Patagonia has just launched a podcast, Patagonia Stories. In each episode,

host our Chana Rom will explore how we gather knowledge and ask questions about our relationship

to each other in the natural world. Questions like, how are lessons passed down through generations

to help us feel at home? What barriers prevent us from acquiring natural wisdom? How can we adapt

in the face for rapidly changing climate? There's so much more to come. You can find the first season

of Patagonia Stories wherever you get your podcasts.

You're listening to The Derback Dairy, a production of Duck Tape Than Beer, with additional support

from Kuat Racks because you love your bike, athletic greens, the daily drink for healthier you,

and kicking horse coffee, wake up and kick ass.

Hey everyone, we made it to the end of 2021. Right now, the kids are at home. It's going to break.

It's awesome. So last winter, which feels approximately about 39 months ago, I was struggling to sleep,

and the whole situation was starting to get to me, and Becca suggested I try finding a small

meditation program online, and I'd never really meditated before, but I figured I would try it,

because I like sleeping, and I wasn't. So yeah, there's a lot going on in my head.

Our lives, I think, for almost every member of our family felt a little bit, sort of bipolar.

During the week, it was a never-ending string of Zoom calls, online school frustrations,

teaching a nine-year-old how to use Microsoft Outlook, which they probably shouldn't have to use.

Isolation, due to reimposed lockdowns, Seattle rain, and darkness, and trying to focus while children

argue to over-like us. It wasn't terrible, but there was this feeling of disconnectiveness.

If that's not an official emotion, it is for me after the last winter.

I guess the best way of describing it might be like watching the world go by from the tiniest window.

Life isn't meant to fit inside a screen, it's meant to be lived.

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