After A Week Long Send Off, My Round the World Trip kicked off with eight days in Maui visiting my sister Sarah who has split her time between Hawaii and Alaska for many years. What an epic way to start this adventure! There was mist falling when my sister greeted me at the Kahului airport on Maui a week ago, so she teased me about bringing the rain from the mainland. We headed straight for Paia where she presented me with a young coconut and a lei, accompanied by the chant for the gifting-of-a-lei.
A number of circumstances collided recently to compel me to move the Lucky Penny to my property in Walla Walla where I have a ground bound small house called Valencia Cottage. So on Tuesday trusted tiny house movers Linh and Stephanie Pham helped me move the Lucky Penny safely from Portland to my place in Walla Walla.
As I packed up recently in preparation to travel cross country in my Honda Fit, I did some downsizing… It was harder than it had been during my last couple of moves because this time I had more stuff. I’d been living in a bigger space…My apartment was a studio, but it was still about 6 times bigger than the Lucky Penny! I talked with several people about the experience and a handful of them said “oh my goodness, I need to do more of that!” So I’ve decided to offer a 6-week Downsizing Tune Up…
I’m Brattleboro Bound and today was the second day of my journey east. Last night I left Seattle mid-afternoon and retraced the path that took me from my hometown of Seattle to Walla Walla where I went to Whitman College and then lived for an additional six years.
The Lucky Penny was a splendid place to pass the first seven months of the COVID-19 pandemic... But I’m ready for a change of scenery. And you know if you’ve been following along for a while, I’ve long-loved Vermont. Since I’ve been working remotely for the past seven months, I’ve learned that it’s feasible. So I asked my supervisor if I could work remote-r from Brattleboro, VT.
“How are you holding up?” It’s a question I’ve been getting a lot lately. And a question I’ve been asking a lot lately. Even of perfect strangers: the checker at the grocery store, the person I’m video chatting with for tech support, the neighbor at the end of the block sitting on their porch.
I think part of the reason people ask me how I’m holding up is that I live in 100 square feet. And it’s true that there are a couple of challenges with this…
I’ve particularly appreciated how many people have been offering skills and teaching others. So as we settle into Real Virtuality I’ve decided to offer my Downsizing E-Course again. If all this time at home is making you antsy to FINALLY DO SOMETHING about the clutter, sign up to do some spring cleaning with me. Registration for the April-May Downsizing E-Course closes Wednesday, April 15 so that participants can get started on their first lesson and challenge. Claim your spot today! Let’s do this!
When I was little we used to talk about how cool it would be if we could see people while we were talking to them on the phone. Now it’s the future. Most of the things I did this week involved seeing other people while talking to them, but virtually. It occurred to me, part way through the week, as I was popping in and out of zooms and facetimes and hangouts and phone calls and texts that we’re now living in real virtuality!
Like many others here in Portland, OR I’m on Day 7 now of physical distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19. But I realized that this week has actually been incredibly inspirational. In fact, I’ve been so inspired by the people I love doing such amazing things in the face of this adversity, that I started making a list. And I’m going to invite you to join me in the Silver Lining Challenge.
“Strange times,” is a phrase I’ve heard a lot this week. And it feels that way. So I’ve been pondering how to act and react in these strange times since it seems we have a stretch of this ahead of us. I’ve decided that since I am one of the healthy (at least for now) and one of the wealthy (at least by world standards) my approach will be to follow best practices regarding social distancing and to find a balance between connecting with others virtually and embracing some mandatory me time to do a few more indoor projects and savor some solitude and reflection. I chose to act with goodwill and good judgement and to hope that others will do the same.
February is upon us and it’s amazing to think that in just two short weeks I’ll be winging my way across the country to teach Tiny House Design at Yestermorrow! Tiny House Design is a long-weekend course that provides oodles of info and inspiration for people to dream, design, and draft up tiny or small homes of their own.
In late December, I had a lovely session of reflection with a journal and bean cakes at the tea house at Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland’s Old Town. This was the second time I’d gone there around new years. Twice may not be a tradition, but hopefully this will be!
When I was in high school I attended a leadership workshop which emphasized the importance of visioning. The keynote speaker lead us through an exercise in which we closed our eyes and imagined what we would like to have happen with our programs in the coming year. Then he encouraged us to think bigger, about what we wanted to have happen in our lives and in the world. He then had us gather up in small groups to share these visions with others.
When one of my group mates, a redhead named Stephanie, described wanting her kitchen to smell of cinnamon I was delightfully surprised at how easy it was for me to imagine myself into that space. She had certainly taken to heart the instruction to be specific in our visions. It was the sort of place I wanted to spend a rainy afternoon. (To this day, inspired by Stephanie’s vision for her someday kitchen, one of my favorite design exercises for the workshops I teach is to explore sensory experiences. What do you want to hear in your home? What do you want to see?)
After sharing our visions aloud with others, we took time to write them down. We were encouraged to doodle and to use color. Then we signed our names to them. Our (truly) motivational speaker told us that those who share their visions are significantly more likely to achieve them. And those who write them down are even more likely to achieve them. And those who sign them are even more likely to achieve them. (There’s this thing about accountability, it turns out. And when this workshop speaker said that people who capture their visions in writing are significantly more likely to achieve them, he meant it. There’s scientific evidence behind each of these elements of capturing. By the time I learned about these principles in my social psychology classes in college I had been employing these tricks for years.)
I left that leadership workshop when I was sixteen years old with a vision, tucked into an envelope, which I knew was a gift to my future self. I decided to do this visioning thing each year. And while it’s taken different forms over the years, I have continued to do visioning at new years and other pivot points.
I found that teenage vision tucked in its envelope a couple months ago when I was settling back into The Lucky Penny. I spent a day on a winding journey down memory lane as I looked through the scrapbooks I had meticulously created back in the analog days of high school and college. And I found myself laughing and tearing up as I discovered how much of my vision has remained the same over the past twenty years. Even more fascinating, I found that most of the things I had jotted down have happened:
Finding, attending, and graduating from a college that was just the right fit for me
Owning a home of my own
Learning to grow a garden full of flowers and food
Attending graduate school in a fascinating field
Living in an intentional community
Designing and building my own home
Living abroad
And yet there are also things I didn’t know to hope for that have also happened. I didn’t know that I’d love my college enough to stay for another six years as the community service coordinator. I didn’t know that one of my roommates would become one of my best friends. I didn’t know that Yestermorrow would become one of my great loves and that I’d get to be a teacher there as well as a student. I didn’t know that tiny houses would become A Thing and that the first house I’d design and build for myself would be on wheels. I didn’t know I’d create my own company which would enable me to travel, teach, consult ,and design. Nor did I know that I’d help to create two of the first tiny house communities in America. What adventures these have been!
As I noted in my 2019 Recap and 2020 Look Ahead, this has been a time of big transition for me. And so my visioning has stretched out this year, to capture this pivot point. Cataloguing what I have learned about myself and listening for intuition and inspiration about the future. (Amusingly, those things I jotted down decades ago that haven’t happened I’m still hoping and working to manifest. Many of these things have made it onto a permanent Life List, another visioning tool, which I loved doing at Wild Women’s Weekends in Walla Walla. I’m so curious to see what else the Universe is scheming!)
For the past nine months I’ve been using the Daily Greatness Journal. And it’s amazing to be able to see what I’ve already accomplished!
This past year I’ve been using the Daily Greatness Journal, which was recommended by my coworker Chelsea in our quarterly accountability meeting (imagine that!) It was amazing to me as I launched into the fourth quarter of using it this weekend how many of the goals I set nine months ago need to be updated since I’ve met them already.
This year my fairy godsister, Nell, recommended the Year Compass, which was created by some folks in Budapest and is available as a free tool - if you haven’t yet done your visioning for the year ahead and have a hankering for it, I’d highly recommend this guide. The week before last I sat in a teahouse with a kindred spirit, two copies of the Year Compass, and two pots of tea. After jotting them down we went to Everett House for the first soak of the new year to let those hopes and dreams really soak in.
This past weekend I spent with my auntie as we told each other stories from the past and we both did some visioning for our futures. She is looking ahead, too, so it was an honor to swap 5 Minute 5 Year life plans. (This is the quickest version of visioning I know. I invented it on a college search with a friend. Just set the timer for 5 minutes and jot down whatever your friend says about what they imagine over the next five years. When time’s up, it’s your turn! This technique has yielded some profound results when I’ve done it with friends, colleagues, and family members over the years. So fascinating to look back on these ones!)
As I my vision for this year (and beyond) crystalizes, I’ll likely share parts of it here. (That whole accountability thing.) Meanwhile, I’m curious to see what YOU envision for this year. What are you hoping for? What are you excited to manifest? Which tools do you use for visioning? Feel free to share in the comments.
So many ways to envision the future! I’ve been enjoying a happy smattering of them during this transition. Check out the Year Compass if you’ve got a hankering to do some January visioning!
