A Full Life

Happy Wednesday! By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be in Telluride getting ready to kick off the festivities for my brother’s wedding. To say I’m stoked would be the understatement of the century.

I’m officiating the wedding—my first time ever officiating—so, unsurprisingly, almost all of my writing and editing juju has gone toward that for the last few weeks while I’ve firmed up my speech.

Lucky for me, I keep a Google Doc called “Musings” where I keep my ramblings from whenever I have an urge to write. This week, we’re pulling a piece from the Musings Archive that I honestly thought would never see the light of day.

It’s a quick one, but it’s from the heart. Alas, enjoy!

Backcountry Chronicles

Written in March of 2025.

I’m sitting at my little desk inside my art nook while the sunlight pours through my window in perfect hues of yellow and orange. My apartment includes: the last few bites of my dinner in a bowl inside the sink, two candles burning with a third surely on the way, some incense burning next to my window and the reflection of it coming through the shadows in my art nook, an empty overnight bag from last night strewn across my bed, my work clothes on the floor, and books and colored pencils everywhere. It’s perfect. 

My hair is in a messy bun, I have my Dead and Company shirt and a pair of shorts on without socks or shoes. My glasses are on and I still have my leather watch on from the workday. I just finished a book: Visa Issues by Bella McGoldrick. Music is playing through my TV. Moments like this, I feel like exactly who I’m supposed to be. 

I love my messy little apartment and my messy little life. I’m 29 (soon to be 30) and live exactly like I would hope any 29 year old would. I suppose I just don’t see the point in cosplaying as an adult when I have the rest of my life to be said adult. 

There’s art to make, music to hear, books to read, friends to hug, coffee to pour, guts to spill, and tears to cry. Homes to own and babies to have for some. For me? Who knows. I think it’s best to focus on this exact present moment — entertain ideas of the future so as to not just whirl through life without a care for the direction I’m whirling myself in, but not get so caught up in that future that I lose sight of things like right now. Like this sunset. The colors hitting my wall. 

Lately, I’ve had such an inner pull to write. Similar to the pull I had to draw back in 2020. To the point that it makes me wonder if I’ll look back on art and know that it was just there to lead me to something else. 

In a world where it feels like your creativity is meant to be stifled at every turn, one of the things I’m most proud of is how creative my entire life feels. Climbing new routes. Skinning uphill on my skis. Listening to new music, new podcasts, forming new opinions. Giving myself silence to think deeply and form new thoughts. Drawings to make; words, sentences, paragraphs to write. People to meet, love, and feel inspired by. Jobs to have, jobs to leave. I often wish I had more time in the day so I could do more things, like read, write, or draw. There’s so much I want to do and it feels like so little time in a day. 

All of the pieces of my apartment feel like little fractures and fissures of my life. Right now, I feel perfectly content. My mind is quiet. I’m not thinking about who said what and when, how they delivered it, or something that a friend did that hurt my feelings. I’m thinking about this exact moment. Where my feet are. What’s happening around me. And in that, it’s utter and pure contentment; and dare I say, bliss. 

I love the way my fingers feel dancing across a keyboard, ripe with inspiration. It’s like they're full of potential and I just need to keep hammering out sequences of letters until the magic comes forth. 

Who knows where life will lead me, or where writing will lead me, but I know it feels good to care. To commit to something, to commit to growth, trying, failing, and maybe even feeling triumphant eventually.

Artiste Break

Here’s something I don’t talk about much on here: my freelance work! I’ve been working on custom illustrations for the last year for a Vet Clinic located in Denver. Here’s the latest map we pulled together that was ultimately printed on a tote bag.

To Go Snacks

🎧 There’s nothing that makes me happier than when my favorite authors do the podcast circuit for their latest book and I get to hear them talk about their process. I plugged Suleika Jaouad’s latest book, The Book of Alchemy, a few weeks ago and now I have to plug her appearance on Armchair Expert. Just so, so good.

🎿 I’ve been going through the backlog of content from Backcountry Mag over the last few weeks and this Grand Traverse video from 2022 goes so unbelievably hard. Color me inspired by the GT for the 437th time.

🔥 Oh, you wanted another Wes Siler rant about the current administration and how they’re treating public lands? My pleasure.

🪕 I’ve been a diehard Rayland Baxter fan for the last 5+ years and this is the first long-form interview I’ve ever seen from him. From sobriety to his creative process, this one covered everything you could want to know — and nothing quite like some sick film shots to intersperse throughout.

⛰️ Extremely sick news alert: the town of Nederland, CO is buying Eldora Mountain from POWDR. I’ve got really, really high hopes for this one and what could be the blueprint for local ownership of ski mountains in a post-Vail-Resorts world (while I have you: Fuck Vail. xoxo)

See you next time.

- McCall 🌻

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