Trust your instincts

The girl with the banana seat bike knows best 🚲

My Grandma and I

Do you remember how you spent your summer as a kid? When I close my eyes, I see the little girl with the banana seat bike – me. I spent whole days roaming the neighborhood, returning home only to eat. I’d toss my bike into the grass just to explore an open field or go on a spontaneous scavenger hunt.

As kids, we follow our curiosity without hesitation. We don’t carry the weight of responsibilities – jobs, bills, or the endless list of “shoulds.” I’ve found my way back to that curious part of myself just by stepping outside each morning and filling my pockets. I get excited to see what I will find. It fuels my art practice.

I don’t always know what I’ll do with the leaves or petals I gather. Some end up pressed in books. Others are scattered across my desk or tucked on shelves. They make my space feel cozy – like the outdoors has wandered in.

I often feel like that little girl in the movie Signs, the one who leaves half-filled glasses of water all over the house. She doesn’t know why. It just feels right. And in the end, it saves them. That’s what intuition is like. You don’t always understand it – you just have to trust the path it is guiding you on.

One of those breadcrumbs led me to make sun prints with turmeric this past week.
The golden yellow prints sun-kissed prints on thick paper, the silhouettes of dried plants – like vintage ephemera. I was hooked.

There’s something magical about not knowing exactly how a print will turn out until you swish it through a bath of water and baking soda. It reminds me of being in the darkroom back in high school, watching images slowly appear on paper like lost memories. I loved photography then. For graduation, I asked for a fancy Canon. It followed me through college and across more than a dozen countries in my backpack.

I thought about making a tutorial to show you how to make sun prints. But really, it’s not about the process – you can find it on YouTube. It’s about something deeper.
It’s about letting yourself be creative. It’s about remembering the things you once loved to do – and doing them again.

What are you curious about these days? What did you love doing before the world told you to be practical? We’re never too old or too busy to feel like kids again.

Sometimes I watch my teenage daughter and feel this ache – a weight of regret from my youth, If only... It’s easy to get stuck in regrets, but I remind myself that it is never too late to follow the breadcrumbs. Maybe now is the perfect time. Maybe it was all leading me to this. I’m still that little, curious kid when I step outside, only now I hold the knowledge of a lifetime.

Until next time✨,
Kim

P.S. Don’t forget tonight is the full moon 🌕 You can read about the Sturgeon Moon in my August Nature Almanac.