Celebrating June & Cycling Sendoff
on dissatisfaction, fun invitations, and rewriting the story (letter 321)
Hallo, fellow learn-it-all 👋
Greetings from my first ever super duper snell fast ICE train in Germany somewhere between Düsseldorf and Hamburg. I’m embarking on a two week cycling holiday around the Baltic coast with Dutch friends I met last week.
Not much idea of where exactly we’ll go or how much we’ll cycle each day but I’m so excited to see how it unfolds. There’s been good omens all around with there being a train ticket last night, the bus driver making a special stop for me, buying my 2nd hand bike this morning and getting it repaired with fresh tires all within no time at all really.
And before I forget I want to express some gratitude to each of you for hopping along the crazy caravan of my curiosities I share each week. Happy halfway 2026! What a beautiful year it is unfolding to be. Sending love and big hugs to everyone here who has been a part of my year <3 <3 <3
I intend to write a little dollop’ll do ya1 on my journal pages reflecting on all the moments and experiences from the first half of 2026 that I want future me to remember.
Before I disappear from wifi, I want to celebrate June and all of its juiciness.
On recency bias
Here’s what’s funny about writing a month-end recap: my brain wants to weight the last week as if they’re the whole story. About a month ago I was genuinely dissatisfied and unsure the Dutch Dream was panning out the way with all my expectations. I started June out delirious with a stomach bug that felt somehow worse than the Thai belly I experienced a year ago? I’ll spare you the details but it was a whole lot of liquids coming from places liquids shouldn’t be. I remember standing barefoot outside my front door in the cold feeling like a volcano was erupting inside me. The barren souls of my feet on the cold pavement and I tilted my face up to the sky thinking “why me?”
Then all within two weeks time, beautiful things snowballed making life go so (almost too?) freaking fabulously.
Lately, it feels like there’s actually a natural flow of life and I don’t need to be so dang effortFUL to will my way into things happening. I’m actually getting better at this whole “unfolding” thing that Michael Singer told me about at his Temple of the Universe in Florida a few months ago. I share out invitations without expectation and then I also am open to accepting invitations.
With this mindset, lately, it feels like there’s actually some sort of divineness to this little thing we call life. And like everything did in fact happen for a reason. This outlook has been allowing me to notice beauty day after day and I’ve been feeling wholeheartedly happy. And I mean actually feeling it. This feeling that I used to be so uncomfortable with and thought I needed to earn.
And so, here’s a slew of eight events from recent days where it feels like the stars are feeling aligning…
My tent neighbor from the festival I went to invited me to cycle two weeks along the baltic sea. A DREAM I never knew I had until now
a colleague on my team agreed to cover my synchronous workshops (only a week in advance), so I could go on aforementioned dream cycling trip
asserted myself and landed a new client, I met randomly IRL at a Dutch easter mass for a totally new type of project
I discovered I could buy a €50 unlimited NL train pass, which now makes it seem like a no-brainer to go visit for a tante Jenny visit in the south and then go to a friend’s birthday party in the east in Nijmegen
Said yes to the invitation to co-create an offline club journaling circle to support the well-being of creatives in Amsterdam on a committee with 4 other ladies!!
a friend whose company I really enjoy, kissed me which delighted me with such surprise
the more I am vulnerable with shedding layers and allowing others to touch me, the more I feel a sense of belonging in this world.
sat in a zen center circle and a random person guessed that Mary Oliver was a muse of mine before I even recited her Summer Day poem in the circle
There’s something swirling in the hot hot city air of amsterdam that’s making my chest beat with more life than I knew possible. About a month ago, I was feeling so dissatisfied with life and my Dutch dream not going as planned It’s crazy how life can turn around so quick.
It’s tempting to let the good week overwrite the hard month or vice versa. Neither is the full picture. Both were true. And maybe that right there is the actual lesson. I can hold both versions without needing one to cancel the other out.
What I wrote in June
This month I wrote my way through four things: why I keep saying yes, what my relationship to time is like, what it means to not know who I’m becoming since my values are in flux, and an invitation five years from my past self to continue to live courageously. If you missed any:
A done-list instead of a to-do list, salsa class nerves, and “why not?!” making fear feel smaller:
My first Amsterdam summer with no swim meets, no regattas, no shape imposed from outside and three tensions I’m still sitting in:
On regret, Saturn returns, and heading offline for five days without answers:
Five years to the day since I boarded a plane to Hawaii and blew up a life that looked good on paper but wasn’t true. This time the invitation goes to you: go blow up your life and live courageously:
Song of the month
Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson
Photo of the month
To all the beautiful humans that co-created this festival with me for five days. You gave me light in my darkness, music that felt like medicine through movement, listening ears, laughter and play, hugs to heal my tears, and open space to express my words and stories. Thank you To Gather. <3
What’s next
I’m about to be mostly offline for two weeks, cycling the Baltic coast. This is my own small “blow up your life” experiment, like from letter 320 is to be believed. When I’m back, I might try something: a soft retro on the first half of 2026. Rather than just a month, something that encompasses the journey’s arc from January to June. But also I might just write about the cycling caravan. Who knows what’ll be alive ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Stay tuned.
Tot snel 🌺🌺
Jen
I had no idea how this expression entered my vernacular and somehow I sourced it from this sexy hair gel ad from 1986
It sounds like a beautiful unfolding Jen. I'm very happy for you my friend!
Fabulous ! Have an amazing bike trip!