“I don’t want wellness practices that teach me to be at peace with an inequitable world. I need practices that help me to stay sane while doing my part to fight against it. If it makes you compliant to injustice, it’s not healing — it’s sedation.”
- Michell C. Clark
It’s hard to say exactly how this website came into being, but the above quote captures a big part of the sentiment behind it.
I deeply value beauty: Noticing it, celebrating it, marveling at the magic of the world around us. The flower growing from the crack in the pavement or blossoming in harsh alpine terrain. The streaks of color that delight and astound as they unfurl across the sky every morning and evening. Landscapes that bring a hush to my soul. The ebb and flow of the sea. The way we are made up of the same elements as the ancient rocks that form mountains and the stars blazing in the sky and the arterial-like rivers that crisscross the world with their life-giving flow. I am deeply moved by the lessons and inspirations that can be drawn from paying attention to the rhythms of Nature and this blue and green gem of a planet that continues to nourish and hold us, despite persistent ill-treatment from (certain groups of) humanity.
And, simultaneously, I’m deeply aware of the social, political, and ecological injustices that scar our local, national, and global existence. They are too numerous to name and are constantly scrolling through my newsfeed, my brain, and my heart. Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine. Deportations, social fragmentation, the rise of facism and authoritarianism. The Rio Grande running dry in Albuquerque and the Colorado River running dry before reaching the Gulf of California. The dying Salish Sea resident orca. Newly permitted mines and oil and gas development that could further devastate salmon runs. Weaponized xenophobia and transphobia. Reduced snowpack. The persistent capture of governance institutions by corporations and so-called “monied elites.” The (literal) white-knuckled grip on a story of the United States that will only allow for our “greatness” and does not grapple with the grievous destruction that we historically have and presently are actively leading.
Holding the tensions of these twin realities — the world is beautiful and the world is terrible — feels like the work of all people who seek to be authentically present in life. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that there is no way to “square the circle” of these contradictions in life. The beauty is there. The injustice is there. To witness one without the other feels like a half-truth. The darkness is dark, but there is also light. The magic pulsates all around us, but there is also grief and rage and despair. Monarch butterflies make a transnational migration journey over the course of 3-4 generations (magical fact); Monarch butterflies are teetering on extinction due to human-induced climate change (terrible fact).
It’s easy to say all of this, but harder to live it out. I have found it increasingly difficult to hold these tensions as life goes on. The injustices feel more acute and dire. The beauty is there, but it’s being threatened. Taking time to rest and be at peace can feel like opting out of the fight for justice. Yet, if we don’t rest and find spaces for ease and unburdening, we will eventually burn out. As this tension increases, I believe our practices of wellness will also need to increase.
Photography is one of my ways to “stay sane” while continuing to push back against injustice in my sphere of influence. So is writing. So is moving my body — hiking and trekking, running and walking, yoga and barre and swimming. So is snuggling my dog and going to farmer’s markets and drinking fancy cocktails with friends just for the hell of it. So is going on trips. So is prioritizing both time with chosen family and friends and time spent alone. Many of these things are products of the privilege I hold in my middle-class, able-bodied, cisgender, white woman body. I have spent most of my life learning to recognize that privilege and recognize that it is not just okay, but necessary, for me to do the things that keep me sane and grounded. Not in order to run away from the darkness of reality, but to intentionally equip myself to face that darkness with more courage, groundedness, and inner peace.
When I was in a particularly low spot at the beginning of 2025, I decided to undertake what was a massive project for me: Organizing more than 10 years of photos and cataloguing them in a place that was not social media. I’ve significantly reduced participation on such platforms over the last few years, but still love the practice of having a photographic and written record. My initial idea was to create a virtual oasis that could help remind me of the beautiful places I’ve seen, experiences I’ve had, and evolutions I’ve undergone as a person. It was also a way to sharpen a sense of purpose around my photography, giving my photos a chance to end up somewhere other than gathering dust on a hard drive in my closet, and thus challenging me to pay closer attention and push myself to grow my talent and skill.
And so, here we are. This is the product of months of combing through said hard drives and re-familiarizing myself with photo editing software. It is also the product of me choosing to prioritize play, creativity, and an imperfect aesthetic rather than holding myself to strict requirements around photo quality.
For example, there is a mixture of cell phone pictures and camera pictures in many of the posts. I have slowly taught myself photography and editing over the last decade. Sometimes, I’m proud of the images I’ve taken; other times, I’ve completely botched it. I’ve gone on trips where my camera had a setting turned on that gave all the photos a pink tinge that took forever to mostly-but-not-all-the-way edit out. I’ve had my ISO set way too high and mourned the grainy images that I sifted through afterwards. I’ve even discovered one trip to a harder-to-reach National Park where I appear to have lost every image I took.
The point is, this virtual space is also an emphatic pushback against the unobtainability of “perfection” from my photography, my writing, and the way I show up in the world. This has also been a good reminder about how living life is a practice, one in which we evolve with time. This evolution should not just be expected but celebrated.
If you made it this far, congratulations, thanks, and welcome.
There are two main sections I’ve created so far: National Parks and International. The first has been a fun way to memorialize and track a goal that J & I created back when we were dating: To visit every single US National Park together. The second gives me a place to remember day-by-day breakdowns of the treks we’ve gone on, countries we’ve seen, and all the ways that we’ve been changed by getting outside of the self-aggrandizing bubble that is the United States of America.
In addition to being a love letter to all the places I’ve had the opportunity to see, I hope this expression of my “practices of sanity” might be a small invitation to those who want and need one. A invitation to find your own routines and habits that keep you grounded, keep you moving, and keep you sane in a world that does everything to distract us from paying attention, being present, resisting injustice, and envisioning a future that has the opportunity to be better and different and more just. This is, I believe, one small but key way for us to build a sustainable, long-term movement where beauty, belonging, and possibility (my version of “hope” these days) are North Stars guiding us through uncharted waters.
May these practices sustain us today and provide inspiration for the future we long to see.
After all my chit-chat about not being on social media, I confess: I do still have an Instagram account linked below. It serves as a reponsitory for snapshots from daily life and trips we’ve gone on that I won’t necessarily add to this site.
It is irregularly maintained, but adding it here to bring these different photographic platforms together in one place.
