easing

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tonight I sat and watched the sunset—for probably the first time since moving to Kansas City. I’ve seen lots of sunsets obviously, but as far as I can remember I had yet to just sit and watch one until tonight.

which feels significant.

I watched sunsets on a regular basis when I lived in Utah— at the Y parking lot, on the mountainside in Lindon, from the window of my house, at Slate Canyon eating fresh Pillsbury biscuits, sometimes with people, sometimes by myself.

since moving here, I think I’ve been hesitant to breathe. I spent those first summer months tense, a little on the defensive, because adjusting was hard and it always felt a little bit like the world was out to get me. during the fall it was better— I eased in more and started letting myself gradually crack open. and during these last couple winter months it’s been even better. but the whole process has been one of telling myself that this is home.

watching the sunset tonight, I thought about the life I’m carving out here. how it’s a good life, but also a life that isn’t a final destination, which makes it harder to rest in. but I think teaching myself to rest in it is what I really need right now. even if Missouri is a stepping stone, learning to go deep and be present with all that is good here feels needed. sometimes even when you’re in a really good place, easing in takes a lot of time and a lot of emotions, but I’m learning to be okay with that.

this first sunset tonight was a moment of easing, and breathing. hopefully there will be many more in the future.

the last night

i moved! yay! to kansas city! yay!

if you think kansas city is a lame place, or that it’s in kansas, I’m here to prove you wrong. (well, half wrong. technically part of kansas city is in kansas. but not the downtown part, or the part with my office, or the part with my apartment.)

but I’ve only been here a week, and it’s good.

also, moving to a new city by myself is probably one of the hardest things I’ve done.

but.

the place and the life are good. and that’s what really matters. I’m so, so grateful to be here. & even though this is one of the hardest things I’ve done, it’s also one of the coolest. how often do we get to start over completely from scratch, knowing zero people, and zero things about the world you’re suddenly in? that’s pretty cool, I think.

one of the by-products of living on your own is that you have thoughts! or at least I do. lots and lots of thoughts! but I’m going to save those for another day because I’m behind and I can’t just move straight on to the Kansas City thoughts without paying my respects to Utah and my last night there.

so here are the respects:

Utah, you made the last 4 years of my life the greatest. a lot of it was actually you (mountains!), but most of it was your people. so thx, peace, blessings, I’ll be back to visit, take care of my friends, don’t let the Wasatch fault line have an earthquake, etc. etc. etc. bye!

and here are some photos from the last night in Utah, which was a trip to Saratoga Springs, because I always wondered what life looks like from the other side of the lake.

these next photos were my favorite…

^^^is Joel’s leap not one of the most graceful things you’ve ever seen?

^^^awkwardddd, the only one of these I didn’t edit hahaha…the editing ended up on the purple side of things, but oh well.

^^^not a basic “peace out,” b/c please notice I’m just holding up my keys. also I need to get my hair done.

slc // in verbs

sometimes the world hands you a perfect night. and sometimes that happens to be right before you’re moving, and I feel like that’s not all that fair, right?? we went to Salt Lake last Friday with no objective in mind, and I think we were handed one of those solid nights.

aaaand here are the stories of the evening, told in verbs! (because I don’t feeel like stringing it together into an eloquent story tbh, haha. but sometimes story pieces are fun?)

SNEAKING // we accidentally snuck into the back of mass at the cathedral. (mass? a mass? grammar??) and by accidentally I mean that we happened to be there when mass was going on haha. and by sneaking I mean we just walked in and tiptoed to a bench on the creaky wood floor so we didn’t make much noise. Mass was super cool, actually!

DROOLING // over the Avenues. and tree-lined streets in general.

SPELLING // Me: “does capitol have an ‘a’ or an ‘o’?” / Kenzie: “it has both!” … That made me laugh more than it probably should have. & now I think I’ll always remember how to spell capitol.

WATCHING // this family on the capitol lawn was blowing bubbles with a giant bubble wand and it was straight magic. there was a little kid who would run after the bubbles every single time, and we decided that’s the epitome of childhood joy. and we also decided that if you’re dating someone who’s outgrown chasing bubbles, you probably shouldn’t date them.

it was a good night, that’s all. that part of Utah doesn’t feel like Utah, and I don’t know why I haven’t spent more time up there (in Salt Lake, and especially up by the capitol) this whole time I’ve lived here.

and here are some pictures!

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in the rain

“Think of the times when you felt freaking alive and find the themes.” — Mark Pollard

^^^that’s been the motto of life recently. (but isn’t that brilliant?)

for me, those are times when I’m outside of my comfort zone, or at least experiencing newness.

in keeping with this, last night happened.

it rained all day, and I love how streetlights reflect on the pavement when it rains, so I drove to south to the Provo cemetery around sunset to see if I could take any decent pictures of the world. (aaaand I found out today that apparently it’s a misdemeanor to be at the cemetery after dusk hahaha…whoops) it started pouring a few minutes after I got out of the car, and I quickly learned that nothing I was wearing was waterproof, but if we’re talking about experiences where you feel freaking alive, this was one of them. it was something about being on a little hill, all by myself, in the almost-dark, soaking wet, trying to capture light and dark and trees and mountains and also keep my camera somewhat dry…yeah it was good.

the pictures are grainy because I was on such a high ISO setting, but I actually really love it.

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nyc 2017

so I went to new york city back in September! I never blogged about it because I haven’t been much of one for blogging lately, but I feel like it needs to be written somewhere, so we’re doing it! I figure I can’t go to nyc and not say anything about it because I spend so much time talking about that place here on this blog. just giving the people what they want!

mostly this’ll probably be a photo dump for posterity’s sake. but still kinda fun!

[for context, I went with a bunch of kids and professors in my program here at school (advertising). we visited ad agencies, attended some industry-related panels, and also did a bunch of other random stuff in our free time. we were there for a week (the longest I’ve ever spent in the city), and it was glorious.]

a bunch of us girls got an airbnb in brooklyn that was conveniently a couple blocks away from the J train that we took every day into manhattan. the apartment had a great view of the rooftops of brooklyn, and I discovered at the start of the week that if you looked really hard into the distance there was one building that had “BELIEVE IT” graffitied onto the side of it. so rad. (hi, thank you new york gods!!)

some of the other best moments:

one night a few of us were wandering around the Village and stumbled into Washington Square Park. we’re walking around toward the fountain and the arch when I hear piano music coming from somewhere.

and not just any random piano music. classical piano music.

there’s a freaking grand piano sitting right in the middle of the park by the fountain. stopppp.

so we sit down and listen to the guy play “moonlight sonata” and a bunch of other good stuff. and just soak in alllll the vibessss.

but then! but then! it doesn’t stop there!

then a man and a woman (probs in their mid-20s?) get up by the piano and start dancing. gorgeous, ballet/acrobatic dancing.

and then!

then they get on top of the piano. and keep dancing on the piano.

tbh at that moment I was maybe 65% concerned that they were going to break the piano. or fall off. but they didn’t break it, and they didn’t fall off, and it was beautiful.

NEW YORK CITY, KIDS.

later that same night we discovered this little coffee shop called “the uncommons.” except it wasn’t just a coffee shop. it was one of those places where you can pay $5 in addition to your coffee (or hot chocolate, ha, mormon!) and they have their walls covered with board games that you can play for as long as you want to. which I guess is a thing now, provo? well we didn’t know it was a thing, so we all vowed to start a place like that in provo, because provo would eat that kind of thing up.

ha and then we got back to provo and legit 2 weeks later that random game place on center street pops up that is the exact same thing. (except decidedly lacking in the vibes department) ah well. logan, anyone?

fearless girl! advertisinggggg!!!!

near the end of the week we went to a yankees game, which was so. cool. I love baseball and the yankees and I fangirled a little about actually being there. (can you fangirl at a baseball game? does that count as fangirling? or is it just being a fan?)

random firsts (touristy places I’d actually never been to before) (this is a posterity blog post, remember?):

grand central station
chelsea market (too many food options in one place!)
the high line (this was actually so good. we went at night when it wasn’t very busy and just strolled (like a real, leisurely stroll) and caught the feelings of what it would be like to actually live there. and also had a semi-deep chat about how advertising is so good.
NY public library (didn’t go in, but hey! we took a picture on the steps! …on someone else’s phone, so sorry friends, I don’t have it, but it happened!)
Magnolia Bakery

aaaand here’s a dump of all the random photos that don’t have a real story associated with them!