100th Post!

I'm a psychic, y'all! Over the weekend, I sat myself down in a coffee shop (which also happens to be my favorite pitaya/chia pudding/smoothie bowl establishment) and did a little updating on some old blog posts to optimize them for search engines and some other fancy internet business. As I was scrolling through the list I thought, "Hm... I wonder how many times I have posted. Has it been 100 times? Or will the 100th time be coming up soon?" And wouldn't you know it, the very next post was to be the 100th post! There are some wild forces at work in this world.

So this is it. #100! Thank you for reading, liking, and sharing. And for being the people offering love and support every day. I'm happy to be existing on this planet with you.

Oh yeah, and I made a coloring book. You can check it out here: http://amzn.to/2CtI89h

To All of You

Merry belated Christmas! /// Happy belated Holidays!

Thanks for keeping me cheerful the whole year through.

Thankful

I'm about to head out to West Texas to visit Marfa and Big Bend for the rest of the week, so of course I'm thankful for that. And to have the week off of work which allowed me to sleep until 10:00 the past two days. Praise be.

But this past month for me has been sad! The world is in a strange place, my roommate and dear friend is en route to move to the East Coast, and the person I love more than anything told me he's leaving, too. No one wants to read blog posts about missing friends or hurting hearts. How whiny! How boring! How trite!

And so I think when people ask, "How are you doing?", they expect the standard, "I'm well. How about you?" Or we feel pressured to say, "I'm doing okay", or, "I feel sad, but things will get better". But sometimes we're just plain old sad. And we know things will get better, but then they'll probably be sad again someday, and get better again, and the cycle will continue on and on forever because that's how life goes.

We learn grasp for the good. Like when Eastside Yoga let me rent out a room to give Lainie a proper send off with her closest Austin friends. Or an unexpected adventure to another National Park. Or the fact that friends and strangers will even ask how you're doing at all.

So I hope you find that it's ok to say when you're sad, and then stop there. And instead of wishing it away so quickly, discover that it can be interesting to sit with a feeling, to find out how you respond to it, and what it has to teach you. That way, probably not today or next week or even by 2017, but whenever you're really ready, you might start to see the goodness glittering around its edges.

A Taste of Tel Aviv

I fell hard for Tel Aviv and was dragged almost kicking and screaming away after a way-too-short introduction. 

This city is full of life and energy, with restaurants and bars packed with young people spilling out into the streets until the middle of the night, every night. It's quite the opposite of all my mom's fears about the dreaded Middle East.

We stopped to look up directions one day only to have 3 different people and a police officer offer to show us the way. Theirs is an innocent friendliness, too, not the kind that comes with a price or a stalker like in some foreign cities. The Israelis seem genuinely incapable of seeing you unhappy. 

We had planned to have dinner one night with my dad's former colleagues who now live in Tel Aviv. In typical Israeli fashion of going above and beyond, they picked us up from the airport, gave us a guided tour of our neighborhood, introduced us to three different flavors of halva, and ordered five desserts off the menu so we wouldn't have to choose. They even tried using their local charm (and hebrew) to talk our hotel receptionist into giving us a room with a seaside view.

Halva, a traditional sweet made from tahini or nut butters

And we confirmed it wasn't just the people we knew who were like this-- bartenders talked to us through dinner and delivered complimentary shots, a local man in the ocean talked to us for an hour sharing facts about his country and asking about the U.S., breakfast waiters served up mimosas and delicious homemade bread with smiles-- everyone seemed like they were constantly paying it forward without expecting anything in return. Their enthusiasm was practically bubbling over-- about Israel, Tel Aviv, and life in general-- and it was contagious.

So all I can say is, if you can, get here as soon as possible! And for goodness' sake give yourself more than two days! Plus a gigantic thank you to the Steins for showing us such wonderful hospitality and introducing us to so much of Tel Aviv!