Misty Musings – Starting a Routine

Mist is cascading through the branches of the redwoods just beyond a pair of old French doors, bathing the world in a wet swath of grey, slippery haziness. I’m in the middle of fueling up on simple pleasures - a drink and a grilled ham and cheese at a favorite gem of mine. This rustic cabin restaurant is tucked in the trees between some of the most valuable real estate in the world, and just down the road is the busiest, most competitive, most ambitious collective public I’ve ever known. In here though, it’s cozy, warm, and unassuming. The loud kitchen and classic rock drown out all the noise of the working world of Silicon Valley and while an endless parade of cyclists glide by, all I really see or hear is mist falling.  Waitresses move quickly, time moves slowly, and as I take a few moments to breathe after a busy day it feels like the perfect moment to begin one of my many career goals: blogging.

It’s been a while since I first posted to this site – more significant events have happened in the past months than I can almost keep up with. But I’m starting to settle in, see my place, and understand my role. With this new level of comfort comes clarity and foresight, visions I’m excited to share with the rest of the world.  But how do I begin? What do I want to share? What do you even care about reading? Does blogging require structure and planning? Even if it doesn’t, I’ve learned having a loose plan is always to my benefit, despite going against it on more than a few occasions. Flexibility, adaptation, evolution: also imperative, but I’ll get to that another time. 

So here’s my plan.  Because I believe in balance, I’ll open this up to more than just posts about my career life and instead give four major categories the literary attention I think they deserve: personal moments, office life, career moves, and advice to students. Every week I’ll carve out time to reflect and share in one of these topics, establishing a healthy writing habit (or, likely, a new creative addiction).  This begins this weekend! I have more than a few ideas, but I’ll be sure to space them out well enough to keep reading these from becoming a chore, I promise.

The storm is here and my dark ‘n stormy is empty – time for my twice daily hour-long commute deep into the Santa Cruz Mountains, where home life has a clear delineation from work life, and weekends feel like a beautiful gift, a vacation retreat, every time.  Work-life balance is another topic I'll have plenty to say about. I can’t wait to share with you the beautiful moments when life’s infinite tangents coalesce and then, inevitably, fall apart, reform, and reconnect again.

Spin onward,

Leah