How do I balance my work and home life?
I work from home, so that’s an interesting question. When I’m busy, like super busy, there is no separation. But thankfully my work is rarely that bad. Overall, I’d say working from home massively improves my work-life balance because I can switch between the two in a matter of seconds rather than an hour commute. I really, really, really prize that.
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We went to what might be my favorite place in the world today, and I do actually mean that literally. There’s this stretch off the highway in Humboldt Redwoods State Park called Mattole Road, and this creek that it meanders along called Bull Creek, with a campground called Albee Creek state campground…and the hiking around there is, well…when I first started doing meditation before writing to help my anxiety, there was this one that asked me to imagine being in a forest and walking along…and this forest is what popped into my mind. We camped there a few times when I was a kid, and for some reason the memory of that place was so vivid. Like, I could remember the smell, the sound, where we hiked, the temperature, the water, the birds, the plants, the trees, everything. And so when I came up a few years back, I really wanted to go and look at this place and coming back to it I was absolutely blown away by how beautiful it was. Like, no wonder I have these vivid memories of this place, because it’s spectacular, and somehow even better that it’s off the beaten path and a place not many people go to.
We went there today and hiked around. Like, a legit two and a half to three hours of (very slowly, casually) hiking this trail for almost six miles I think. The parents did great on it, we had an amazing time, and then we drove even further south to get delicious burgers from a place called Peg’s in Standish Hickey. All told, I think the trip took us six and a half hours. Pretty impressive. We’re all bushwhacked…but it was bliss. I got a little emotional going there. Those old growth groves are really something magical to me. They’re blown up cathedral-ized versions of the forest that I grew up in. We had four acres, and the forest was my playground. And it’s all the same plants. The same smells. The same sounds. Just on an even grander scale, and I’ve always felt deeply, deeply at home in those woods. Make me a little emotional thinking about it right now, but that is my place on this earth. So it was really amazing to go there. The streams, especially. And the little carpet of green clover that grows in between the ferns, and the smell of the redwood duff spicing the air like dust. The shafts of light and the dappled spots of sun on the forest floor. And the wind rushing through the canopy like water. And it’s cool but never cold in there, warm but never hot. The trees are so big that they protect you from everything. It’s even quiet because the birds are so high up in the tops of the trees you don’t even hear them.
It’s magic.
Night night.