Did you ever have a time in your life where you felt perfectly aligned with yourself? I didn’t expect to go down memory lane, but a fortuitous youtube channel helped me go there. And I realized:

Sometimes we need to look back in order to move forward.

Today’s ‘Way Back Machine’ is taking us to Ecuador circa 2003. I felt more myself during the summer I spent there than any other time I can remember. I came home and was determined to go back there, to immerse myself again in the people and culture and natural world.* When I came home from my trip, people told me I felt those things just because it was ‘vacation,’ that I’d have to return to ‘real life.’ I let the ‘adults’ in my life dictate how I felt about it…I didn’t know any better. It took me literally until this year to wonder: Did I meet the person I really am–my true-self–on that trip. Have I been ignoring that person this whole time?

Yes and no. But mostly yes.

I returned to New York that autumn and a series of events derailed me, then derailed me more. I spent years trying to be a person that THEY wanted me to be–I was in a vulnerable position where it wasn’t super-safe to trust myself–and I didn’t have the tools to know how.

So I wandered along the river they sent me on and I managed to find snippets of myself in botanical medicine, in writing, in birds. And now I see it all.

I’m starting a twitch channel and youtube and I’ll be documenting this return to self and nature and plants as my body heals. My return to this person who loves people and plants and birds and knows that they’re all connected. So stay tuned, follow, subscribe, click, buy me a coffee–any little bit helps. It’s all part of the journey toward belonging and a deeper sense of self.

*P.S. I’m very sensitive to the current conversation about zoomers gentrifying tropical places—I’m not moving to Ecuador, nor am I planning on exploiting the land or the people. I think it’s worth discussing that there are ways to learn about places in the world in a sustainable, respectful manner and I’d love to continue that conversation if you’d like to share your thoughts below.