While I am writing this, I await the arrival of my mezcal cocktail and am watching as a few pelicans nose-dive to discover their evening delights in the Pacific Ocean. The rhythm of the crashing waves next to my table are a soothing elixir, as I savor my final week in Mexico. How can I begin to sum up the happenings of the months since my last newsletter? 

A lot has happened in the material world. I spent six weeks traveling through East Africa to visit prospective partners through my work with the Global Engagement Institute. I discovered impactful projects related to global health, clean energy, social entrepreneurship, and sustainable development.

As I write this I am listening to the soothing summer sounds of crickets and feeling safely nestled by the verdant range of deciduous trees that grace the banks of lazy rivers in the Southern United States. This is a spot I have fond memories of visiting as a child, tucked into the back of a woody station wagon, with anticipation of the riverfront restaurant expedition that awaited some 60 minutes away from our hometown. Even if I showed up slightly nauseated from the winding roads it took to get here, it could not diminish my excitement. 

At this moment, my 42 year old version of myself, is accompanied by a Blue Moon and indulging in some local fare of fried green tomatoes as I attempt to synthesize the happenings since my last update in April of 2024. I will do my best to hit the high points.

As I write this I am sitting at a rooftop bar in Cusco looking out over the main square filled with humans milling about, a mix of tourists and locals, and an expanse of mountains in the backdrop. It has been five months since I wrote my last newsletter update, which on some level, feels slightly disappointing.

The last letter was written from South Africa, a country I fell in love with for both its people and its landscapes, and the strange way it mirrored the complexities of my own country of origin. A history of colonization, significant challenges with economic inequality, a pervasive disenchantment with government, and dynamic and diverse cultural influences. During my three-month visit, I kept my heart open to connections or opportunities that might reveal I was meant to stay, but as my 90-day visa window closed, it was clear that it was time to leave…for now.

I am saturated, but in all the best ways. South Africa has offered me the opportunity to see this country from many different angles and perspectives, and I am beyond grateful for the people who have generously shared their country with me. I will focus another post on more detailed South Africa reflections, as I want to savor this last week here, and take time to synthesize the insights with a little time and space.

I am currently writing this newsletter from a spot on the southern coast of South Africa, aptly named “Wilderness,” which is a charming town located along the infamous Garden Route. Many people I know have had some shake-ups in their lives in the first half of November that threw them for a bit of a loop, and I got sucked into my own version of chaos and resulting anxiety, and knew that getting into nature was the best medicine to reset my nervous system, and get back to a place of equilibrium.

As I write this post I am currently taking in the landscape of rolling farmlands covered with vineyards, based in the wine country of South Africa, where it is honestly hard to have a care in the world. My whirlwind tour of Rwanda in the month of August feels a million miles away, but my heart and mind are still digesting the insights and lessons of the connections and experiences that defined that visit. And this feels like the perfect place to take a moment to pause, review, and re-consider the path forward, letting my inner light be a compass.

One of the quotes that has served as a North Star when I am in the middle of a career or life transition has been a quote from David Whyte’s poem “Sweet Darkness: ”Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.”

As I am writing this, I am lounging on the patio space at a local ecolodge, UMVA Muhazi, and settling into my month-long stay here in Rwanda. The bugs are singing me a sweet song, after an afternoon spent kayaking on Lake Muhazi, and taking in the conversations among international guests lounging on the patio, as they allowed the comfy lounge chairs and hammocks to absorb any worries or fears they might have brought to the lodge.

This visit is a return to a country that I developed a relationship with during a year-long assignment in 2021. When I mention to people that I had the chance to spend an extended period of time here, I always have to explain that the horrific scenes displayed in the iconic film Hotel Rwanda feels a million miles away when you step into the lush, vibrant, clean, and peaceful streets of Kigali (the main city of the country) present today.

As I write this, I am in the final weeks of my time in New Mexico, after hanging out here as a home base since May of this year. It is leading me to reflect on what initially drew me out here and how things have unfolded in different and interesting ways than I originally imagined.

In a recent conversation with a friend recently added to the collection, we discussed the difference between approaching life expectantly vs. with expectations. I shared with him that I spent a lot of my life bringing conscious and unconscious expectations to situations, relationships, and experiences, which often led me to walk away with more disappointments than gratitude, and an inability to see the beauty that was there all along. As they say in 12-step communities, an expectation is a premeditated resentment. One of the chapters where this showed up most prominently for me was college, which I think is a common chapter for a lot of people to bring expectations fed by media, family, and society into this widely accepted rite of passage into adulthood.

In recent conversations, I have had a number of people express admiration for the amount of freedom that I have created in the current iteration of my life. In retrospect, some of it was a conscious choice, and some of it was not so conscious. In my early 20s, as I walked on the crystal sands of the North Florida beaches with a close friend, I remember stating my commitment to myself was to live an “interesting life.” At that time, this vision entailed aspirations of living and working overseas and little attachment to creating a family of my own, but as I approached the 30 year mark, peer influences had started weighing on me.

“To whom much is given, much will be required.” (Luke 12:48) Since I discovered this Bible verse in my more devout religious years as a teenager, it has felt like a heavy weight that I was encumbered by ever since. As I embarked upon my career, I considered the ways I was well-resourced by a family that had access to privilege, who helped me establish a strong educational foundation, in addition to the natural gifts and talents I inherited, which I felt convicted were meant to be used in service to others.

I want to use this post as an opportunity to share my insights and findings from my co-live/co-work tour throughout the US and Mexico. At this point I have lived with eight different friends or colleagues, sometimes in their home, sometimes in an agreed upon inspired location. Some were single, some were divorced, and some were coupled. We co-lived, co-worked, co-learned, co-created, co-explored, co-connected and co-imagined. Each of my stops was one or two weeks, and had a very different flavor, based upon the unique personality of the locale and the desired goals of my respective partner in connection. Meals and skills were shared, hearts and minds were unveiled.

Where did the beginnings of my cultural curiosity begin to reveal itself? As my mom tells it, there was an Asian child in my Preschool class who I was intrigued with, which she took that as a sign, and then enrolled me in a kids program at University of Kentucky focused on exploring cultures around the world. Most of what I remember about that course is the excitement of getting my fake passport stamped and eating a lot of strange foods that I was not so sure about. Don’t think I absorbed much in terms of cultural complexities as a 4 year-old, but the spark was definitely ignited.

When I began this writing journey, I said I was on a quest to explore what community means to me at this life juncture. In 2022, I spent a lot of time participating in communities that others had constructed and facilitated. This included a coaching community, a writing community, an accountability group, retreat communities, co-living communities, among others. Inevitably, as an entrepreneur at heart, these experiences of serving as a participant in services or products that others have designed, sparks a lot of thoughts about how I would want to do it differently.

Now I can say from personal experience, there is not much that can support the integration journey more than cleaning out boxes of storage from the last 30 years of your life. This is not exactly what I anticipated I would be doing for a good portion of my visit to Kentucky for the holidays, but the theme of water continued to show up in new and interesting ways. The holiday excitement had settled, and we were all ready for a week of calm to properly wind down 2022, when the effects of the winter snowstorm hit and I was greeted by my mom’s panicked knock at my door. She shared that the pipes had burst in the garage and had fully flooded the eight to ten boxes I had dropped here after my Seattle chapter ended, among other carnage.

I anticipated I would be writing this Tiny Letter fresh off the deep insights gained from walking in the footsteps of renowned prophets in the holy land of Israel during the final weeks of December. What better way to experience the significance and sacredness of the “holiday season” than to go to the source of its inception and lore?

And yet, I am currently sitting at my parent’s dining room table with a cup of ginger-turmeric tea, taking in the fresh snowy landscapes, preparing to decorate a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, listening to Josh Groban, with freshly polished teeth gratefully received at the hands of our local dentist. Where, might you ask, did this slight traveling detour begin? 

At this time last year I was in Rwanda and approaching my 40th birthday. I had a conversation with a friend, coach, and mentor about how I might thoughtfully engage with the transition I was approaching into the second half of life, inspired greatly by Richard Rohr’s concept of “Falling Upward.”. Over the past five or so years I have been intrigued by the idea of “rites of passage,” while also lamenting about how little of these currently exist in the Western world around important transitions that we face throughout our lives.

Isn’t it amazing how one kind-hearted soul can ask you one or two powerful questions that can infuse new clarity, energy, and vision into your life during transitional times? For me this was Chris Unger, who I met roughly four years ago when I was living in Seattle. At the time, I was working at Code Fellows, an immersive software development bootcamp, but preparing myself for my next professional move through studies in Corporate Innovation at Stanford.

As I reflect, I am not quite sure where my fascination with the concept of “community” came from. Did it start with my eight-year old self who delighted, but also lamented, each time she played flashlight tag or pick-up basketball when visiting a friend? These outings served as a consistent reminder of how much I felt I missed out on growing up on a piece of property far from the maddening crowds. I vowed at that time that if I had kids, I would ensure we lived in a neighborhood with easy access to playdates and spontaneous social encounters, mud pie collaborations and ample pupils for imaginary classrooms.