform how I share this knowing on a global scale.

When a calling comes into view, we have to be ready. We have to practice declining all of the other things that will keep us from the calling. We have to be home to answer the phone. After my ten week quarter, I am pleased to share I received a grade of 100% attendance in both classes. In a role where there is a work opportunity almost every night of the week, this was an accomplishment. Thanks to our steadfast team who has stepped in and stepped up, I read the books, wrote the papers and expanded my understanding of art in the world. I am on the path.

And because I am officially a scholar now, please enjoy this perfect APA edition 7 reference below.

Oliver, M. (1992). The Summer Day. In New and Selected Poems. Beacon Press. Retrieved November 24, 2025, from https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/item/poetry-180-133/the-summer-day/

Until Sunday. I don’t have this.

The opening hymn was “Morning Has Broken” written in 1931 by-remarkably- a woman: Eleanor Farjeon, lyrics made famous by Cat Stevens. Eleanor was the daughter of a British novelist and grew up in a bohemian creative community most beloved for her children’s books mocking the behavior of grown ups. She might have been amused at me, standing next to our 6 foot 2 nineteen year old boy now man bawling my eyes out at her lyrics.

Morning has broken
like the first morning,

Well let’s just start here. I went to Baker’s first morning. The sun was glowing beyond the horizon through the window at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas. I woke up inside of some of my happiest days. He was swaddled in the bassinet next to me. Back in the church in the present day, my voice cracked, tears spilling over my lower lids.

blackbird has spoken
like the first bird.

I remembered how his little arm must have come loose from the blanket and he reached up and stretched, a new form against the soft light of dawn. I watched him seek his world. I watched us seek our world. We were alone together. Outside of each other.

A tear splashed on the liturgical program.

Praise for the singing!
Praise for the morning!
Praise for them, springing
fresh from the Word!

Fresh from the Word, I thought. Here he is, strong and ready. Fresh from the word, the world and ready to become everything we wished for.

I am crying now. I took a deep breath. Asked Scott for his always prepared hankie and went back to the verse. Oh, Eleanor. You’re killing me.

Sweet the rain’s new fall
sunlit from heaven,
like the first dewfall
on the first grass.

I remembered him crawling and walking. On the first grass. Sunlit from heaven.

Breathe, I told myself. Logically this is supposed to happen. Babies grow up. We want this. A raw, untouched swelling of heart was just under the surface of Eleanor’s words.

I looked past Baker at my parents, farther down in the pew. I saw Baker’s silhouette against my father’s: layers of beauty against the glow of a sunrise. He is our echo. We want this. We prayed for this so many times.

Praise for the sweetness
of the wet garden,
sprung in completeness
where God’s feet pass.

Praise for the sweetness. Of who he is as a human being: kind. loving. conscientious. Sprung in completeness. He is ours and he belongs to the world. Spring him one more time, I thought to myself.

One more stanza. And the handkerchief dampens.

Mine is the sunlight!
Mine is the morning
born of the one light
Eden saw play!

I am beginning to call Eleanor a friend. She must have known this song would be a balm. Mine is the sunlight of that first morning with Baker, mine is that morning.

Praise with elation,
praise every morning,
God’s recreation
of the new day!

And mine is this morning, too. I never stopped crying on Sunday. Through saying goodbye to my parents, through the #8 sub at Great Outdoors. Through the long drive home. Monday and Tuesday got a little better but now it is Wednesday and I will keep humming these precious words. Eleanor will be taking us both to the college drop off tomorrow. Praise every morning, even the hard ones.

For Sundays in the past, I would challenge myself to go down to the Interfaith Chapel in Vail Village-and year after year I would talk myself out of it. I would imagine how quaint, how faithful, how beautiful the service would be-and how much I would enjoy it. I would plan it out -and the lure of this cozy house and the waking children inside would always win. My life has been a mental exercise of whether or not I would make it to church on Sundays and on time. Even on vacation.

Yesterday, I made it happen. I woke up at 7:23 am. Apple Maps told me it would take 31 minutes to walk down to the chapel. “This is finally happening” I thought to myself. I dressed and hit the road, determined to not be late. Once walking, my maps eta was 8:07 am. Church started at 8:00 am. “It’s Vail, I thought- I bet I have a few minutes of arrival time”. I picked up the pace. I thought about all the times growing up we hurried to church. Someone in my family, likely my Dad, is like me: we don’t, we won’t walk in late.

It’s true, and the boys know this about me: if we are more than five minutes late to church, I can’t, I won’t walk in. I worked on this thought on my walk down: what in the world is that about? In my mind I imagined what it would feel like to open the door at the back of the church and walk in during the opening hymns. “Hymns are at least three minutes, right?”. I relaxed and kept walking, determined to be correct in thinking that my pace of walking was faster than the Apple Map average walker.

I was shaving off a minute every five minutes of my eta. I said hello to every person I passed, my mood lifting just a bit with the exchange of each encounter. As I rounded the corner, just past the ski lift, I heard the bells (8) of the chapel ringing out to welcome me. When they finished it was 8:01 am. I have time. I crossed the street strategically. I would not be late.

Then, the most welcome site: the door to the back of the church was open: such a simple thing to do, I thought. Someone was waiting for us: the ones who were wanting to be safely on time. I am pretty sure I lunged up the steps, sat down, stood up to go back to find the last printed program and at 8:05 the service began. I love Vail time.

It was perfectly quaint, perfectly beautiful and faithful. I felt right at home with my Episcopalian family, known and unknown. As imagined, the Interfaith Chapel in Vail is stunningly simple: no stained glass, just the arc of warm wood and white and a layering landscape of pines in the window framing the altar. My heart was pumping, warm from my aerobic walking. I felt a blister that had formed from the sandals I chose. I shed my layers and dropped into grateful prayer.

I feel blessed that my parents have given me this network of the Episcopal church-even when I manage the wanting mind and the not-wanting mind. It is ever present, ever waiting for me with the door open. Even when I am a few minutes late, in another state, and even on line. The words, the language, the cadence of liturgy and the music are deeply mine: I belong to this space and it belongs to me. All are welcome here. I still believe.

I loved so much of the service which you can watch here. The passing of the peace was one of the longest I have witnessed: real exchange, real connection and real time for one to meet all. It was warm and sincere, of the words in the readings and the gospel. Just like the open door. The sermon was given bravely and impressively by the Youth Intern. She was bright and encouraging and every bit as full of the Holy Spirit as a Bishop or a lifetime priest. She’s got it. At age 20. At the end of the sermon, she had a disclaimer that she is not a professional priest. When I greeted her warmly as we walked out, I told her she already was. And to keep going.

I think so much of how we approach where we want to place ourselves each day is the mindfulness of noticing who we are in that approaching. I am so glad I had that 26 minute walk down the hill to work on myself. To notice. To remain committed to not being late, to being there with each other in prayer. The next work for me is to be okay with being late: I see this. After all, it’s just time. How we live it is what really matters.

Whatever your faith, whoever you are, wherever you are, early or late, with me, the door is open. And peace be with you.

I worked at a camp in the summers of 1992, 1993 and 1994. I was the art teacher, program director and girls camp director, respectively. I returned for family camp after that - Brush Ranch Camp was impossible to let go of. It still is. A few years ago I found a place called Field Trip just two miles south of the place that was our camp: down past Cathedral Rock, the Windy Bridge and across from Hidden Valley. Cathedral Rock was forbidden (“powdery rocks; dangerous! do not go there” said the Camp Director every summer as he motioned his hands to emulate powder.); Windy Bridge was where we drank too many Rolling Rocks and camped on delicious nights off, and Hidden Valley is…well…Hidden.

Field Trip is a new chapter for the old “Camp LaSalle”: a boys’ camp back in the day. I always wondered what was across this bridge. The road to camp is windy and mysterious: eleven miles of sinuous canyon road where I sharpened my driving skills on hundreds of trips back and forth. The bridges and views can only be glimpsed for a second or two when one is driving: the road demands all of one’s attention.

But yesterday, I got to finally cross this bridge I wondered about so long ago. I have two nights here with Scott while we trek north to Colorado to meet the boys. I am counting the moments and the minutes. I have been smiling all morning. My body knows this place: the sound of crunching gravel under my feet, the smell of piñon in the cool mountain air, the long sunrise as light pulls itself up over the ridge and the sound of the Pecos River performing a symphony of water and rocks. I have been here before and while I wasn’t as aware of what it meant then, it means so much more now.

The view out the window, just two miles away, is the same. The light falls a certain way and only here. As I walked to our house from the car I felt it. I felt draped in it: light and heavy at the same time: warm and held and home. The birds, generations past the ones I knew in my twenties, sing the same song. The water that burbles by my path is purified by the place I grew up in those long and short summers. I, too, am filtered by this place.

I try to hear the whispers and laughter of the boys from Camp LaSalle who lived here on their long and short summers. I cannot, but their memories are here, too, layered underneath the new one of this morning. Our bodies are of the places we’ve been and especially the ones we’ve loved. I am part Lewis Farm and part Pecos Canyon. Part University of Texas and part Crow Museum of Asian Art. I am the house of my children and the house of my parents. Where my eyes rested, I became. What my ears heard, became me: embedded, known, belonged to. Heard.

It is a gift to sit here looking back on the girl. Drinking my coffee, stepping out on the gravel in the same feet who walked here. The paths call me. The friends I hiked with: Alicia, Nancy, Annalee and Virginia: I can see them waiting at the front gate in the dark, at 5:30 am, waiting for our five-mile walk up the canyon. (Well Alicia that is, the others slept in!).

This life. It was magic, it still is, and I am here in the warmth of the places we know.

Yesterday Scott and I attended the funeral of our longtime friend and museum patron Madan Goyal. If you’ve been to an opening at the Crow Museum in the last twenty plus years you have seen him. Because he attended 99% of our events and openings. He was nicknamed “The Captain of Charisma”. But, it was a quiet charisma: the charisma of a Gentle Man.

Madan was 82: years he filled deeply with family, work, volunteerism, culture art and friends. Ten days ago he attended a networking event in Plano at a restaurant. Later, video footage shared with his son captured him smiling (he had a signature grin), meeting people and exchanging business cards. This tracks…a phrase that was repeated in my head over and over during the service yesterday. Madan collapsed from a sudden stroke and fell, hitting his head. He passed away three days later on Father’s Day.

Madan loved life, so I am glad he did not have to suffer through the end of his. His children arrived quickly and he had a few hours, even though he was unconscious, to experience a loving goodbye with his beloved family. Last week when I was in Boston I missed two calls from his precious wife Sneh and an email. I am touched that they wanted me to know. I was glad to know.

My friendship with Madan was held in the space of a few minutes every three or so months. If he was not lovingly supporting a Crow Museum of Asian Art event, I would see him at the World Affairs Council, the Business Council for the Arts, TACA and so many more. He was always there. Smiling (grinning), enjoying meeting new friends and learning something new. He was engaged.

Yesterday, thanks to the beautiful eulogies and writings on his life, I learned everything I did not know about my humble friend, Madan. He arrived to the United States at nineteen: open to the promise of the United States of America. He studied in Utah and was employed with Xerox in Rochester, N.Y. and was transferred to Dallas with his young family. His daughter Irma shared that he dropped his wife off at the hospital on the day of her birth. It was his first day of work with Xerox. He would meet his daughter later that evening.

While still at Xerox, I didn’t know he opened “India House”, one of the first South Asian restaurants in Dallas in the eighties on Mockingbird Lane. Food was culture. Culture was friendship: and friendships were precious. He would go on with other entrepreneurial pursuits: opening a liquor store and a passport service that is now forty years thriving.

He was married to dear Sneh for fifty-six years. The had three beautiful children -now leaders in his likeness who shared brilliant and generous stories of their dad. It all tracks.

He collected art. Madan was the first person to call me twenty years ago and offer a work on longterm loan to the Crow Museum: a majestic and large-scale Harihara. Our friendship was in brief moments. I could be regretful that I didn’t spend more time with Madan, but his love and encouragement in the bytes and bits was more than enough: this week’s mantra has been “release not regret”. This tracks, too.

I am so grateful that the family reached out to me. I am so grateful I could see him in them: not in the open casket filled with rose petals: the shell of my friend who was more present in the vivacious wind in the trees outside as I looked out, past his body. The room was full of people: from his communities: Xerox, Plano, Boards and South Asian community groups. It was standing room only. The family shared the 15th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. We sang prayers together. I hope he heard my rusty Sanskrit. And grinned.

What I felt in the moments of thinking “this tracks” is this: whether I was his friend, his daughter, his colleague, his nephew: the stories and human-ness of Madan was sincere to every one of us. He was real to each of us: the person who loved us authentically and wanted the very best for each of us.

He told me once he wrote a letter to the Crow Family about me: perhaps the 2015 version of a Linkedn endorsement. It was unexpected. Trammell never mentioned it, but I love that Madan did mention it. He wanted me to know he was my cheerleader. He wanted me to know he believed in me. He wanted me to know he saw me.

What grace. It was a quiet humility I witnessed yesterday: each of us profoundly moved by the all of us. Meeting Madan over the years, saying hello, how are you, talking with him for a few full moments at an exhibition opening: they were more than enough.

While I was working with an Executive Coach (2014-present) I learned about “declaration”. I learned that futures (and presents) can be declared: say it and it shall be so, with powerful intention and patient yet persistent commitment. Let nothing stand in your way. Over Thanksgiving of last year I worked on a new declaration: I would pause social media December 1 for six months. For me, it was a bold promise.

I spent some time there in the worlds of Facebook and Instagram. Hours. I felt like I knew too much: tiny details about people I don’t know were taking up space in a life that needed more space. I felt part voyeur, part addict, and a big part bored. I realized I was using social media to de-stress and it was the only way I could turn off my work brain and fall asleep. I wanted my time back. And so I took it back.

I called it a sabbatical: a word I love: Six months in a new world away from the scroll. I hid my apps, posted a sign on the virtual door and declared my social windows closed. My online stats dropped immediately and I laughed at myself at the automaticity of wanting to enter the apps: first within minutes, then hours, then not at all. The wanting waned.

Then time entered the spaces I opened. I started reading real books made out of real paper. My attention span recalibrated. I had the holidays to help me: comfy chairs and couches held me in place long enough to read a chapter…then three. It was a welcoming home. I began sleeping better: no longer were there the flashes of light on the inside of my closing eyelids: remnants of too much screen time. It was dark and lovely and spacious. It was gold.

I read a book (Walking with Sam) at my Mother-in-law’s house by Andrew McCarthy on his second pilgrimage on the Camino Frances to Santiago Compostela. I knew a little bit about pilgrimage…but this opening was door into a now six-month study of the Camino. I’ve read more books, watched YouTube vlogs and designed my own future path on a Camino…this promise to walk hundreds of miles is forming. This is a world I did not know and now I find references and invitations to a Buen Camino everywhere. Just Saturday I found myself on a mini-camino to see the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln, Switzerland, just outside of Zurich (pictured above). I’ll write about her in a future post…but for now it was just another miracle on the path: a sweet reward for declaring there was time for one.

In addition to reading time, I worked on an inventory of how I want to spend my time in these next years of my one wild and precious life. Another invitation came my way to extend my graduate studies into the world of a PhD. It’s been a quiet calling for a long time: perhaps as early as 1996. After almost 7 years working and teaching at the University of Texas at Dallas, it feels like an unfinished chapter. There is more to learn. So I can be a better teacher.

I decided to apply to two programs: one in Santa Fe (hybrid) and one in Dallas. I wrote essays, re-wrote essays, filled out applications and asked my mentors for letters of recommendation. The work to do this felt exhilarating: wrong at times (which was really just a feeling of uncomfortable), confusing, joyful and sincerely me. I needed time and mindful space to keep coming back to me: the breath, the body, the heart, to know the “trying this on” was going to be okay. The time was the gold I needed to keep going.

In March, I was accepted into the program in Santa Fe at Southwestern College. I will be part of the next part-time cohort of students working toward a PhD in “Visionary Leadership and Regenerative Practice”. It will take me five years. I will read and research, and write and deepen my well of resource wisdom toward this beautiful intersection of art, compassion and social healing. On this path, I already know I have found the people who will take me there. In one of the interviews, I learned that one of the requisites of the program is to take a solo pilgrimage. Yes, Universe, I am listening.

Had I not made the declaration, taken the pause, sought the rigor of practice and saying no to the unchosen choice (social media) this turn in my journey would have never been discovered. It was in the silence and the time for silence that revealed the way. Nothing feels more right, it was here waiting for me all along.

I did dip back in just shy of the six-month goal: and I give myself permission for this, too. I was ready: ready to be with you for the best parts of social media, to share our oldest son’s graduation from high school. I’ve kept the apps hidden and no longer need them. The automaticity is gone. The reclaiming of time and the work to be present revealed a powerful promise: with intention, I can do, become, be and belong to a future I wish for. Buen Camino, friend and a prayer to you and to me in every step.

We arrived at the Zurich International Airport just after 8 am. We found our train, the wrong one, and realized it about 2 hours later. Perhaps this error was unconsciously willed -names of towns that seemed right and in the right direction were totally wrong, but three extra hours on a Swiss train is never really a mistake. It was just right. Snow still hugs the cliff and crags, water is deep and endlessly blue and it all welcomes me back. Wonder always welcomes us back.

Lugano is a lovely strong mix of Italy then Switzerland with a hint of German. The power of Lake Lugano is strong, like a magnet. I locked in on Mount San Salvatore like an old friend. And he locked in on me. I can’t stop holding this gaze. Perhaps it is the ore of the meteor that pulls me. Lake Lugano is almost 1,000 feet deep forged by a meteor met glacier. It is endless.

Shortly after arriving, dropping our bags we trekked up the hill to see our dear friend and collector, Jeffrey Montgomery. The effort to stay awake until evening was fortified with the energy boost of a long lunch, espresso and each other. I made it to 8 pm.

Long walks in the village near our hotel have offered the most joy- and the cappuccinos. There are stairwells dripping between long switchbacks and they are steep and at moments ridiculous. These stairs laugh at me as I huff and puff my way up counting to twelve over and over again to distract myself from the infinite “up”. I turn a corner and there are 100 more. 1…2…3 and it begins again. To another this is just the way home from work. Stairmaster, I think, could have prepared me for this. Wonder never leaves me, though and in the tough moments there is a peekaboo of lake and sky that brings me back to the present moment. This trip is my third, and this is the first trip I have witnessed the blankets of jasmine pouring over the stone walls: everywhere. I stop to smell the pale white and yellow blossoms. Better than tea. This is the only sight that works for the work of an endless stairwell. How lucky, I think. To be here. 1…2….3

Our effort to find the mountainside restaurant is only rewarded by nature, not the actual restaurant. It’s not quite what we are looking for. We reset and head down walking through what might be the most beautiful cemetery in the world. Rest in peace, I say to myself, and here, on this mountainside, with this view, it can only be peace.

It begins to rain. But not on us. The canopy of trees keeps us dry. Nature’s first umbrella I think. After the trees disappear, we find a bus stop just a few feet away, call an uber and head into town to find wonder in a pizza.

His given name is Larry. He picked me up at 7:30 am in about 35 degrees farenheit. The brand new electric Kia SUV (Alto has a fleet and they’re impressive) was warm and waiting for me. Within a quarter mile of leaving the house I’d mentally memorized his first pearl of wisdom: “I never lose. I either win or I learn”. Good stuff.

Larry credits his wisdom to three women who raised him: his late Grandmother, his Mother and he never mentioned the third. He calls them all “Queen”. He is standing integrity at 6’4” (although I met him driving) and a trainer in the police force for 34 years. He tells me in all of his moments of conflict in the force, he never drew his weapon. He is a peace maker and it shows. I decide to pay very close attention.

He was born, one of ten, on a farm in Kansas and credits the rigor of morning chores as where he learned accountability. They moved to Kansas City in his youth, and his mother worked at the police station. She was, he says, a force. She showed up often at his elementary school, just to check in. He carried this practice forward with his own children (3) and grandchildren (9). He would show up, in uniform, at his children’s school 2-3 times a week to eat lunch with them. He remains as active and involved with his great-grandchildren: the joy of his retirement. In Kansas, he also started an after-school program for youth-in-need.

Alto sent a guru to pick me up on Tuesday.

His mantra for that program working with underprivileged youth? “Listen so you may learn, learn so you may teach.” We talked about the skill of listening and the dearth of practice we have in a world of distractions. He lamented the “devil’s work” of social media. He says he takes the grandchildren to his farm in Kansas (still in the family) and immediately disconnects the wifi. When they ask why it’s not working he just shrugs and tells them to go play. I like this guy.

I decide to ask him a question. I tell him I am working starting a new organization at UT Dallas for students to find critically-needed belonging and connection. I (and we) lost a student to what I believe is suicide in the last month of the fall semester. This has filled me with both a sadness and a stirring for what lies within my power. It is part of the reason I left social media, part of the reason I have been quiet through the holidays. My broken-hearted class and I decided we would start something of purpose and meaning in the late student’s honor.

I believe Country is here, in this Alto car, to help me.

I want it to be authentic, I say, and I want the students to bring themselves to the group: a gathering of intention. He thinks for a moment and says: ask them. He says to say to the students, “Help me understand”. He tells me to let them lead: to have them declare what is needed and create the safe space they are seeking. “Listen so you may learn, learn so you may teach.” He tells me to ask what they need to be supported.

I sit back in the car, watching him deftly navigate an hour of morning traffic in Dallas. He says this part-time job was his way of meeting interesting people (listening and teaching) and the best way for him to learn a city. He came to Texas for the warmth, done, not tired of the cold Kansas Northers. I marvel at his stories: from Military School to College (both required by the Queen) and a pursuit of a dream to play pro basketball -one he met in New Jersey. This man doesn’t lose.

Five-minutes before we pull up to the service department at the dealership I pulled a business card out of my purse to offer his family a tour. I debate the propriety of this: am I breaking the Alto-code by giving him my personal information? What will he think? I decide to wait and see if the moment is right.

On arrival, I take a breath and consider all of the wisdom this person who was a stranger an hour ago has compassionately shared with me. I push my card forward. I clumsily offer his family a tour of the museum and apologize if I am being too forward. He’s a little thrown (I don’t think this happens very often in Altos) but quickly reaches for his own card.

He smiles warmly as he says, “if you need any BBQ, I have a catering business.”

The Why:

I have loved Facebook and now Instagram for a long time. I have a beautiful community of friends and followers. I love to post the little moments of beauty I find in the unexpected. I love to share poetry, stories about the museum and the boys. Lately, and through the beginning and end of the election, though, I found myself in a new practice: scrolling. In fact, I was scrolling first thing in the morning, and just before falling asleep. Then I found myself unable to fall asleep without scrolling. I knew it wasn’t healthy. One night recently I was trying to fall asleep and I could see remnants of my habit as flashes of light and color were appearing on the inside of my eyelids. I was rest-less.

I also follow a lot of content about the war in Gaza. These images haunt me. On one hand, I want to know. I want to be present for those suffering: it was a way of staying informed. This was the story I told myself. On the other hand, it was a lot to witness. It was a lot. And I knew I needed a break.

Another story I was telling myself was that I was learning something: a recipe, a way of thinking, meditating, or about other cultures and beliefs. I would ask myself what I gained from the hours scrolling. The answer was not much. Not much quality content anyway. (I am not talking about posts from friends; I loved that part! I am talking about reels from people I will never really know…socially.)

The Practice:

And so, after seeing how the cost was greater than the reward, I decided to pause. I put a “sign in the window” on my profile that says I will return 06.01.25: six months to the day. I’ve experimented in many kinds and lengths of practice over the years: 21 Days; 100 Days; months and years…in fact as of this writing I have been sober for 2,578 days (7.05 years). What a life. I considered the work I need and want to do: I want to replace the screen time with time out here in the real world: writing, talking, socializing, being. I know this found time is the space I need to create what is next: a book? a blog? a creative practice that I am longing for? Hopefully the answer is in “all of the above”.

Six Months: no Facebook, no Instagram, no Tik Tok (a rarity). In the first few hours of the first day I found myself in the feed without even knowing it. I think the term for this is “spiritual sleepwalking”. Yes, it’s that easy. I jumped out quickly and moved these apps to deep folders. I have not been back since. And I won’t. I am now listening to my class on Thich Nhat Hanh; I’m listening to new podcasts and I just started “What it Takes to Heal” by Prentis Hemphill. None of that would have been created without the space and time to know I needed it and the presence to attend. When I looked back at last week I cut my screen time on my phone by 50%.

Trip to Bountiful:

I like to picture what it will feel like in this new life as writer. I will write a poem, a post and a meditation weekly. I crave the connections with you: and I hope this practice allows me to focus, see the work more clearly and meet you where you are. And meet me where I am -in authenticity and truth. I will sleep better. I also aready crave being with others, in the real world. I think this is the foil of social media: we aren’t really together there. We’re together out here: at work, church, school, clubs and in line at the Starbucks. I find my interactions are already more meaning-full. Connecting with strangers (ps you aren’t a stranger if you are reading this) online was missing meaning for me-and it was a little too comfortable. I’m going to spend some of this found-time meeting people “out there”.

This is the practice. And I love being in this new space of the writer’s studio. Thank you for being here with me.