The window seat
A chance to appreciate why you live where you do.
Welcome to The Pause, dear friend. Come on in and make yourself comfortable.
It’s been a wonderful couple of weeks, and I find myself even more grateful for this space than before. Thank you to those of you who just recently joined and, also, for those of you who have been around. It’s not lost on me how precious your inbox space is, and I appreciate that we get to do this together every couple of weeks.
Today we’re gonna take a moment to refresh our memories as to why we live where we do.
Settle in, take a deep breath, and get ready to pause in 3…2…1…
💺 The Window Seat
Kev, Jazzy and I are currently on our way to Maui for a week of rest and relaxation, and I'm getting to write to you from one of my favorite places: the window-seat.
I love the wisdom the window seat gives me—physically championing the reminder to zoom out and appreciate the vast nature of life in order to unlock a refreshed perspective—and this morning’s experience was no different.
As we were ascending towards Kahului, I had three minutes to take-in San Francisco from a bird's eye view, and it left me feeling grounded, grateful, and in awe.
The take-off from Oakland to Kahului is semi-sacred to me, and—while it may be questionable to enjoy this flight path as much as I do—there is an undeniable perspective shift that happens in the thirty seconds after the wheels have left the tarmac of OAK to the moment I make it over the Pacific and have reached 10,000 feet:
San Francisco—the city I live in, love in, have to-do lists in, get pissed off in, and experience the majority of my life in—transforms from the sometimes-exhausting place I inhabit to the breathtaking place I get to call home.
If you live in SF, you’re familiar with this feeling.
One minute we’re thanking our lucky stars we get to witness the magnificence of the Golden Gate against the Marin headlands and the next we’re disparaging our choice to live in San Francisco versus just about any other place in the world.
The local politics piss us off. A small drip coffee costing $8 pisses us off. The struggle to feel safe while walking down the street pisses us off.
But—just when we’re about ready to throw in the towel and leave—we eat at a restaurant that blows our mind. We attend a quirky event that leaves us mesmerized and curious for more. Or we lock eyes with that damn Golden Gate Bridge, and we find ourselves falling in love all over again.
Today, the window seat reminded me that—even if the day to day reality of living there can feel like a slog—I am honored and in love with the fact that I get to call SF home, and that isn’t something to lose sight of. It’s something to cherish. To remember. To purposefully thwart hedonic adaptation for.
So today, take a moment to refresh your memory as to why you choose to live where you do. What is it about this place you get to call home that keeps you grounded and grateful? What about it makes you fall in love with it again and again?
⏸ Pause & Reconnect
**Get curious. Have fun. There are no right or wrong answers; just what’s true for you.**
Why do you live where you do?
What about this place do you love?
How does choosing to live in this place make you a better person?
Enjoy these next couple of weeks, my friends. Sending you love and hoping home feels a little extra special today.
Until next time. 🖤
~ L
P.S. It’s been a couple of days since we arrived in Maui, so I will leave you with this pic of the sunrise yesterday:
The world really is too good. 💛
This topic really hit home for me! Thank you Linds!