We met at the intersection of 109 years of collective experience.  Our time together has just started to unfold. With any luck, our epitaphs are a long way off.  So, here we are, starting in the middle…middle of our lives (hopefully), middle of nowhere in particular, sometimes in the middle of the sentence.  We’ve decided to let you in on a little of our journey.  Because the discoveries are piling up too quickly to wait for some grand reveal at the end.  

We recently bid our old lives an abrupt farewell, and set out to travel with the flimsiest outline of a plan…a coddiwomple, if you will.  If you know the term, you can imagine that this little sabbatical, hatched on the sand under the setting Pacific sun, was initially just about getting to know each other; immersing ourselves in beautiful places, and having a bit of a well-deserved break from the grind.  If you’ve never heard of “coddiwomple”, look it up, as your mother would say.  

But we were both at fairly major inflection points, endings and beginnings, so we weren’t satisfied to just meander.  We started asking questions…questions about who we are, what we want, and what the Hell it all means.  We think it’s all about the questions, and it seems like people have stopped asking.

As the pandemic-addled world emerges from its brittle shell, we don’t like what we see.  Every corner of the world seems to signal a new kind of global malaise, a soul sickness.  Isolationism, nationalism, racism, sexism, terrorism — the virus may have muted reality, but this all took seed before Covid 19.  Hopelessness, frustration, distrust, loneliness are lurking everywhere, giving way to monotony, austerity, fatigue, despair.  Everyone seems to be slipping lower in their footing, less steady, less patient.  Even the optimists seem short-tempered, put-upon, self-centered; a new world of victims.  Worldwide yuck.  

So we reframed our initial objective — which honestly was just the continuation of a really great first date —  and set out to discover whether there was something left of grace and beauty, hope and inspiration, somewhere in the world?

We discovered something totally unexpected, and it’s going to sound pretty basic: the answers were already inside us.   

With freedom and perspective, we began to get a fresh take on abundance.  Not the saccharin, glass-half-full, rose-colored glasses, manifesting kind of abundance…you’ve likely got a motivational app for that.  (If not?  Take any of ours.) No, the world has plenty of that sort of thing. Instead, we found hints of something rich and deep.   A sense of more-than-enough abundance — we call it bastante. (Our Spanish-speaking friends will see this as a misapplication — Dios mio! — of the word, but we beg editorial license and explain later).   

We’re began to see really is enough of everything.  Enough money, time, food, talent, health, love, you name it.  So, then, if we don’t have a sufficiency dilemma, maybe all we really have is a distribution problem.  And it’s the connections — the bridges, the tunnels, the pathways, the chutes — between all of us that solve that distribution challenge and sustain and fulfill us.  Sounds like hippie-dippy bullshit?  Maybe.  But, man, it really is starting to make sense to us.

Now, instead of all of the “’why’s’ and ‘why me’s’” we packed up and carted on our journey, we’re starting to see the “why the Hell not’s”.  We see a world where every person gets to really know themselves, and in that knowing, discovers what lights them up.   When you relight your soul, and share your stories, your glow casts light on someone else’s story. Those flashes ignite sparks between us, illuminating hidden answers, those answers start glowing and ignite another spark, which ignite another, and so on.  So many paths, people, options.  Connections, where once, it seemed pretty damned lonely. Intersections where we used to see dead ends. Where obligations once weighed us down, now we see Choices. It’s pretty liberating, honestly.  

As we ignited these sparks between us, the connections around us started to smolder and grow.  And that’s when the really good stuff started to happen.   We know this: When we are living this peaceful, glowing, on-the-way-to-the-Best version of ourselves…We are better mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, uncles, aunts, cousins, lovers, friends, clients, bosses, volunteers, parishioners, coaches, neighbors…we treat ourselves, each other, others and the planet a whole lot better.  (To say nothing of the arsehole who cut us off on the M4 today and got nothing but a sweet smile for his trouble….). 

We don’t pretend to know what will work for you…honestly, we’re not always sure exactly why or when or how it all started coming together for us.  But we believe that if we keep sharing what’s happening, asking more questions, we’ll trip and fall over the possibilities, the connections, the solutions, the answers.  Together. 

The revelations are coming pretty quickly now.  Time is the only currency that seems to be in short supply.

At this point, we’re only sure we’re onto something; so, we want to begin sharing our thoughts and images, and get your reactions. We’re giving ourselves a bit more time to research, and synthesize our experiences and conclusions.  We’re just a couple of hedonists who’ve made a lifetime of mistakes ourselves; now, we think we may have accidentally discovered the secret to a life well-lived, to really thriving.  We’re not sure what we want to do with it just yet.  Maybe it’s a company.  Or a book.  Or a physical place, a retreat.  It will definitely be about giving back…right from the start, we’ve known that.  The path will emerge.   For now, it’s just snippets and snaps from the crazy adventure we’re having.  A little blog to start to gather, understand, share and come together.  

You are reading this because you are a part of our story already, and we, of yours.  You may recognize yourself in characters that are an amalgam of, or inspired by, many of you.  Sometimes, the resemblance might be too uncanny for coincidence…fear not, there’s plenty of time to decide who’ll play you in the movie.   How (or even, whether) you respond to what we share is entirely up to you.  But, in the same way you have each made an indelible mark on our lives, your additions here might be what lights a spark in someone else.  And, on and on.  

We’re still doing this crazy wonderful house-sitting thing as a backdrop, giving us the tiniest, strange sprinkling of structure.  It’s amazing what happens when you completely install yourselves in someone else’s’ lives and homes for just a moment in time.  Your perspective has to shift; it’s not optional.  So, expect a hodgepodge of observations and experiences drawing from philosophy, politics, history, art, science…a lot of it will confront and challenge major institutions, trends, societal conventions and values.  No punches will be pulled.  And, expect a little magic.

Much of this is about the extraordinary people we’ve sought out from all walks of life — teachers and healers in marvelous places and, the beautiful animals they’ve entrusted to us for a little while. While people’s identities are a slightly obscured, we’ll call the animals by their names – their time with us is fleeting, but what they are teaching us is too important for anonymity.  

We’re hungry for your reactions, whether it’s healthy debate on the issues, new areas to consider, stuffing the suggestion box, introductions, your own experience…anything.

We will treasure your feedback, even if it’s spiky.  Seriously, let the games begin.  All we ask is that you keep it reasonably clean.  Our mothers may be reading it.

Noël & Darren