I didn’t want to get up this morning (it’s becomming a trend …)

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When my alarm went off at 5:45 AM I seriously considered turning it off and going back to bed. But then I remembered - it’s Sunday, and I won’t get another chance to be here until Thursday. Also, the weekends are my only time to hang out and write at my favorite coffee shop.

I can’t say I was motiviated (I wasn’t), but I got up.

It was more like obligation than motivation. I knew if I didn’t get my butt up, I would just delay the inevitable - and without a sunrise to make it just a little bit bearable. The articles still need to be written, the notes still need to be scheduled, and the Roundtable still needs to be promoted. Those things don’t go away just because I skip the sunrise.

So I rose.

And WOW, what a difference two hours makes! In that two hours, I walked three miles, saw a nest of baby turtles make their way out to sea (seriously - at least 50!), and saw a mama turtle too. I recorded two podcasts and transcribed the first draft of this week’s Monday Spark. I also had a lot of time to just THINK in SILENCE.

And now here I am, sitting in my favorite little coffee shop. The obligation of this small Substack world I’ve created still weighs on me, but it feels a little lighter. I know I’m taking myself in the right direction and I’m excited about it.

Want More?

• Sunrise Scribbles #27: Back to School

• Sunrise Scribbles #26: The Pain of Patience

• Sunrise Scribbles #25: Showing Up

Join me on my morning walk, where I think about Scotland, growing up, birthday mom guilt, and the strange experience of returning to a place from your past with an entirely different life.

This is Sunrise Scribbles, a podcast where I think out loud, ask honest questions, and figure life out one sunrise at a time.

I finally made it back out to see the sunrise this morning.

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School started this week, and routines got turned inside out. I have to take my daughter to the bus stop at 7 AM, which doesn’t allow enough time for sunrise visits anymore.

I’m disappointed, but I’m proud of myself for adjusting well.

Instead of going to see the sunrise, I’ve started taking walks around the lake after dropping her off. It’s not the same, but it’s a nice substitute. I also get to listen to podcasts and books, something that I had set aside for the summer.

In some ways, it feels good to be back to my routine. It’s like coming home.

And the sunrise isn’t gone. It’s just waiting for me on the days that I can come.

Today was one of those days.

Want More?

• Sunrise Scribbles #26: The Pain of Patience

• Sunrise Scribbles #25: Showing Up

• Sunrise Scribbles #24: I Got You

I’m impatient today. I admit it.

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I’m enjoying walking on the beach and pondering over all of my thoughts, but inside I’m itching to get to my little café and write.

Some days are like that, I suppose.

All the beauty in the world, and all I want to do is go sit at my table and work.

I’m buzzing because I created a new little product yesterday, and I’m super proud of it. I can’t wait to get it out into the world.

I don’t know about you, but when I create something that I’m proud of, I can’t stop. I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop working on it, refining it, perfecting it, and most importantly, I can’t stop wanting to release it.

So this is where patience comes in.

Walking the beach is forcing me to practice patience — like it or not. The sun’s going to come up in its good old time. In fact, it looks like it might be a little bit later today because there are pretty big clouds in the sky.

And my product’s not ready to be released until beta testing is finished, so I need to sit back and have patience and wait.

And patience is something that I have never been good at… sigh.

Join me on my morning walk, where I think about what happens when we stop treating productivity as constant upward movement and start making room for the natural cycles of expansion, contraction, activation, and rest.

This is Sunrise Scribbles, a podcast where I think out loud, ask honest questions, and figure life out one sunrise at a time.

It’s incredible what a little saltly air can do.

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I woke up this morning feeling terrible. My body ached from hours put in on the computer this week, and on top of that, my head was throbbing.

But school starts this week, and my sunrise opportunities will be limited, so I dragged myself out of bed and came to the beach anyway.

The second I stepped out of the car in the parking lot, I was hit by a thick, salty breeze.

And I smiled.

Then I walked.

I walked in silence, listening to the ocean waves. I didn’t take out my phone. I didn’t journal. I didn’t podcast. I didn’t even take many videos.

I just walked.

I let the thoughts tumble out of me, one by one, nowhere to land except thin air.

But that was enough today.

An hour walking on the beach, watching the slowest sunrise ever (one that never even truly materialized) was all it took. My headache is gone, my spirits are restored, and now I’m sitting at my favorite little café, ready to put in the reps.

It’s going to be a good day.

If you have the time, check out the video. You don’t want to miss this one!

It’s amazing what a good sunrise can do for you …

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I didn’t go yesterday, and had to drag myself out of bed today too. I made it, but mostly unwillingly.

And then the sky did something amazing. It welcomed me in with open arms and said

I’ve got you.

That was all I needed.

Now my mind is racing with ideas. I’m recharged and filled with energy to take on the next three months with abandon.

My next chapter is waiting, and I’m going to grab it!

I didn’t think I had anything to write this morning.

I felt empty.

And then I looked up and saw a little snack box my husband bought me for my birthday. And this story tumbled out…

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It’s not about the presents. It’s about presence.

Every year, my husband goes through a period of anxiety leading up to my birthday. He’s so stressed that it’s frustrating. He’s trying to buy me the perfect present.

The perfect presents, actually. Plural.

And on my birthday, he makes sure that I have a table full of wrapped gifts, flowers, usually some wine, and handmade gifts from the kids.

The presents, honestly, usually aren’t that great. Sometimes he hits it out of the ballpark, like the year he bought me the fire pit. But most of the time they are simple things that he thinks are cooler than I do. (Shhh... don’t tell him that.)

But it doesn’t matter.

Because the best part of my day is always knowing how much I am loved.

He makes sure that I’m never left out and that I always have a bounty awaiting me on my birthday.

That’s worth more than any present he could buy me.

Join me on my morning walk, where I reflect on a weekend spent checking off an endless to-do list, only to realize that what looked like “working all weekend” from the outside actually felt deeply fulfilling from the inside.

This is Sunrise Scribbles, a podcast where I think out loud, ask honest questions, and figure life out one sunrise at a time.

Courage is what you do before you feel ready. I say a variation of that a lot, and I believe it. Today, I put it into practice.

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I showed up for my first live stream.

I was nervous. In fact, I didn’t sleep well last night. The logical part of my brain knew that very few people would see it, so there was nothing to worry about.

And yet I did.

I worried that I’d miss my alarm and show up late. I worried that I’d disappoint people by not being there. I worried that it wouldn’t be good enough, whatever that means.

And then, almost comically, I realized that people would see me filming myself with my camera, and I worried what they would think: Would my little corner of the beach still love me if they knew I was creating content on the internet?

And yet I did it anyway.

On my birthday. Year 47: Day One.

I put one foot in front of the other and showed up on the beach and told my story.

It would have been ideal if it had been a perfect, beautiful sunrise, but it wasn’t. And maybe that’s okay, because it forced me out of my comfort zone just a little bit further. I couldn’t rely on the sun to tell the story for me. I had to do it myself.

I had to show the water, fill the empty space, and tell people that I didn’t know what I was doing.

And you know what?

It was okay.

I only had three people attend. One was my mom, one was a friend, and one was a stranger who I’m pretty sure was a scammer. But I did it. And better yet, I hit publish on the recording after it finished.

So let me be the example.

Follow me.

I’ll be brave first.

Your Move.

What’s the difference between enjoying yourself and enjoying your work?

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I thought I was writing a Sunrise Scribbles about that question this morning.

Instead, it led somewhere I wasn’t expecting.

So I hit pause.

Today, I’ll leave you with a beautiful sunrise instead.

It was a muted sunrise, which somehow seems fitting for a day that felt very much the same.

Join me on my morning walk, where a simple story about a birthday gift, a new microphone, and a misunderstanding leads me to question the difference between empathy and taking responsibility for other people’s emotions.

This is Sunrise Scribbles, a podcast where I think out loud, ask honest questions, and figure life out one sunrise at a time.

Yesterday, we went out on the boat again — our third time ever.

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As we pulled out of the marina, I thought back to the note my friend posted on Substack before our very first trip. She told me about her own first time on the water and how exciting it was.

And I thought to myself, this is where it’s at.

Beginning. Starting fresh. Knowing nothing.

It’s hard! You feel so incompetent, especially after spending years becoming really good at something else. We naturally want to stick with what we know because competence feels comfortable.

But those things we’re good at can also become routine. Normal. Maybe even a little boring. Yes, we’re good at them, but they don’t give us as much room to grow.

Then it hit me. It feels like a first kiss.

You never get back your very first kiss. And you never know when your last first kiss will be. It’s gone forever.

There will never be another first time I went out on the water.

There will never be another first time I left from our home marina.

There will never be another first time I went out on a Boston Whaler.

All of those firsts are fleeting, and most of the time I don’t even recognize them while they’re happening.

But when I do... it’s really something.

It’s almost magical to realize: I just had my first kiss with the water.

Good news. I didn’t run out of gas today.

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It was a real possibility. I left the house (a little late), and still functioning on autopilot, headed towards the beach. I quickly realized that my gas light was on.

I briefly considered turning around for gas.

And miss the sunrise? Negative. I kept going.

So yesterday, I wrote about meeting one of the two guys I talked about in Sunrise Scribbles #4: What’s His Story?

At that time, I had met the woman with the infectious smile and the guy making the flower creation. But the third person in that story was a guy who was picking up sargasm. I haven’t seen him since that day.

Guess what? Today I met the other guy!

I was returning from my walk, and there he was, picking up sargassum again!

And he just happened to be walking back to his car at the same time I was. As we stopped at the water to wash off the sand, we struck up a conversation.

He uses the sargassum as fertilizer!

He uses the organic material in his vegetable garden as mulch. During periods when the garden isn’t actively growing, he covers the beds with it to suppress weeds and nourish the soil. As the material breaks down, he tills it into the soil and adds more, continually replenishing the organic matter. (Full disclosure - I asked AI to summarize that for me … his was a long winded conversation! Luckily, I recorded it)

Anyway, meeting him was like this full-circle moment. I’m not sure what it means, but it feels like it means something.

I just hope it doesn’t mean that this little experiment is over 😳.

Join me on my morning walk, where I wrestle with what it means to outgrow a dream just as it starts to feel within reach.

This is Sunrise Scribbles, a podcast where I think out loud, ask honest questions, and figure life out one sunrise at a time.

My fourth Sunrise Scribbles was titled What’s His Story? It was about the people I saw at the beach who had stories waiting to be discovered.

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One of those stories was about a man bringing flowers to the beach.

That article was published about six weeks ago, and since then I’ve been watching his floral creation grow.

Well, yesterday I met that man.

Turns out he has an Instagram account. He comes out most days and improves his creation while taking pictures and videos that he posts to Instagram. And he’s gathered quite a following.

We chatted for a little while and then went our separate ways.

But the moment stuck with me.

It was like opening to a new chapter in a book I’m reading.

Each morning I walk this same stretch of land, the stories reveal themselves little by little.

I love this little library of stories I’m building here at the beach.

This morning I had a thought as I was walking along the beach.

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I was thinking about being on the boat. Watching the sunrise. Swimming at sunset. Paddleboarding in the morning.

It occurred to me that this is the life I used to look at other people living.

I’d see people riding their bikes, hiking, climbing mountains, boating, snorkeling, swimming, and I’d think, Why don’t we do that? Why can’t we get out there all the time?

Even as I write that, it doesn’t completely make sense because if I look back at my history, I’ve always been the person who gets out there and does things…. But it never felt like enough I guess.

It never felt like we were those people.

We did our thing, but they were different somehow. They lived the life I wanted to live. I always wondered what made them different.

And then I had this thought.

Have I become that person?

Because here I am walking at sunrise several days a week. Going out on the boat. Fishing. Paddleboarding.

My son has started mountain biking, and this weekend we talked about going together. I asked him if he’d “teach” me.

“Do you have a mountain bike?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well... I guess I could.”

He’ll love it.

Maybe I don’t have it all yet.

Maybe I’m not where I ultimately want to be. Maybe I’m still growing (I probably always will be).

But I am that person.

I have become the person I used to look at from a distance and wish I could be.

Not because one big thing changed. But because enough small things did.

And that feels really good.

Oh - and I saw a mama turtle this morning …

I have a friend visiting this week, and this morning was her last sunrise before heading to the airport.

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We stood on the beach watching the sun begin to peek through a blanket of clouds. It was too windy for paddleboarding, but simply being there was enough.

As we watched, I realized something.

I’ve always thought squeezing in an activity before a flight sounded stressful. Isn’t the last day supposed to be for sleeping in, packing, checking the room three times, and anxiously watching the clock?

But when I look back, my favorite travel memories tell a different story.

When I was in my twenties, I used to visit St. Thomas with my cousins. Their dad lived there, so we’d spend our days doing what island people do—driving Jeeps, riding boats, snorkeling, chasing the sun.

One trip stands out. We woke up before sunrise, spent the morning on the water, came back salty and sunburned, threw our bags in the car, and headed straight to the airport. I’m not even sure we showered.

To some people that probably sounds terrible.

To me, it sounds perfect.

I don’t remember the flight home. I don’t remember waiting at the gate or standing in security. I remember the saltwater, laughing, and feeling completely free.

Somewhere along the way, we decided vacations end when we wake up on departure day. But your vacation isn’t over until you’re gone.

Watch one more sunrise.

Take one last swim.

Walk the beach one final time.

You’ll never wish you’d spent more time sitting in your hotel room checking to make sure you packed your phone charger.

So if you have a trip coming up, here’s your permission slip:

Don’t end your vacation early.

The airport can wait.

Join me on my morning walk, where I think about what it means to turn 47.

This is the first episode of Sunrise Scribbles, a podcast where I think out loud, ask honest questions, and figure life out one sunrise at a time.