“Your rhythm is better,” John said. “You’re not hanging between strokes.”

It was the fourth time I’d kayaked on the Hudson in the past week. John and his wife Catherine, who live across the street from us in Hastings, had been inviting me to join them on the river ever since we moved here two years ago. I finally accepted, and a whole new dimension opened up to me. I look at the river and its changing moods every day; now I’m in it. I watch the sunset from the back of our house every evening; now I’m right below it, the sun slipping behind the Palisade cliffs and glinting off Yonkers factories and the Manhattan skyline as I paddle towards it. This evening’s paddle was a potluck, and though I was nervous about keeping up with the experienced paddlers, I was confident in the dish I’d brought. Black barley salad with crispy onions and chickpeas, preserved lemon, and parsley.

I made the salad earlier that day, repeating a rhythm I’d practiced before: for a tender visit from my aunts in April; dinner with my sister’s family in May; a party in our yard with college friends in June. The barley’s grains were oblong capsules, larger than farro, encased in black-purple gloom. I rinsed the grains, added them to a pot of boiling salted water, and left them to simmer until the kernels swelled with the water they’d absorbed. I drained the barley, let it sit while I sliced onions and fried them with chickpeas, washed and dried parsley to chop with preserved lemon I’d made months before. “Your salad is gone,” John informed me, our plates full of potluck fare, everyone hungry after the paddle. “This is so good,” Laurie said, asking where she could get black barley. “The Hastings Farmers Market,” I told her. “I’ll go this Saturday,” she replied.

I identify with the barley in this dish, its pale insides feathering out through dark protective husks. I’ve had many adventures this summer, but the place I feel like I’ve traveled most deeply is my inner terrain. The night before the potluck paddle, I dreamed I was riding a bike with no breaks, surrendering to the speed as I raced down hills. The new rhythm I found on the water felt like it was forged in my dreams overnight as much as in any training session.

Dreamwork, imagining, visioning – this is what I made space for this summer. I put down all my creative projects and took a pause within a pause. What opened up is my perspective. 

I’ve had so many ideas, and I saw them as small. Designing a jigsaw puzzle. A painting on top of a photograph. An oracle card deck with my recipe photos. A class in creative transformation that I’ve tested with one person. I was used to working at the scale of Facebook – 2 billion served, the McDonalds of the Internet. For the years I worked there, I took pride in doing my job at scale, creating culture across large organizations. I dismissed my small ideas. “How would that scale?” became an anthem for stuckness.

And then something shifted.

In June, I debuted a project I’ve been working on with my husband, my neighbor, and the Hastings Farmers Market, recording community stories in celebration of the market’s 25th anniversary. We invited people to share their memories by speaking into an old rotary phone that my husband modified into a recording device using a microprocessor and open source code. Our intention is to weave the stories into a podcast along with interviews we’ve been conducting with the market’s founders, farmers, and volunteers. But an interesting thing happened at our first recording session at the market. No one asked about the podcast. Everyone was just excited about the moment, about the creative spark of what we were offering, about their opportunity to participate. I don’t know why this was what moved me, but this simple insight – it’s about experience and presence, more than product or outcome – started to expand my perspective about what I am doing and how I create value.

I turned to Chloe, the potter at the market tent next to me whose ceramics I love, and asked if she’d be willing to make something together. I made a paper prototype of my oracle deck. I went to a gathering of 700 women. I spent time with my husband and son. I found a new passion and cooked barley for strangers who shared it. I took naps and wrote down my dreams.

After a summer of resting, I see beauty and potential in all these projects. There’s nothing small about something you create with your full presence, even if it’s just for a few people, or for yourself. Barley seems mundane – it’s one of the world’s oldest grains, and I imagine it’s been cooked in countless ways. And yet to the people I shared my salad with – family, friends, and now this new kayaking community – I was sharing a piece of myself, and they could taste it.