My routine is non-routine.

(Above: A map of where I've spent my last 133 nights since moving home from Portugal. The map does not account for day trips like when I forgot my suitcase in WV for that week-long work trip and had to double back from DC or that 14-hour Sunday adventure to Sistersville, WV to return that dog to that farm.)

Where are you from?

It is one of the most obtuse questions for me to answer. As humans it's easily among one of the top 10 if not top 5 questions we ask each other upon introduction or first meeting. It's the golden ticket to conversation, it's the catalyst for strange connections, creating context, name dropping, but most of all a way to feel connected, to find commonality, community. Yes, I grew up in St. Louis, though I've lived elsewhere longer than I lived there and since have called 8 states and 2 countries home. I consider what someone might want to know when asking that question: What's your story? Do we have like experiences? Please, help me categorize you. While I want to avoid offering my unsolicited diatribe, I also want to be honest. Being from somewhere implies connection, identity, familiarity. I feel more connected and familiar with my collective homes, I identify more with my out-of-placeness than my right-at-homeness.

My heart rate increases and I begin to re-think my natural deodorant when asked for the run of the mill information like my address, phone number or place of residence. While this is among the most mundane type of data you might collect from someone, my response is usually another question (Will you need to send something to me? To call me?) and not because I'm paranoid about being tracked but that I must filter through my possible responses with the most appropriate information. This often results in me sounding evasive if not criminal.

Whose VW is that in the driveway with Maryland plates?

I heard the question asked several times at my family reunion in Milwaukee a few weeks ago. I have a driver's license from Missouri, license plates from Maryland, phone numbers from Missouri and Michigan and I live in West Virginia (without an address).

My dearly devoted friends and family typically try three phone numbers before actually reaching me. On the rare occasion that they find me at first try, I usually hear squeals of delight on the other end of the line. Most of my voicemails start with "I tried you at that other number" or "I called your cell and some guy answered...".

I've been living out of 3 suitcases for 18 months and I've packed a hell of a lot of experience into that time. I've started and stopped jobs, relationships, degrees, leases, sublets and too many travel itineraries to count. I've worked on wayfinding and friend-finding, language of all sorts, making friends with loneliness, making out with solitude and celebrating a deep appreciation for the people in my life.

My name is Emily and I'm a consultant. (Read: Mostly unemployed.)

This makes me think a lot about resources and that money is often and easily the one we focus on as priority. I'm spending time now appreciating the real riches of life: generosity, authenticity, connectedness, health, learning, curiosity, conversation. Work can be and is hugely satisfying for me, but as I think about where I might be next I think about what brings me joy. I'm leading with joy.

I feel lucky to be right here.

Taking the wheel.

(My family's first new car, what a beaut. So proud. Circa 1979.)

I bought a VW and moved to WV.

The back seat is a place for naps, taking in the scenery and "Are we there yets". Plopping into the back seat can can be glorious, an opportunity to literally watch the world go by. Getting back into the front seat, though, feels as good as putting on a clean pair of socks after a long day at the beach. I'm choosing to drive.

Some Driving Principles:

1. High5 Failure!
Rapid prototype everything. I am a rapid prototype. You are a rapid prototype. Life decisions are design decisions, making them is trying them and failure is inevitable. Test, try, sample. Then do it again. Embed the learnings from the first failure into the next.

2. Be the alien in the room.
Push boundaries, comfort zones, limits. Embrace awkwardness; it makes us human.

3. Celebrate ambiguity.
Know that you have the thinking and doing tools to make the muddiness clear again. Take the time to sit, listen, watch, feel and bask in the unknown with confidence, knowing how to navigate and drive yourself forward when the time is right.

4. Plan for serendipity.
Through physical environments (artifacts, fixtures, tools, workplace interior design) and recurring brainstorms.Plan on being creative. Get together weekly with the intentions of problem solving with and for each other, focusing on development of individuals and growing tools and a shared language. Don’t wait for the great idea to come, create the space to facilitate the flow.

5. Roar with laughter from your belly. A lot.
Be ridiculous, laugh at yourself. Make the familiar odd again. Create nicknames, code words and secret languages. Keep a laugh journal. When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried? Capture that, share it, and enjoy the sweet delight of gasping between bursts of joyful appreciation all over again.

6. When in doubt, map it out.
Trust in the process of getting all your thoughts out and in the power of visualization to bring them back together.

7. Support your tribe.
The people that electrify you with insights, push you toward greatness and challenge you to stand tall and speak with confidence. Those who believe in who you are today and how much more awesome you'll be tomorrow. Those who are inspired, not intimidated by your success. These are your people, they are precious and they deserve your genuine and frequent expression of gratitude -- through language, gesture and reciprocity.

Going bare.

"Make it a treat."

Advice from Sarah Silverman this week on Larry King Live, talking about her new book, The Bedwetter. (How awesomely awkward is she?) So, the advice is actually borrowed from her college roommate, when advising Sarah about the proper way of dabbling in, not majoring in, marijuana.

Prisoners and nudists. I have said goodbye to my neighbors with the barbed wire roofline, and I now say hello to some nearby nudists. The Avalon community isn't exactly next door, but I'm also not exactly among density of the human variety. (The county I now call home has about 6,877 folks.) Before living next to a prison, I never thought much about them or the people inside. And nudists? Maybe 4 minutes of my life -- until last night -- have been devoted to them.

Being naked is simple. Going nude is a choice to not have to decide. Gone are the concerns of clothing, whether for utility, adornment, or in an attempt to stick out or to blend right in. Nudists say no to the layer of complexity we have become so accustomed to adding every day that going without seems -- gasp! -- just strange. I'm anxious just thinking about it.

My new home is on the edge of the Monongahela Forest amidst the Allegheny mountains, where the wildlife outnumber the humans. Without the ski season tourist swell, the area is quiet and still, and when it comes alive with movement it is the wind and rain that make all the noise. I feel lucky to be here, a place where nature is so abundant that it screams silence.

This experience is about simplicity.

The scale of my adventure has never been so grand, but this time I'll zoom in and watch, taking time to recognize and appreciate the subtleties. My rented abode is generous and nowhere close to rustic, but my location and disconnection from the energy, excitement, noise and pace of the density elsewhere is how I'm going bare.

Just like a first timer at Avalon, I'm wading through the squirming process. And embracing it. The exhilaration of removing the familiar is a solution to a wicked problem. As the friendly folks at Avalon remind us, the the ticket to liberation is still marked with some small print: "Without pockets, carrying money is not easy." Not to mention the constant towel carrying required: "Remember you always sit on your own towel." The towel: The pashmina's nudy cousin. Who knew?

Choosing simplicity is quiet at first, but then I'm reminded of just how loud a big, fat gopher landing on the table next to me can be.

What a treat.