My upbringing instilled an incredible love and respect of our natural world and the creatures that inhabit it. My most memorable experiences always include some kind of outdoor adventure - sneaking out of my cabin in the middle of the night at summer camp and discovering bioluminescent fungi - traipsing through the woods with my mom and sisters and having to bushwhack our way home because mom never wanted to go back the way we came - scaring the shit out of my parents by walking on the edge of all the things with my sister in the Badlands - getting stuck in a thunderstorm in the middle of a river float and huddling together under our tubes with my soccer team - surviving a storm while canoeing in the Boundary Waters on the shores of Lake Imagonnadie (as we coined it upon discovering we were still alive) - taking our child on our first family hike and forgetting all the essentials - photographing moss with my macro lens only to discover the tiniest snail I’ve ever seen... I could go on forever.

Moments of experiencing awe and wonder have been the most grounding for me throughout my life. My tendencies are always to push forward or be thinking of the next big thing or what other things I can cram into my already full existence. Taking time to be still in nature and remind myself of how small and inconsequential I am always allows me to put the disparate parts of my life into perspective. I have found that while I don’t overwhelm easily, when it does happen, the only true reset for me is to breathe fresh air, feel the sun on my face and the breeze on my skin, and listen to the other living things sharing the atmosphere.