I’M SITTING at the kitchen table in the hills of Northern California, starting the day. It’s pleasant: the aged hardwood tabletop, the subtle scent of white roses and earthy eucalyptus emanating from the bouquet, and the mist outside the window — a calming azure blue spread throughout the hills.

I’m staying with my girlfriend at her grandma’s house, as right now, I don’t really have a place of my own. I’m okay with that. I find warmth in myself, comfort in the things I carry from place to place.

My girlfriend and I have both been on the move for some time. How long either of us can last like this, we don’t know. But it sure is beautiful here—both in these peaceful, chilly hills, and in this season of life.

I write about the hardwood table and the home’s European decor, and I’m satisfied. Why? Well, because while I don’t exactly know what I’m doing (who does?), this is what I do.

I write about these experiences, and I feel more connected to something; maybe it’s an anchor, my source, this process that guides me. I assimilate my surroundings and they stir my soul, and these two forces — without and within — alchemize into something else, something new, as if the surroundings hadn’t been truly seen, and this energy, this voice, this essence longs for nothing more than to see.

I move through the world and what I perceive, do, and feel becomes my story. Because I give my words a heartbeat, they weave into the grander narrative in ways I can’t foresee or expect or possibly ever know. But in ways both infinitesimal and boundless, they inspire change. Color. Thought. Smiles.

And that’s the story of us.

We aren’t supposed to know exactly what we’re doing with our lives. Yet the story of us is crafted with every experience we have, good or bad, extraordinary or mundane, it’s all the same. It all matters.

I say I’ll be happy writing about anything, from anywhere. Because really, the adventure is inside of us, not out there. So it doesn’t matter what it is or where I am. I’m alive, going through this human experience, which means there will always be a story.

On the table sits my lukewarm coffee in a mug from Portugal, one of many in the cupboard that’s covered in intricate Portuguese tile patterns.

In one room there’s a taxidermy jaguar rug with a legend to boot, as my girlfriend’s grandfather supposedly shot the jaguar in Brazil while defending his friend.

In the hallway is one of those shadowed and golden tempera paintings of Madonna and baby Jesus that you’d find in a church. I don’t really stop to inspect it. It’s just there, like all the other paintings and mementos, and I accept that it’s part of this place I hardly know, a place with history, a soul, quirks and creaks; I amble through and I do whatever it is I do — with each day that passes, perhaps I give it a bit of life.

We open up the drapes to let the sunlight in. Dust some windowpanes and run the water through the pipes. Boil coffee on the stove, and throw the ball for the dog to catch in the yard outside.

Seems pretty good to me.

We can wish to be happier, and that things were different. Or, we can accept that this is our tale, and that each experience had, question asked and chance taken is the material of a unique existence.

Maybe one day looking back, we’ll be grateful for the things we couldn’t understand, as they caused us to grow. That’s hard to grasp while amidst the uncertainty, that things right now are meant to be, that we’re on our path, and there’s a plan in store.

We couldn’t get there without being here, wherever here is.

But if we could make that effort and glimpse the bigger picture, perhaps we would find what beauty we could find amidst these trying, strange, imperfect times.

Beauty is everywhere. It’s in the hardwood table and the wandering hours and the misty shamrock hills of the coast. It’s in the dog’s drool and the dusty pages of the books on the shelf and the comforting words of a friend.

It’s in the tears that fall from my eyes quite often, grappling with these pangs of life. I feel them deeply. I have my spiritual practice, training my mind and body every day to relax, let go, and surrender.

And man, it’s difficult to not let everything weigh on me like molasses. Yet I overcome my fears by writing, or better yet by talking them through, and the weight of the world lessens.

We’re all just doing our best. This is the good stuff anyway, the times we’ll look back on with a smile, when we had no clue how things were gonna go. Because the walls, a roof, the comfort and the things that make a home of our own will one day come.

Perhaps then, I’ll miss the unique opportunities that come with wandering, like being here now, where it feels I’m meant to be. No matter what happens, everything is gonna be okay.

It doesn’t always feel that way, but it’s true. Everything has always been okay. Everything will always be okay. We’re alive. We’re here.

It won’t always be easy, but whatever we’re going through now will one day be a memory. We will make it. So I sit at the table. And I listen to the crows. The adventure is within me; so I work on my craft with nowhere to go.