Essays on people, love, change, work, questions, and other things that matter a lot.
March 20 At the coffee shop, I tend to yell "take care" as customers exit as a way of saying, Get outta here, pal. But now, I say "take care" to say, I charge you to guard yourself and your loved ones, lest you get a disease deceptively comparable to the flu, which will at…
March 13 Last night I drove down to my childhood home in Puyallup, where David and Ashley and the baby were hanging out with Mom. The mood was weird and dismal. We all talked about how we were nervous. But also, it was okay and it got better it was good to be together. Apparently…
February 29 Matt and I went to dinner at his friends’ house so we could hammer out details for the Philippines trip in May. Everyone is on board and we almost have the locations nailed down. We just need to buy the tickets. One of the friends works for Amazon like Matt, and she said…
In June of 2019, I had the honor of delivering the commencement speech to graduating seniors at my former elementary and high school in Tacoma. Here is its text: Concordia Christian Academy, Class of 2019, I first want to offer my congratulations to you all. Getting to graduation is hard, and it takes a long…
I have been a barista for over two years. I've written a book and traveled a lot. But what I've neglected to lay out is that for the last two years, I have spent most of my time behind the counter at a coffee shop. I have a world of knowledge about pulling espresso shots.…
On a Friday afternoon last August, I received the last of three major invoices from my editor. Along with the invoice was what I then thought was a PDF of the completed interior of Leave It All. There were a few things that needed fixing so I sent my requests back. Then I paid the…
It's Friday, December 7... and this is the day the first copy of "Leave It All" comes in the mail.
It’s so hard to write. It used to be easy. I used to post blogs all the time. I posted when I was on the World Race, I posted when I was walking the Camino de Santiago, I posted a bunch in between. I could blog and journal and email and everything. This year, I…
I went to Northern Arizona in June for six days, and I went alone. I wanted to take a break from the verdant Pacific Northwest and gorge myself on big, flat, red, dry, hot land. I wanted to spend a few quiet days not doing anything with anyone. I wanted to write. Mostly, I wanted to…
How’s the book going, they ask me. They always ask me that: how’s the book going. I shouldn’t’ve mentioned it in the first place. Now everyone just wants to know how the book is going all the time. It's fine, you can keep asking me, I like the attention, I love that you care, it's…
“Do you believe this?” My family went to Israel. It was a great trip. I mean great like fun, and great like eye-opening, and great like broad in scope, and great like significant. We drove the width and breadth of Israel, from the Negev Desert to the Syrian border, from the Jordan River to Tel…
I boarded the 40 around noon on Thursday and there weren't many people on it, but there was a woman with sensible pink lipstick and cropped gray hair and a pleasant demeanor speaking with a man across the aisle who had a red beard and a dirty reusable grocery bag full of old things and…
Chelsea the Writer 