Presence
Borrowed Attention
For an hour at Lake Elmo Park Reserve, I let someone else decide what was worth seeing. Some of my favorite photographs from that evening began with a simple invitation: "Show me what you notice."
Field Notes
Notes from the Field
Essays organized by theme, not date. Read in any order. Follow what pulls you.
Presence
The Purpose of Regret
Living in regret without reflection or forward motion rarely moves us toward the life we're trying to build. But looking back has its place — if we know why we're looking.
Presence
Between Awake and Asleep
I've noticed a lot of us, myself included, have become increasingly uncomfortable with silence. There's always another headline to read, another opinion to consider, another notification begging for our attention. Some of my most honest reflections don't happen while I'm working or scrolling through the day. They happen when everything else finally quiets down.
Presence
Holding Your Cards
For nearly twenty years, I wrote songs that very few people ever heard. Then one evening in downtown Stillwater, playing outside for the first time in almost two decades, I stopped watching myself and started watching life happen around me.
Craft
The Truth Beneath the Story
No Saint began with a story that wasn't mine. As I sat with it longer, I realized I wasn't interested in writing about the event itself — I was interested in the human experience beneath it. That's usually where my songs begin.