The tug tug is your internal pull.
It’s your compass. Your guide. Your aliveness.
It’s evocative. Passionate. Brimming with possibility.
I had always followed the tug tug. It was innate in me.
It begged my dad to ask Dimella Shaffer for a summer internship.
It had to learn waterskiing and horseback riding.
It loved Wellfleet in the summer—and the shaved ice stand on the side of the road in Truro.
It adored the enormous pine tree in our backyard, where I’d crawl under to check out the spiders.
It took me to Italy, to sketch in the piazzas and get gloriously lost in Venice.
It took me all the way to Portland.
And then something happened.
I stopped listening.
The tug tug was still there, but I doubted it.
I questioned it. Overthought it. Used my powerful little brain to critique it into silence.
Slowly, I started to get smaller.
It would still rise up, sometimes even more powerfully than before.
But it didn’t feel safe anymore. I didn’t trust it.
It showed up at Breken. In the big, gorgeous lobby of Ziba.
But I stuffed it away.
If I let the tug tug out, something might break.
So instead, I dimmed.
I got tired in the mornings. I stopped running.
I wanted to exercise, but I’d lost my stamina.
If someone wasn’t kind to me, I tolerated it. I needed to prove myself.
And then bigger chunks of me started to fall away.
Where did I go?
Chunk by chunk, I disappeared.
My money started to dry up.
I tried different things, but I still wasn’t listening.
I was afraid that if I followed the tug tug, I’d lose everything—
my friends, my family, the people I love.
But the truth?
The tug tug is what leads us to love.
It’s what allows us to be fully seen. Fully known.
Everything had to shatter so I could remember this.
Now, I’m listening again.
It’s pointing me toward the Willamette Valley. Open fields. Oregon sky.
And because I hear it again?
Saturday—my so-called “failed” day?
The park flop. The egg sandwich that exploded all over me.
The sideways rain soaking me through as I walked home?
It was all okay.
Because I’m back in truth.
And when I’m in truth, I can handle anything.
Projects feel alive again.
There’s room for my boldness, my vision, my compassion.
And yes—my ridiculous, glorious confidence.
The contracts are landing.
Frame is growing.
And the tug tug?
It’s the beat of life, calling me toward what I most need.
Have you listened to it?