Owing to my restless, wandering nature and my preference for solo travel, I’ve had the fortune of many extraordinary encounters in my life. I’ve become aware, over time, of the way synchronicities draw constellations of significance and how incredible it feels to identify your direction and then open yourself to the connections that arise to augment the journey. Sometimes, the significance is apparent right away.
As an example:
A passing mention of Colorado prompted me to book a trip. I had driven through Denver on a road trip in April of 2022, stopping at a lovely cafe named Olive & Finch, but I hadn’t spent more than an hour there and I felt like I didn’t know the city well enough to write about it; though, it was one of the settings for a novel I’d been working on for a few years.
So in November of 2024, I started planning a trip for the following April. Initially, it was to develop a better feel for the area in order to infuse some authenticity into my story. I wanted to experience the effects of the high desert and hike a mountain, and I planned stays in both Boulder and Denver. With the groundwork laid, additional layers began to take shape—plans with an old acquaintance I hadn’t seen in over 20 years, whose meandering life led her to embrace flowing through the unknown, giving us a solid connection point that was missing when we met back in 2003; I was also conceptualizing a photo essay for an upcoming residency in southeast Alaska, and I was interested in visiting the Sand Creek Massacre site in Eads, CO.
When I was chatting with the host of my peaceful Boulder Airbnb, she shared that her brother was a professor of Indigenous Studies at a university in California, and she agreed to connect us. He and I met over Zoom, discussed reparations, ethics, and the pitfalls of advocacy during the current administration, and I signed off richer with relevant book recommendations, additional connections with shared ideals, and an invitation to reach out in the future.
It astonishes me how things take shape when you open yourself up. Tributaries converging to facilitate flow.
In Boulder, I lost track of the Flatirons trail in Chautauqua Park and found myself scrambling up and down a steep mountainside trying to find my path, muscles cramping from dehydration and altitude, fortunate to receive advice and guidance from more experienced hikers. It was a vital lesson to learn before I traveled to Alaska, where I had fully intended on solo hiking into the wilderness despite my lifelong, unreliable inner compass and my hubris, always my hubris.
The above video was taken of the Cascade Falls in Osceola, WI, where I traveled recently to photograph the Community Homestead—lovely land, lovely people, lovely lifestyle and mission. I stayed in nearby Taylors Falls, in Minnesota just across the St. Croix River.
There, I again connected with my Airbnb host. She was an intelligent, creative woman in her 70’s whose vitality and sharp mind made her seem younger than how I imagined a person in their 70’s to be (and how arbitrary is that notion!) She runs a theatre company and we talked photography, aging, and the unexpected pathways in life, each setback, step forward, and encounter necessary to the overall shape and always apparent in retrospect.
We agreed to start a postal exchange of photos accompanied by a paragraph describing our thoughts at the moment of capture. The creative exchange adds depth and accountability to ourselves and to growth.
I vacillate between periods of openness and periods of burrowing, and I find both states necessary to my growth. But I do enjoy the rapid expansions that occur from connections forged.
