Oh, my friends. Amazing, heart-filling news.

This riverside path has helped to heal me. Slowly, literally step by step, for almost two years that I’ve walked it nearly every day with my travel mug of coffee… watched the waters flow and the leaves turn and the birds visit from the window of my first tiny apartment… filled the walls of my new home with photos I’ve taken of its seasons and moods.

Turns out, this path is created and protected by the Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust. A couple weeks ago, I joined them for a birdwatching expedition, and fell into conversation with their inspiring executive director. One thing led to another and then…

Yesterday we officially signed a consulting agreement. For the next few months, I’ll get to spend a few hours a week helping to shape the fundraising campaigns and organizational infrastructure that make my beautiful, beloved coffeewalk available to everyone, forever – along with other places I have yet to explore, as part of the whole watershed we belong to.

That’s three consulting clients now, and each one means so much to me. It’s an incredible honor to be entrusted with helping to build the future of these teams, especially since our work together is explicitly anchored in ensuring that we center racial and social justice in our fundraising and everything it supports.

So I won’t say that this one’s my favorite. But it does astonish me and fill me with gratitude for this wild, scary, wonderful journey I’ve been on.

My coffeewalk has been such a huge part of finding the intention and the courage within my heart to even dream this small, beautiful life I’m living now. The fact that it’s now helping to sustain my choice as I do my best to sustain it in return… it’s pure magic. It’s beyond any plot twist I could ever have written.

And yeah, I know that to some extent I’ve made my own luck. But I’ve been incredibly lucky to be able to do that, y’know? I will never, never take this for granted.

Onwards, onwards, onwards. With love and gratitude.