So much can happen in a day. Two people can go from being two independent folks to being a family of three in a quick minute.

That’s what happened to my parents 26 years ago today. They drove across the stuck traffic of L.A. so I could be born in the hospital where all the movie stars go to die.

Today I woke from a good sleep and enjoyed a calm morning to myself. I read the great words of Jim Harrison and tried to write some of my own. I made homemade ice cream. I went for a couple hour solo paddle and came back to make a great meal with ingredients from our garden. I had time to pause and think. To move slow and reflect.

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A year ago I woke alone on a cliff above the Dubawnt River, a couple hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories. I took my time with coffee and a fresh cinnamon roll and wrote a poem. Then me and my boys paddled some 20 miles. Life was good and simple.

Today life was good and simple too, just in a different place with different fare. When I paddled today, I had to snake under the freeway before hitting the quiet, but I used the same muscles and the same still place at my center.

I’ve spent the majority of my birthdays in the far north, on canoe trips, in the woods…away from busy-ness and people. Today was my first ever birthday in Seattle—even though I grew up here—and it was a good one. For me, birthdays have never been about presents, but presence. I got both today, with my boy River in my arms and a good chance to be centered in this place I’m from. Life. Is. Good.