"Attention everyone. Hi, hello. Flight 2555 is now departing at....10:30."
A collective groan rose in volume.
"And we have no information on connections."
"Uh yeah, I'll take the flight tomorrow," I told the agent on the phone.
I'd meant to be sending this a week ago, from a hotel room in Toronto, but well, weather had other plans. Then it was coming a week later than intended from Hell's Kitchen, NYC. Now, it's straight from the desert. Such is life. Kudos to a mom who still had time for repeat airport rides before teaching first-year law students.
I decided a glass half full approach would be best - an extra day with Lou, painting planning, and rethinking the outfit I'd packed for a panel presentation at the Animal Law and Advocacy Conference.
Louie ironically spent most of it snoozing by the window in my office as I did battle with my small gardening shears.
If you'd walked around the back patio, there would be no clear sign of anything amiss. You'd see lush green growth and possibly stop to admire a few flowers popping off from the recent rains.
But behind all of that lay an absolutely chaotic mess of dead Carolina jessamine vine bits (FYI: the garden store lies: they do not like full Arizona sun) and bignonia tangles. All dead. Like, crispy dead. The dryness of each thin twist of old vine snapping with hardly any pressure. It was time to go to work. More on that in a bit.
September was quiet and really full.
An APS officer and a really good man took his own life and the world got starker overnight.
A few days later, my investigator asked if I could put together something for the last radio call. I felt grateful for the honor and absolutely terrified I didn't have enough footage. Of course I didn't. We weren't far enough along yet.
"Dammit, Martin." I stared at my Premiere timeline.
I ultimately made a compilation which was received with tears and hugs. A few laugh-cries intermixed.
I keep thinking about the responsibility we have to one another, and how much of someone's life we may never see.
"Gracious. How's your mental health lately?" a friend asked after I told her the update.
"Well with that, I felt oddly equipped since I've been through that before and I thrive in the dark. But I also feel a great responsibility to explore and tell these stories as well and deeply as I can. It's been a weird month for sure, and a challenging year..but mostly b/c I decided to take bigger risks, to really choose myself on all fronts and live in a new level of uncertainty I haven't experienced yet." I said, a little surprised at my own candor.
"Whew. Tell me what the view is like from up there. That sounds amazing and terrifying," she replied.
Amazing and terrifying, indeed.
It feels strange to add but I engaged legal services for The ARK production and got some necessary questions answered. It was a big moment for me to sort, but I did it, and felt much-needed relief when I read the last line of an email after sharing content for clearance.
"Keep doing what you're doing, keep up the good fight."
That was all I needed to hear.
But, what is the good fight?
I think it's a mix.
It's doing work that feels meaningful without losing sight of the people at the center of it.
It's belief in a story that is evolving over time.
It's belief in building a world of watercolor bears and their witticisms, without knowing who might need to hear what they have to say.
Truthfully, I wish I'd been here ten years ago. I wish I'd figured some of this out sooner, had more experience, more resources, more certainty about what I'm doing. Instead, I'm learning as I go. Asking questions that sometimes make me feel like the only person in the room who doesn't already know the answers. There's no manual for any of this, and apparently no shortcut through the uncomfortable parts.
But I'm learning to ask anyway. To be willing to look like an idiot if that's what it takes to understand something better. And increasingly, I'm realizing that no one knows what they're doing per se.
"You spend so much of your life trying to understand what you feel. And then when you finally make something that reflects it, you realize it's not about having answers. It's about being honest about the questions." - Spike Jonze
Back on the patio, the gardening shears got a workout. Turns out, there was a lot more to clear away than I'd anticipated. Isn't that usually how it goes?
I don't think everything needs to be shaken out by the roots. Some things just need a little pruning. Others need to go. This year has involved a fair amount of both.
Trading a fair amount of predictability for possibility has been the theme of 2026. Whether this turns out to be an excellent decision or an elaborate exercise in character building remains to be seen.
So maybe, the good fight is not a battle to win, but the willingness to participate fully, even when you don't have the answers.
For now, we keep asking and carry on.
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