Who are we if not Earthlings? I don't want Mars. I don't want ever-present WiFi. I want Earth to remain untamed, out of our control. We’ve proven ourselves unworthy stewards for now -- we don’t get to expand this unsustainable domain.  It may be an unpopular opinion, but I hope Earth always checks us before we change her for good. Like a loving but stern mother, it is my belief she will.

You can’t have something you can’t imagine, and you can’t imagine something if you don’t believe you belong. My roots are in the land -- my ancestors’ souls rest there. We may not “own” much land, but ownership in this lifetime does not override the yearning and the knowing and the belonging of a soul.

When things are better, when I’m in flow, when I am outside often, when I'm creating, sharing, connecting – it’s much easier for food not to be the thing I look forward to, which makes controlling my bodyweight easier. That cycle isn’t unique to me. We all go through ebbs and flows of feeling uninspired, feeling stuck -- it’s completely normal. The added pressure of fearing the accompanying physical weight is what makes the ebbs of life feel harder.

Straight hair signals a closer proximity to whiteness, and I wonder, is that playing the game, or is it selling out? I suspect it comes down to how I use it and how I internalize it. If I know who I am, and that I am just playing with dead follicles on top of my head, am I selling out? I don’t know the answer.

Leaving Calaveras is never easy for me, but as I drove away that night, with the hills in my rearview and the moon guiding me with her light, I couldn’t help but beam with tremendous gratitude, both for my connection to such a beautiful place, and to the people who enrich that beauty with a combination of valuable skills and intuitive humanity.