start from here

Feb 15, 2026

it is impossible to stray from the path - 8.5”x11” collage

We spend most of our days striving for and working towards some distant someday that we’re convinced is just over the horizon. We put off our own access to the good, the true, and the beautiful, hoping to one day hustle our way into wholeness. As if peace of mind is something we must work to deserve. As if generosity, grace, and self-care must be earned. As if balance and contentment only come in sizes that we have to grind ourselves down to fit into.

But what if somewhere along the way we got it all backwards?

the collapse of alienation experienced - 8.5”x11” collage

What if we “start from sanity”, as Oliver Burkeman says? What if we lead with meaning, acceptance, and satisfaction as given. As a general premise rather than as an achievement. Not a finish line, or a prize, or a trophy, but as the place from which we begin our every decision and movement.

something that defies naming - 8.5”x11” collage

Your work, your art, your making; it doesn’t require you to be perfected, it only needs you to be present. To be willing and receptive. It doesn’t require accomplishments or notoriety. It only asks you to show up reliably. To see the page, the canvas, and the studio as a life already rife with meaningfulness and sanity. That it is always an enacted and embodied testament to how ‘enough’ we already are and can be.

It isn’t a far-off reward. It’s a posture. A practice. A way of holding yourself and the world gently. It’s never been something you needed to earn. It’s always been there ready, available, and waiting.

artifacts of perception - 8.5”x11” collage

May you always start from your enough-ness and never from what you’re lacking.

May you practice peace within the ordinary.

May your heart always know the texture of its own grace and generosity.

In case no one’s told you today, I love you with all my everything.

***special thanks to Kimberly Warner for inviting me to sit in on her “Writing the Unfixed Life” session that inspired two of the collages above: “something that defies naming” and “artifacts of perception”