Interstate-10 was within earshot of my childhood home. The road cut through our town and past my neighborhood. I-10 connected the East Coast with West Coast of the United States. It was made of concrete slabs pieced together like a puzzle that created a 2000 mile path across the country. Connecting Florida to California and the Atlantic with the Pacific. At night through an open bedroom window, I could hear individual cars and semi trucks as they rolled past our quiet corner of the country. There was a cadence to the sound of the tires as they crossed over the lines in the road. In the stillness of the night, in that beautiful part of the country, you could hear one truck for miles, as it sailed by rolling over line after line after line, until it could be heard no more. The lonesome trucks rolled by like ships in the night whispering of adventure and possibility and the open road. Lying there in my room all those years ago, I wondered if I’d make it all the way to California one day. I’m typing this from my home here in England, where Ivy meets Palm. Life is what happens while you’re planning. I couldn’t have imagined the path I would travel from my little bedroom in the Panhandle of Florida. We owned no passports. California seemed to be the end of the road. Sometimes our plans get in the way of our lives. The well is deep but the buckets we bring to it can be shallow. If curiosity whispers, turn your head. It might lead you across the street, the country or across an ocean. If your heart beats faster, follow the path. If you question what’s on the other side, climb over the fence. It won’t always be easy, nothing worthwhile ever is. It won’t be perfect. Perfect doesn’t exist. But it will be true and what could be better than living the truest version of you?
Ivy and Palm 