I spent almost all day outside co-regulating with nature, allowing it to bring me back to the moment each time I got distracted by my mind's monologue — problems it wanted to solve and memories it wanted to ruminate on.

Each time I got “lost in trance” (for me, typically, a trance of “something is wrong” which slides very swifly into “somethng is wrong with me”), the shining green of Maple and Madrone brought me back. Each time I drifted from my body, Ant and Wren called me home to presence.

A visit with good friends, a dip in the cold salt water, a spin by my favorite shaggy sheep, and I was home to the home you helped me create to make dinner at sunset. I decided to eat out on my porch at twilight, enjoying the last of this first unequivocally summery day on the island, After sitting for a few minutes — you guessed — lost in thought, I looked up from my dish to see an gorgeous owl sitting in a Bigleaf Maple 20 or 30 feet from me, exactly at my eye level.

This is to say thank you.

I could have so easily overlooked it. If I had stayed inside, in front of a screen. If I had skipped dinner completely. If I’d been sitting facing west to watch the sunset behind the Olympics. But I'd sat east-facing, with the moon to my back, at the very moment and in the very place to see this mystical creature. Owl turned its head side to side, getting ready to hunt, I supposed. Its dark eyes like marbles in its white face, body still and ready.

It spent five or six minutes with me, then spread its surprisingly wide wings and dipped down into the ravine toward the beach.

There’s a freaky symbolism to this Owl encounter on this specific day that I won’t go into right now, except this:

When we pause, we change the world.

When we notice, we change the future.

This is a letter to say thank you, so why am I telling you all this? “Can’t you just say what you mean, Julia?!” This is what I mean:

You are the reason my life is so magical. You are the reason I got here. You are the reason I am living this dream.

You paused, and you saw me. You noticed. You read an email or text or Telegram message from me, maybe you watched an Instagram video or maybe you heard about my life from someone else and you paused what you were doing to give to me.

You changed my life. You changed my future. You sent me money, you bought me gifts, you let me sleep in your house or watch your dog or store my stuff in your basement forever. You gave me work. You let me sob in the back seat of your car and played beautiful songs for me. You invited me to parties and hugged me even when I was mean to you. You were there when I was at my most scared, my most unsure how I would go on.

And I can truly say that no matter what happens for me, I will always be sure I can go on.

The brilliant crescent moon is sliding her way into the corner of my window as I write to you, reminding me that when everything else fades, I will still be shining in the light of your love. My family, chosen and blood; my community; my friends; my loved ones. My beloveds.