I’m coming up on a year here in Portland and it’s not lost on me the role that you all here, reading my essays each week, have had in my landing and healing and thriving in that time.
I often drive by the Airbnb where Isla and I stayed our first 10 days while we found a house and a car, and a way forward. It’s a little one-bedroom apartment in a quadplex next to an autobody shop and just a few blocks away from her preschool. The yellow door would hit our suitcases when it opened and we’d have to squeeze in and out. It was cold and rainy and we walked everywhere in our knit hats and raincoats. We cried a lot of tears, both of us, in that tiny place. And yet every time I drive by I look at it with such awe and gratitude.
The hard things often become the most transformative.
What’s not to be grateful for in that?
And over this year I’ve found a layer within myself that has always been there and never been celebrated. The layer where resides an appreciation for slowness. For a drizzle of honey on a roasted vegetable sandwich. For an evening sitting at a friend’s kitchen counter, talking deeply about our lives. For the adventure that can be a neighborhood walk - how in one block there are blackberries to pick and figs to marvel at and rosemary to smell. For the fresh inspiration that can come from finding an old blue book in a Free Little Library. For myself, for aging, for open windows, for mud on my boots, for holding close what feels precious, for letting go.
We don’t need more of anything. We don’t need new and different. We don’t need bigger and louder.
We need truer.
Please continue to join me in the the exploration of truth, of softness, of peace, and of the gritty beauty of life as it is.
All my love,
MORE FROM KIMBERLY
I’m now (finally?) on Tiktok! Follow me here.
And some other things you might like:
FAVORITE ESSAYS
Softening: This Is All I Want
Dissipating: The Two Sides Of Grief
GUIDED MEDITATIONS
Moving Through The World In A Softer Way
Locating Peace and Ease Within
JUST OVER HERE PODCAST
Back with weekly episodes beginning Monday, February 26th!
05: Just Over Here Preserving with Chelsea J. O’Leary
on preserving - or changing - what's passed down to us, and the rituals, practices, and truths that make us come alive
APPLE PODCASTS // SPOTIFY
06: Just Over Here Reflecting: A Midseason Check-In
on what’s on my mind - like wintering and aging - and I answer your instagram questions. plus a little preview of what’s to come!
APPLE PODCASTS // SPOTIFY
07: Just Over Here Trusting Ourselves with Jenni Earle Hopkins
on trusting ourselves, what we stand to lose as we do, and how to honor that trust all throughout our lives
APPLE PODCASTS // SPOTIFY