Exploring is part of who we are.

”We” began at our first jobs out of college at Safdie Architects in Boston, Massachusetts. We were best friends at first sight, I always say Dave took all the negativity out of my life and Dave says I showed him a life of possibility. We amplify each other; someone once called us poetry in motion.

Together we lived a conventional life we had jobs with long hours, binge watched Netflix, upgraded our iPhones, went on vacations. I met his parents for the first time at a campground they had been going to for 70 years, I had only been camping once before.

At that time, my dad had a chronic cancer so we stayed close to him. But life’s fleeting impermanence cannot be avoided, and when dad was gone I spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to die and how we are supposed to live this life. I felt like I had to see the whole world before I was gone too.

So we left everything to travel for one year to all the places we dreamed of seeing. Dave packed a tent and I laughed insisting that I wouldn’t carry a lick of camping gear because we wouldn’t need it. Within a month I never wanted to sleep indoors again. We bought bicycles, went off road, and thought how perfect life would be always riding and exploring wild place.

Our first day back “to reality” was a cold, gray January day. As the sun was setting at 3PM I realized I had to continue sitting at my desk working for another 6 hours. It felt unimaginable that this was life, but quickly it became the norm again. We bought a small house, gutted it and spent a few years renovating it top to bottom. We had our daughter who we’re absolutely obsessed with and that’s when we realized how much we were missing when 60+ hours a week was spent working.