On Going

and on staying

Dear Friends,

At the beginning of November I felt so alive. Maybe I was just in the blissful second week of my menstrual cycle, but I seemed to be doing the things I was supposed to be doing, attracting the people I was meant to attract. My yoga mat was always by the front door, ready to go. My hair looked shiny. I was seeing the world the way I most love to see the world—as if it’s a present I haven’t yet opened and anything could be inside.

I wasn’t thinking at all about death.

I was thinking about travel. I was landing assignments and planning trips on top of other trips. I was hyper-aware of the strength of my heartbeat. My life was making me high. I was thinking about the two types of people—the “Goers” and the “Stayers”: Consider the lovers versus the long-married couples, the apartment renters versus the home owners, the mountain climbers versus the view admirers, the amassers of airline miles versus the collectors of glass figurines.

Here’s a writing prompt: Do you see yourself as a Goer or a Stayer? How do others see you?

In early November, I drove to Arkansas to write about wine. I learned that one can live a perfectly good life without ever tasting Arkansas wine. But I was so happy on the road—jacked up on coffee and sunshine and Caamp and Milky Chance and Rainbow Kitten Surprise. I loved the part of the drive where the barren Texas-Oklahoma landscape gave way to lakes and trees. In Arkansas, the sky was bright blue. The leaves had turned the color of pennies.