Finding the magic in the everyday
In the fall of 1999 I was living in San Francisco, working as a graphic designer, and feeling like a small cog in giant corporate machine. I thought about the resources that machine burned, the waste it generated, and had trouble justifying my existence. I longed to experience living within a smaller ecological footprint, living in a small community, living close to nature, working less and working remotely. I was also relationship roller-coaster ride (of my own making) and felt like I could use some perspective.
That summer a friend, who I'll call Jon, invited me, after hearing my travails, to have those experiences in his family’s spare cottage on St. Agnes, a 70-person, mile-wide island, in the Isles of Scilly, 28 miles off the Cornish coast in England, where he grew up. So in November of that year I set my life aside to go live... on St. Agnes... over the winter. The St. Agnes Journal is my first-hand account of that experience. I traveled. I adventured. I lived in community. I healed a bit. I grew a bit. And I found so much magic in the everyday.
Notes for readers: this is a true account, as perceived and remembered by me, and first written starting in 1999. I may interject from the present day later in the journal. The names of people that appear in this journal have been changed to protect their identities.
This is the first time I’ll be publishing the journal in its entirety. I’ll send out entries on the same date they were first written all of those years ago. The first entry will post on November 1st. The first two weeks, and about every fifth post thereafter, will be publicly available.
I wish you much joy in reading this account.
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