Where I've Been
(and where this is going)
If you’ve been wondering why things have gone quiet here over the past few months…
there’s a simple answer.
I’ve been in the classroom.
Five classes a day.
Three lesson plans, every day.
Teaching, grading, adjusting, trying again.
There’s a kind of full-body presence required for that work that doesn’t leave much space for writing. And if I’m honest, I didn’t want to write about this experience while I was still in the middle of learning how to live it.
So I went quiet here…
so I could be fully present there.
But something happened recently that made me realize it’s time to start writing again.
And to do that, I need to go back a bit further than I have before.
A Tale of Two Launches
I used to think my story began when I left engineering to become a teacher.
But that’s not actually where it started.
It started in a NASA boardroom.
Sitting in Washington, D.C., being briefed on the Artemis mission.
The kind of work I had spent my entire career preparing for.
It should have felt like the pinnacle.
But underneath it, there was a quiet question:
Who are we doing this for, really?
Not long after, I watched a Delta Heavy rocket launch from a couple miles away.
The force of it was overwhelming, you could feel it in your chest, your bones.
And looking back now, I think that was the moment something shifted.
I could feel the energy of the rocket clearly…
but I had lost touch with where my own energy was going.
That experience stands in contrast to something much simpler.
A while ago, I woke up at 3am during a lunar eclipse.
I set up a recliner in my backyard and watched the Earth’s shadow slowly move across the moon.
Quiet. Still. Full of wonder.
The next day, I brought that moment into the classroom and asked my students a simple question:
Where is outer space?
Most said “up.”
A few said “above the Kármán line.”
I told them:
We’re already in outer space, riding it out in the most incredible spaceship imaginable.
That moment felt alive in a way the rocket launch didn’t.
And that difference has stayed with me.
The Moment That Brought It Together
This past weekend, I attended a songwriting workshop with Carrie Newcomer.
About twenty people.
Three hours of her sharing how she writes and sees the world.
I sat down, opened my “special occasion” notebook,
the one that’s supposed to hold my journey, but has turned into a bit of a mess.
And when I flipped it open…
I landed on the page.
The first, and only, poem I’ve ever written and shared.
At the break, I had the chance to share it with her.
I tried to read it out loud… but couldn’t get through it.
Too much emotion.
So she read it herself, to our table.
There’s something hard to explain about that moment.
Hearing someone read back to you
a piece of yourself that they unknowingly helped bring into existence…
It felt like a loop closing.
Or maybe opening.
What I’m Starting to Understand
For a long time, I thought purpose was something you found
in a big moment.
A launch.
A title.
A milestone.
But what I’m starting to see is something different.
The big moments can feel hollow
if they’re not aligned with what you actually care about.
And the small moments,
a conversation, a question, a classroom, a quiet night under the sky,
can feel deeply meaningful when they are.
The difference between those two experiences isn’t the scale. It’s the alignment.
What This Space Will Be
So as I return to writing here when the final bell of the school year rings, this is what I want this space to become:
Not a highlight reel.
Not polished conclusions.
But an ongoing exploration of:
What is mine to do?
How to live with attention instead of autopilot
What it looks like to walk toward suffering, not away from it
And how small, intentional moments can shape a life more than big external achievements
I don’t have clean answers.
But I’m starting to trust the process a bit more.
To pay attention to what feels quietly alive…
and to follow that.




I've remembered what awe feels like these past few weeks: Artemis, Project Hail Mary, Reid Wiseman's mobile phone video of the Earthset...it's helping me remember what alignment feels like, almost like a compass pointing me to my True North. Looking forward to reading more from you when the holidays are here.
Love the …. we are in the universe / part of it … 🤩