<![CDATA[The Geography of Connection: Place-based Inquiry ]]>https://www.thegeographyofconnection.com/s/place-based-inquiryhttps://www.thegeographyofconnection.com/img/substack.pngThe Geography of Connection: Place-based Inquiry https://www.thegeographyofconnection.com/s/place-based-inquirySubstackWed, 08 Apr 2026 20:16:39 GMT<![CDATA[How did I move?]]>https://www.thegeographyofconnection.com/p/how-did-i-movehttps://www.thegeographyofconnection.com/p/how-did-i-moveSat, 28 Mar 2026 02:11:39 GMTAbout three and a half years ago, I went on my first transatlantic trip. I didn’t know it at the time, but that trip would shape the rest of my life.

Arriving in Iceland, I stood in an airport, frozen with panic. My phone was silent. The concierge desk empty. Hungry and tired from the long flight. I walked in circles looking for the pre-arranged shuttle bus. I took another walk around the center of the airport. Maybe this time I would see the buses. I saw buses but they weren’t mine. My shoulders slumped forward under the weight of the two backpacks I was carrying. I could feel beads of sweat forming on the spine of my back and under my arms. My hair fell loose from the bun sitting atop my head and my eyes never stopped moving as I searched for my bus.

A year later, I was in Barcelona, searching for a cathedral I wanted to see. I walked in circles. My phone GPS rerouting each time I changed directions. The blinking blue light an indicator that I was on the wrong path. After thirty minutes, I sat at a café and ordered a cold drink. The table rocked under the weight of my purse. The waitress brought me my drink, condensation running down the side of the glass. I drank it slowly, the hops settled on my lips; I licked it off. I crossed my legs, my foot swinging to the beat of the music I heard ahead of me. I closed my eyes listening; I could feel my lips form a smile.

I know what belonging looks like for me. What does belonging look like for other women?

That is the Geography of Connection.

Thanks for reading The Geography of Connection! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

]]><![CDATA[Why I’m Here]]>https://www.thegeographyofconnection.com/p/why-im-herehttps://www.thegeographyofconnection.com/p/why-im-hereFri, 19 Dec 2025 15:46:58 GMTI spend a lot of time moving through places that aren’t meant to become stories.

Ferries. Markets. Kitchens. Long walks with no destination. Conversations that don’t go anywhere—except they do.

I’m not here to document travel in the aspirational sense. I’m here because something shifts when you step slightly outside the life you’ve been assigned, especially when you pay attention to the women who never call what they’re doing remarkable.

Most of what I write starts small: an observation, a moment of discomfort, a quiet exchange. I don’t always know what it means when I begin. I write to find out.

This space is for making sense of movement—across countries, across roles, across the years when life doesn’t unfold the way we expected. It’s for noticing how meaning forms in ordinary places, and how it changes depending on where you’re standing.

Sometimes the writing comes from the road. Sometimes it comes from a kitchen table. What matters isn’t the geography. It’s the attention.

If you’re looking for certainty, tidy lessons, or five takeaways, this probably won’t be for you.

But if you’re interested in how a life slowly rearranges itself—through travel, through work, through watching other women live their days—you’re in the right place.

]]><![CDATA[The Geography of Connection]]>https://www.thegeographyofconnection.com/p/the-geography-of-connectionhttps://www.thegeographyofconnection.com/p/the-geography-of-connectionFri, 12 Dec 2025 02:10:19 GMTAfter writing The Purpose of Getting Lost, I found myself wondering what the elements I had been circling—freedom, acceptance, confidence, risk, adventure, community—look like outside my own story. Not as ideas, but as lived moments. Not only in travel, but in the ordinary rhythms of daily life.

The Geography of Connection is an ongoing practice of noticing connections: between people, between a person and a place, between the roles we inhabit and the selves we carry within them, and between the objects we hold and the memories they contain. Sometimes that noticing happens in marketplaces or classrooms, kitchens or city streets. Other times it appears at home, at work, in passing conversations, or in moments that almost go unnoticed.

Each moment becomes a small point on the map.

I’m sharing this work in a few forms:

A Year of Connection — short notes drawn from everyday moments and travel.

Scenes of Connection — scene-based essays centered on shared moments and the people I encounter.

Scenes of Self — essays where the tension lives inside my own experience.

The Souvenir Shelf — object-anchored stories about memory, meaning, and what we carry.

Field Notes — sketches and observations that may remain fragments or later gather into essays.

Together, these pieces form a body of work tracing how belonging takes shape across time and place—and how it is signaled, structured, and recognized in everyday life.

]]>