This is based on the framework of Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle and advice to “Start with Why”. My “Why”: Empowering humanity to sustain the change our world needs to flourish. My “How”: Writing, conversing, reading, gardening, appreciating art and music, traveling, and most of all listening to all Nature’s beings. My next “What” - hmmm. Not yet sure. And as I reread these entries (it’s been 2 years since my last in 2023), I realize this is my “journaling”. Rarely do I reread what I write. Always do I hear and respect what others think of my written musings. My Mother and her mother kept countless paper diaries and journals. I may never get through them all and yet I am quite certain they are full of wisdom and insight. While I can only hope I too can share some wisdom and insight with anyone willing to read my posts, I know I will not write them on paper. The “internet” lives on forever, to our gratitude and our chagrin. May these written words be worth reading by someone at some point and some time in the future. If not, and even if so, I most likely will never know, and that is okay.

The COVID-19 Pandemic gave me the opportunity to do an enormous amount of introspection and reflection on what really matters to me and what my purpose can be in this phase of my life’s journey. It wasn’t how I’d planned to spend the first few years of retirement, which started in June of 2018, I thought my husband and I would resume traveling this country and the world as had been our dream. Instead, I found myself traveling through my thinking, my story, and my feelings. I spent a great deal of time reading books, listening to PodCasts, and having conversations on subjects that spark my passions. Six years later, I find even though the global pandemic has been managed to the point of “normal” social interactions (masks optional), my personal situation is “keeping me home” more than I expected. This is something I am sure I will "write about” when the time is right to make it public. For now it just continues to fuel my desire to share my (ongoing) “introspective travels” with others. Furthermore, I remain a life-long-learner and continue to refining my understanding and the language I use to convey it by listening to those with similar AND differing views, experiences, and opinions.

An essential motivator to my “taking this public” (in addition to having to stay socially distant when I started), is that I want intersectional “conversations” and resultant action. I really do hope there are comments from readers of like-AND different-mindedness. I believe that every human has more than a few gifts to offer the world. And I believe humans have evolved and continued to exist because of our social connectedness. All of us, regardless of ancestry and/or zip code need to use what we have to lift up those around us and eliminate systemic barriers. My gifts are my curiosity, ability to learn, willingness to change, and desire to leave this biosphere a better place for having inhabited it. I hope this site will be used to champion power-to and power-with, offer a nonjudgemental place to challenge thinking and start difficult conversations through which we can all grow and reap the benefits of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

I love Susan Kerby’s quote: “Be the reason someone feels welcomed, seen, heard, valued, loved and supported.” Let this site be one way I achieve that purpose. Join me, by reading and sharing your comments, won’t you?