Not There--Here

The first blog post-whoo! That's a big deal, right? No pressure. I mean, AI could do it now, but that feels disgusting and cheap and wrong, and completely against the point. The only problem is...I don't entirely know what this first post should be about. I guess I'll start with the basics.

Joy Et Mare has been in the works for...well, I don't even know how long. I truly believe the universe has been conspiring to make this happen for longer than Brittany and I can possibly realize. When did all the miniscule gears start turning to put the machinery into motion for this to happen? When Brittany studied abroad in England and sparked a love of travel that would lead to her hiking the Camino de Santiago, where she would meet an Australian she would later move to live with, where she didn't know many people and found a community in her local yoga studio, uncovering a passion for the practice, and eventually becoming an instructor herself? When I bumped into a guy at my hometown's summer festival, who would end up marrying me and buying me my first camera before breaking my heart and turning me into a single mother who stumbled into boudoir photography in a tiny community, and built it into something so much bigger than that? How far back can we really trace this? Years? A decade? Two?

It's wild to think about it. All these tiny, perfect, seemingly unrelated events led to two sisters living across the planet from each other, but creating something that spans the distance. I wouldn't have ever guessed what would come from my childhood obsession with Polaroids, from Brittany's natural ability to befriend the world around her. How could we have known that someday, we would be planning our first retreat(s) in Bali? That our women's retreat would sell out in a matter of days?

I guess that's what this first blog post is. It's an introduction, and a reminder to myself, to you, to everyone, that this venture is the universe conspiring in a million tiny ways to create this magic. It isn't a whim, or "just" an idea we had--it's the universe's hand nudging us away from the things that aren't right, even when we didn't know it. "Not there, here. There isn't meant for you. There isn't big enough. Here. Here is the next part of your journey. Here is the beautiful next thing I've been guiding you to create. All the times you felt alone, abandoned, the grief and the uncertainty and the not knowing...it was all a part of making this."

I feel lucky. I feel excited. I really believe that you always find the way that's meant for you, if you don't stop your journey. I think there's so much magic in living that is just waiting for us to discover it every day.