Sometimes it takes a comparison to really understand and appreciate a difference. Sometimes the only way to know who and what you are is to spend time with or stand next to someone you are not. I mean, how do you know you may or may not belong until you have someone or something to…
Mopping with a Masters
Sometimes it is hard for me to wrap my head around. Sometimes I whistle and hum and sing while I do it. Sometimes those ten or so dollars I earn per hour seem enough. Sometimes I want to crawl in a hole and hang my head with shame. Sometimes I look around and wonder how…
Voyageur Brewing
Grand Marais, Minnesota The greatest irony of all here is that I was at this brewery nearly a year ago. I was here, sitting one table over from the photo of my buddy, enjoying a sample tray and some food. My-oh-shitstorm-my have things changed! Things meaning the world and myself. The beer is still good…
Another Birthday
I was reminded yesterday of the day I made the decision to radically change my life. It came up on Facebook. I read it as I looked back on over a year of adventure. I read it as someone who was now living it. I read it as a changed human. Here is exactly what…
Gunflint Lake, MN
I am not in a town or city. I am just over 40 miles away from such a thing. I am way out here and liking it. There are no mountains and, while it is not completely flat, it is pretty flat. I am in the trees and in nature and there are lakes and…
Gunflint Gratitude
This is it! This will be home until Fall. I suppose I should figure out what my end date will be, but no rush. I have time and the world is not settled, yet, so who knows what Fall will even bring or what our world will be like. I have tons and tons of…
Settling in Again
I am sitting in the common lounge nearly dead-center in employee dorm housing. There are about 20 rooms here all on a single level. There are double and quad rooms, laundry facilities and cleaning supplies. We have a free stuff pile and outdoor space when wether permits. I share my room with another woman around…
Return to Pilgrim
It came out of nowhere. It was an email from my formerly scheduled summer job. I should have known something was up because the title was “Gunflint Work!” My heart raced as I started to read. “We are starting to take on staff for work starting next week. “ The email started. Wait, WHAT???? She continued,…
Amazonian!
I started working for Amazon. This is a factory sort of job in a gigantic and windowless warehouse. I have never seen or worked in a space like this. I am miles away from all that I have known or that is familiar. I am now an AMAZONIAN! The entirety of this operation blows my…
A Return to Convention
Here I am, writing in my rented room in Wisconsin. I have been off the road, I am working, we are a world in crisis. Never, ever could I have predicted THIS would be my reality. I fulfilled my vision for my first year of nomadic pilgrimage and I was starting to bring my second…
