I have spent the last two days reacquainting myself with parts of Mill Valley that I haven’t been to for a while and thinking about what my next steps are going to be. I can feel my anxiety increase at the thought of not having any definite plans for the foreseeable future. Wondering if I should be doing more, should I start to be a grown-up and look for a full-time job? But I know, not even deep down, just under the surface, that I’m not ready yet, and I have more I need to do to explore and learn what I could do in the future to support myself. I don’t want to let fear of the unknown drive me to the comfort of finding a job that I could do, but may not necessarily enjoy, or that is not going to help me expand my idea of who I am and what I can do.
I am very excited about the idea of reuse and consuming less, having less and the space and freedom that it brings. Having those two months in New Zealand without a car made me realize how at least in some areas it’s not an absolute necessity. And it makes me wonder here in the Bay Area what it would be like not having ready access to a car. Obviously, it would really depend on where I was living and working and since I love to get out and hike a lot that could be challenging, but I’ve never really spent much time looking at public transport options.
I took a walk out to Cascade Falls, which was running stronger than I think I’ve ever seen it due to all the rain. It’s such a beautiful walk, through the neighborhoods with all of the towering redwoods. I met a couple from Fairfield, who had decided to come to Mill Valley to do some walking and hiking, and were thrilled with how beautiful the area was. We chatted for a while, and I told them about the West Point Inn as a fantastic place to stay on the mountain, and how awesome it is to do the Dipsea trail. Though I guess Stinson Beach is currently closed due to all of the storm damage, so much sand has been swept out to the sea the beach has a lot of just clay now. I wonder how long (or if ever) it’s going to take to be restored.
On Monday night we had our weekly family zoom call. For the first time in a while everybody was on, which was such a treat, it’s so nice to have this regular way to catch up with everybody’s lives. Even though we all live within a 2 hour drive of each other, we aren’t able to get together as a family very often, especially those of us who have been traveling!
On Tuesday I had to be out of the house for a little bit, so headed to Philz to treat myself and settled into one of their comfy couches to do some journaling and other work. I managed to sort out all the photos from the National Park trip my sister and I took earlier in the year so I could put them together in a photo book. Sitting nearby was someone pitching their start-up to a potential funder. It was fascinating hearing their conversation – the information that was imparted, the questions that were asked, how much money they were looking for – 15 million! I wonder what it must be like to work for a venture capital firm and potentially give out millions of dollars to companies trying to create some new innovation. I think it was some kind of vaccine delivery system they were creating. Afterwards I headed over to Horse Hill, an area that I biked past hundreds of times when I was a kid, but I don’t think I ever hiked up into it. Being another sunny, cloudless crisp day, it was a beautiful spot to walk to with views of Mount Tam and San Francisco.
The hike really invigorated me. I ended up helping Mom put away Christmas decorations, and then later started working on my National Park photo book. I had planned to only do it for an hour or two after dinner, but was so engrossed that before I knew it, it was almost midnight – that is extremely late for me to be up!
I also spent time doing my twice a year switching out of seasonal clothes, since I didn’t have any need for winter clothes when I was in New Zealand it’s later than I normally would make the change. I found several things I realized I just didn’t want or need anymore and the same thing when it came to putting away my warmer weather clothes. It’s so much easier to let go of things when you haven’t used them in a while. I think doing the 30 day minimalist challenge last year really helped. I got rid of so many things and can’t even remember what they are now, there’s literally never been a time in the many months since I did the challenge where I think ‘Oh man, I wish I still had XYZ.’