Curtis Wiklund Blog

This is a follow up to the blogpost Our News. If you haven’t read that, start there.

What was supposed to be a climbing trip with old high school friends turned out to be a week spent with one of my best friends Easton, my consistent college roommate until he was replaced as roommate by my wife. When the climbing trip fell through and after having already booked flights, I called him, and it happened to work out that he could take nearly the whole week off with me between some freelance work. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect week.

The time that Jordin and I spent apart did nothing but grow us closer to each other as we dreamed on our own about our new baby to be. Our phone calls were sweet, because I knew that the only other person who would want to talk about our baby as much as me, was her.

Since he stood up in my wedding, Easton and I have made intermittent attempts to spend time with each other; visiting, on the phone (even though neither of us are very good at it), sometimes working together, but nothing is the same as just being together. This trip came by happenstance, and it turned out to be the perfect blessing for me, the perfect week to spend in a beautiful place with a close friend, reflecting on the beautiful news that I received the morning I left.

Here’s Seattle. Easton lives on the Puget Sound. Most of these are where he lives. Rough life, huh?

I don’t know what it is about plants that makes me giddy, but the idea of having my own that I water and grow makes my heart very happy.  It could be their freshness, the life that you can watch growing right before your eyes.  Although it makes me feel like an absolutely terrible person when I’ve forgotten to water a plant and its dry crumbly leaves are evidence to the fact that it’s too late to save it.

Plants to me are life giving.  I love nature, huge open fields, mountains and wilderness, but there is something so special about the plants that I pick and choose to grow and nurture; herbs, succulents, annuals, perennials, even trees.  They are a small but powerful reminder to me of how incredible Earth is.  And I get to have the pleasure of growing a piece of that earth in my home and right outside my front door.  I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live in a different state with a different climate, but after each trip or vacation, when the plane lands in Michigan, I am filled with a sense of peace and contentment.  I am home.  There are things I could definitely go without – mosquitos and gray winters to name just a few.  But I still love my Michigan and its seasonal changes that bring exquisite unique beauty.

I didn’t intend to go off on how much I love living here… I don’t think I even really realized it until I just wrote the last couple of sentences :)  Just kinda how I process.  For our office, Becca and I potted a variety of plants to sit on shelves and hang from the walls.  It was a nice little break from all of the emails, culling, sorting, and editing.  Some of our favorites were the terrariums we put together :)  Simple, fresh, and green.  Doesn’t get much better than that.

-Jordin