The Spirit of Aloha 🌴🌞

I’m writing to you from Kauai, “The Garden Isle” of the Hawaiian Islands.

I’m blessed to be able to spend over a month here, and this will be the last trip in what has been an unprecedented year of travel for me (some of it personal, some work-related). 

To land in a place of such beauty and bounty is a welcome gift. It’s sweet to experience the feelings of summer at the end of October, while, at home, the trees have lost their leaves, surrendered to wind and rain, the air is chill, and the skies darken early.

I’ve traveled to Kauai many times, mostly to visit my great aunt, who chose to retire here, and lately because she asked me to be her personal representative after she died, and so there’s a quality of “home” I can lean into thanks to good local friends and the gentleness and abundance of the land and sea.

Yet I am far from home, and I feel it. I’m in the home of my late aunt—her presence is everywhere—yet it’s my job to dismantle it so its energies can transform into other energies. I'm tending to practicalities like packing, painting, and accounting, and I’m working too, teaching, editing, and coaching. In a couple of weeks, I'll be teaching a class and offering consults at the Kauai Writers Conference, an opportunity I've been looking forward to for months. So this time in Hawaii is meaningful on many levels, and I'm allowing myself to settle into the aloha spirit.

Did you know there’s a law on the books here called the Aloha Spirit Law? Statute §5-7.5) reads like this:

“‘Aloha Spirit’ refers to the coordination of the mind and heart within each person. It brings each person to the self. Each person must think and emote good feelings to others. In the contemplation and presence of the life force, "Aloha", the following unuhi laula loa may be used:

• "Akahai", meaning kindness to be expressed with tenderness;

• "Lokahi", meaning unity, to be expressed with harmony;

• "Oluolu", meaning agreeable, to be expressed with pleasantness;

• "Haahaa", meaning humility, to be expressed with modesty;

• "Ahonui", meaning patience, to be expressed with perseverance.”

Tender kindness, harmonious unity, agreeable pleasantness, modest humility, persevering patience… Words to live and write by, don’t you think?

The law goes on to say:

“These are traits of character that express the charm, warmth and sincerity of Hawaii's people. It was the working philosophy of native Hawaiians and was presented as a gift to the people of Hawaii. "Aloha" is more than a word of greeting or farewell or a salutation. "Aloha" means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return. "Aloha" is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence. "Aloha" means to hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen and to know the unknowable.”

As I soak up the gifts of aloha—and share them too—I'm letting myself feel at home here for awhile. I listen for what’s not said, try to soften my gaze to see what can’t be seen, and allow the unknowable to have place, if not a name, in my heart.

“No alien land in all the world has any deep strong charm for me but that one, no other land could so longingly and so beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and walking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done. Other things leave me, but it abides; other things change, but it remains the same. For me its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun; the pulsing of its surfbeat is in my ear, I can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above the cloud wrack; I can fell the spirit of its woodland solitudes, I can hear the splash of its brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of flowers that perished twenty years ago.”
~ Mark Twain ~

(From: Mark Twain in Hawaii: Roughing It in the Sandwich Islands: Hawaii in the 1860s)

Paris 🥐 + Dublin 🍺

Greetings from Paris! This is my first time back in the city since 2019. So much has changed since then-- both in my personal life and the world at large. Paris is the same... but different, it seems. Or I've changed, so I'm experiencing Paris differently?... 

But let me back up a bit. 

The reason I'm in Paris for a bit of fun is because I was first in Dublin for a workshop. I co-hosted Stories to Live and Die For, Seeing Your Life Through the Lens of Story with Sabrina Gorlitz. It was five days of existentially challenging yet deeply insightful explorations into the connections between living, writing/creating, and dying. 

I think the experience helped us all prepare a little for the inevitable end and offered fresh insights and new perspectives on why we feel an urge to create and how we might go about doing it in the coming months and years. (An exploration of regrets was a particular highlight.) I'm in awe of each intrepid participant who crossed the pond and dove into the deep conversations that may have seemed a little strange at first but turned out to be nourishment for our souls. May your creative visions flourish from the fertile ground of our time together in Dublin.

Dublin is also a special place, with a slight hum of "home" for me (I have some Irish roots, one quarter through my paternal grandmother; I wrote about her here). It's a city full of literary history, music, and lots of Guinness. (And that lilt of the Irish accent melts my heart every time.) Though it wasn't my time to be a tourist, I enjoyed getting to know the neighborhood around the workshop location, the Irishtown Chapel of Ease. And a bunch of us were regulars at the friendly Cat You Café.

Speaking of cafés... The sun is shining in Paris and I really must get out and skip along her fabled streets. Though much has changed inwardly and outwardly these past six years, this beautiful city continues to be a place that makes my heart happy. In many ways, Paris will always be Paris, yet I feel more willing to embrace the truth that nothing in life stays the same, objectively or in terms of personal perception. I think the workshop in Dublin drew back another nearly-invisible veil to reveal more truth of "how life is" in a way both sobering and tender. I know I'll be unpacking more of that experience throughout the fall.

For now, I'm grateful to have had the freedom, motivation, and opportunity to travel to two such literarily rich cities, and I'm happy to have them both be part of my living story right now.

“There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris."

~ Ernest Hemingway ~

I left my 💜 in Park City, UT 🐝

I just returned from the Understory Writers Conference in Park City, Utah. This was the inaugural year, and it did not disappoint. Events were intimate, casual, and designed to foster a supportive creative community. Billed to be “For Writers, By Writers,” it served emerging and multi-published authors with equal grace.

Everyone was part of one connected community and many new friendships were forged. I commend Annie Tucker for having the heart and grit to create such a nourishing, tasteful, and inspiring new conference. It was purposefully not focused on publishing advice and agent pitches but rather celebrated a love of writing craft—a passion shared by newbies and pros alike.

It still managed to nurture writers keen to publish by first refining their craft, and published writers were able to return to their roots of inspiration, creativity, and community.

Also, getting together in person was the “bees knees.” With so much of our attention focused on screens these days, it was refreshing to gather in person, where we all bounced (buzzed?) between Park City’s incredible library, the park across the street, and the cutest little Main Street in downtown Park City. Surrounded by green hills criss-crossed with grassy ski runs, the bright sun shone against a brilliant blue sky all weekend long.

I supposed I didn’t really “leave” my heart in Park City so much as expand it while I was there.

I taught four workshops, each one lovingly received by the wonderful participants. I have to say, it’s an honor and a blessing to get to share my passion for storytelling and my gifts for helping writers solve problems and celebrate the potential of their stories in progress. It’s clear to me that we’re all swimming in this creative sea together, and the best thing we can do is lift each other up as we enjoy the ride. Which is really about crafting the kinds of creative stories that bring clarity, courage, and change to this world we all love.

Of course, I do love all my zoom groups—the variety of gatherings, the ability to cross times zones, not having to commute, not to mention the option to wear pajama bottoms or sweats—but I see these as the next best scenario to meeting in person, which is the most potent way to seed heart-based creative communities.

While there’s more trouble and cost to meeting in person over a few days, we need these experiences when we can get them. They help us be more human—to be humans-beings and not just humans-screening.

If or when you have a chance, I hope you get to experience something as lovely as Understory. Annie intends to keep this annual conference small and craft-focused, so keep an eye out for details for 2026. I have a feeling a lot of writers from this year will try to come back next July.

My heart is full after meeting so many writers and making new friends this past weekend--thank you all! And a special shout out to Ariela, Marianne, Elizabeth, and Amy for making this a truly special trip for me.

"We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne."

~ Marcus Aurelius ~

P.S. Did you know Utah is known as the beehive state? Though it’s not because of actual bees. When Mormons settled there, they were busy as bees, with the beehive being symbolic of industry, cooperation, and unity. (More history.)

The Luck of the Irish ☘️

Leprechauns, rainbows, and lucky shamrocks. Ireland possess a kind of mysterious magic in spite of its sometimes troubled and tragic past.

My paternal grandmother was Irish. She emigrated from the Galway region of Ireland to the United States in 1922 at the tender age of seventeen. When I first saw the 2015 film, Brooklyn, (based on Colm Tóibín’s novel of the same name) I thought of my grandmother’s story, which, of course, took place more than a generation before that of fictional character, Eilis Lacey.

Ireland in the late teens and twenties was rife with conflict and change. It was a revolutionary period, with the Easter Rising, the War of Independence, the Irish Civil War, and the establishment of the Irish Free State all taking place between 1916 and 1923.

My great-grandfather was a farmer with too many mouths to feed, so poverty, along with national conflict, influenced my grandmother’s departure. The “new world” provided new hope and opportunity for her as it did for so many others.

Most of us have ancestors who hailed from somewhere else, whether it’s one generation back or five. And some of us are the immigrants. (In fact, I immigrated to Canada from the U.S. as a one-year-old baby.)

Issues related to travel, immigration, choosing where to live, or being forced out of zones known as home are as active now as they were a hundred years ago. We humans have been moving around this planet through choice and choicelessness for ages. Especially as it’s become logistically, technologically, and politically easier to do so.

A friend said recently: “Isn’t it amazing that within a matter of hours on a plane we can land in a completely different part of the world?” From desert to mountains, from one ocean to another, from the tropics to the arctics, we can move around more easily and affordably than ever before (carbon footprint and colonization arguments aside for the moment, it’s pretty mind blowing, isn’t it?). We don’t have to spend a week on a ship crossing the Atlantic to go from Europe to the U.S., unless we want to. And unlike our ancestors, we don’t have to be gone months, years, or a lifetime.

My grandmother only went home once after her first son was born (my father’s oldest brother). She made her home in a new country with others who had emigrated one or two generations earlier. She naturalized, put down roots, left progeny, lived and died in her chosen country. Her chosen home.

Her commitment to her new country meant we lost touch with any family remaining in Ireland, but when I visited there for the first time in 2015, I felt a vibration of home in my heart. I felt the magic of the place, too, which is available to anyone open to feeling it.

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

~ WB Yeats ~

"Remember, remember always, that all of us, you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”

~ President Franklin D. Roosevelt ~

Staying the Course

Earlier this month I had the good fortune to be a guest on a friend’s sailboat for ten days. Up until then I’d only ever spent a day or half day on a sailboat and hadn’t needed to do much but sit back and enjoy the ride. For this trip, I was one of three hands on deck, and I really had to pull my weight. I learned so much about sailing, and yet it was just the tip of the iceberg (hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t mention icebergs and boats in the same sentence…).

I’m still pretty green when it comes to sailing, but I did take the helm on many occasions, and when we were fully under sail, traveling between seven and eight knots, I learned what it really means to “stay the course.”

Usually when sailing, the captain plots a course according to the nautical charts. This results in a waypoint, the destination you’re aiming for (in our case, nearly deserted bays of small islands or along the Peloponnese coast. Unless you’re motoring only, the wind has to be taken into account, and you might have to tack and jibe–basically moving in a zigzag to catch the wind–in order to get where you want to go. It occurred to me that writing often feels like this too; we generally make our your way toward  writing goals following very indirect lines.

On good sailing (writing) days, when the sails (your mind and hands) fill with wind (inspiration) and you’ve harnessed great power to propel you forward, there can be a wildness to the ride. The boat heels to one side and you need to maintain your balance on a slanted deck. You need a light and strong hand at the helm to maintain a good angle to the wind. But a strong wind pulls the nose of the boat into it and the helm can stiffen and draw you off to one side, so minor course corrections are always being made if you are to make progress toward your waypoint.

Before, when I used to think of staying the course in terms of writing, I imagined maintaining a steady rhythm and routine, keeping my eyes on the goal, and basically plodding along. But after having experienced it literally, I see it as a dynamic, energized process of monitoring and responding to a variety of ever-changing conditions, many of which can steer you astray or tip you into the drink.

The wind, like life, is rarely consistent. We consistently need to make minor (or major) adjustments in our writing process in order to keep moving toward the waypoints we’ve chosen. Struggling with this is normal. Sometimes the wind wins. It’s rarely smooth sailing for very long. Your skills, your passion, and your stamina will see you through the rough seas of process so that you can occasionally experience tranquil bays of progress and accomplishment. But reading the wind, adjusting the sails, and riding unexpected waves will always be required.

Every sailor respects the wind, stands humbly before it, and each writer comes to respect the unpredictable nature of inspiration, word flow, and maintaining life conditions that support the creative journey. But no matter how choppy the waters, how wild or absent the wind, when we take the helm in our writing, all we can do is try our best to maintain an even keel and stay the course as we sail in the direction of our dreams.

By the way, we use so many nautical metaphors and phrases in our everyday language. I found this site that explains some of the origins of terms such as: by and large, batten down the hatches, broad in the beam, hard and fast, get underway, give a wide berth, high and dry, hand over fist, know the ropes, loose cannon, shipshape, shake a leg, taken aback, the bitter end, slush fund, three sheets to the wind, and many more.

Baguettes and Books

Paris has long been a mecca for literary and visual artists. Expat writers such Hemingway and Henry Miller, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein flocked to Paris in the 20’s and inspired future generations to follow in their footsteps. And then there are the famous French names: Victor Hugo, Balzac, Proust, Georges Sand, Colette, Anais Nin, Sarte and de Beauvoir, to name a few. I can’t get started on the painters or the list would never end (but Renoir, Monet, and Matisse are a few of my favorites).

It seems to me that Paris just might be the creativity capital of the world, and this may be why I’m so frequently drawn back to this illustrious city. If you’re ever in need of a shot of inspiration, Paris is always a good idea, as the saying goes.

Paris has been so culturally rich for so many centuries that you can’t help tripping over history while wandering cobbled streets or wide Haussmann-designed boulevards. True to stereotype, people actually are walking around with baguettes under their arms, in tote bags, or in the baskets of their bicycles. They are sipping wine and coffee in cafés, looking unrushed, and enjoying the scene of passersby or engaging in lively conversation with friends. And, in spite of technology, you see books everywhere. Parisians really enjoy their paper and ink books. They read on the metro and buses, at cafés and in parks. Forget high fashion. A book is the essential Parisian accessory. Baguettes and books–in Paris, they are the true sustenance of life.

Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

Many of you know I’m in the midst of traveling abroad for much of this year. When I travel, I like to think of the journey as a story. Each journey (or task, event, or project) has a beginning, middle, and end. Using this kind of story lens help me to interpret and understand my experiences.

In the beginning, there is excitement, anticipation, and the pleasure and wonder of novelty, but there can also be confusion, disorientation, and challenge while learning to navigate in a new world.

Middles are full of fresh knowledge, building confidence, exploration and connection-making. Things feels more settled, known but still new-ish, and one naturally takes for granted that life will carry on like this indefinitely. This is the sweet boon that arises from having risked embarking on a new beginning in the first place.

But an ending is eventually around one corner. Then comes a time of appreciation, assessment, and letting go. Gratitude is coupled with loss, happy experiences are tucked away as memories, obstacles met and overcome are seen as having enriched our wisdom, but the reminder that all of life is temporary and ever-changing is upon us once again.

It’s natural to want to resist endings, but it’s wiser to embrace them because they give context to the whole.  And within each ending is another beginning. Seneca is credited as saying, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

While I’m still, technically, at the beginning of my overall journey, I’m aware that I’m entering the ending phase of my time in Brittany, my first location. The weeks that seemed to stretch out before me when I first arrived have been swallowed by the swiftly passing days. It will soon be time to move on, time to let a new beginning draw me forward. (And one day that, too, will come to an end.)

We are constantly in a flow of beginnings, middles, and endings. At any given time we hold several versions of each. Can you identify where you are in some of your experiences? Are you at the beginning of a holiday or a home renovation project? Are you in the middle of writing a novel or raising your kids? Are you at the end of a love affair or a job contract?

It’s worth being as attentive to these phases in life as we are when writing or reading stories, because each part informs the whole, and we can’t fully understand one part without experiencing them all.

In life, the lines of beginning, middles, and endings do tend to overlap and blur, because we are living many stories simultaneously, but even an occasional awareness of these rhythms can deepen our perception for story-making in life as well as on the page.

Dickens, Dreams, and Drafts

I was recently in London and spent a few nights in Bloomsbury not far from a house Charles Dickens lived in from 1837 to 1839. It was here where he completed The Pickwick Papers and wrote the complete manuscripts for Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickelby. His subsequent success allowed him to move on to grander homes in London, but this is the only one still standing and it’s now a museum. The photo here is of Dickens’ desk.

I marvel at Dickens’ creative productivity, his popularity and financial success achieved during his lifetime, and his variety of story subject matter (he was writing about the plight of common and poor people at a time when very few were).

The success or productivity of other writers, past or present, can be a source of inspiration or depression for many aspiring writers. The daunt we might feel when facing our own work or contemplating the achievement of others shouldn’t stop us though. Someone has to write stories. Why not us? We probably can’t expect to be a Dickens, but we can sit down at our desks and apply ourselves to our craft. You won’t know until you try.

Speaking of trying… The trip to England was the first step of a new adventure I’ve embarked on: living abroad for the better part of this year. It has been a long held dream of mine to live in different parts of Europe for short stretches of time and write. This year I have an opportunity to take a leap of faith and turn this dream into reality. I sold my apartment and put everything into storage. And now… Well, to say I feel daunted would be an understatement!

I’m planning to give myself over to the drafts I have in progress and experiment with some new things I want to write. And I’m going to live this story. I’m just at the beginning; I have a few things sketched out for the middle; but I have only the vaguest notion of an ending (no idea really–I’m making up the story as I go along). I’m going to try living this out in the way we often write stories: not knowing if anything will work out but having the faith (and courage) to face the fears (and failures) anyway.

My first stop will be a tiny town in Brittany next to the middle of nowhere. I’m not the first person, nor will I be the last, to fall in love with France. I fell hard almost thirty years ago, so I’m following my heart and starting there.

When we set out to follow our dreams–whether to write, travel or try something new–we can’t predict where these dream-turned-reality paths will take us. We can only find out by following the path one step at a time.