After nearly two decades of city-hopping and chronic wanderlust, 2026 has become my year of grounding. It is the great turning point after my nomadic years—the mental and physical blueprint of building a true home.
With a toddler already there and a baby on the way, it was time to honor this current chapter of our lives as a family, leaning into a growing desire for permanence, community, and radically dialing down the background noise.
At first glance, it sounds beautifully simple—the classic Simple Life. Yet, transitioning here has been a wilder adventure than any cross-metropolis move. I constantly found myself questioning: Can I actually sustain this level of stillness? What will echo inside me once the restlessness fades and I finally stop running? Who even am I in this new ecosystem?
Honestly, I’m surprised. I’ve been uncovering fragments of myself I thought were long gone. Like an archaeologist, I’m excavating pieces of a small-town childhood—memories of deep-rooted neighborhoods and local rituals. Eating strawberries straight from the patch, weeding the soil, collecting autumn leaves. Weekends entirely unscheduled, leaving room for organic encounters with people who feel like (and sometimes actually are) lifelong familiars.
I’ve found joy in curating a space without the looming expiration date of a temporary lease. It’s a process rooted in slowness and intentional decision-making. It’s choosing materials, textures, and designs that aren’t just fleeting, fast-trend infatuations, but pieces meant to age with me. And somewhere in that deliberate pace, the inspiration arrived: a genuine craving to reclaim my creative practice.
