In pursuit of awe
Earlier this year, I had the privilege of writing an essay for Byline’s Cloud 9 issue. Byline is a digital and print indie publication that specializes in “niche observations, sartorial sagas, deep cuts and deep dives” and creates space for contributors to “to explore the topics that invigorate them most.” It was a delight to jump back into writing and put pen to paper on a topic so close to my heart: awe.
Check out my essay, with original photos by me, here!
Or, keep reading for a plain text version of the piece. Once you read it, let me know what you think.
Some of my earliest memories are of the ocean. I spent my primary school years in central Florida, running after lizards and building sandcastles. Infamously, my dad taught my brother and me how to swim by throwing us in the pool and seeing if we could figure it out.
We went to the beach almost every weekend. I loved to bodysurf. I felt freest when trying to catch a wave, working to contort my body in the perfect way so I could ride the Atlantic into shore. I’d leave the beach with sand in my teeth, salt in my hair, and an ice cream cone in hand. In many ways, I’ve been chasing that feeling since I first felt it, through traveling to obscure, beautiful places, embarking on adventures in nature, and always being fully where my feet are.
As a professor of social psychology at UC Berkeley and a codirector of the university’s Greater Good Science Center, Dr. Dacher Keltner studies awe, defining it as the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world. In his 2023 book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, he outlines eight wonders that can induce awe, with nature at the top of the list. He also outlines the effects of awe: how it encourages broader collective thinking, cultivates imagination and curiosity, promotes prosocial behavior, and lowers stress.
My parents have a love affair with Florida inspired by the kind of awe Keltner discusses. Both born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, the promise of something wholly different from everything they’d known held allure. When I was four, they packed up our belongings and moved my younger brother and me to Ormond Beach, a smaller city just a couple hours’ drive from Disney World. I grew up as captivated by Florida’s expansive skies and shimmering waters as I was by Ohio’s rolling hills and bucolic pastures. In Florida, I studied snakes that would fall into our pool; in Ohio, I’d catch crawfish in our creek out front. I spent 10 years growing up in Ohio, eight in Florida.
When my parents moved back to Florida (their third time doing so) I seized the opportunity to reconnect with my inner child. Their latest adventure saw them land in Fort Myers, a coastal town on the panhandle’s southwest coast. After three years living in New York City—all three being touched in some way by the COVID-19 pandemic—I needed a full reset. I bought a kayak on Facebook Marketplace and routinely plopped into the river in front of my parents’ condo. I would paddle out just far enough to see the sunset on the other side of the Edison Bridge. And I’d float. I’d sync my breathing with the ebb and flow of the current, finding peace in how the sun dances with the water, creating those perfect little sparkles on the surface. I remember feeling my nervous system slow down and my heart beam at the surrounding beauty: turtles popping up to say hello, waves rippling to make way for my paddles, cars playing hide-and-seek with the sun as they skated across the bridge. I stayed with my parents for a year and a half, sharing meals with them and relishing in the sweetest quality time, and also swimming in the mornings, driving out to Sanibel on weekends, and kayaking every chance I got. It prepared me well for my next chapter.
I moved back to NYC in November 2023. Since then, I’ve snorkeled in Batangas, eagerly watched whales off both US coasts, surfed in Tamarindo, been on safari in Akagera National Park, hiked a mountain in Big Sur, and biked the entirety of Orcas Island. (What can I say? I love a side quest!) Whenever I travel, I find myself going off on these wild adventures, motivated by wonder, curiosity, and the thrill of seeing something new for the first time. I regularly feel enamored with things I don’t fully understand.
On a work trip to Kigali, Rwanda, last year, I visited Ikirezi Bookstore, a hybrid coffee shop (all the best ones are!). Ikirezi has an outdoor seating area up a long, steep flight of steps, and when you reach the top, you can see all of Kigali and its stunning landscape. I sat at Ikirezi for hours, writing in my journal, overlooking the mountains and pastures, and watching the sunset as a light rain started to fall. There was this perfect breeze that gently moved the curtains, and birds circled and sang to each other to alert their loved ones of the storm on the horizon. It was the most peaceful, beautiful moment I’ve had in recent memory. Dr. Keltner writes that “it is hard to imagine a single thing you can do that is better for your body and mind than finding awe outdoors. Doing so leads to the reduced likelihood of cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, diabetes, depression, anxiety, and cancer.”
Since 2018, I’ve grappled with debilitating anxiety, headaches, and sensory issues, all stemming from a concussion I got during my senior year of college while playing intramural flag football. (A humiliating turn of events! My mom was not pleased.) On that roof though, on a solo random international work trip, it felt like the peaceful scenery catapulted the anvil hovering over my head for the last six years to some far-flung corner of the universe, like some ridiculous, joyful cartoon sequence. That silly sequence is now a guide: whenever I feel it, I know I’m on the right path.
“Just as we need new systems of care, we also need new systems of curiosity and imagination, new ways of accessing joy regularly, abundantly.”
My pursuit of awe has evolved from a personal compass and medicine to more of a radical, collective practice. As you may have heard, we are living in “unprecedented times.” Our sociopolitical present calls for a thorough reorganization of how we structure our lives. Amid rampant gun violence, famine, genocide, and inequity, why would we dare continue living our lives in the same way?
In her groundbreaking text Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, writer and activist adrienne maree brown coins the term pleasure activism, referring to it as “the work we do to reclaim our whole, happy, and satisfiable selves from the impacts, delusions, and limitations of oppression and/or supremacy.” Just as we need new systems of care, we also need new systems of curiosity and imagination, new ways of accessing joy regularly, abundantly. Just because the systems we operate under call for seriousness and rigidity—in work, school, wellness, relationships—does not mean that we have to live our lives that way. We can work toward a better world and tend to our inner child simultaneously; they’re not at odds. Locating joy in our everyday lives, finding ways to access it, and then sharing that with those around us, is justice. Equity, to me, means that these awe-inducing experiences are available to everyone regardless of race, gender, class, immigration status, or ability.
Historically, Black people, especially Black women, have faced exclusion from outdoor spaces due to this country’s legacy of systemic racism. Oceans themselves, namely the Atlantic, are the very waters that carried enslaved individuals to this country. To this day, research demonstrates a continued fear and trauma of the ocean among descendants of enslaved African and Caribbean peoples. A growing number of organizations are now emerging to address and repair this relationship. Groups like FEELDAY, Black People Will Swim, the Polar Bears of Martha’s Vineyard, and Hike Clerb seek to reconnect Black women and other people of color to Mother Nature. Like pleasure activist adrienne maree brown, I’m less interested in asking what it means to claim space where we’ve been historically denied, and much more inspired to relish in how it feels.
Communing intentionally with nature is soul work; it repairs the spirit and insists on being in right relationship with the earth and with each other. Equity of access to awe-inspiring experiences can be harnessed to activate more collective joy. Awe doesn’t always have to be some elaborate side quest; it can be a cup of coffee on your stoop at sunrise, listening to the birds chat with each other on your daily commute, or taking a second longer to admire a full moon. Awe allows us to tap into the fullness of our lives, to exit survival mode and instead fully show up and live lives of our choosing.
And so, you will always catch me in the window seat staring at the sky on a flight—window shades be damned! In fact, I do insist, at my tender age of 29, on playing mermaids in the pool. And yeah, you go ahead; I simply must stop and admire this budding flower—this new life!—tenderly, properly. The pursuit of awe begins with noticing. Awe is a practice of presence and reclamation, of reconnecting with that which enlivens you, of finding God when you think you’ve been forsaken. Our world is vast and full of so many possibilities. The least we can do is honor it with our full attention.