There's very little elegance when creating something from nothing. It's gangly work to let go of expectation—to endure the growing pains of acceptance and the insufferable lack of clarity that sucks the marrow of your joy. It's not until an exquisitely lucid moment of connection surprises you and what was a problem, a resentment, or a looming fiasco suddenly becomes a rite of passage.

I've been trained to hold the space—to fulfill my responsibilities by caring for community. But the older I get, the more I seem to fail at holding the space in a Good Way. And with each failure, I think I may be learning that the space is holding me and my failure… and my actual responsibility is to simply carry my fear, not wield it.

Today has been a study in humility. I am collaborating on a new piece, and I was reminded that to be inside my own questions is to be exceptionally open to other peoples' answers.

Everything is about reorienting ourselves to the Thing (with a capital T) that we've lost, which is the land. And collaboration is a recall of sorts of what we live without, and how we fill it with what we hope might be more.