A // W // F

February 20, 2015February 20, 2015A // W // F

Because sometimes the person who needs your compassion the most … is you.

I’m posting today as part of 1000 Voices for Compassion — a simple call for one thousand individuals to interpret and write about the need for human compassion, each in their own way. Me? I’m here to suggest something that at first sounds counterintuitive: if we’re going to practice compassion for others, sometimes we first need […]

February 19, 2015A // W // F

February Love, A Few Warm Thoughts, & a Prediction or Two…

It’s been almost two weeks since I ended my last series, The Secret Messages Project, and if you’re a regular reader (I know that I do, in fact, have a small handful of those now), you might be wondering what happens next. Me, too. So I thought I’d take today to tell you a little […]

February 17, 2015A // W // F

Ordinary Things, Meaning and Mystery (a moment when I sound like a total flake and don’t care)

It might sound obvious, but whenever I look at my favorite photographs or paintings, I have the confident sense that they mean something … I’m just not really sure what. It’s the peripheral-vision pull of it — the feeling that something important is just out of reach — that attracts me. (I’m much less interested in things I’m sure […]

February 15, 2015February 15, 2015A // W // F

Kind Graffiti: the Art of Seeing (& Sharing) Beauty

Remember when I started The Secret Messages Project? It was New Year’s Day and my heart was cold — almost frozen, in fact — but I knew that if I could fill my city with kind words I might be able to feel the warmth of that kindness. (That’s how it works, you know.) So I […]

February 13, 2015February 13, 2015A // W // F

One Thing I Know …

… This plain-faced, ordinary world is full of magic: Tree Shadows, Roanoke, Va Hope you stumble over some everyday beauty today… ❤

February 12, 2015February 12, 2015A // W // F

A Colorful Little Slice of Charleston, SC

I have to tell you that if I had to give someone a valentine right about now, it would be the city of Charleston, South Carolina. This past weekend, Thomas and I stopped there for the night on our way home from Florida. We spontaneously decided to book a suite at a (ridiculously charming) bed […]

February 10, 2015February 11, 2015A // W // F

Have you seen the sky lately …?

…I mean really seen it — not just in passing, but with purpose? Because whether you notice it or not, it unrolls itself for you every day — your own private gallery, right there above your head. (All these images, by the way, are perfectly unedited — which should say something.) On our recent road trip […]

February 8, 2015February 8, 2015A // W // F

Florida in Monochrome, or, Why I’m a Strange Soul Who Gets Overwhelmed by Too Much Prettiness

For the past seven days, I soaked up all the summer I could in southern Florida. I showed up hungry for sunlight, searing heat, green. And I have to say, Florida delivered: As the car shot toward the Keys on long white bridges spanning the water, the Sunshine State rolled itself out like a green-and-blue […]

February 2, 2015February 2, 2015A // W // F

A Brief Hiatus in a Warmer Place

This morning I woke up to green air, green light, summer sounds. I’ll be wearing sandals for the next week, leaving glistening footprints all over Key West, a place my soul’s been needing lately. I promise to come back soon with fresh photos and words. In the meantime, I hope you go outside, look and […]

January 31, 2015January 31, 2015A // W // F

Thirty Wishes for my City: Day Thirty

This post is part of the Secret Messages Project. Every day for thirty days, I’ll leave my words in places where they might be found — or might never be found at all. I hope you’ll join me. * I don’t know how I came up with the idea; I just know that for me, it […]