Womanhood: Let's Do This.

I think one of the weirdest things to realize is that this blog has been following my life since I was 22... wait, 21... somewhere around then, I don't care to do the math right now.  And this year, 2016, I turn 30.  And while at 21/22 you like to think you're a grown up and you feel grown up, looking back at the girl who first sat down in her parent's kitchen and signed up for a blogger account, well, she was a girl.  She was a girl who would grow so much in the next 8 years.  So much would happen to her and eventually she would find herself, years later, still logging into blogger and sitting down to type at midnight, but this time she would realize that she's a grown. ass. woman.  Who, most definitely, hasn't experienced all there is to experience as a woman, but who is undoubtedly a full woman.

I suppose it's an odd transition that I never really acknowledged as having happened.  Perhaps because part of that transition was definitely sexual in nature and maybe I was a late bloomer in that regard compared to some people.  And sex isn't something that I've really talked about on the blog.  But in a way it's funny to think that who I am as a whole woman can't be discussed without that as part of the package.  Kristina and I were laying here in the Brave talking about having kids and damn.  If that isn't a conversation that will punch you in the face with, "Hey, so you're like a fucking WOMAN. Who is discussing the possibility of making a human with your body."  Whoa.

Being on this trip we've cultivated an extremely, and very intentionally, feminine space.  We felt like we really needed to be surrounded by very feminine energy and wanted to foster that at Wildbride retreats, and for most of the trip, even when we weren't leading retreats, we were around almost exclusively women.  There was a brief time when we were camping in Joshua Tree where we found ourselves reintroduced to hanging out with men and it was a stark moment of being thrust back into a male energy space, which was very interesting.  While I was sad to be away from Dan for so long and don't really want to be away from him like that again, we both recognized that making this trip very woman-focused in its entirety was the right choice.  But all of that is a rambling, roundabout way of saying, womanhood has been very much on the brain for the past 6 weeks.  And I realized that I never really have fully stepped into the fullness of my womanhood.  I'm discovering how deep and broad womanhood is.  How wild and wonderful it is.  It is nurturing, and raucous, and sensual, and light, and fierce, and erotic, and silly, and intense, and visceral, and hilarious.  I'm finding myself wanting to stretch into every part of it, especially the parts I hadn't realized I wasn't allowing myself to stretch into.  Like when you start working out and discover muscles you didn't even know you had.

A lot of our Wildbrides have talked to us after the retreats about how it's difficult to transition back into real life after the weekend and while we were able to offer some suggestions for carrying Wildbride life forward and integrating the intentions and lessons born at the retreat into daily life, we also haven't yet made that transition ourselves.  It's almost like we've been on the longest and most crazy Wildbride retreat ourselves, on this 6 week road trip along the west coast.  I'm just now beginning to be able to process what was created in the past couple months, and how it changed me and grew me.  And getting home and back to "real" life is going to be a hell of a thing.  In a way I refuse to believe that what is waiting for me at home is "real" life.  I don't want to believe that real life has to be the shitty daily grind of boringness.  Not that I believe that my life that's waiting for me at home is just a shitty daily grind of boringness, not at all.  But there's also a seed within me, and Dan too, that wants something different.  It's a seed that has been there for a while and in the past few months has started to germinate and begin growing and becoming real.  I'm not sure what it will end up looking like, but I know that life going forward from here will be different.  It will not be a shitty daily grind of boringness because goddamnit I have one fucking chance to live life as a human on this planet and so far it's been awesome, but I refuse to spend my days and hours and breaths scrolling through social media and wishing for a life I don't have.  Life is there for the taking and I'm reaching out and grabbing it because why not.

This is it.  This is life.  No more waiting.  I'm stretching into every corner of my life, my womanhood.  Let's do this.

Brave Living

I'm sitting out on the patio at Joshua Tree Coffee Company, drinking the most delicious Nitro Cold Brew coffee (and it's not just the most delicious because I've been drinking camping-french-press the last week).  The sun is beating down and it's the most perfect 66ºF.  We've been camping in Joshua Tree National Park since Sunday at Hidden Valley Campground where there are no hookups, no wifi, and no cell service.  We've met incredible humans, had our noses sunburned from forgetting that sunscreen out here is absolutely a necessity, climbed up countless rock formations, talked with new friends into the night by the light of a campfire, howled under the full moon, and woke to watch the sun bathe it's first rays over the desert rocks.  In a way, I feel like our stay in Joshua Tree National Park has been our very own Wildbride Retreat.  

Leading the retreats has been a hell of a dive into the deep end.  We're learning to swim, making lifelong friends, cultivating a beautiful space for women to bloom, confronting our own fears and doubts and dreams, and feeling incredibly blessed and humbled by the entire experience.  Between our Joshua Tree retreat, which was last weekend, and our Sedona retreat, which is next weekend, we had a solid 10 days to relax, recoup, and make our way over to Sedona.  Since Sedona is only a 6 hour drive from here, we decided to stick around and soak in the beauty of this place for a while and I'm so glad we did.  Leading the retreats is definitely an energetic drain, in the best way.  Kristina and I are putting out all of our energy creating space for each one of our Wildbrides and we're realizing the importance of nurturing ourselves between each retreat so that we're best able to create that space for each retreat.  We are super excited for our final one in Sedona and we can't wait to dream up the next retreat, hopefully sometime later in the summer.  

For some time both of us have been feeling like it's time to move away from Tacoma.  The push to start a new adventure, to explore, to live a full life is feeling very present.  Dan and I have tossed around ideas for about a year, but I think this summer might be the time to sell our house and just make the leap into something new.  To just trust that we'll find our feet when we land, and even if we fall, someone will be there to help us up.  

Being in the Brave is such a clarifying experience for me.  She strips away everything that doesn't matter.  But she gives back so much in return.  Every time I return to her I remember how beautiful life is living with her.  Maybe this time we'll sell the house and live mobile.  We shall see.  Life is certainly on the verge of a big change, and I'm excited to be a part of what's going to happen next along with my favorite humans and creatures.

Road Life

Life on the road has been pretty tech-free.  We've been out of cell service for a surprising amount of nights, campground internet has been slow, spotty, or non-existent, and driving every day means no blogging.  I've been posting to instagram here and there but other that that I haven't been able to do much online.  We've got a bit of service tonight, so I thought I'd pop in here and say hi.

It's been about 10 days since our first Wildbride Retreat on the Oregon Coast.  Holy moly was it a magical weekend.  I can't wait to spend this upcoming weekend with our next Wildbrides down here in California.  I really want to give you guys a peek at the images we created, but I'm not sure if my internet connection can handle uploading photos, so that'll have to wait.  You can see some peeks over on the Wildbride Facebook, website, and retreat site!

Being on this trip has been so similar and different from my first trip.  A major difference is having Kristina along with me.  While I loved doing the first trip solo, it's been really fun to share stuff with another person.  My recent travels have really revealed that to me.  The importance of sharing life with other people.  I think travel just magnifies that feeling.  Being alone in Paris made it so magnified the weight was crushing.  I remember on my last Brave trip there were some things I kind of wanted to do but felt like they'd be odd to experience alone.  I still did plenty of things, but having someone to share experiences with and bounce ideas off of makes it so much better.

Okay, gotta sign off.  More road stories later.  Campground check out is at 11!  TTYL friends!

A Beautiful Life

Sometimes your plans just don't quite work out.

Despite having all your ducks in a row, despite planning ahead as best as you could, things still go sideways, unexpected snafus pop up. I like to control my situation. I like to plan as much as I can ahead of time so that I don't have snafus popping up, but there's not much you can do to avoid problems popping up when you least expect.

For someone who likes controlling a situation, I sure do pick odd vehicles to get me where I want to go, quite literally. My 1972 Winnebago Brave might not seem like the most reliable vehicle to most people. On my first Brave trip (in my '73 Brave, back in 2010) my very first day found me stranded on the side of the road, 300 miles from home in the middle of nowhere, Alaska. Oddly enough, that was the only vehicle trouble I had on that entire 11,000 mile journey. Yesterday, on my first day out on this trip, before even making it a mile from home, I discovered a flat tire that set us back 3 hours. And then I had to get new propane tanks because mine were too old to fill. And a new house battery to power the lights in the Brave. And then today upon testing our water system, all the faucets needed new plumbing. I'd be lying if I wasn't stressed out. I coined the term "Strungry" today because I wasn't Hangry, I was just stressed and hungry and maybe actually extra stressed because I was hungry? I digress.

Things didn't go according to plan. But, like the seeminly undetangle-able knot of necklaces in your luggage after a trip, we eventually fixed each problem and will be back on the road tomorrow.

I'm always impressed with how, even when things don't go the way I think they should go, they still work out. Instead of throwing hands in the air or curling into a fetal position, you just have to start slowly detangling each necklace. It can be tedious, frustrating work at time. Sometimes you cut the pipe that works instead of the broken pipe and have to patch a perfectly good pipe. Someone did that today and her name definitely doesn't rhyme with Miz Borrow. Nope. Keep detangling. One necklace free, alright, keep detangling.

Life is a beautiful mess.  And I don't believe life as a beautiful mess means making our messes look pretty.  It means looking at the mess around us and recognizing the beauty in what it is.  Curated "messes" aren't authentic, though they can be inspiring, but ultimately I think they can make us feel inadequate.  

I cannot wait to meet our gorgeous Wildbrides today!  We still have space at the next retreat, Feb 12-14th in Monte Rio, CA just a short drive from San Francisco.  If you want to give a "fuck yeah" to your wild messy spirit with a wilderness photo shoot and a weekend with no obligation to be anyone but your messy, beautiful self, we would be so honored to have you join us.  Our first retreat is sold out, and space is limited in the remaining retreats so don't wait too long if you want to commit coming into the Wildbride family.  

The mess is part of the beauty.  The problems are part of this beautiful life.  Today our first Wildbride Retreat starts.  For me, Wildbride feels like part of this celebration of messy, wild, tangly existence we lead as women.  It isn't about poses with your booty popped out at just the right angle to give you dat ass.  It isn't about nipping and tucking with photoshop, or getting that perfect Tyra Banks smize.  It's embracing the mess, and discovering the crazy beauty that lies within that space.  It's sacred.

the banks of the seine

I took a bunch of fun outfits to wear in Paris, but I actually ended up wearing pretty much just one outfit the whole time, and this is it.  I did so much walking and in the end I was way more interested in being comfortable than fancy, and I had no one to impress anyway.  I planned a styled bridal photo shoot while I was there and I took just one carry-on because I was not interested in having Delta loose my bag full of the entire wardrobe for my shoot.  It was a Françoise Hardy inspired shoot and so one of the big pieces was a giant faux fur coat similar to the one in her iconic photos, but a shipping error left me running around Tacoma last minute scrambling to find something that would fit the wardrobe.  My friend Brooke from Urban X Change pulled through last minute with one of her vintage coats, and since I didn't have any room in my bags for any other coats, it was my daily coat for walking around Paris.

I had some pretty bad jet lag that lasted almost the entire time I was there, so the morning of these photos I was up at like 4 am and decided to head down to Notre Dame and watch the sunrise over the cathedral.  It was pretty cloudy, so it was more like watching it go from dark to dim, but still a moving experience.  I sat there for a while taking it all in, but my style shoot was later that morning and I wanted to scout out some spots to shoot.  These photos were actually test shots to see how the light in Paris looked on camera (magical, duh).  Notre Dame in the background?  Still so crazy to me that I was standing right there one month ago.  

These are the only photos I took of myself in Paris, other than a couple selfies.  Even though I'm over outfit photos, I'm so glad I took these shots of myself in Paris.  Even having forgotten my tripod in my room, I found some stuff to set my camera on so I could have some shots of my tourist self standing in front of the Cathedral Notre Dame on the banks of the Seine.  It's kind of funny having taken self portraits for 8 years for my outfit photos, self portraits come so naturally in terms of subject matter.  I started doing a 365 photo challenge and while ideally I'd love to do more photos of other people, it's fun to do self portraits in a more artistic and interesting way, rather than taking them with the idea of showing my outfit.  It feels like reclaiming ownership over my self portrait, rather than having it be for a commercial use.  Maybe I'll share some of my 365 photos here (my photos of Dusty and Dan were actually some of my 365 challenge) but I'm enjoying just doing them for fun without pressure for them to be for anything.