I signed up for Substack quite awhile ago… early enough to claim “/mellie,” anyway. I started subscribing (some paid; mostly free) as a means to access content that I found both entertaining and informative, depending on the account. Having largely stopped reading or watching the news in any form over the last few years, I find Substack to be a welcome reprieve from endless doom and gloom.

Especially as autumn encroaches and the available daylight diminishes.

Fall descending on Aspen Mountain (above) and Mount Sopris in Carbondale, Colorado (below).

I notice myself wanting to cocoon as the days get shorter… which is also difficult, because especially having chosen to move to and live in this valley for the last nearly-9 years, there’s ALWAYS something to do. I feel guilty when I let myself sleep or really rest... even though I know I shouldn’t. My dogs aren’t much help in the motivation department… once I get home from the commute upvalley where my son goes to school (and therefore where I work during the day until it’s time to go and retrieve him in the afternoon), it’s increasingly hard to venture back out into town.

Stucky’s easy lounging makes me want to take a nap, too.

I have thought about writing here for a long time now. But I fall into the trap of thinking I have nothing new or interesting to say.

Maybe that’s not the point?

Maybe I actually have TOO MUCH to say. Too much to niche down. Too much to “stay on track.” Too much for anyone to bother to care, because I can’t (okay, I won’t) distill everything into concise snippets of profound wisdom.

Or maybe that’s WHY I should write. Because I do love words. As much as I love images. And I’m so multilayered and multicolored that maybe someone will find it fascinating how I manage to juggle it all.

I’m a full-time single mom. No family nearby, and no partner or ex-partner to share custody or contribute child support. So I HAVE to be strong. I HAVE to be motivated. I HAVE to be hungry. And I am.

Besides being a kickass mom, I’m also a designer, a search engine marketer, a copywriter, an artist and illustrator, a photographer, a dancer, a rock climber, a paddleboarder, a skiier, a (learning) mountain biker, a hiker, a fitness coach, and an energy healer. Fit THAT into a box, will you?!

But stepping out and writing something that others may find means being really vulnerable. And as I mentioned before, it’s cocooning season (except when the ski slopes open!).

So, why now?

Let’s call it a nudge. Or a persistent nudge that I’ve been ignoring for years. A nudge that I finally started listening to yesterday when I renewed the domain for and re-activated my Frequency Gym website. When I spoke to the woman who runs our local dance company about offering an intuitive art + movement + energy work class in the community dance studio. When I decided to sit down and write something here, where my placeholder has been blank for so long.

I am afraid of the responsibility that comes from tiptoeing out like this. The expectations and entitlement of any audience that develops. Because I don’t have much “free time.” So, when I DO have “free time,” I prefer it be spent outside in these glorious mountains with which I’ve chosen to surround myself. I’d prefer to be hiking or paddling or just sitting in a hammock on our tiny porch watching the sunset during Golden Hour:

I’m very protective of my “me” time. And I need more “me” time than I get, already. Since I’m already working a full-time job plus a contract gig plus some freelance projects (all of which are currently necessary to pay the bills, especially as the cost of living and gas prices are still skyrocketing around herE), the last thing I want to do when I have the choice is sit at my computer some more, responding to emails and comments and giving my time away for free while chained to this box.

And some may call me selfish, but I call it self-preservation instead. No one else is supporting me. No one else is saving me. So it’s up to me to manage my body, mind, and soul so that I can not only sustain a life in a place that brings me so much joy even when I’m overextended, but expand that life.